Not the most interesting topics of conversation I know, but up until yesterday I was getting literally hundreds of spam comments on my site every day. I have long been grappling with the problem and have tried various methods to filter them all out but for the most part a few always slip through the net. This was annoying me so much a couple of days ago I disabled commenting because it was just taking to much of my time to delete all the junk. I wanted a 100% perfect solution (not asking much I think!) which would eliminate the problem for good. After a quick search around I found such a plugin for WordPress called ‘Spam Stopgap Extreme‘. This clever little plugin uses some dark magic in the form of embedded random MD5 hashes to prevent spammers from automatically commenting. It’s a simple and elegant solution which has so far has worked flawlessly and made my inbox a lot lighter!
I received some pretty good xmas presents this year, the highlights being a watch from my parents and some assorted books & DVD’s. Amongst all this I especially liked a hefty sized book called ‘Japanese Graphics NOW!‘ which is packed with some of the coolest imagery your likely to find anywhere.
“Exploding with eye-popping originality and freshness, today’s best Japanese graphics have been gathered together to make this must-have guide to contemporary aesthetics in Japan.
If you like this sort of thing it’s definitely worth getting hold of a copy. You can take a look inside at some of the cool graphics here.
Speaking of graphics the ‘The Ultimate Matrix Collection‘ (Ten Disc DVD Set) is also a must-have for serious fans. I’m only about half way through the 35 hours of special features and am loving every minute of it. Some might argue that seeing how a film is put together spoils the magic but personally I am fascinated to see how something of such epic scale is put together, especially from a technical viewpoint. I think my perfect job would be in visual effects but I have no idea how you would begin getting into such a position, from what I hear it isn’t easy.
Discovered a cool service today called Audioscrobbler courtesy of another tech-head which builds up a profile of your music listening habits automatically allowing you do some pretty nifty things. If you’re so inclined you can see what I’ve been listening to recently here. Not exactly Mozart I know!
As with many others I have some Gmail invites to give away. If you want one drop me a line and it’s yours. First-come first-served!
I think I’ll round things off today with another sunset photo I took last night out of my window. If you like it click on the text just below to see a larger version:
Sunset behind the roof tops
Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!
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Not such a good day today for a variety of reasons, I kind of feel like I’ve been hit in the face by a rather large vehicle right now. Perhaps my philosophical gene is working overtime at the moment - a good bash on the head with a heavy object would put it straight I’m sure! Aside from this the volume of work I have to complete by next term is also weighing heavily on my mind but I’m sure I’ll struggle through it somehow.
This said, my problems are nothing in comparison to how the families of the 100,000+ people who died in the Asian Quake and Tsunami earlier in the week must feel. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be a part of this. It all goes to highlight the fragile nature of life which we should never take for granted - every day is precious. In a way it is ironic that the places which always seem to be worst afflicted by these events are the places which are least able to cope with them. Sometimes we don’t realise how lucky we are to live where we do.
Image (c) 2004 DigitalGlobe
The above satellite photo shows the coastline of Kalutara, Sri Lanka moments before the tsunami hit. The swirling waves are highly evident - its must have been an awesomely deadly and terrifying sight to behold. According to geophysicists at NASA the quake may have been large enough to slightly alter the rate of the Earth’s rotation, shortening days by a fraction of a second. You can read an interesting article about it here.
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Lots been going on the last couple of days… On a very frosty boxing-day morning we ventured out into the cold to visit Blickling Hall & Park and had a nice walk round the lake and gardens. Unfortunately the house itself was closed but it still looked very picturesque.
Today we went Cambridge for a fairly standard touristy type visit around the various colleges. In the end we could only go in Trinity and St. John’s college because the rest were closed for the bank holiday 
That said, we still had a good time and luckily the weather held out for the whole day.
Inside St. John’s college
The only down side of Cambridge is that it seems to be terminally busy with people everywhere making photography a bit tricky. Having said this I did manage to get quite a few nice photos one of which I particularly like is looking up a stone spiral staircase (below), almost hypnotic!
There is so much I want to post about right now but I simply don’t have the time, hopefully I should be able to put together something a little more comprehensive later in the week when I have some more *free* time (allegedly!).
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Happy Christmas one and all!!!
Just taking time out from the hectic preparations going on here to do a quick update since I missed out on posting yesterday (way too busy!). Echo has come to visit for a few days which is nice, especially as she has never experienced Christmas before. Yesterday afternoon we went to the Cathedral carol service in which my sister was singing in the girls choir. It was very busy but we managed to get good seats as we arrived quite early.
Inside Norwich Cathedral
The music was very good and the atmosphere in the Cathedral was nice with the lights dimmed and all the decorations put up. After this we went home and had dinner which consisted of lasagna which I cooked with mum earlier in the day. I think it went down quite well - it certainly tasted nice to me!!
Today we went to a short church service first thing in the morning and then had a pleasant walk down by the river. Along the way we encountered a curious flock of swans who seemed very curious about us but considering their size I didn’t want to get too close! Although the weather is pretty cold outside today unfortunately we’ve had no snow yet but fingers crossed there might be some in the next couple of days 
Outside Norwich Cathedral
The smell of lunch is wafting temptingly from downstairs so I will sign off now. Hope everyone has a good day and most importantly don’t forget to watch the Queens speech!!! hehe
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If like me you’re a fan of the late Douglas Adams’ brilliant book, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, then (with some trepidation) you will probably have heard of the upcoming film adaptation due for release some time next year. I have mixed feelings towards this because the radio series was (and still is) excellent and I can’t imagine that any big-budget film could ever match the very British feel to the whole thing. I have nightmare images of dumbed-down dialog and flashy graphics which just wouldn’t suit it.
The horribly cheap BBC TV adaptation from the 80’s actually did a pretty good job, mainly because it didn’t try to be something it wasn’t. I’m not totally pessimistic about the new version but it certainly has a lot to look up to. So far early (pre-pre-) previews have been good but where things will go is anyones guess!
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