Rex Wickham – Page 10

Do Green buildings actually work?

Are green buildings actually genuine or is it just lip service to get the planning?

Kinetica building, Dalston — Kinetica, Dalston

I go past the Strata building in Elephant and Castle regularly and have never once seen the wind turbines going round.

The Telehouse West datacentre was hailed at “Green” during it’s construction but according to the press, the electricty from it’s solar panels only goes to provide charging facilities onsite for non-existent electric cars, and it’s heat exchange service ends at the site perimeter with no local housing within practical distance.

The Kinetica building I passed by on Sunday at Dalston’s Uprise festival and again no sign of the turbines moving despite the moderate wind.

9-11 Anniversary

The attacks on America 10 years ago today are being marked by many memorial events today. US President Obama is visiting all 4 sites and here in the UK there are many ceremonies and special religous services.

I was in Italy at the time of the attacks, on honeymoon with Jeanette. As often is the case when on holiday, daily news wasn’t part of the routine but on that particular day we’d turned on the television in our hotel room and watched in disbelief and then horror at the unfolding events.

The changes in American politics since has been dramatic and (to me) unfortunate – Guatanamo Bay, State approved torture, rendition. A survey into attitudes ten years after the 9/11 attacks has found over half thought that torture of suspected terrorists was OK, and a similar number favoured “harsh interrogation techniques.” It seems the USA has become desensitised to violence and I wonder if there is a way back to being the benign world policeman that has helped keep the globe largely at peace since World War II. On a more hopeful note, the survey also found that 46 per cent of people felt torture wasn’t justified. I wonder what a similar survey of UK citizens would reveal.

Taking it easy

Why do students get a concessionary rate for renting a deck chair?

Guess who we bumped into

..on the way to the tip…

Engrish packaging from Thailand toy

The text says:

Noks Frigate

Use hand and head — Training kid’s flexible for their proportion on the hands and eyes. Develop them imagination ability. Make a teaching fairyland.

Design munificent — It can be assemblaged detached over and over, and looks like vertiable. It needn’t any assist tools.

Perfect in workmanship — Materials are daintiness. Safety and slightly. Full of colour printing.

Regardless of the way it’s written it was actually great fun. Father and son had a good time putting it together. All for 100 Baht (=GBP£2) in Hat Yai.

Some jokes

Inspired by the best Edinburgh Fringe joke results, I came across these one-liners

A mate of mine recently admitted to being addicted to brake fluid. When I
quizzed him on it he reckoned he could stop any time….

I was at a cash point yesterday when a little old lady asked if I could
check her balance, so I pushed her over.

A new Middle East crisis erupted last night as Dubai Television was
refused permission to broadcast ‘The Flintstones’. A spokesman for the
channel said. “A claim was made that people in Dubai would not understand
the humour, but we know for a fact that people in Abu Dhabi Do.”

My daughter asked me for a pet spider for her birthday, so I went to our
local pet shop and they were £70!!! B******s to this, I thought, I can
get one cheaper off the web.

Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarves are not happy.

I start a new job in Seoul next week. I thought it was a good Korea move.

I was driving this morning when I saw an RAC van parked up. The driver was
sobbing uncontrollably and looked very miserable. I thought to myself
‘that guy’s heading for a breakdown.’

Convert MOD files

Conversion of .MOD files used on Panasonic camcorders.

SDCopy by Sektionschef

.mod files will play if you just change the file extension from .mod to .mpeg however if you do that and you recorded on your camera in 16:9 it will try and read the file as if it was shot in 4:3 resulting in a squashed picture. A few years ago, a kind person wrote some software to fix this and gave it away free. Unfortunately his website is gone now, so a copy of the software can be downloaded from here. I use “SDcopy V1.99 by Sektionschef” for all my .mod file conversions from my Panasonic SDR-SW20 it doesn’t squish the picture and it seems to be a “lossless” file conversion.

Canoeing to the pub

There can hardly be a more pleasant way to earn your pint than this. As long as you time it right, the tide will gently push you up river, you then disembark, sup a refreshing pint or two of EPA during slackwater, then allow the outgoing tide to help float back to Kew bridge.
Thank you James.

Russian Photo Archive

The Russian International News Agency has donated 100 historical photographs of the Second World War from their archives to the free image site, commons.wikimedia.org. You can view the first batch of images at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:RIA_Novosti

Here’s a small selection of the highlights.

Trains get an upgrade

Very surprised to find I was seated in the “entertainment” carriage on my journey to Taunton today. Entertainment on long train journeys used to be provided by snogging teenagers or dribbling grannies, but now First Great Western has airline-style video screens on the seat backs. Mains sockets were also available at each seat for your phone-charging or kettle boiling pleasure.

More Ryan air style, most of the content is paid (£1.75), but there some free stuff so you can see what you’re going to get.
Well done train company! Can we have it on the tube?