Japan: 'Lost' probe lands on asteroid

Despite reports of failure, the spacecraft had successfully touched down on an asteroid 180 million miles from Earth.

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Do you Digg it?

You may have noticed the entry previous. It came from digg. Digg is a news aggregation web site that allows users to post it's stories to there blogs. What's much more interesting is the mechanism that gets stories into Digg and onto it's front page. Stories are submitted by anyone who notices them. The users of Digg then vote as to which are the most interesting and it's the one's with the most votes that get the premium spot. As for the stories themselves, well they have to exist on the Internet. In other words these articles can come from any web site anyway.

It makes Digg an interesting place to read from, and I intended to use it to transmit things I find interesting into this blog. I don't want to over use Digg, but I dare a reasonable number of items will come from it.

Mysterious Antarctica may be the home of the oldest civilization

Lots of surprises may be hidden under the Antarctic ice and are waiting to be discovered by humans. The existence of the prehistoric civilization in Antarctica started drawing attention of professional historians after the World War II

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Pointless Fun

Here is a fun sign that I discovered via John Dvoraks (yes the Dvorak who floods the US with cool computer opinion) blog

Click Here to go to an LED sign that allows you to post a message to the sign and then view it via a webcam

Here's a sign I made earlier





And

Fireworks

A little late (my apologies - the results of circumstances), here are some photographs of traditional small fireworks taken on Bonfire night this year.

I hope you enjoy them.

Findingviews - updated

At the core of my web site and blog collection is Findingviews I dare say you may have found it already, but in case not; here it is.

The point of Findingviews is to provide a backbone to my activities. It is the domain on which all my online activities are based. It hosts my web sites; though not this blog - which is hosted by blogger. It also hosts a couple of web sites where I have an involvement or interest. It's main job is to provide a platform to for my creative activities online.

This refinement of the site is a focussing on it's activities. Simply put I've pulled out the web directory. The directory was always really a side order. A little used experiment in providing a small and specific list of web sites. In worked, and ran without any problems; but it just did not really fit in with the point of the site - providing a hosting facility, and a means to the end of providing a place to put things that explore our place in the world. I want findingviews to focus on what I am doing now, so it was time to end that little experiment.

To further explain all of this I've added some notes onto the Findingviews mission statement.

So with the web site updated - time to get on with other things. (actually it took very little time - the bulk of the work was the Mission statement addition).

A Grande Tour Milestone

Today was major closing milestone in the Grande Tour. I closed the Cafe Press merchandising account. Since opening we had no sales and with the Tour complete I could not really justify the cost of maintaining it's presence.

The bigger question is why a lack of sales? I think there are two reasons for this. A big one was the U.S. location. Whilst this suited the International nature of the project it didn't suit the UK market. I have problem ordering from the US, but a lot of people do. So that was a problem. I think also store focussed on the Grande Tour logo. Whilst that was Ok, and in fact a need - most of the time on tour, the tour process itself made running a shop from on the road impossible, it wasn't really what people wanted.

Do I feel disheartened? No not really. The Grande Tour was enormously beneficial to me and I know it routed some traffic to the supported charities - so it's not really a problem. The shop was a nice add on. Sales would have been nice, but nothing compared to the journey itself.

A touch of Nostalgia from something New

I've been listening to a lot to Supernature by Goldfrapp. It's a fantastically decadent album. It's also more than faintly nostalgic. If you want to know how can something that's pretty fresh, new and hip possibly be nostalgic then here's the answers. A lot of the musical themes remind me of the 1980's. I think it's the mix of synthesised sounds and rhythms used in the music that helps bring me to this feeling. That and the use of lyrics. Perhaps not the lyrics themselves but the way in which they are used.

Of course the short version is that I like this album.

But I love the idea of something new reminding me of the past.

Travelling Again

The last two weekends contained a lot of unlogged travel. That will never do.

Two weeks ago I spent one night and just over a day in Edinburgh. It's much cheaper and easier to get there from where I live these days. Actually there was a hope to go further - but that didn't really work out. Side stepping the negativity Edinburgh is amazingly cool. It's a gorgeous city and the castle - well pictures will never do that justice. Though I did try. What a location! I also had one of the best meals in a long long long time at the Wildfire restaurant on Rose Street. If you happen to be in the area - check this place out - it's fantastic. Any negative points - well torrential rain wasn't a bonus. All in all a trip that must go back (but when the skies are not doing a very good impression of Niagara Falls).

Last weekend was my first Fear of the Dark game in a long time. Probably close to a year; and I loved in. Set in Perth Y Pia - just above Llanbedr in the Welsh mountains it was a beautiful location. Perched on a Welsh hillside. No photos - at least of the location - mainly due to yet more rain. I'm starting to feel persecuted. I think the rain is following me. However back to the game, a scary skit on the whole reality TV show thing. Or what would happen if Big Brother played for blood. We actually build a working Big Brother set-up fairly easily, and introduced 11 willing contestants into a weekend of claustrophobic stress and fear. Everyone had a ball. Highly recommended!

So that's my latest trips.

Keep on travelling - that's what I say!