This is half-calculator, half abacus (actually a soroban), which I saw in the Arithmeum in Bonn. Seemed a bit odd to me.
Arithmeum is interesting if you’re interested in counting machines – from the very earliest reckoning tables and abaci through to microchip design. I found the older items more interesting, the modern calculating tools aren’t of so much interest. Well worth a visit, though.
I spent new year in Germany again this year, stayed in Aachen with Andrea’s brother for a week, and then went down to Saarbrücken for a few days. Had a chance to see some of the sights around the Rhineland, which was pretty interesting.
This photo is the Rhein, in Köln. We spent a day there, doing touristy things. If you want to go shopping, Köln is the place, with an enormous pedestrian area and a massive range of shops.
Guildford’s Guildhall clock.
Guildford is another one of these places which it is very difficult to take interesting photos of. The countryside is too close for big scenic shots, and the town is not really picturesque (although it does have a good character).
Oh well.
The true taste of Sweden – not Smörgåstårte, Janssons frestelse, meatballs or anything else. No, it’s mini Daim bars, imported all the way from Ikea in Croydon (which is really pronounced ee-kay-ah).
So apparantly I’m following in the family business, did the photography for a friend’s wedding a couple of weeks back. All very good fun. (Except, of course, from driving from Guildford to Broadstairs, via Euston (to pick up some rental gear).
All went well. Image processing finished, and DVD waiting to be posted to the bride for their return from honeymoon.
Most amusingly, it was the first wedding I’d even been to, let alone shot.
I made this!
Replaced the oven and hotplate. Much manly grunting required whilst manhandling 30 Amp electrical cable into the right shape, but no injuries and nothing blew up when I powered it all up.
Mum’s mostly impressed about having a working oven light for the first time in a decade.
Writing about: Flickr: Photoshop Tennis
For those who dont know, Photoshop Tennis is a game whereby someone chooses a starting image, it could be anything, though generally a decent sized high resolution image usually works best, and then people edit the image following the guidelines that the person who posted the original image lays down, then post their image, then people edit the edited image and post their creations, and so on, the game ends when people stop posting new edits.There are no winners in the game, it is an exercise in collaborative creation, and often quite cool pictures can be created in this way. And though the group is called Photoshop Tennis, you dont need to use Photoshop to participate, any decent image editing program will do.
Absolutely brilliant :-)
New contact lenses – hooray! I still find sticking my fingers in my eyes an unnatural process, but it’s worth it for the peripheral vision…
I’ve got daily disposables at the moment, but I’m considering the new “extended wear” lenses, they can be worn for a month at a time, after a 4-week process of fittings and appointments to make sure that everything is ok. Dailies make sense when I wear lenses occasionally, and when I was working in the lab I didn’t want to wear contacts. But now I’m freed from that, I’m reconsidering whether to wear lenses more often, and logically it makes sense to consider the extended-wear lenses…
More back catalogue. It’s hard to believe that this was almost a year ago already.
It’s funny how sometimes different contexts bump into each other. I’m at home, finishing my PhD thesis, and now I’ve got an easter egg (just the same as I’ve had for as long as I can remember), sitting on my desk next to letters telling me that I’m going to need to fill in tax returns, bookings for flights so I can go and visit my girlfriend, keys for my department. It’s all a bit confusing really.
