When I was young, I briefly toyed with the yo-yo. I was pretty hopeless at it, and could never be bothered to practise for long. This young man doesn’t seem to have had the same problem.
Category: Hobbies
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Guilty As Charged
I see that Diamond Geezer characterises me as a serial blogger. At first, I wasn’t exactly sure what the term meant, and I can’t seem to find a definition anywhere. I’m assuming that it means someone who regularly adds entries to his or her blog. If that’s the case, then yep, I guess I’m guilty as charged. But I thought that that was the whole purpose of keeping a blog? It seems to me that the term "serial blogger" is, in that case, tautological – just the simple "blogger" would be sufficient, surely? -
Honesty in Advertising
… a novel concept, I think you’ll agree. However, it clearly worked for the ex-owner of these leather pants, advertised on eBay. His reasons for selling them strike me as being painfully true.Oh, and the Q&A section is worth reading as well…(hat tip to Sadly, No! ) -
Caption Competition
Yep, those are knitting needles. Why are men so obsessed with size?(hat tip to And She Knits Too) -
The Infinite Flickr
Simple, but strangely compelling: The Infinite Flickr -
ELP Laser Turntable
For those audiophiles amongst you who continue to insist that the analogue LP is superior to digital CDs comes news of the ELP Laser Turntable. Forget about the wear and tear of using an old-fashioned stylus – this turntable uses a laser. It even looks like a retro CD player.
The ELP web site is very coy about saying what the price is, which led me to suspect that it would be a case of "if you have to ask, you can’t afford it". And yep, sure enough, prices (depending on the model) range from a cool $14,999 up to a staggering $18,999.
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Starry, Starry Night (Not)
A post on the star-gazing messageboard over at the BBC from an astronomer who is currently working in The Netherlands. He bemoans the fact that it’s been raining since he got here, and so he hasn’t been able to see the stars in the night sky.
Even if it wasn’t raining, it wouldn’t do him much good; the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and the resulting light pollution from the Randstad (the urban conglomeration made up of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht) pretty much obliterates any chance of a decent view. I live slap bang in the middle of all this, and I do miss clear night skies.
I had the good fortune to grow up on the Isle of Man, and light pollution there was easy to avoid. Some nights in Winter would be so clear that it was difficult for me to pick out the major constellations, there would be so many stars visible in the sky.
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Wouldn’t You Just Know It!
Having worked with computers, I’ve got resigned to the fact that the moment you decide to invest in a computer, the manufacturer seems to bring out a new version that is twice the speed at half the price.
Yesterday, Thursday, I discovered that the same effect works for other consumer goods.
On Wednesday, I had finally taken the plunge to invest in a digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera. I’d got my shortlist down to two: either a Canon 300D or a 20D. In the end I went for the cheaper 300D, reckoning that I could not justify to myself the additional cost of the 20D, despite its higher specification – for example, 8 Megapixels versus the 6.3 Megapixels of the 300D.
And of course, yesterday, Canon announce the introduction of the 350D – a camera that incorporates most of the 20D’s features into the 300D line at a cost between the two. Bah, humbug!
Geoff Coupe's Blog 