What the hell kind of hair brained scheme is this......

.... the BBC News Europe website reports of a scheme to give sunlight to a previously sunshine starved village in the Italian alps a few rays during the winter months.

Amazing solution to a weird problem where the slopes of the surrounding Alps cut the winter sun from falling onto the village for nearly 3 months from the middle of November.

"The mayor of Viganella, Italy, holds a computer that controls a giant mirror on the hillside behind. The steel mirror tracks the sun’s movements, reflecting light into the town. Viganella used to suffer from a complete lack of direct sunlight in winter."

Can something related to James Bond be nerdy?

... can't make my mind up whether this new watch from Omega is one for the nerds & hence to be avoided, or whether in fact, it's a tasteful homage to Bond for the watch collector?

As a Rolex fan, I'm not 100% convinced by the Omega, but I will have a look at it in the flesh & see if it's all that it's made out to be.

It's the 2nd in a series of watches by Omega, the first being shown here has a face that it made to look like the barrelling of a gun, al la the opening titles of most of the Bond films.

Limited production runs don't appear to bump the price up from the standard base models of the SeaMaster 300 & SeaMaster Planet Oceanwatch, but they all don't come in cheap as they are all at least £1,600+

As I write this, I am thinking that they look more and more nerdy and thus a bad idea, although the 2nd watch does look a bit more useable than the 1st.

UPDATE : Christmas Shopping in Basingstoke on Saturday, I found that 2 jewellers had a good selection of the Omega range in stock, including the SeaMaster & Planet Oceanwatch models. Sadly the SeaMaster dissapointed, but the Planet Oceanwatch looks pretty cool, but build quality isn't as good as Rolex. I think I'll give them a miss.

Casino Royale.....

...... I have been to see the new Bond movie, and in my opinion it is brilliant, so much so, that I will be going back to see it again next week.

Daniel Craigs first outing as Bond is convincing & a quality performance. Same sort of formula for the film, an excellent villain (Mads Mikkelsen) glamourous girls (Eva Green and the beautiful Caterina Murino [see right]), very cool guns, gadgets [this time a defibrillator!?], fast cars [keep to Aston Martin please!], watches [Omega Seamaster Professional 300M , though this should go back to Rolex Submariner imho] and amazing settings (the house on the lake in the last scene is just stunning), but somehow it's different. Bond gets a real fight, the opening scene in B&W is filmed a bit like Lock Stock..., another scene where Bond strangles a villain to death is quite graphic, and probably makes it more than a 12A cert in my opinion. It's all very different to the previous Bond movies where the likes of Roger Moore didn't get a hair out of place when tackling a villain like Jaws.

Production has already started on the next installment, currently with the imaginative working title of "Bond 22", scheduled release date is now Nov 7th 2008, so only another year to wait!

I would highly recommend a click to the excellent fan website called MI6, packed full of all sorts of news, history, wonderful facts & information.

I've been robbed!!

some nasty little bastard in the far east - Bangkok to be precise has managed to get the details of my credit card (probably from another equally nasty little bastard over here in the UK) & clone them onto another card and then withdraw a large sum of cash from an ATM!

So much for Chip & PIN making life more secure then?

Luckily, my bank managed to spot the unusual withdrawal quickly & contact me within 90 minutes to see if I was in actual fact in Bangkok, which I wasn't. Given that I was in the UK & my card was with me, they understood that I've nothing to do with the fraud & will refund me completely.

First Swede in space......

BBC News Science & Nature Section reports that the first Swede is about to be sent into orbit on the Space Shutte Discovery, my question is one of vegetable discrimination - when are they going send a Turnip into space?

I think I may have been listening to Jonathan Ross too much!?

7 days and counting down....

....until the latest installment of the Bond movie series is released to the general public - Casino Royale, starring the new James Bond - Daniel Craig.

From the clips I have seen, it looks fantastic, sounds great (score by David Arnold again) and the new Aston Martin DBS featured looks beautiful. Let's just hope the reviews saying that the plot is better & all round the characters & actors that play them are more convincing are true.

Last night on ITV1 David Walliams hosted an hour long special fetauring interviews with various Bond related celeb's & fans, most of whom he asked the question "do you think I would make a good Bond?", nearly all said no.

Having grown up with the movies from childhood to the present, almost every man in his 30's or more probably thinks like David that they would make a good Bond, sadly they are also deluding themselves.

Time is everything....

Latest research by Akamai (didn't know who these people were until I read this article, they look interesting from a technology viewpoint) & reported by the BBC News Website confirms my thoughts & way of browsing & shopping on this interweb thingy....

Websites face four-second cut-off
Shoppers are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than four seconds to load, a survey suggests.

The research by Akamai revealed users' dwindling patience with websites that take time to show up.

It found 75% of the 1,058 people asked would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load.

The time it took a site to appear on screen came second to high prices and shipping costs in the list of shoppers' pet-hates, the research revealed.

Speed is everything....

The BBC News Website reports on the latest Supercomputer in use by academics in the UK has been upgraded. Makes my current research for a home PC upgrade look a little insignificant.

Still a long way behind the US based academic stuff & probably a little behind what is sat in an MoD bunker somewhere secret, but all probably a giant leap behind the computing power available to the CIA\US Secret Service.

UK supercomputer sets faster pace

The UK's fastest-proven supercomputer used by the academic community has doubled in size and performance.

The HPCx machine, based in Warrington, is now capable of operating at speeds up to 15.4 teraflops, or 15.4 trillion calculations every second.

The speed boost follows the addition of more than 1,200 processors to the four year-old, IBM-built number-cruncher.

The high-performance machine is used by scientists to simulate everything from ocean currents to biological cells.

The upgrade will allow scientists to run more complex models on the machine. "What we've done throughout the computer's life is to keep the machine abreast of the way that computers are getting faster as a whole," said Professor Arthur Trew, director of the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre which heads the consortium that runs the system. "The problem is that the demand for computational ability always outstrips the machine's ability to deliver it."

When HPCx first came into service in 2002 it was one of the top 10 fastest supercomputers in the world. Despite an upgrade in 2004, it has since slipped to 59th place in the Top 500 supercomputers list.

Although the upgrade will undoubtedly push HPCx up the rankings in the new list, published on 14 November 2007, the UK government and research community have already decided to replace it with a higher spec machine known as Hector.

Hector, or the High-End Computing Terascale Resource, will be owned by the Research Councils of the UK and will start operating in 2007. HPCx is planned to cease working in December 2008. Hector could run at speeds of up to 100 teraflops, 100,000 times faster than an ordinary computer.

However, its normal operating speeds will be far less as supercomputers are only able to achieve their maximum speeds for short bursts of time.

UFO's in Norfolk.....

For years I've seen TV programmes on UFO sightings in the UK saying that Hampshire\Wiltshire is a haven for UFO crop circles and that the Norfolk\Suffolk area has been the "Hotspot" for UFO sightings & activity, most people put the fast moving lights down to the US Airforce flying either conventional stuff or secret stuff out of their bases there, but no-one could explain other strange things that happened like power surges or cars cutting out, all these things that made the UFO believers case even stronger (in their own minds). Until now....

The Ministry of Defence has admitted that a fault at a radar dome was responsible for causing electrical problems with dozens of cars.

Engines and lights cut out and speedometer dials swung up to 150mph as motorists drove past the dome.

At the time the MoD said there was no guarantee that the Trimingham radar on the north Norfolk coast was the cause.

It now says it will consider claims for compensation after an inquiry found the radar was "out of alignment".

Just when you think you are having a bad day.....

.... there is always someone else who is having a worse one!

The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) is being sued for $350m (£185m) by a trading company at the centre of a giant share sale error.

A trader with Mizuho Securities mistyped an order and sold 610,000 shares for one yen instead of one share for 610,000 yen last December. 1 Japanese yen = 0.00839066958 U.S. dollars!

A fault in the TSE's computer system meant the trade could not be cancelled and Mizuho lost $225m. Doh!

Chinooks anyone?

The answer should be, "no thanks, I've already got some sat in a hangar in Wiltshire!" read on....

The Independent on Sunday reports....

"Britain is so short of helicopters in Afghanistan that military chiefs are being forced to scour the world for civilian aircraft"

"An ageing fleet of just eight Chinooks is working around the clock to supply and reinforce soldiers in remote outposts facing waves of Taliban attacks. The only Chinook in the Falklands was taken away for use in the campaign."

"the MoD has been forced to seek out commercial operators for non-combat operations, to free more military craft for use at the front line. So urgent is the need that Britain is understood to be asking other nations that have ordered Merlin helicopters from Westland to allow the MoD to requisition them. " I understand that these Merlins are on order for Denmark.

Given that we appear to be is such a tight spot, I ask one simple question - why the hell are there at least 6 brand new Chinooks sat in a hangar at Boscombe Down doing nothing? My understanding is that they require some kind of software upgrade that will cost millions of pounds to rectify - well Mr Blair, put your money where your mouth is, get your chequebook out, the soldiers risking their lives at your instigation need these machines, and they need them now.

Weekend road warrior....

... a few weeks ago I saw a re-run Top Gear, it had an article where Hamster (yes, the one who crashed the jet-powered car) was driving an Ariel Atom (pictured right).

At the time I did some research, it all looked very nice - price OK(ish) at £35k, performance excellent at 0-60mph in 2.91 sec.! but, would I fit my 6'3" carcase into one? Don't know, so decided to put it in the pile of "Things to do". Ariel are only based in Crewkerne, about an hour West of where I live down the A303, so one day in the Spring when I'm next down their way, I will pop in & see it in the flesh.

Whilst browsing around today, I find an article on a car that takes a modified Ariel chassis, throws away the supercharged 2.0 litre Honda iVTEC 300bhp engine and replaces it with.... can you guess? A 3-phase, 236hp AC induction motor! I've always know that electric motors can deliver a great turn of speed, but the batteries required to power them are frankly shite. But it appears that Wrightspeed have developed a concept car - the X1, that delivers these great performance figures - 0-60 ~ 3.0 seconds (0.09 behind the petrol car), a top speed of 112mph (electronically limited) and a range >100 miles in urban use (sinking to ~25 miles if driven on a track day!), they promise better endurance in the production model.

Take a look at this video to get an idea of how good an idea this is, let's hope the creator - Ian Wright get's the X1 into production soon.

It doesn't make any sense....

.... why is it that petrol prices are on the way down? Clearly they are not down to the levels we saw a few years ago (see right!), but nothing has changed to any great degree in the Middle East, excise duty hasn't changed, VAT hasn't changed & production levels haven't been changed greatly by OPEC? I know that there has been a major oil find in the US, but would that change the price by this much?

If you look at the table left from the excellent site petrolprices.com, you will see a split as to where the pennies might go if a litre cost 90 pence.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a happy chappy if the price continues to fall, I have 4.2 litres of Audi engine to feed on a regular basis, but why the hell has the price gone from 99.9p a few weeks ago to 84.9p now?

It's also further compounded for me as I appear to live in one of the most expensive places as far as petrol is concerned. Why would a small town in north Hampshire always be singled out for being a few pence more expensive that anywhere else (apart from the rip-off motorway services). Don't try to tell me it's distribution costs, there are plenty of large scale distribution businesses that choose Andover as it's operating base because it is so convenient to the road network.

New binoculars....

... I have always had a liking for optics, be they camera's, spotting scopes, telescopes or telescopic sights for rifles.

To this end I have had a succession of camera's both film & digital, I have in the last couple of years stuck with Canon as a brand, the lenses for the SLR camera's are interchangeable, thus protecting my investment. I've also had a good number of telescopic sights for my rifles, and managed to get some very good zoom sights for reasonable money.

I have for years looked at getting a good pair of binoculars, with good magnification, large objective lens to allow enough light through for a bright image & lusted after the Canon versions with Optical Image Stabiliser Technology, but thought them far too expensive. Something has happened over the last year, they appear to have dropped in price by about 40%! So this week I succumbed to a pair of Canon 15x50 IS binoculars.

I highly recommend Ace Optics in Bath, they sorted my requirements in a few minutes & then promptly delivered the very next day.

UPDATE : on Thursday last, I saw the Canon 18x50 IS binoculars in a Jessops photostore in of all places Basingstoke!? for not a lot more than I paid for the 15x50's, hmmmm me thinks, shall I? One pair for home, one pair for the car...... They also had a hugely impressive range of Canon SLR lenses in stock, including the 70-200mm f2.8 and the 28-300mm f3.5-5.6, I might be going back soon.

Mr Faldo, I think you may have a problem.....

..... I think we have already found the right man for the job!

Ian Woosnam proved himself more than worthy with his Captaincy of the European team in the 2006 Ryder Cup. I have to say that I've not been his biggest fan over the years. Firstly, he's Welsh (no, not a racist comment, just a fact that I generally don't see eye to eye with the Welsh - he was actually born in Oswestry, but now lives in Jersey), and second he's a short arse (no, not a heightist comment, just a fact that I generally don't see eye to eye with the vertically challenged - I use to live in Epsom, land of the 5 foot jockey that "wants a fight with the big bastard in the corner who think's he's hard!")

But Mr Woosnam, I take my hat off, I would have given anything to be in your team this weekend. The fact that I roared (at the TV set!?) nearly as loud as the Irish when Clarke, Harrington & McGinner arrived on the first tee on the last day - speaks volumes that you as Captain created a team spirit that the Americans could only dream of having, and sadly (for them) never will have.

So, humble pie in large quantities for me - Ian Woosnam, should in my opinion have the job for life!

A brave man......

.... just got a little of what he deserves.

I don't think I have ever seen such an emotional event as the Ryder Cup final day, words cannot express the admiration I have for the courage that Darren Clarke has shown.

Darren, from what people who know you & your family (McGinley, Westwood & Woods et al) have said in interviews, Heather would be most proud of you, and rightly so. I'm not a believer, but I do in this instance hope above anything else that she is up there, looking down on you with the biggest smile on her face imaginable, saluting you with a glass of something nice.

Good luck to you for the future, there will be dark times ahead. Anyone who had the priviledge to watch you over the last couple of days would willingly support & stand by your side.

Bounce, gone!

I have a mountain bike, I bought it many years ago with a bonus from work on a whim, it was at the time a radical design - a Mantra Comp made by Klein (pictured right). I bought it mostly based on it's weird looks rather than it's performance. I upgraded a couple of things like front forks to RockShox Judy XL's, I then used the standard RockShox Judy T2 forks to a hardtail Scott, which I ride more often as I never liked to ride the Klein a great deal as the rear suspension bounced like crazy.


I have now taken the step of upgrading the rear shock from the standard Fox Vanilla spring, to an air based rear shock called Fox Float R, I have engaged the services of rear shock guru Tim Flooks at TF Tuned Shox - his team have created a setup specifically for me codenamed "FB", or Fat Bloke. It works! Little bounce when pedalling, works well over the bumps. It's also saved a lot of weight too, from over 550g to less than 200g, may not sound a lot, but dragging my carcase around on a bike is bad enough without adding to the weight in heavy metal!

I'm normally a cynical bastard.....

.... and it's unusual for anyone to impress me, I have 39 years behind me & 21 of those have been in the big wide world working for a living. I've met literally thousands of people in my work over a long period of time, trying to sell to them, or get some kind of agreement from them for a business partnership or something.

I think I'm a fairly good judge of the characters that I meet (not that it's my place to judge anyone), but I'm usually fairly good at sussing out whether someone will do what they say or commit to or whether they are taking the piss, I would even say that I can see through a fuckwit in a matter of seconds.

Today I went to a Technology Briefing at IBM Hursley Laboratories for my customer & met the Director of the Labs - Graham Spittle (biog) . I have been in meetings with him before, but never sat with him & chatted over customer stuff face-to-face.

Today I was impressed, very impressed. It made me understand that IBM really is a league apart from any other business and re-kindled my enthusiasm for working for them.

I've just got connected when mobile...

... with a Vodafone 3G Datacard. And I have to say, it's the muts nuts! It does exactly what is says on the marketing blurb, which in these days is a rare occurance.

The ability to replicate emails or databases on Lotus Notes & personal email on Microsoft Outlook, send relatively large file attachments, browse & send SMS all from my laptop whilst on the move in a central London Starbucks, customer office or on the train (see previous post!) is a godsend and actually makes me more productive & responsive.

If you have been wondering or figuring out whether its worth the monthly investment, my answer is a resounding - YES!

Train strikes....

... with my responsibility for a London based customer, regular train journeys to & from London Waterloo have added a couple of hours of boredom, frustration and general unhappiness of being at the behest of a train operator - South West Trains. (Although of late the boredom & frustration at being dis-connected has been fixed with a Vodafone 3G card for my PC which works brilliantly - apart from losing signal in the huge railway cutting at Weybridge & for some reason Clapham Station!?)

I have in the past, on this very blog praised South West Trains, but last week came the news that because of a disagreement over taxi fares paid to drivers based out of Waterloo, today then the 8th & 11th September there would be strike action - not one train leaving my home station.

As far as I can tell, South West Trains agreed in some way to pay for taxi fares for drivers working out of Waterloo either very early or very late, the drivers then found themselves being taxed on this benefit.

Well Mr Train Driver, f**king wake up! We would all get taxed if the journey to work was paid for in that way!

And as for the Aslef General Secretary Keith Norman said: "I believe the company is using its passengers to try to score points over the union", which begs the question.... was it the company that went on strike - NO it wasn't you f***ing tosser!!!!