Hand to Hand Combat
/Bored with plain old "Rock, Paper Scissors"? Try this.
Amazing Pictures
/These are the kind of pictures I wish I was clever enough to take. Amazing.
The Mystery Control
/You thought remote controls were a recent invention? Think again.
In one ear....
/Put your headphones on and listen to this.
Amazing.
Drunk with Readers
/I've been using a new mechanism to make sure that the readership of these august pages is holding up (not sure what you are holding up actually, but from here it looks like your hands need washing).
Anyhoo, I've been using this new service from Google Analytics, which lets me see who has been visiting the page, what time they came, whether they were wearing a tie, etc, etc. It is very powerful. It has lots of things you can use to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising and page design, see how far most people go through your content and the like. Most people seem to arrive at my site, take one look at the opening page and then vanish at speed.
Such is life.
If you run a proper web page which actually has serious intent you should take a look at the service, I can see how it could be very useful.
There is talk of a new version, which will let you find out how many people have visited your web site on the way back from the pub. That is going to be called "Google Paralytics".
Well, I'm impressed
/I think this is very clever. But I've not tried it myself. Yet.
Chinatown, where it all goes down
/Author's note 1: I'm fiddling with the time and dates of posts to make things seem in sequence. And this post is very graphics heavy.
I think I may have used up all my luck for the rest of the year. We arrived and found that the hotel is right on the edge of Chinatown. So there are loads of wonderful shops and stalls to look at, just around the corner. And then we got to see the Chinese New Year parade. And I had my new camera to play with....
Wonderful.
Author's note 2: Most of my pictures also feature some part of Jon Purdy, perhaps a bit of a shiny head or patch of tasteful shirt. See if you can spot him in these shots. There are even more on Flickr for you to refine your Purdy spotting skills.
Calibration shot for "Where's Purdy" competition. I didn't ask him to smile, which is probably just as well...
On the way to the hotel (that is not Jon in the foreground)
Hotel Lobby roof
Down California Road
Chinatown
My kinda store. I'm taking orders......
Balcony
Nice brickwork
Soul Men Sounding Good
"Win one for me daddy..."
More stalls
All set for the Crazy Taxi racing
Just make sure you use it for the forces of good...
Open Wide
For some time I've been after a wide angle view for my photographs. I found a shop which had a whole bunch of these. Having negotiated a really good price (no - really) I bought this thing to whack on the front of the camera which gives it an almost-fisheye effect (hence the round edges). This was the test shot in the shop. You might see this used to some effect in later snaps.
If you are going to make a bronze statue, why would you make it doing that?
More later.
How true....
/Don't laugh too loudly at this. I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes.
Talking to the future
/What will you send?
Do not read this in public
/...because it is not good for other people to see you having hysterics:
Strange Flying Man
/I love this. I'm not sure what motivates people to do this kind of thing. But I'm jolly glad they do.
Amazing 3D
/I got this link from Rory Blyths blog. If you are into games and 3D you really must take a look.
Useful Hull Web Sites
/My mate Geoff has made a couple of very useful web sites for people who live in Hull. One gives you a list of what is on at the local Cineworld and the other the weather forecast. They both go onto web sites to scrape the data and then present a page just right for viewing on a mobile device:
http://www.geoff.org.uk/cinema.php
http://www.geoff.org.uk/weather.php
Worth adding to your mobile favourites.
Guitar Hero Masterclass
/Think you can do Guitar Hero? Think again. This man is probably a god.
Lego Grand Theft Auto
/You've probably all seen this. But I quite like it.
Spell with flickr
/You might not have seen this before. Seldom has Rob Miles looked better.
Green Green Grass of Google
/Found an interesting blog post today. It is written by a bloke who works at Google (lucky chap). If you are interested in the business of Software Engineering you really should read the post (and all the ensuing comments). It will take a while (I spent a whole lunch break reading it) but it is worth the effort.
If you think that things like computer programming are not prone to fashion and ideology the whole discussion should sort you out good and proper....
Good Weather for Ducks
/On holiday today. Went to Slimbridge, a duck sanctury. On the way there it rained. And I mean really rained. We were driving through flooded roads and everything. Real frontier stuff. I was almost wishing I had one of those horrid 4x4 type cars that some people think are cool. Almost, but not quite.
When we got there the place was pretty packed. Lots of little kids in shiny (but not for long) wellies. Lots of parents looking out of the restaurant window at the driving rain and wondering what on earth to do for the next three hours. As we walked in they announced our arrival with a fire alarm. Which was nice, and did make the queue for the food a lot shorter.
Fortunately, and for reasons that I can't fully explain, the weather brightened as I ate my baked potato with cheese (and very nice cheese too) so after our meal we were able to go out and take some pictures of the birds. I was trying a new "down and dirty" technique with the photographs which involves holding the camera very close to the ground. Makes the snaps a little more interesting.
Some birds (no idea of the names)
Some Flamingos (pretty sure on this one)
Probably ducks, and pretty big ones too
Watch This
/I hardy ever put links on my blog. They go out of date and such. And people have usually found them already. But you really must see this. Really.
