Maybe only for the Brit-centric geeks – but the BBC have a somewhat splendid flash app which lets you play with samples from the original Doctor Who theme.
The original and best was composed by Ron Grainger of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – it’s a classic of early electronic music that even receives homage on Ishkurs (ever updated) Guide.
More observations on changes in the UK since we last lived there in 2002..
One noticable theme of our stay in England was that every newspaper seemed to have a Sudoku puzzle in it. Asking around and this is a very recent phenomenon. Even Wikipedia notes that the craze started in the Spring of 2005.
It seems that the Sudoku puzzle craze is just another meme – take a look at this article from The Observer Sunday newspaper from 15 May 2005:
If the first week of May 2005 will be remembered for a general election, the second will go down as the week of Sudoku.
National newspapers scrambled to advertise the puzzle on their front pages, while websites devoted to it sprang up and TV and radio stations caught the new global bug.
Numerous articles have attributed the puzzle, which has a Japanese name, to the mysteries of the Land of the Rising Sun. But its true modern origins lie with a team of puzzle constructors in 1970s’ New York, from where it set off on a 25-year journey to Tokyo, London – and back to New York.
Scientists have identified Sudoku as a classic meme – a mental virus which spreads from person to person and sweeps across national boundaries. Dr Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, said: ‘This puzzle is a fantastic study in memetics. It is using our brains to propagate itself across the world like an infectious virus.’
Indeed.
The nice people at the Mozilla Foundation have released the first alpha of the Firefox 1.1 code.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/deerpark/releases/alpha1.html
It installed and ran just perfectly on my Novell Linux Desktop – all of my cookies, bookmarks etc came across perfectly from Firefox 1.0.4.
I’m just hunting down sites that don’t work. Looks like Blogger is one of them. I’ll revisit this post and add appropriate link goodness.
Last year we took part in Community Supported Agriculture – CSA – in Utah. Just before we left for Europe it was time for renewal – for this years weekly box of delights.
We work with East Farms CSA – they were mentioned in the Salt Lake Tribune a while ago.
It was an interesting summer and autumn – lots of new vegetables; some real treats (fresh cherries!), some great fresh salad greens and lots and lots and lots of squash. What do you do with them?
In my week of solitude away from the net I read this article in The Guardian on a similar sounding commercial service being offering in London – from Abel & Cole. Funny how organic farming has the same issue worldwide – you only sell what’s in season.
We also visited the Center for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth. Think again about the food you buy – how far has it travelled; how much impact did it’s transportation have? And that’s before you think about the food itself.
Wow. I’ve been off the net for a week – and I feel so refreshed and revitalised for it. For those that know me watch out – I’ll be evangelising the benefits of doing nothing high tech for the next few weeks!
I spent the time at our extended familys cottage in Borth, Wales – no cell signal, no landline, no internet, no email. Sounds like hell eh?
I got to spend a lot of time relaxing, reading, catching up and playing with Aoife. Lots of good thinking time too.
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