topographical

How Much for a Litter Bin?

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From this week’s issue of Railway Herald:

Welcome to the age of the21 st century rubbish bin!

Rubbish bins could make a limited comeback on London Underground stations and city streets, due to a new type that have been built to withstand the blast of a terrorist’s bomb.

The steel armour-plated bins have been developed to withstand at least 75% of a blast’s force and contain the fireball resulting from an explosion. Hundreds of them are due to be installed through London’s financial district next year after the British company behind them spent five years testing them to destruction in the Mexican desert. The bins are designed to have digital screens on the side that will relay news, financial and travel information to passers-by throughout the day. Bins were removed from the London Underground in February 1991 following an IRA blast in Victoria station. Most were removed from the City the following year, and the last few were taken away after a large bomb left in a bin in Bishopsgate exploded in April1993. Environmental groups have blamed the lack of bins for an increasing tide of litter across the country, but with each new bin costing £30,000 and weighing roughly a ton. it is unlikely they will be used in anything but the most sensitive locations!

Thirty Grand! £30,000!! For a litter bin!? How many cleaning staff could we employ for that? Are we really that desperate? What’s wrong with transparent plastic sacks as used in other cities? Even if more expensive, recycled or bio-degradable plastic sacks would be a fraction of the cost!

amusements, food+drink, ramblings, science

Equilateral Chocolate

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In his “Anti Gravity” column in the latest (November issue) Scientific American Steve Mirsky write rather mischievously, even zen mischievously, about recent food research “trivia”. The article contains this gem of a paragraph:

The journal Science reports that mathematicians from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University and the Free University of Brussels have igured out a better way to wrap spherical pieces of chocolate. There’s a lot of wasted material when wrapping spheres with square pieces of foil or paper. But our intrepid geometers found that by using equilateral triangles rather than squares, they could generate a savings of 0.1 percent. That’s one full square saved for every 1,000 pieces of triangle-wrapped chocolate you eat.

Doh? Well so what? Well let’s (very roughly) translate that into something meaningful.

Making some reasonable assumptions about wrapper size and weight … If every man, woman and child in the UK ate just 10 triangular wrapped chocolates this Christmas the savings in the wrappings would amount enough paper/foil to cover a full size football pitch. Can’t imagine Wembley Stadium covered in chocolate wrappers? OK. The weight of that saved wrapping is roughly equivalent to 1,000 ½lb boxes of chocolates! Now that’s a lot of over indulgence, even by my standards!

Oh and you can find the full Steve Mirsky article here.

books, memes, natural history, personal, photography, pleasures, science

Animal Meme


Anmimal Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

1. Cat’s eye, 2. Jaguar im Manu Nationalpark in Peru, 3. Steve-O, Which Channel is CNN ?, 4. Eeyore, 5. Not Afraid, 6. Alice Liddell and the Cheshire Cat, 7. Aquarium, 8. Sporting Lucas Terrier – Wandle Peter, 9. Morgana a fada!, 10. Animal skeleton, 11. Little Black Cat, 12. Small Fish from the Amazon

Questions and Answers:
1. What is your favorite animal? Domestic cats
2. Laws have changed, you now can own an exotic or wild animal as a pet. What animal would you own? Jaguar, they’re just slightly more manageable than tigers
3. Some people are cat fanciers and some are canine cuddlers. Which is is for you cats or dogs? Cats, every time; no question; cats are magic
4. What one word best describes your personality? What animal do you associate with that word? Depressive, so it has to be Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh tho’ I’d much rather be Tigger
5. Confess! What animal/insect/reptile/amphibian are you secretly (or not so secretly) afraid of? I don’t do “afraid”; I’m certainly in awe of the big cats; and I hate maggots; but I’m not afraid of anything
6. What was your favorite animal character from a children’s book when you were younger? Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland; I never did work out how to do that gradual disappearing trick. 🙁
7. You’re spending the day at the Zoo, it’s getting close to closing and you’re tired, but you’re definitely not leaving until you see the . . . Aquarium. Hah! Caught you! You thought I was going to say the big cats, but I’ve already seen them. 🙂
8. What kind of pet did you have when you were a kid or do you remember a particularly unusual pet you had? When I was 7 we got a small dog, a Lucas Terrier; but there were always cats at home too.
9. If you were to be reincarnated as an animal, what would you want to be? Why? Domestic cat with me to look after me
10. Animals in films always seem to tug at our heartstrings. What cinematic animal was your hero or a favorite? No animal hero or favourite ‘cos I don’t do films; I never did; it isn’t in my culture
11. If you had a stuffed animal as a child, what was it (extra points if you remember its name)? Little Black Cat and yes here he is, the original, snapshotted (can I say that?) specially for this occasion!
12. National Geographic has hired you to go on a photo shoot anywhere in the world you choose. What animal would you want to showcase in your full-color magazine spread (and where are you traveling to)? Fishes of the River Amazon and while we’re there we’ll have a few jaguars and parrots for good measure

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

beliefs, quotes, thoughts

Reality

I’ve no idea now where I found this, but it struck a chord:

Reality is what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is what we believe.
What we believe is based upon our perceptions.
What we look for perceive depends on what we think.
What we think determines what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is our reality.

So everything is in the mind.

books, food+drink, memes, nudism, personal, photography, pleasures, sexuality, thoughts

Happiness Meme


Happiness Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

1. Meet the cat: VIC, 2. Sand Sea Sun – Snorkel!, 3. The meaning of Photography, 4. Happy Nude Recreation Week!!!, 5. my wine and Brad’s beer, 6. My wife’s hairy cunt, 7. 8×6 frosty morning railroad, 8. day one hundred five, 9. Longing for Spring, 10. ordinary pic, but really tasty salad, 11. Reading A Buyer’s Market, 12. Katsuo-ji Temple bells

This week’s question: Just tell us 12 things which make you happy, and a picture for each.

Answers:
1. Cats – because they’re magic
2. Sun, sea and sand
3. Photography – it’s about the only creativity I have
4. Warm sunshine on my skin
5. Beer and wine – two of the essentials of a contented life
6. Noreen, my wife (perhaps I should not say explicitly what I was going to!) and that after almost 30 years of marriage we still have great sex
7. Bright frosty mornings
8. Nudity – it’s normal and it’s comfortable
9. Spring green and blossom on trees
10. Good, tasty, fresh salad
11. Books, especially Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time
12. Bells

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

food+drink, memes, nudism, personal, thoughts

Friday Five: When Did You Last …?

OK so it’s a day late, but after I don’t know how many weeks I feel like doing this week’s Friday Five. So here we go …

When did you last…
1. Scrounge for change (couch, ashtray, etc.) to make a purchase?
I don’t recall ever having done so, even as a student. Guess I’m probably lucky.

2. Visit a dentist?
Monday 4 August 2008, 0830 hrs.

3. Make a needed change to your life?
I don’t do big, life threatening changes — unless you count marriage or moving house, and I don’t have a habit of doing them since I’ve done neither for getting on for 30 years! I do lots of small incremental changes — fine tuning if you like.

4. Decide on a complete menu well in advance of the evening meal?
Don’t make a habit of doing this either, so I don’t know when it last was. We may have a sketchy idea of what we’re going to eat 24 hours in advance, but it remains flexible until the last minute: eat what we fancy built around what we have available.

5. Spend part of the day (other than daily hygiene) totally/mostly naked?
I was going to say yesterday. But maybe I’ll say today instead, although I will be out for a chunk of the day. If I’m at home I’m usually nude unless I’m very cold or we have visitors. And as I work from home a lot that is quite a few days a week. “Nude when possible; clothed when necessary.”

[Brought to you courtesy of Friday Five.]

history, pleasures, science, thoughts, topographical

Bell Damaged Brain

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If I’m not getting serious brain damage I should be — and yes, more than normal, even for me. Not to mention ringing in the ears. I’ve just had my mind completely blown away. I’ve been listening to a CD of handbells; change ringing on handbells. I know not everyone gets change ringing (or even bells) and it is a peculiarly English eccentricity. But if you line bells in general, handbells in particular or change ringing, then hunt out Change Ringing on Handbells issued on CD by Saydisc (CD-SDL310).

I had this on vinyl many years ago and recently discovered that Saydisc had eventually issued it on CD. I’d forgotten how incredible it is. It has seriously done my head in. Although I get the principle I can’t get my (mathematical and logical) brain round change ringing at the best of times but certainly not done on handbells and at the speed with which these guys manage it so faultlessly. Maybe the logic is the problem?

The CD is available from Amazon UK, Amazon.com or direct from Saydisc themselves. It is just incredible!

And there’s an interesting, albeit scientifically slanted, introduction to church bells and bellringing over at Cocktail Party Physics.