Month: May 2015

  • King’s Cross Pond

    At 8am this morning, I was one of only three people swimming in the brand new pool that has opened up near King’s Cross. The pond is an outdoor unheated pool set amidst the ongoing redevelopment of King’s Cross. It’s actually located behind the old grain store that has become Central Saint Martins art college,…

  • High Altitude Balloon Flight

    Those with longer memories may recall that I once tried to send a camera up on a bunch of helium balloons from a rooftop near work. We had, er, “mixed” results when a knot I tied turned out to be particularly poor. More recently I’ve launched cameras on kites with varying results. But the ultimate…

  • Ofcom on Audience Attitudes to Broadcast Media

    Ofcom, the UK broadcast regulator, carries out an awful lot of research, most of which it publishes on its website. But people are lazy, and they mostly just look at executive summaries and press releases. But there’s a lot more to it than that. There are often copious appendices with much more detail, and beyond…

  • RAJAR Q1 2015

    This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the past 8 years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I’m delighted to be able to bring you this analysis. For more details on RALF, contact Deryck Pritchard via this link or phone 07545…

  • Visions of the Future: Mad Max and Tomorrowland

    Mad Max: Fury Road, is just demented. In a good way. George Miller returns to his 1979 character, essentially re-imagining him, this time played by Tom Hardy. The film is very high concpet. Max is chased through the desert with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and a group of women the crazed leader of the “War…

  • Hyperlapse

    Microsoft has recently released its Hyperlapse tool – in Windows, Windows Phone and Android formats. I decided to put it to the test with a video shot on my commute home. I shot the video at quite a high frame-rate which probably didn’t help. Anyway, the result of the software is below. At the moment…

  • Storage and Backup: Some Personal Experiences

    [Note that this is likely to be duller than usual! It’s mostly written up so that anyone who searches for similar problems might find it useful.] This all began last Wednesday when I noticed an email from Synology inviting me to update the firmware that runs that two NAS drives I own – a DS210j…

  • In “How Can This Be Legal” News…

    A report today in the FT suggests that at least one mobile operator in Europe is planning on putting ad-blocking software into their network, with Google a named target. The software specifically targets web advertising rather than that in apps, and comes from an Israeli company. The reasoning is that networks are seeing massive growth…

  • Goodbye Comedy Central UK

    Or more particularly, Comedy Central Extra. But it comes to the same thing. I noticed a rather dispiriting Tweet earlier today from Hadley Freeman. As @ComedyCentralUK has INSANELY stopped showing The Daily Show, I'm RT-ing Jon Stewart's take on the UK election http://t.co/wyjqNa5Xaw — Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) May 12, 2015 That can’t be good. As…

  • Vote Early, Vote Oft… Er… Well Vote Anyway

    Polling stations are open until 10pm.

  • Hot Battery

    Note: This post is only likely to be of interest to some Sony Xperia Z3 users. I’m writing it as much as anything in case solutions should surface via Google. I’m having some fun and games at the moment with my Sony Xperia Z3 compact. It’s only a few months old, and I bought it…

  • The Power of Newspapers… Or Lack Thereof

    After the 1992 election when John Major defeated Neil Kinnock, The Sun published a now famous headline: “It’s The Sun Wot Won It.” I suspect that this is now a standard text that pupils examine in their GCSE Politics courses. Did The Sun really win it? Or were they just reading the runes and backing…