Various
I bust one of my favourite knitting needles the other day. A Symphonie Pro circular 2.25mm, while knitting a sock. One needle end snapped off at the join between the wooden needle and the cable. A quick inspection reveals the metal join to be unseamed so unlikely to be openable to remove the snapped off wooden bit and stick in the remaining point. Pooh! Yes, I do realise that in the grand scheme of things 'tis a mere prickle but . . . Fortunately I have a set of Clover bamboo dpns 2.25mm, so am continuing to knit said sock on them. Moral of the story? Wooden sock-knitting needles are nice but somewhat fragile, bamboo bends but, provided you don't try straightening 'em to vigorously, tends to be stronger. Metal needles? They're heavier, slippery-er (so having a tendency to fall out of your knitting) and also have a tendency to bend (the really thin ones, I have a set of 2mm dpns). They're even harder to straighten than bamboos! Ah well.
On the decorative arts, have a butcher's at these guitars, two influenced by the mystic East and one by LotR. Gorgeous. Wonder how they sound?
Just come across the term Samizdat - a Russian idea, from Communist days, when unofficial books would be made and circulated clandestinely (cos you'd be in trouble so deep you'd need a life-raft if you were caught with one, let alone making one). Apparently the word came to mean "I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish, distribute it, and get imprisoned for it." Or so Vladimir Bukovsky said. Readers who remember the USSR will understand a little of this. Younger Readers will, perhaps, get an idea of how things were. These days it's coming to mean self-publishing. The kind of self-publishing where you decide on everything - words, cover design, layout, etc, etc, yourself, which is rather cheapening the term, IMHO. But there you are, the fashion is to dumb down.
Writing of dumbing down, or rather not, Shaun the Sheep has won a poll as favourite children's BBC TV character, beating off such rivals as Postman Pat, Paddington and The Wombles. Such is the passage of time. The Wombles and the Paddington Bear TV series were on when I was young. Postman Pat came out when S and D were young. Shaun is the modern hero, though he's been around since Wallace and Gromit's A Close Shave, but was given his own series, which, in the best children's TV tradition, is for all the family. H and I really enjoy watching it. I only remember back as far as Sooty and Sweep, Bob the Builder also passed us by as by then S and D were too old for such sillinesses. Shaun the Sheep is well worth tracking down though, the series is made by Aardman Animations in Bristol (good things come from Bristol). Apparently there will be a film, starring the Sheep (the whole flock, plus Bitzer, plus Farmer) due out next February. I look forward to it.
Goodness, Google are actually doing something sensible! Having seen Sony's PlayStation 3, the Apple iPhone and their Chrome operating system hacked, they've gone ahead and hired the hacker, George Hotz. Other firms have tried, some successfully, prosecuting hackers. This is really counter-productive. If they get a sufficient buzz from hacking, hackers are going to continue in said activity whether you prosecute them or not. Far better to have them inside your organisation pissing out than outside pissing in, surely? Far better to make a system and have one of your employees there specially to 'break into' it. That way you can fix it before it goes out. Of course, Microsoft wouldn't think this way. Anyone who knows anything about the mighty M knows that they develop something, they market it. Then they, or early users, discover bugs, for which M will sell patches. Do they still do this? I'm not sure how Bill Gates became a multi-millionaire with such a working polity, but he did. Fortunately his ethics are better and he's now taken his multimillions and is trying to do some real good with them.
And Finally - too many French restaurants are using pre-prepared food, bought in, industrially made, pastry, pate, even specially 'rough chopped' steak for Steak Tartare which looks 'hand-chopped'. So the French have come up with a special sign to denote that a dish is actually made in the establishment. Now I know there are too many places to eat in the UK where they merely re-heat pre-prepared stuff. Some of it can be quite good, most merely mundane, but to try passing it off as 'home cooked' is just lying. However to find that the French are getting in on the 'passing off industrial food as home-made' act is a bit of a surprise. I thought the French valued their food. Hmmm, I know at least one French person who values their McDonald's. For that matter, the existence of such chains in France is, I doubt, solely supported by UK and US tourism. I dunno, what are the French coming to, Dear Reader?
Right, now seems to be a good time to stop. Like before I write myself into trouble so deep I may require a life-raft! Y'all have a good day now!
On the decorative arts, have a butcher's at these guitars, two influenced by the mystic East and one by LotR. Gorgeous. Wonder how they sound?
Just come across the term Samizdat - a Russian idea, from Communist days, when unofficial books would be made and circulated clandestinely (cos you'd be in trouble so deep you'd need a life-raft if you were caught with one, let alone making one). Apparently the word came to mean "I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish, distribute it, and get imprisoned for it." Or so Vladimir Bukovsky said. Readers who remember the USSR will understand a little of this. Younger Readers will, perhaps, get an idea of how things were. These days it's coming to mean self-publishing. The kind of self-publishing where you decide on everything - words, cover design, layout, etc, etc, yourself, which is rather cheapening the term, IMHO. But there you are, the fashion is to dumb down.
Writing of dumbing down, or rather not, Shaun the Sheep has won a poll as favourite children's BBC TV character, beating off such rivals as Postman Pat, Paddington and The Wombles. Such is the passage of time. The Wombles and the Paddington Bear TV series were on when I was young. Postman Pat came out when S and D were young. Shaun is the modern hero, though he's been around since Wallace and Gromit's A Close Shave, but was given his own series, which, in the best children's TV tradition, is for all the family. H and I really enjoy watching it. I only remember back as far as Sooty and Sweep, Bob the Builder also passed us by as by then S and D were too old for such sillinesses. Shaun the Sheep is well worth tracking down though, the series is made by Aardman Animations in Bristol (good things come from Bristol). Apparently there will be a film, starring the Sheep (the whole flock, plus Bitzer, plus Farmer) due out next February. I look forward to it.
Goodness, Google are actually doing something sensible! Having seen Sony's PlayStation 3, the Apple iPhone and their Chrome operating system hacked, they've gone ahead and hired the hacker, George Hotz. Other firms have tried, some successfully, prosecuting hackers. This is really counter-productive. If they get a sufficient buzz from hacking, hackers are going to continue in said activity whether you prosecute them or not. Far better to have them inside your organisation pissing out than outside pissing in, surely? Far better to make a system and have one of your employees there specially to 'break into' it. That way you can fix it before it goes out. Of course, Microsoft wouldn't think this way. Anyone who knows anything about the mighty M knows that they develop something, they market it. Then they, or early users, discover bugs, for which M will sell patches. Do they still do this? I'm not sure how Bill Gates became a multi-millionaire with such a working polity, but he did. Fortunately his ethics are better and he's now taken his multimillions and is trying to do some real good with them.
And Finally - too many French restaurants are using pre-prepared food, bought in, industrially made, pastry, pate, even specially 'rough chopped' steak for Steak Tartare which looks 'hand-chopped'. So the French have come up with a special sign to denote that a dish is actually made in the establishment. Now I know there are too many places to eat in the UK where they merely re-heat pre-prepared stuff. Some of it can be quite good, most merely mundane, but to try passing it off as 'home cooked' is just lying. However to find that the French are getting in on the 'passing off industrial food as home-made' act is a bit of a surprise. I thought the French valued their food. Hmmm, I know at least one French person who values their McDonald's. For that matter, the existence of such chains in France is, I doubt, solely supported by UK and US tourism. I dunno, what are the French coming to, Dear Reader?
Right, now seems to be a good time to stop. Like before I write myself into trouble so deep I may require a life-raft! Y'all have a good day now!