‘TH13TEEN’ is, at time of writing, the newest coaster at Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire, England (UK).
Like a number of rides at Alton Towers, it’s a ‘first’ in a genre; in this case a ‘free-fall’ track coaster.
The coaster was built on the site of the original “Corkscrew” coaster, the initial main attraction when the park opened, which was in itself a world’s first; a double helix coaster. A piece of Corkscrew’s track is now displayed in the entrance area to the theme park.
I’ve not posted for a while, just been one of those times, too busy, too tired, too pre-occupied; whatever other reason I can come up with for not being actually productive on anything.
Anyhoo, as a result of a series of random conversations in work (and when I say random, I do mean random – that’s one of the great things about where I work), I challenged one of my colleagues to the Desert Island C90 Challenge.
I partook in this a year and a half ago and found it great fun – you should try it; If you could only take one c90 cassette (remember them kids?) of music to listen to for the rest of your life, what would you put on it?
Solved another little Mac problem tonight, so here goes.
A while ago when I plugged my iPhone into my MacBook all was seamless, syncs downloads etc.
Then I got my ‘proper’ camera and installed the EOS utilities on the Mac. All was working fine, but the next time I plugged the iPhone in, I got a little popup dialogue saying there was no camera found.
Today I had a moment of real nostalgia.
Following a random conversation (we have a lot of them) at work about the above product some time ago, one of my esteemed colleagues in some sort of Twilight Zone-style coincidence/conspiracy happened across the stuff at a visit to, of all places, a garden centre!
It was in small clear-plastic pots, as opposed to the original packaging, illustrated above. It looked more like some kind of illicit drug, I suspected Methadrone, given the powdered form, garden centre connection and recent publicity.
I finally took the leap into the wonderful world of the digital SLR recently. It’s been on the cards for a while, but decided now was the time.
So, after a quick assessment of the models on the market and a bit of (perhaps biased) consultancy from a good friend of mine, I plumped for the Canon EOS 500D.
I was swithering between the 50D and 500D but, given I’m no pro-type photographer, decided the 500D was good enough for me. Having a whole load more settings I didn’t understand how to work wouldn’t have added to the fun.
And, in any case I could spend the price differential on extra glass.
See, I’m talking the talk already…
It’s been a while since I threw a Mac tip into the mix, so here goes.
A pet-hate of mine is that annoying noise that plays when your machine starts up. Whether it’s a PC or a Mac, I have no idea why someone would think it was a good idea to by default play a sound at startup, or shutdown for that matter.
What is the benefit of that? No, I can’t think of it either.
Strange thing is, on the Mac it’s not something you can easily get rid of. So, other than remembering to mute the sound before shutdown, you’re was stuck with it. Grrrr.
However, after a little bit of digging about, I’ve found a method to stop the startup sound on the Mac without the rest of the sound being muted.
‘The Big One’ is a Pepsi Max sponsored roller coaster at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach resort in North-West England (UK).
I think The Big One is probably the highest coaster I’ve ever been on. Although other coasters may come close, because it’s located on the Blackpool coast, the wind coming in off the sea makes you feel as though you’re at the top of an Himalayan abyss.
This coaster is prone to being closed due to high winds in the vicinity. The first couple of times I was in the area since it was opened, I didn’t get on, but it was worth the wait…
As you may have seen from other posts, I’m a big Apple fan.
I’ve admired them since the early days, but until relatively recently never owned any of their products. A bit too expensive and not mainstream enough to be in use where I worked.
That all changed with the iPod. Still expensive but luckily I received one as a gift. I liked the simplicity; the controls, the minimalism. Then, more recently and long overdue, I got myself an iPhone; even better. Finally I took the big step and plunged into OSX and a MacBook; rock ‘n roll!
It’s all about the little design things for me. The way it looks, feels. The buttons are just right, the precision machining (the sim drawer on the iPhone for example), nothing is superfluous; all form, fit and function.
You’ll be hard-pushed to persuade me against any of the Apple products I own, other than with newer, better versions of them.
And therein lies my gripe about Apple…
This is perhaps a slightly unusual post for me; a sport, or more specifically, a football post.
Back in the day, my father-in-law used to play junior football. By all accounts he was a bit special as a left back and always been a big fan of football at all levels.
We knew he played for a few clubs before hanging up his boots to raise his family. Money was tight and a steady job had to take priority over his passion for the game.
We were going through some boxes of old photos recently and happened upon something genuinely interesting from 60 years ago…
I like music. I’ve always liked music; all kinds of music. In days gone by, I would spend my spare cash on buying vinyl or things to play it on.
When CDs arrived on the scene, I switched to the new medium and the vinyl was assigned to the loft. I even re-bought some of my old vinyl on CD (you’re welcome guys – double-whammy for you).
When downloads came into play (jeez this makes me sound old) I still continued to buy CDs, because some strange part of me still liked having something solid and tangible in my hand after parting with my cash.
When I finally took the plunge and bought a few individual tracks from iTunes, to fill some gaps on my iPod, all seemed fine. Until I decided to move some of my music onto a little stick MP3 player and I happened upon the problem with Digital Rights Management.
The iTunes-purchased tracks wouldn’t play on my stick drive because it was in iTunes format, not standard MP3…
