Long-running BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine is to be axed after 37 years, the BBC has announced.
via news.bbc.co.uk
I've 'fessed up to my deeply unfashionable love of Last of the Summer Wine before.
This news makes me sad - but I can't help but think that 37 years is a pretty good innings for a TV show...
The building itself is tucked behind high security fencing around the back of Olympia and looks like it was once a rambling Victorian mental hospital.Access is through full-height turn-styles which are electronically operated once your name has been verified on the intercom. I kid you not. They must have some valuable stuff in there somewhere.
Reception is access by fire-escape-style external metal steps and once you've signed in and been given a security pass you are escorted to the reading room through a card activated turn style, and two card activated doors down a long, silent corridor. Once at the equally quiet reading room you have to deposit your bag in a locker and only pencils are allowed.
Rev Stan passes through the endless security of the V&A's little-known theatrical archive.
How many people outside academia even know that this exists?
Still trying to figure out where to live next…
via londonist.com
The picture above represents the most photographed areas of London, based on the geotagging data found on images in Flickr and Picasa. (More here.)
Now, we have to introduce some caveats here. This image is shaped by the combination of people who have cameras that automatically geotag photos, and those who can be bothered to do it later. But, given the density and distribution, I think it's pretty accurate.
And this is something the archiving nerd in me finds interesting. Here, a whole agglomeration of data (or photos, if you like) has been used to create something else simply through analysis of the metadata associated with them.
We geeks get excited about tagging the things we create - but my experience suggests that explicit tagging (where people choose to apply the metadata) is a minority support at best. Automated tagging, where metadata is applied at the moment of creation (like geotagging) or as the image passes through software (face recognition)opens up far more opportunity for us to analyse and understand the world, through our join creative endeavours.
Isn't that cool? :)
There was a small debate on Twitter this morning, possibly triggered by Glynn, about the relationship between hemlines and the economic conditions. He found this reference:
Almost anything can be an economic indicator. Back in the 1920s, the economist George Taylor conceived the hemline index, finding that skirts got longer as the economy slowed. These days, there's been talk of a haircut index, with short locks signaling a market drop.Now, this season seems to be all about maxi dresses. And this story about stars shearing their locks short just popped up on a fashion blog.
Double dip recession anyone?
Never. Darn kids should stay off my virtual lawn.
When I was a kid we had to network using a 28.8k baud modem… (etc, etc, etc)
<blockquote>
Never. Darn kids should stay off my virtual lawn.<br />
I've found the idea of tribalism to be increasingly useful in understanding political behaviour. Faced with the need to make a decision based on incomplete information, people may often attempt to understand how others like them are behaving and behave in that fashion. This isn't really a new insight; politicians have been playing to group identities forever.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons I've always been so uncomfortable with tribalism, particularly in politics. It's so open to manipulation and abuse by the unscrupulous.
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
My old computers have mainly cascaded down the family, before eventually leaving the family via a gift, or breaking and heading to the recycling centre. So, my last laptop is now with my mother-in-law, the iMac before last is at my brother's place in France. And my brother-in-law is using my very first iBook still.
The only computer I've "used to death" was my iMac G4, which finally died after 6 years of use. I'm typing this on its replacement.
My old phones have traditionally gone to recycling, but my last iPhone went to a member of my extended family.
<blockquote>
My old computers have mainly cascaded down the family, before eventually leaving the family via a gift, or breaking and heading to the recycling centre. So, my last laptop is now with my mother-in-law, the iMac before last is at my brother's place in France. And my brother-in-law is using my very first iBook still.<br />
I sometimes think Adobe is fighting the wrong fight. The current spat between the two over Flash is well documented (and I rather like Jeff's take on it). But Adobe's real strength, to me, is in its Creative Suite product, and Photoshop in particular. And last night I had my first chance to play with the latest version of it. I've been looking forward to the new Content Aware abilities (see posts passim), because I'm in the process of digitising and restoring a whole bunch of old family photos.
Here's what I started with last night:
Faded, damaged, parts of the edges missing. It's not in a terrible state, but it would be pretty time-consuming to restore under previous versions of Photoshop.
30 minutes later, extensive use of the content-aware tool and this is the result:
And, you know what? I'm pretty pleased with that. I intend to go to work with some more challenging images in the next few days.
CS5 has four major improvements that – on paper – jumped out at me. The most exciting is content-aware fill – and when I first used it on one of my photos, my jaw dropped.
I had taken a picture of a French manor house, which was perfect, except that a gardener was standing in front of it. Using the lasso tool, I drew very roughly around the man and pressed Delete. The Fill dialogue box appeared. Into that, I chose content-aware fill. Photoshop, almost magically, replaced the gardener with the brickwork and the climbing plant that he was standing in front of. It was as though he had never been there
I've just bagged my upgrade, and will be playing with it tonight - I'm really quite excited now.
No. No. No.
Also, no.
I'm at my limit with TV repurchasing. First it was Dolby Digital Stereo, and then widescreen, and then surround sound, and then flat panel TV of various sort and now HD. And those all actually improved the viewing experience. 3D? Not so much. I'm quite happy to head along to a cinema for a couple of hours, pop on the X-ray specs and enjoy the 3D experience in the dark. At home, watching a movie with my wife? No.
I'm far more interested in the shift towards downloadable and streaming traditional content than yet another "innovation" in home movie watching. This feels like another gimmick to try and sell us another round of TVs - and I'm not playing.
<blockquote>
No. No. No.<br />
Well, two of the major parties that went into this General Election were promising change, and they have delivered on that promise, but not in a way many of us expected.
Gordon Brown has stepped down, and New Labour slips from power 13 years after it swept to a landslide victory. When New Labour came to power, I was sat at home, celebrating. When Gordon Brown resigned, I was, rather prosaically, in my car, driving home from work and listening to Radio 4. While I feel no sadness in the political passing of Brown, I’m not exactly celebrating the arrival of Cameron in No. 10 either.
As I tweeted once I was home: .bbpBox{background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/1930642/header.png) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;}p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px}p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6}p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px}p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px}p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
Appear to have left work under Labour and arrived home under the Tories...
Adam Tinworth
adders
The truth is, no-one really knows what this coalition government will bring. We’re in unexplored territory, and that’s intriguing.
I have, despite myself, really enjoyed the days since the election. The possibility of something different has opened up in British politics - and, while that potential may turn out to be illusory, we are very much just at the end of the first act. We have plenty of drama ahead - the revelation of the full cabinet, the deals that have been done of policy to pull this coalition together, the fight for the soul of the Labour party in the leadership election - and thus have a long way to go until we know what the new status quo is.
If your heart and soul is in the Labour Party, you have reason to be despondent tonight. For the rest of us, well, we’re living in interesting times. Somehow, a party with a large, working majority never seemed very interesting to follow. This curious alliance of the centre left and the (claimed) centre right? This should be very interesting indeed.
via scyfilove.com
This ScyFi Love post is as good a followup to this as I could hope.
I've become something of an internal hung parliament myself.
The journalist in me is delighted. Think of all the stories that will emerge from this situation - the political deals that will be done, the knife-edge votes, the constant possibility of a fallen government. Oh, and a second election within the year - two at the outside. Brilliant.
Another part of me - the part that wants to buy a house and start a family - is a little nervous that we don't have a majority government, that the massive deficit will not be addressed properly, and that the markets will panic, harming the economy. A related, but far from identical, part of me is gutted that the LibDems didn't make more progress in the polls.
And a last, but vocal, part of me is glad that whatever emerges from this mess will be a government that will have to govern by consensus and debate, rather than just pushing their own, narrow agenda through with their majority.
As soon as a few of these parts of myself manage to form a coalition, I'll let you know. ;-)
I've been a wee bit busy of late - playing catch-up at work, after a few days off sick, and away for a christening at the weekend. Here's a few photos from the event in lieu of a real post:
Chicks don't get it. Unless you are in a relationship where the woman is legally obligated to stay with you or you have possession of her car keys, for Time Lord's sake, don't bring up the Doctor.
I don't buy that. Back in the 1980s or 90s, Who fandom was pretty much all blokes. But those days appear to be gone - I'm sure there are as many new female Who fans amongst my Twitter followers, for example, as there are guys.
Anyone care to back me up on this?
I've just added the new Facebook Like button to this blog - you can see it to the right, under the search box.
If you chose to Like it, you'll get updates in your Facebook news feed on those rare occasions when I post here…
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
Thought-provoking (but probably not much use, given how hard land for private development is to find in the UK right now).
I associate prostitute adverts with Soho phone boxes, not the post box outside the flat.
This is not a change to the neighbourhood that delights me.
So, based on many rave blog posts and articles in magazines, I treated myself to a 50mm f1.8 lens for my Canon DSLR, and I've been having fun out and about with it. Fast shutter speeds, really shallow depth of field. Just great. I see why people rave about these things.
These images were grabbed in my mother-in-law's back garden last week:
There's more to be found over on Flickr.
I promised you an explanation of my current photo project, didn't I?
It was inspired (or, more accurately re-inspired) by this post over on Lemonlight. Angie's evocative pics reminded me of the particular texture of film and the images it produces. I went essentially 100% digital in my photography around late 2004, and I've had a bunch of unexposed, unused film lying around ever since. I'd been meaning to shoot them, rather than seeing them going to waste, and see what the results are.
To add a twist, I've decided that I can only shoot things I come across through the course of my day - I'm not going to go anywhere or do anything special to find these photos.
The image in this post, and the previous ones, were all shot around RBI's office in Sutton on, of all things, a roll of WH Smith colour negative film - which I have a suspicion was Mum's rather than mine. Most of the pics are straight reject, but a small handful of the scans are going into my Aperture library as a record of the texture of my life right now.
On to the next roll…
Spring finally seems to have arrived in London, so I took the opportunity to walk a chunk of the distance home this evening. I headed down Kingsway, across Waterloo Bridge and made my way to London Bridge along the south bank.
And the light was so very beautiful, I couldn't resist trying to grab some images using the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone. After some experimentation, I settled on the Helga lens and Verichrome film as best suited to the conditions. And I'm pretty pleased with the results .
Buildings:
Plants:
Construction:
I'm really pleased with these results. I'm planning a few more walks if the weather stays good…
This amused me - this is the feed from Boris Johnson's blog in my feed reader. Note the partial feed. Tsk.
Also note: the keyword-based feed advertising inserting an ad for Labour in the Tory mayor's feed.
Bonus note: does that mean if I'd clicked through, a small amount of Labour money would have gone to Boris?
Some pictures from the early stages of a little photographic project I've set myself:
The observant might be able to make an educated guess as to what it is - but I'll write more about it tomorrow.
