Category: just-plain-life

Found via Imran Ali while we were chatting about late night working. I think we went from talking about Energy Drinks and Coffee into scales of measurements into the The Scoville scale.

The Scoville scale is a measure of the hotness or piquancy of a chili pepper, as defined by the amount of capsaicin, (a chemical compound which stimulates nerve endings in the skin) present.

Some hot sauces use their Scoville rating in advertising as a selling point.

The scale is named after its creator, American chemist Wilbur Scoville, who developed a test for rating the pungency of chili peppers. His method, which he devised in 1912,^[1] is known as the Scoville Organoleptic Test. An alternative method for quantitative analysis uses high-performance liquid chromatography, making it possible to directly measure capsaicinoid content.

Nice to know.

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I twittered this about 6hours ago – bbc manchester attack from gaza protesters. very loud and won't leave. So here's some of what was going on during that tweet and the retweets. Some video but nothing seems to play the audio because the whole thing was captured on my work mobile phone. Then there's a few photos I snapped with the same phone. I did record a much high rez video but haven't uploaded it yet because I was in a rush trying to get everything sorted for Werewolf.

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Yes I know Skins is made for 30 somethings who want to believe a teenagers life in 2009 is just like this. But you know what I kind of like it. Part of my enjoyment is it being set in Bristol and boy oh boy those 'cut your throat down after a bottle of cider at chasers' accents. Yes there really rough and some very ropey but they do remind me of home, specially now living in Manchester.

What I love about the Bristolian dialect is the interesting usage of words such as.

• A'write me Lover.
• Right you are my love.
• Gurt lush
• Smittin

There's a shop in Bristol where you can buy T-shirts with the interesting phrases on it. Actually looking at Wikipedia.

A dialect of English is spoken by some Bristol inhabitants, known colloquially as Bristolian, or even more colloquially as “Bristle” or “Brizzle”. Bristol is the only large English city with a rhotic accent, in which the r in words like car is pronounced. The unusual feature of this dialect, unique to Bristol, is the Bristol L (or terminal L), in which an L sound is appended to words that end in an 'a' or 'o'.Thus “area” becomes “areal”, etc. This is believed to be how the city's name evolved from Brycgstow to have a final 'L' sound: Bristol. Further Bristolian linguistic features are the addition of a superfluous “to” in questions relating to direction or orientation (a feature also common to the coastal towns of South Wales), or using “to” instead of “at”; and using male pronouns “he”, “him” instead of “it”. For example, “Where's that?” would be phrased as “Where's he to?”, a structure exported to Newfoundland English.

Stanley Ellis, a dialect researcher, found that many of the dialect words in the Filton area were linked to work in the aerospace industry. He described this as “a cranky, crazy, crab-apple tree of language and with the sharpest, juiciest flavour that I've heard for a long time”

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So I've already done a review of 2008 and I see everyone's doing there resolutions, so its time for my 2009 resolutions.

1. Go skiing on real snow

   Yeah believe it or not I can Ski, I learned over a summer holiday on a scheme called Splash in Bristol. Now to be fair that was like 12 years ago but I think I can still do it. But I've yet to try it on real snow, only dry slope. People tell me its easier on Snow, so I should be skiing down the black run before you know it.

2. Work and execute a Alternative Reality Game

   I'm still a fan of these things, and want to build upon what we already had last year but maybe change some of the goals to something much more local and spreadable.

3. Build up a better routine
   So as most of you know, I'm a night person. I tend to ponder, read and write at night and don't feel the effects of being tired till very late. So because of that I'm going to bed at times when people are starting to wake up. This isn't right and I'm now vowing to go to bed before 2am every night and get up before 10:30am every day. This means I should build up a good routine and people can start to expect to see me more often. I think its also about layering the routines on slowly one by one instead of making sweeping changes.
4. Work smarter, with less pace and less stress
   This is important because although the easy thing to say is I want to spereate my work and play life, I think thats frankly bull (as Nicky says its all very grey) and I enjoy doing what I do at work. So I want to find a way to do much less of the boring stuff in my own time. This is also a extension of Use the technologies around me better, because I want to start paying for more services which save me time or do good things for me. Currently I pay for Plaxo, Basecamp, Flickr and a few others. On the pace side I want to slow down less urgent stuff like replying to emails.
5. Go out more and be live more heathly
   So this time its not just about Comedy clubs but also about going out clubbing. My experience at Gatecrasher on new years eve reminded me how much I love Trance music. Man you can't beat that combination of rhythm, 4 on 4 beats and melodies. So I've decided I should try going to more, even if it means going alone (but if anyone wants to come along, give me shout).
   I'm also living more heathly, since I've moved to Manchester. Not only am I walking everywhere but I've never had takeaway delivered to my flat. If I don't feel like cooking, I'll go out to a restaurant instead and even after clubbing or a night on the town my flat is close enough to go home and cook up something quickly. I'm also playing Volleyball regularlly and hope to pick up Basketball again soon. So its all go on that front already.
6. Be more daring with matters of the heart
   I'm a confident guy but don't take enough risks, so thats going to change this year. Don't worry I'll be a perfect Gentleman. Sometimes…
7. Start organising Werewolf and Werewolf+ nights in the North
   Yep this one is simple but also it would nice to develop Werewolf+ as I'm coining it as. I got talking to Cristiano about my thoughts for extended Werewolf rules and between us we came up with something quite interesting but we never quite wrote it down or tried it out. So this year, I think we should actually develop it, write it up and let it spread.
8. Build a web application
   So theres a couple of small scale web 2.0 applications which I'd like to build, this was why I was trying to learn Python and even Air. But I've decided its not about the language. I think some of my realtime web mashups can be done using my existing knowledge in XSL. Plus I've been looking at Cocoon 2.2 and 3.0, its seems you can build very powerful apps which are deployed without the usual cocoon madness. Aka I can create little webapps using nothing more that XSL and XML.
9. Blog every film I watch
   I watch and own a ton of films, but I watch them like I chew bubble gum. So I'm going to try blogging each one even if that means mentioning them on a Microblogging service. I'll try and tag them with hashes or the like, so maybe I can later pull all my reviews together or see all the movies I've watched over the course of a month or year.
10. Read more
    So I bought a ipod touch for reading ebooks and RSS. And to be fair I'm reading a ton more RSS thanks to the ipod and Newsgator. Hopefully the ebooks won't be far behind, but I do need to find a good source for the latest stuff like the new Thomas Friedman book. I was going to suggest I read before bedtime but that never works. So when ever I got a spare moment, out pops the ipod and off I go reading, neato.
11. More Trance music
    I love trance music, I really love it. So it comes as no surprise that I'm thinking not only should I be out clubbing more but I should be listening and mixing more.
    I've recently found that almost every trance dj have there own podcasts, which is usually a mix. So its like getting a mix tape every week from the best djs in the world. For example here's Gareth Emery's , Armin Van Buuren's (currently number one dj in the world by the way) and Tiestos podcasts. I'm also thinking I could get back into djing live now I got the Pacemaker. So I'm hoping to play live in front of a clubbing crowd by the end of 2009. In the meanwhile I'm also looking into djing at smaller parties, festivals and online radio. I mean the pacemaker gives me huge flexiblity, I could dj out of a moving car if I wanted to.
12. Lots more graphics
    Believe it or not, I use to be a designer or am a designer. I find diagrams and visuals useful to understand and to communicate. I don't know why I've taken to writing a lot more over the last decade. Maybe its just the medium or something. Anyway, I'm going to do a lot more work in one of my fav open source app – Inkscape. And I've recently started playing with POV Ray again. POV Ray or Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a amazing piece of software. It uses text files to create scenes that are Raytraced not Rendered. (Theres a very important difference between the two). The best thing about Povray is that it runs on every system and I can render scenes of higher that HD rez in seconds on my 2ghz laptop (unfortually it still only supports single processors right now).

Technorati Tags: newyear, resolutions

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I was on a dancefloor in gatecrasher, dancing my heart out to some classic trance tunes. If you enjoyed the video above, there's more on blip.tv including lots of laser action, enjoy!

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I love going clubbing, everytime I go, I remember what I'm missing in this weekend world. Anyway, there's a few things which do bug me about the experience. And seeing how I just got back from Gatecrasher NYE in Bristol's Syndicate Club, I thought I'd share a few of them before going to sleep for most of New Years day.

1. I don't like it when I go to a club and the bouncer/door person looks at me and asks if I know what's on tonight. This has happened at a few places including Gatecrasher, where the door man asked me and without letting me answer started jumping side to side clicking his fingers saying something about it being a hard house night. I replied with “ummm no its a trance night.” And he says “all the same to me…”
2. I don't understand why the door people make a big fuss about whats in my little bag but fail to check my pockets or even do a quick body search. If I was carrying drugs why would I put it in my bag? And a weapon could be tied into the lining of my motorcycle jacket easily.
3. I don't understand why I MUST check my bag into the cloakroom but woman are allowed to carry huge handbags around with them?
4. I don't like being followed through a club like I'm public enemy number one. And if your going to watch me, don't stand beside me or just behind me, its too obvious and surely a hour or so of doing must be boring, even if you swap now and then with another.
5. Plastic bottles are good, they stop people killing each on the dancefloor, woman can wear baare feet and club generally. But they make a terriable mess on the dancefloor because they get slidey when crushed
6. What is it with Lazers, there amazing but only on for 2mins max at a time and there no longer pointed towars the crowd. Even from a safe distance. And whats with the lack of programmes?
7. The guy who stands in the toilet all night. I don't like it, there always usually african and get abuse from drunk people. I also sometimes just want to get out of the stinking mens toilet as fast as possible but can't because I can't dry my hands till the guy gives me a paper towel and then I need to leave a tip or be rude. In actual fact, that exchange is a influencing trick, where someone does something small for you and then you reicplicate at a much higher cost that the first action.
8. I don't expect to get the piss taken out of me on a new years eve when getting a taxi back home. They wanted 40 pounds for a journey (town to Fishponds) which is shorter that the journey I took 2 days ago (Clifton to Fishponds) which cost about 15 pounds. In the end I walked from town to Eastville because I also missed the night bus which only came once every hour
9. What stupid rule is it it that you can't use a dayrider (all day all buses faire) on a night bus, the following morning. Bristol sort out the public transport
10. Why make a back door exit into a smoking area in a club? The cold air blows into the club and it starts to smell smokey again. This is not good, at least put something between the outside and inside. I've gotten so use to going clubbing and coming home smelling slightly sweaty but not like I've just walked through a forest fire.

That will do for now

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If you didn't receive one in your mailbox, no worries. Here it is for you to print off, make your festive wallpaper or just throw darts at. Thanks to Cristiano for the excellent photograph, I just tweaked the levels and let Plaxo do the rest. Shame Plaxo eCards couldn't send them out too, but thats another story.

Happy Christmas to everyone…

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As most of you know, I spend a lot of time going back and forth between London and Manchester. The BBC does pay for my hotel and travel but there are strict limits which must be followed. The limits are great if your outside of London, but extremely difficult in Central London. Anyway, I tend to try out different BBC preferred hotels because I've not found one I'm totally happy with.

So last week I had the pleasure of Club Quarters on Northumbria Street (behind Charing Cross Station). It offered a government rate which was compatible and so I booked it. Not only is club quarters very nice, modern and clean, but they give you lots of space and some rooms have a full kitchen setup so its like being in a serviced apartment.

What really got me going however was the Media Panel (see above picture) which not only had a hook up for playing your laptop or mp3player on the TV, but a dedicated VGA connection, Ethernet and even a Composite connection. I can't tell you the amount of times i've wanted to play something on the big screen in the room but not been able to get around the back of the plasma screen or have the cables to do the hook up. There's also power on the desk directly and free wifi through-out the hotel. Believe it or not I've been in hotels where there has only been one power socket and thats been used for the TV.

Its unfortunately not all perfect, for example breakfast is not included in the cost, although being in central London means theres a much cheaper cafe serving a full english breakfast not far away. Club quarters also insist on me giving them a credit card for extras (although they don't have a minibar and water is freely available on each floor). They say the reason why is to stop people using the rooms under other names.

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Saw this a while ago in the Mirror newspaper, thought it was worth noting as I do prefer a woman with a larger/fuller figure myself. I should be in luck it would seem going by the poll, because compared to London, the North seems to have lots more fuller figure woman. Now I just need to meet them all. From Flickr…

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So if you missed it, the Price of Property on Channel4 (ep3 of 4) was all about Manchester. It had everything in it from the new place Urbansplash was advertising to me a few weeks back to the megabucks deansgate tower (all of 5mins walk from where I live). But what was most interesting was the woman who paid for 7 flats without looking at them in person. Yes its tragic, but the flats which they filmed her going into were the the Danube flats. Yes my block of flats. She's has the bigger balcony that myself but everything is exactly the same. More pictures here.

Generally the documentary series is interesting and worth catching if you can. Its certainly made me think more twice about buying a flat in Manchester at this current moment. I might even be better moving out and into a another set of flats. Rental pricing is going down and that means those penthouse appartments are even more affordable.

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Hot of the press, here's the latest artist impression of what MediaCityUK is going to look like in Salford Quays. Interestingly enough the big criss-crossed building is the new location of Salford University. Next to that is a hotel, then next to that one of the BBC buildings. If your interested in more pictures, check out my Salford quays set.

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So if you cast your memories back a while ago, I tried to help out some friends by getting the lost ring from a gallery in Manchester's trendy northern quarter. The woman wasn't happy with the fact that I was on the phone and didn't look the part when picking up the ring. So she emailed and phoned someone to find out if it was ok. It wasn't, so we had to send someone else in the next day to do the deeds. That was all caught on camera later but here's the transcript of the discussion between PMs (Puppetmasters) James Tinsley and Jan McGonigal, after I had gone into the gallery and was waiting next door for the final word.

Maybe if there was no glass box, maybe I should have done what other groups did, snatch and run. Then again, we wanted the box it came in too. Plus I did say the passphase correctly!

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Over the last few months I've been taking pictures of interesting things on my camera phone (HTC Kaiser). The camera is actually pretty good but lacks a flash for all round use. Anyway, he's the selection…

I love seaside towns like Blackpool. They always have the best arcades and they never get rid of the old ones. So I found Ridge Racer full scale (good but slow) then Ridge Racer 2 (faster graphics and remixed sound track, much more techno)

Going back and forth between London and Manchester late night I see some interesting sights in Euston and Piccadilly stations. Usually drunk people doing stupid things. But this time I was passing the screenis in Euston and I noticed the Hamachi windows gui running. Closer shots show there using a secured hamachi network to control the advertising across a 3g link. This shows two things, Hamachi is good enough for commercial setups and can operate on adhoc low speed connections.

This is how I got my beanbag back from Mashed 08. Yes it does look like my scooter has a huge ass on the top of it. I was getting lots of people waving and honking there horns as I rode from Piccadilly to my flat.

Oh have I forgotten the joy of tapes…

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So I thought I'd do a test tonight to taste the difference between rare and well done steaks. I use to a long time ago always ask for my steaks to be well done when asked but slowly over the years started asking for quite well done, then rare to medium then medium and sometimes now just medium-rare. So I thought hey lets actually do a taste test. I did errr on putting up the pictures because I know so many of friends are veggies and even when sitting at the same dinner table as them, I will ask if they don't mind if I order my meat medium-rare (what a nice guy I am right?)

So whats the verdict? Well I think this picture says it all. The steak was exactly the same cut and from the same package (bought at Sainsburys) but one cooked for 3mins each side and the other one 7mins each side. The rare steak was juicy and much nicer to eat. Yes hardly scientific but I can confirm I prefer them rare or medium-rare, but I was shocked at the difference in size.

Ok back to your usual programming…

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So I'm on a couple of dating sites, no shame in this. There usually a good way to meet new people from totally different werks of life. Anyway I've noticed out of the two sites I'm on, one is full of spammers and the other there are almost none. What's strange is the one which is free (okcupid) is spam free and the other one (speeddater) which actually costs is spam heaven. Now to be honest I didn't really choose speeddater, it was attached to the speeddating events. But what kills me is how stupid the spam gets. Like I said a while ago about ebay, I'm outting all dirty spammers by posting their emails and email contents online for others to read and for google to index for others who might be tricked into their scams. I regularlly get 1-3 emails a day, I generally send back a stock reply saying.

Sorry I have to do this but please reply if your a real person and not a dirty spammer

Here's some of the replies and stupid emails I recieve.

From Sandraratrue (i mean come on!)

I dnt understand wat u mean

Email from Hellen_jennile (very odd name)

Hi thanks for the mail and am very soory to get back to you very late it

was due to my job.. i will like to know more about you and you can

meet me on yahoo messanger hellen.jennile2006@yahoo.com…Hope

to chat you soon.and i will like to tell you that am not that kind of

people am a real and god fearing lady.

Hellen..

This one kills me everytime, this time from Tracy2008200

Hello Sweetie,

How are you doing ? I was on this site trying to look at profiles

before i found your profile interesting . You sound so nice and i

will be happy to get along with you ) I think we have alot in

common if you are interested kindly give me a chance to get to

know you. I am a single dad of a Son *john*4years old .I live in

Alabama. I just think i will give it a try maybe i could find a

friend then see what happen. Can i be your friend?..I am easy to

get along with also a simple man. I own a house and i live alone

with Son and my pets . I lost my wife in unto Accident 3years ago.

Its a long story . I am willing to get along with you. Can you

give a chance so that we can get to know more about each other .

If you are interested please send me an IM or send..If you are

interested please send me an send me an message to my e.mail

address tracy.debby@yahoo.com

Hope to hear back from you.

Tracy

From Irino4ka (who interestingly cancelled _his_ profile today)

Hello not the familiar friend!!!

I the lonely girl from Russia, wish to find lonely beloved, is

not simple for games, and for serious attitudes.

There are interested persons, write to me I shall answer

without a delay. Beforehand I thank for your time given for me.

P.S. I write from the Internet – cafe, therefore I have inquiry

to you.

Please write to me on: konushnya@yahoo.com

Another Russian lady, this time olhakiska

Hello!

My name is Olga. I am interested in acquaintance with you. I am

interesting woman with good character, sense of humor, opens in

dialogue. I love to bring happiness to people, and the best thing I

need in this life is the happy smile of my Beloved man. I want to love

and to be loved. Tell more about a place where do you live. I will

look forward to hearing from you.

You can write me: ma3bl.lyalyagirl777@gmail.com

Have a good day.

Last one for today, Sallyisloving

Hi

I'm Sally, i seem to be new to this online thing.if you go thru my profile it would tell you

more about me..You seem to be very interesting..I'm seeking a relationship..Are

you?..Here is my email… sallyisloving@yahoo.com ,email me bcos i feel on email is

better than on here bcos its a more easier and better way to communicate… or you can

im me or add me on msn messenger …I would be waiting to hear from you as soon as

possible..

Yours Sincerely

Sally

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