Not a huge deal going on today but I thought I might share a couple of snaps I took of the sky today - one at dawn and one at dusk. Although they’re nothing special I quite like the contrast between them. Photography also provides a much needed distraction from work (as does this site!).
Click here for a larger version
If you need even more distractions then might I suggest this site which provides instructions on how to construct your own “Micro-Claymore” from common office supplies - perfect for catching unwanted trespassers into your domain! Learn how to build more ‘Office Bricolage’ here 
That’s all for today but be sure to check out some of the new photography links I’ve updated on the right nav. bar - I wish I could produce stuff half as good as some of them!
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Wow, this month seems to have passed in a flash - looking back on things the last couple of weeks have been particularly frenetic and feel more like a couple of months!
The great news this week is that 24 (Season 4) has begun and is as brilliant as ever. After last seasons blood-bath a lot of the old characters are gone but obviously the unstoppable Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) remains. This time the plot centres around the kidnapping of the US Defence Secretary but of course there are countless sub-plots interconnected with it and doubtless the producers will throw a few twists in along the way.
I’m surprised that the show has managed to maintain momentum all this time as with 24 real-time episodes to get through it’s no small feat to put together. I’ve seen every episode since it began (that’s around 78 episodes!) and am still hooked on it so it must be doing something right, I just hope it continues in the same fashion
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The Sound of iPod - As cool hardware hacks go this has got to be the best so far I’ve seen. Some guy has managed to extract the bootloader from a 4G iPod by sounding out ticks with the iPod’s squeaky piezo. The upshot of this being that hopefully soon you’ll be able to run Linux it, opening up a whole heap of cool new uses for this already excellent bit of kit.
More iPod links: Armour plate for your iPod & Maximising battery life HOWTO.
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After a fairly intensive perl-hacking session last night I’ve finally managed to collect enough data to render the first proper visualisation for my major project using a force-directed algorithm (which basically means the graph arranges itself dynamically on the screen). At the moment I have a linked list containing approximately 4000 nodes which appear to be arranged in eight distinct clusters on the visualisation:
Click here for the full-sized version
This represents around half of the Durham University network. I have purposefully left out inter-collage connections as I still need time to make the scanning technique more efficient without DOSing the connection. It may not look much right now but I’m pretty pleased with it!
If this sort of thing interests you check out Visual Thesaurus for a cool visual display of the English language within an interactive map.
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Is it just me or is advertising getting worse these days? Maybe it’s because I’m getting older but I’m sure the lengths to which advertisers are going these days to get their product noticed have reached new depths of depravity! From product placement in television and film to brand tie-ups, you just can’t escape the constant barrage of people trying to sell you things you don’t need in a way which I would class as morally questionable. I thought this advert I saw for a mobile phone the other day was a classic example:
“…users will be able to capture more of nature’s brilliance or life’s experiences and share the visions and memories in living colour.”
Ohh dear. In other words ‘you can take pictures with it’ - far more clear and concise I think! What makes this nonsense all the more worse is that the ones most taken in by this sort of junk are impressionable kids who then go and pester their parents for whatever the latest must-have fad is. Point in question would be the school at which my brother attends where there are a high proportion of what I would describe loosly as ‘posh kids’ who get whatever they ask for from their parents and then flaunt it over everyone else who can’t. They don’t actually need these things, they’re just lulled into thinking they do by the false economy created by advertising.
Strange world huh? Another side to this is the moronic nature of the adverts themselves which often present a misleading perspective on the world which only spreads ignorance and misunderstanding. Dan Washburn pointed this out recently recently, refering to IBM’s latests adds which paint an absurd view of rural China where computers enable distance learning. The only problem here being that electricity supplies are scarce let alone there being computers or the Internet avaliable!
Ok, enough of this. Rant Over!
Architecture of Density - (c) Michael Wolf
If your interested in photography (or just pretty pictures!) then this online exhibition of photos of architectural density in Hong Kong by Michael Wolf is well worth a look. There are also loads of other galleries you can browse through by clicking on the drop down menu’s at the top of the page.
I must apologise to those of you who may have noticed the distinct absence of my own photo galleries – this is because space & bandwidth is limited on my new host so I can’t afford to put them up right now but be assured they’ll be back in the future once I work out a cost effective way of doing it
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The good news is that as you may have noticed I’ve managed to resurrect most of my posts from January which were lost in the ‘The Great Crash‘ (as it will from here on in be known!). This was thanks to someones cached copy of the page which I managed to rip apart and reconstruct the content from (comments included!). I’m still missing one or two posts from between Jan12th-17th so if you happen to have a copy of them lying around please send them my way!
Now time for a first on RW.com - a restaurant review! One of very few to come I imagine considering the frequency with which I eat out but still…
Nagomi - Stowell Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne (0191 233 2333)
I visited Nagomi last Saturday for a friends birthday. Nagomi is a Japanese restaurant in the heart of Newcastle’s small, but functional China town district (go figure that one!). What first strikes your about the place is its incredibly well executed modern exterior and interior design which is typically Japanese as you would expect. The use of light is particularly good with internal frosted glass walls which cast an interesting luminescence and some soft hanging light shades over each table.
The important bit - the food! Unless you’re familiar with Japanese cuisine, or are with someone who is, the menu will probably look a bit daunting at first. If this is the case then my advise would be to stick with one of their simple set menu’s which are a fairly safe bet! If you go around lunchtime (12-3pm) then everything is a bit cheaper, starting at £6.50 for the set menu which includes desert.
I neatly side-steeped the sushi options and choose chicken on a bed of rice with miso soup (which also included a few other small dishes). It has a far more interesting name but I was too busy eating it at the time to remember to write down it’s Japanese name! Sufficed to say it was beautifully presented and tasted delicious (oishii!). I feel like a bit of a pro with the old chopsticks now and it was fun to see other people struggling with them for a change!
All-in-all I would throughly recommend Nagomi to anyone (8/10). For another review see here.
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