On The Jazz II

listening to the rain

OK, I've decided I'll just post roundup posts of cool videos every now and then. Because they're really too cool to not blog, but I don't want videos to take over the blog.

OK, basically this is amazing. If only for the fact that it was actually made.




cool.



the final frontier



winner of this week's WTF award:

OK, in my last post I showed you what babies should never, ever wear.

But I also have some opinions on what they should wear. In anticipation for the arrival of my niece Aimee and I designed and printed some baby jumpsuits.

These first 2 were designed and silkscreened by Aimee:




and I designed this one (silkscreened by Aimee):



This is a mock-up of my next design which is as yet unprinted:

text reads 'My other jumpsuit is a space suit'

Labels: baby, haute couture, jumpsuits, silkscreen

Hey wow, so this is inappropriate...



further proof that Amazon really does have everything you want... and more.

Labels: baby, uh no.

Just a quick heads-up for UK readers.
Tesco currently have a special on photo books.
I can't vouch for the quality but at 4.99 a go it's got to be worth a punt.

Labels: photo

More baby news - it turns out that within a few months I will have 2 nieces!
2! nieces! 2!

Double Trouble!
Tuple...er...Woople?
Duo Baby-o.
I think I'll stop now.

Labels: baby, niece

OK, I'm trying not to make my blog just a list of videos I've seen recently but this is too bizarre to not mention...

there's more?!?!
I had no idea that marketing folk were so tuned in to me.

I don't watch TV much. Mainly because I don't have one.
But I caught this today. And just... wow.




and then I found out about this!




and since we're on a roll (kind of bizarre actually):

Labels: advert, f.a.b., thunderbirds, youtube

niece to meet you!

which all makes a lot more sense if you've ever seen this

Labels: Illya Kuryakin, man from, Napoleon Solo

It's been a terrible few days. Donation links are to the
British Red Cross



photos
video
video



Burma

Labels: aid, burma, china, cyclone, donate, earthquake, red cross

This looks extremely cool: WorldWide Telescope.

For all the bashing that MS get I don't think there's many (informed) people in CS who would disagree that MSR do some excellent research.

I used to work across the way from MSR Cambridge, and because there was a healthy flow of both people and ideas between MSR and my department it was very easy to see that there are some very, very smart people working there.

Labels: astronomy, astrophysics, microsoft, msr, not as dumb as you think, worldwide telescope

And you thought the Roomba was hi-tech!
Well get a load of this:

Labels: dry fusion, nobel prize

As many of you may know my family has been on baby alert for the past couple of weeks. Apparently the baby is lacking in the virtue of punctuality and is aiming for fashionably late.
Anyway, waiting for the baby has been a bit like waiting for a surprise Christmas! You know it's soon but you never know quite when.
I am so excited to become an uncle but even I didn't realise quite how excited I am until my mind wandered a bit in the middle of studying dynamics in rotating coordinates and produced this:

Just in case it's not blindingly obvious, that is a drawing of a baby in a baby jumpsuit.

Labels: baby, drawing, lambda, uncle

Well, this certainly looks interesting:



the trailer is worth watching for the end alone.

(the music in LHR-LAX was composed by Philip Glass)

Labels: film, philip glass, trailer

Labels: backflip, jeans, youtube

Sigur Rós make beautiful music:

starálfur
von
síðasti bærinn

and art.

What is it about Iceland?

Labels: iceland, music, sigur ros

Just a quick plug for that rarity which is a product which actually works exactly as advertised. Last Christmas my brother gave me some Visible Dust DSLR sensor cleaning products.
Today, after finally getting sick of all the gunk on my sensors I actually used it. Up until now I had gone by the principle of 'why do work now if I can do it later' and as a result ended up spending a lot of time spotting out dust in photos.
Well, it turns out that cleaning using the arctic butterfly takes a couple of minutes at most, and really isn't hard at all. I wish I'd used it earlier!
The only down side to it is that it might seem a little pricey, but once you realise that Canon charges £80 (that's about $1000 to you US folk) for a sensor clean you soon get over it.
So kudos to Visible Dust, all the more so considering that their product R&D is apparently conducted in appallingly foggy conditions.

Labels: arctic butterfly, dust, photo, sensor cleaning, visible dust

An article about Lesbos
Faintly ridiculous. Faint like the sun that is.
quoth:

Ever since Sappho wrote of her feelings for other women, the Greek island of Lesbos where she lived has had its own place in the dictionary. But now its modern residents have begun a campaign to reclaim the term for themselves.

Labels: lesbians, Lesbos, stupidity

finished late last night, the second (final?) part of LHR-LAX:

Labels: cloudwerks, film, LAX, LHR, photo

for those of you that missed it: LHR-LAX.
Yes, this is old news but it's relevant because the sequel is coming very soon...

Labels: film, LAX, LHR, photo

I mean, seriously, just woah. dude.
woah.
dude.
woah.

from the link:

What is Point Break LIVE!?

Point Break LIVE! is the absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster that tells the story of former College football star, Johnny Utah, in pursuit of the surfing, bank robbing, skydiving, bare-hand-fighting adrenaline-junkie-cum-Zen-master Bodhi Sattva.

What makes Point Break LIVE! so exciting?

Point Break LIVE! features armed robbery, big-wave surfing, car chases, explosions, no less than two extended skydiving sequences and an indoor monsoon. This "action" play offers a true cathartic experience, putting you in the water with the surfers, throwing you out the door of an airplane and robbing you at gunpoint. Add in the hotness factor- surfer dudes and female stunt doubles and you have a night of live theater that rivals anything by Samuel Beckett in terms of pure excitement and energy.

What makes Point Break LIVE! cooler, funnier, and crazier than any other show?

The starring role of Johnny Utah is selected from the audience each night, and reads their entire script off of cue-cards. This method manages to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting. The fun starts immediately with the "screen test" wherein the volunteer Keanus (usually 5-15 men and women vie for the role) go through a grueling audition process. The part is then cast via applaus-o-meter.

Labels: keanu, point break

Today I am quite excited because amazingly some work I did last year is actually going to see some real, practical use. I use the term loosely because, well, it's astrophysics.
Anyway, tonight the telescope you see above will be looking at some objects that I've identified as 'interesting'. Let's just hope I got it right and that they actually are.

Labels: astrophysics, observing, palomar

Well, I suspect many of you know and love PostSecret so following in a similar voyeuristic meme: Postcards From Yo Momma

Labels: postcards, postsecret

...innuendo???

For some unknown reason I have recently started watching season 1 of 'Allo 'Allo (the other seasons are here). It is very good, better in fact than I remember. Mainly because I'm pretty sure I missed most of what was actually funny about it the first time round! Nevertheless I am amazed that we were allowed to watch it as kids!

Labels: allo allo, innuendo, read very carefully I shall blog this only once

So I should probably apologise to J.K.Rowling. That's right, after years of mocking (not tirelessly enough) her books I finally ended up reading the first Harry Potter novel. I tried not to, believe me, but when I got it for Christmas last year (yeah, good one Aimee!) I knew it was game over.

There was a brief glimmer of hope when some jerk stole my copy at London Heathrow (I being enroute to LA), but in the end all that really meant was that I ended up reading a book about a sorcerer's stone rather than a philosopher's. Well, that and the mention of boogers and bangs (c.f. fringe).

Anyway, back onto why I feel I must recant. As you may know I like funk, so anyone else who also likes funk can't be all-bad in my book. Previously J.K.Rowling had erroneously been in the all-bad category in my estimation. Erroneously because as it turns out JK is as funky as her namesake, the purveyor of modern-day (quasi)funk Jay Kay. How so? There are a pair of characters in the Potterverse - the Weasley twins. Apparently they're quite good at riding brooms. One is called something-or-other, I can't remember. But the other... the other is called Fred. That's right, Fred Weasley. I rest my case.

Reason number 2.

[spoiler alert!]
So there's a point in the story where a character is lured away by a forged message. This sets the scene for the climactic, danger-packed, super-exciting climax. So you see, if Dumbledork had known the message was forged then the book could have been a whole lot shorter. And this, I submit, is JK's whole point. The raison d'etre of Harry Potter and the Philosopher/Sorceror's Stone.

You see, in writing 'HPatP/SS' JK is merely espousing the notions of strong digital(/magical) authentication. She is saying to readers the world over:

'look! see! If only these wizards and witches had a decent PKI!'.

I take her point. Because hey, you may be Voldemort buddy, but not even your dark arts are going to help you forge a 4096-bit signature.

And that means, Dumbledork, that in future your messages really will come from You-Know-Who.


addendum:

I am aware that in the Potterverse they tend not to use computers and such. May I suggest the following spell as a replacement for PGP:

newt, frog, leg of spider
wine, beer and west-country cider
no need for pgp
got magical security
generate a private key
so I can prove that I am me

Labels: fred wesley, funk, harry potter, j.k.rowling, jk, lolwizard, pgp, pki, public private key, security, wizard

Well, there's not much to say really. I just thought it was about time to resurrect my blog.
The look is not finalised, being just a template I found online (details in the page footer). I quite like it though and given how lazy I am it will probably stay this way for a few days/weeks/months/years.

Now to generate some content...

Labels: back in blog

bar.

Labels: bar, foo