tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81302192091274727802011-06-13T10:19:52.994+01:00Random thoughts on life, the universe and everything.Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.comBlogger251100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-4935105989786714692011-04-08T16:33:00.002+01:002011-04-08T16:47:51.154+01:00

Some time ago a friend quoted the old saying about when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I replied that I make sorbet. She said that wouldn't do for her as she's allergic to eggs. I mentioned that I don't use egg in my sorbet and she asked for the recipe. Having typed it up I thought I might as well reproduce it here.Citrus sorbet (eggless)Ingredients3 or 4 lemons or limes, preferably

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-40559612214696078432009-05-12T17:45:00.004+01:002009-05-12T18:42:39.191+01:00

I'm not an avid photographer, but have still managed to accumulate over 2800 35mm slides before I bought my first digital camera in September 2003. These have been sitting in a couple of shoe boxes, slowly decaying, for up to 30 years. A few weeks ago I decided to bite the bullet and transfer them to modern, indestructible, digital form.A bit of web searching suggested there are three classes of

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-8524799943480544882009-04-21T17:10:00.004+01:002009-04-21T18:09:05.253+01:00

Our hotel was almost deserted on Monday morning, in stark contrast to the previous day. We checked out nice and early and went into Bouillon for a bit of shopping. The only supermarket in town is a branch of colruyt. I don't know the pecking order of Belgian supermarkets, but colruyt appears to be at the budget end. They did have some Luxembourg wines and Duvel beer though, which is all we wanted

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-24730245618222546592009-04-14T17:33:00.005+01:002009-04-21T18:10:45.032+01:00

On Sunday we visited the Orval abbey ruins. My main interest in Orval is, of course, the beer brewed there. After many years of serious beer drinking I've decided it's my favourite, as long as it's been maturing in the bottle for a year or more. The brewery (and cheese factory) are part of the modern abbey, and so not open to the general public, but the ruins of the old abbey are open and well

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-37512264415722251412009-04-10T09:15:00.007+01:002009-04-21T18:11:51.078+01:00

Sarah & I have recently returned from a brief trip to Belgium, staying three nights in Bouillon and one in Ittre. We had an enjoyable long weekend, with good food and drink, good weather and some interesting sightseeing.We left home soon after 8 am on Friday, 3rd April and arrived at the channel tunnel in time to get on an earlier crossing than the one I'd booked. (I always like to allow extra

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-89533475398837945002008-10-07T17:12:00.002+01:002008-10-07T17:25:49.884+01:00

I've recently discovered the Google Image Labeller (or Labeler as they call it) and am slightly hooked. However, I remain to be convinced that it's of any use at all.It appears to be an attempt to improve image searching by "crowdsourcing" human cataloguing of images. It's presented as a game. You and a random partner are presented with a series of images which you each label. You score points

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-58449495225462011062008-10-01T13:11:00.002+01:002008-10-01T13:15:28.481+01:00

According to today's edition of the always interesting Astronomy Picture of the Day, today marks the 50th anniversary of the creation of NASA.I hope the next 50 years are as exciting as the first.

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-24677022190893747422008-09-29T17:46:00.002+01:002008-09-29T17:52:31.995+01:00

In a discussion with my manager today I described a tendency I have to approach any new area of work by finding something in it that's close to my previous work. Not only had my manager already noticed this problem, he'd given it a name - the Slartibartfast syndrome.It's nice to work for someone who has the same cultural references.

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-17471151613792822602008-09-18T19:48:00.005+01:002008-09-18T20:02:25.850+01:00

Those of you who read this blog avidly (you know who you are, even if I don't) will have noticed that I haven't written anything since early June. That's over two months in which I've not felt moved to put finger to keyboard here. I've been wondering why that is.I could have ranted about the new look on Facebook or the BBC web pages, with their uncomfortably wide fixed width. I'm not changing my

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-52237691347897874352008-06-05T20:30:00.004+01:002008-09-24T14:37:35.748+01:00

Over the years I've been at Kingswood Warren I've occasionally worked on projects that primarily benefit the BBC archives' restoration work, the most successful of these being the transform PAL decoder. A while ago I was introduced to another possible restoration job - recovering colour from black & white film recordings. This is all explained in some detail on the working group's wiki, but the

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-82362547642757647462008-05-07T12:52:00.007+01:002008-09-29T13:18:15.788+01:00

Last night I took my first astro photos for a long time. There was a near conjunction of the Moon and the planet Mercury. I set up my Canon 350d and Sigma 70-300 zoom lens in my bedroom, pointing out through an unopenable (and dirty!) window towards a cluttered horizon.By about half past eight it was beginning to get dark enough that I thought I might see something, but it was only at about ten

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-15527251855197314902008-05-02T12:51:00.003+01:002008-05-02T13:11:29.042+01:00

Why oh why oh why are so many websites falling victim to the current mania for Flash graphics? Obviously it's a good way of doing complicated things like the Scrabulous game or the BBC iPlayer, but just what does it add to a straightforward static page, apart from download time and accessibility problems?The worst example I've been hit by recently is the Dilbert site. I used to visit this every

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-71137341665647986882008-04-11T13:09:00.004+01:002008-04-11T15:47:59.197+01:00

I think I might be addicted to the facebook application Scrabulous. I've only been playing since February this year, but have become completely hooked. I'd even go so far as to say it's the one thing that makes facebook worth bothering with.Like many others, my first thought on seeing Scrabulous was "how are they getting away with it?" It's so obviously based on the SCRABBLE board game, but with

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-39288912532473730292008-03-30T10:54:00.003+01:002008-03-30T11:01:20.738+01:00

At last, the shed is finished. I wasn't sure if I should put it up on Friday or Saturday - I looked at several different weather forecasts, some said rain on Friday, some said rain on Saturday. Then Sarah got a short notice singing job on Saturday, so that decided it. We spent a very wet Friday screwing the panels together.On Saturday morning I put on the roofing felt and all the finishing

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-91877227669062657672008-03-27T17:19:00.003Z2008-03-27T17:30:48.145Z

At long last, I'm ready to start putting up the shed. First I laid a sloping path along the side of the shed, using 450mm square slabs, and a raised path along the back, using 440mm x 220mm concrete blocks. Then I laid 12 "pads" to support the shed, using half slabs, bricks or blocks as required to get the right height. Getting these correctly positioned and level was not easy!Finally I put in

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-59329557479694504262008-03-23T10:47:00.004Z2008-03-23T10:59:33.323Z

The weather over the last few days has been almost as bad as it could be for garden works. Cold, windy, rain and now snow.After digging out the very soft soil mentioned in my last post, I've reached a heavier more clayey layer. (But not yet down to the solid yellow clay I found when putting in some fence posts last year.) Overnight rain turned one corner of the hole into a puddle, with very soft

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-23123477091922793352008-03-18T17:35:00.004Z2008-03-23T11:01:50.065Z

I'm taking some time off work to put up a garden shed. It arrived on Monday, but as I'm nowhere near ready to assemble it the panels are stacked up on my back lawn, with a tarpaulin to protect them from the inevitable rain.After a lot of deliberation, and several changes of mind, I've decided not to take on the work of a concrete base for it. Instead I'll lay paving slabs to support treated

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-3686814519034895082008-03-05T19:55:00.003Z2008-03-06T10:30:07.716Z

Last weekend I cooked an oxtail stew that's keeping me going through the week. I've had 5 servings from it so far, but now there's no meat left, just a damn good stock which should make a good soup tomorrow if I throw in plenty of pasta.I used a Daube recipe from Hugh F-W's meat book. Hugh specifies shin or skirt of beef, but the nearest thing I could find in Waitrose was oxtail. As well as the ~

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-87463396505899950252008-02-27T13:24:00.008Z2008-09-30T09:28:46.831+01:00

I've been mulling over an article from the Sunday Times for more than a week now, and I still don't know what to make of it. It's a report of an interview with Zarin Patel, the BBC's director of finance, which says: "Patel will also examine the future of BBC’s research and innovation centre, which could be commercialised. The division helped to develop industry standards such as high definition

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-49454558266099549642008-02-13T14:22:00.005Z2008-02-28T22:20:21.643Z

A few years ago I used to cycle to work almost every day. Then I moved house, which made the cycle journey longer but shortened the car journey, had some surgery, which stopped me doing anything physical for a while, and got lazy. The cycle commuting pretty well stopped.Earlier this week I received my car's VED reminder, which prompted me to think "shouldn't I have had an MOT done by now?". I dug

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-49574832706389510462008-02-05T13:39:00.001Z2008-02-28T22:21:16.728Z

Had an interesting day last Friday setting up machines in an outside broadcast van to record a dozen HD camera feeds of the 6 Nations England Wales rugby match on Saturday. This is for the iview project. This creates a moving 3D computer model from several camera views, which can then be rendered from (almost) any viewpoint to create a (moving) virtual camera view. Sport are very keen to have

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-36798285782499559142008-01-15T13:45:00.000Z2008-01-15T13:51:24.426Z

For some time I've been aware that my TV's setup is drifting slightly, and I'm losing more picture off the bottom of the screen than I would like. Borrowing a test pattern generator is a bit of a hassle, so I've not got around to sorting it out. Now someone's revealed how to get a test card via BBCi on DTT (aka Freeview), so once I dig out the info on how to get into my TV's service menu (it's in

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-73316436573805044462008-01-10T08:18:00.000Z2008-01-10T08:28:20.009Z

A colleague has drawn my attention to this news story from the BBC. The story is interesting in its own right, but I was struck by the phrase "A BBC journalist and an actor posing as fake academic were invited ...". I can't help feeling they'd have done better if they had posed as real academics.

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-39674127653649417092007-06-12T09:12:00.001+01:002007-06-12T09:25:20.733+01:00

On Friday I phoned my doctor to get the results of the upper arm X-ray I had a couple of weeks earlier. The good news is that I don't have a secondary cancer from the melanoma I had in 2005, but the bad news is that I don't have frozen shoulder (which would get better, eventually) but have degeneration of the scapular-something joint. The doctor said I could have surgery to "clean it up a bit",

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8130219209127472780.post-62962345058084420212007-06-04T14:39:00.000+01:002007-06-04T15:00:50.440+01:00

Here goes - my first ever blog. Probably a waste of time, but you'll never know unless you try it.Last week's cold and wet spell ended on Friday, and S was back at work on Saturday, so I had no excuse for not getting out into the garden. I'm a complete beginner at gardening, but having had a house with a garden for a few years it's time I made something of it. I'm more interested in growing stuff

Jimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01141195051847963303noreply@blogger.com0