Scotland beat France 1-0 yesterday. Here are some Scots enjoying the health benefits of smoking in the drizzle:
Tag: eat
outlook contacts to palm, iPod, etc …
This is a neat workaround: Export Outlook Contacts using a small VB script. It works, too — I now have all my work contacts in my Palm.
neat neat neat
about to be gone
This corner of Bloor & Bedford is about to be gone:
It has memories for us, as the first place we stayed when we arrived was just up the road. Breakfast was at Country Style (which became a Booster Juice after the massive Tim’s opened across the road), lunch was from Pita Factory, the daily paper from Gus at the Mac’s, dinner was sometimes at Swiss Chalet #1; all on the same block, all going to be gone.
If you look at the bigger picture, you’ll see that hugin neatly severed a couple of heads. It might smart a little, but with some bactine and gauze, it’ll grow back in the morning.
no, it just isn’t
Finding a source of “Unlimited free energy” would be the most unimaginably heinous crime possible against humanity. For it would inevitably turn the planet into a cinder. Hastening an isoentropic heat death. If you find a free energy source, you damn well better find a new free energy sink as well. Even then, the relative flux rates will still nail you.
— Don Lancaster, How to Bash Pseudoscience.
free bikes at 892 Kennedy Rd
6 or so slightly rusty open-frame roaders; some Raleighs, a Dunelt, and maybe a couple of Eaton’s Flyers. None look rideable, but if you were a three-speed/coaster brake fiend, there are parts galore.
ill-advised name, great store
BM-Electronics swapped my ill-fated nVidia card for a shiny fast MSI ATI PCIe card with no restock fee; yay BM!
They’re rapidly becoming my favourite computer store; they always have what I need, and it always does what they say it does. It may look a bit grubby, but it’s great
to work, and back again
Biked to work today, and just got back. Maybe not the smartest choice of a day — second hottest of the year, with thunderstorms threatened — but I made it. Going there was rather slow, as I got lost a couple of times, but coming back was faster than transit.
If I felt really nerdy, I’d post my route as GPX, but it’s a bit twisty.
loaches!
We are troubled by water snails, so Mike at Finatics suggested some clown loaches. We now have four Chromobotia macracanthus zooming around, and they’re the only ones that’ll stand up to the algae eaters.
And I get to say loach again: loach!
more fish
Got more fish from Finatics today: four high-fin platies, three algae-eaters, and three more threestrip corys. Our tank is busy!
the end of poverty in your coffee cup?
I’m not sure what to make of EWB‘s current campaign, which features a future newspaper headline G8 Leaders Declare End of Extreme Poverty. It links to playyourpart.ca, which seems to say that we can end world poverty just by buying fair-trade goods?
I know there’s a lot wrong with the coffee industry (Free Trade Coffee: You Grind The Beans, We Grind The Peasants! Enjoy the smooth trickle-down flavour, etc) but it’s a simplistic argument. What can the extremely poor sell to us?
I don’t know what to think.
National Convenience Store Day
mmm, mistaan
Ritesh & Abhay introduced us to a great Indian restaurant — Mistaan, at 460 McNicoll. It’s mostly a Bengali sweet shop, but has a food counter. The chicken saag I had was great. We’ll be back.
completely tanked
I spent most of yesterday setting up the aquarium. It’s an 120l one, so it’s a lot bigger and heavier than anything I’ve worked with before. It’s been running since then, getting the water ready, and I put in a couple of plants today. Real plants, that is; not the plastic ones that came with the tank.
The tank’s already got a couple of denizens; some tiny snails that were lurking on the plants. I don’t think they’re anything to freak out about yet. If they’re still alive in the morning, at least I know the water’s not completely toxic.
The biggest problem has been making sure the heater’s working. Today it’s been hotter in the house than the tank, so I don’t know if the set-point’s wrong.
didn’t make it
One of the little guys didn’t make it. There’s a sad little grey fuzzy corpse in the back yard, already pulsing with disco rice and greenbottles.
my, how you’ve grown!
it’s over ….
AWEA 2006, that is. Best swag was probably the places that had USB keys; yeah, they’re only 64MB, but these are big enough for tiny Linuxes or restore tools.
Freebies aside, it was a great show, and I guess a few hundred thousand business cards changed hands.
AWEA06: by the river (or in it, nearly)
We’re not getting the best weather for the conference, but I hear that the coincidentally-running Three Rivers Arts Festival has had rain 18 out of the 20 years it has run, so noone’s surprised.
Conference hasn’t quite started yet, but the preliminary swag is quite promising; yoyos and balsa aircraft.
I spent the day in workshop run by KidWind, who have a school science kit for teaching the basics of wind turbine effectiveness. We got to build wind turbines, and test them. Here’s mine, big wean that I am:
I guess I got some losses near the hub there, but at least it worked. I was the only developer type there (there was a DoE person, and lots and lots of Pennsylvania teachers). I came away impressed, and hope I can work with Michael Arquin of KidWind to bring the project to Ontario.
(This post has the worst GPS location ever; could only get a fix to within 100m, so that’s why the map location appears to be in the river.)
Ã…rhus, in the middle of our street
And so our Danish Wind Odyssey draws to a close, after visiting Rinkøbing, Lem and Randers today. We’re up at an unsensible hour tomorrow to fly to Copenhagen. It was a great trip. Will post photies.
mother’s day treat: critters!
We were visited by the raccoon family last night; mother and four little ones. Please excuse the ‘painterly’ blur; it’s kinda hard to handhold a 300mm lens for 1/3s exposure. Plus, wee raccoons are speedy little things.
This one was taken a few days back (of the mother alone) in better light:
