NaN

While decorating the tree the other day, I was reminded of a 60s tv program, The Prisoner. I was hanging a bauble with a penny-farthing on it, one of the many icons used in the show's distinctive style. The main character is a spy who resigns, but is drugged and abducted before he can put his feet up. He wakes up in a strange village; he has been provided with a cottage, and the villagers are friendly enough, but there is a sinister undertone. There is constant surveillance, the "villagers" are only referred to by numbers and there is an impenetrable perimeter – it is in fact a prison. Some of the older inmates have accepted their fate, but not our man – he causes trouble every week by trying to escape or embarrassing the "governor", who is using increasingly bizarre methods of interrogation. Now this situation could be in any prison drama except there is an extra dimension this time; his captors may not be "the Enemy" but could actually be his former employers who have decided he knows too many of their secrets. This is one of those tv programs that makes you think – how much privacy should be sacrificed for security? Can information be extracted humanely? How can we guarantee lives that are free? And most importantly it teaches us to question the motives of the people who tell us to do things... even if they appear to be on our side.

Chart

Just a quick (non-Excel!) comedy chart, which was particularly well done I thought, and not from the usual source. And it made me hungry.

Pandora

Have just been using this internet-based music radio in the past few days, and I like it. It's like a radio station that only plays stuff you like. Just give it a favourite band and set it going, playing that and similar things. You can indicate anything you don't like with the thumbs down button (though I have only had to use this once as yet). It will be hard to go back to normal radio...

T-Day

So I've just been to not one but two Thanksgiving parties, and I am full of turkey, ham, stuffing, sweetcorn and gravy. Also brownies and pumpkin pie. All very tasty, and just what you need when there's snow and icicles outside. After helping to fix a printer, we played a game of Apples to Apples which was noisy and hilarious, as usual. Big thank-yous to Nojim and his family for inviting us!

Proper engineer's tv

I was watching an episode of Mythbusters where they were testing the strength of CDs to destruction and I was reminded of a show I used to watch as a teenager; Tim Hunkin's Secret Life of Machines. He used to explain how everyday appliances worked but in a very entertaining way; usually by sawing them in half. I taped them all to VHS, ready to one day digitize them, but it looks like someone's done that for me. I've watched the first series already - in the final episode he set fire to a tower of working televisions. I've always said it should be mandatory to show it in schools.

Perfect Pud

It is my duty as someone born in York to share this
important new scientific research.
The liquid amount is a bit vague, but they are right about making sure the fat is hot; get it in the oven as fast as you can.

OK

This weekend I helped split firewood for the grandparents.
There were golden leaves all over the field, it was lightly snowing and I had a large axe. I almost felt like a lumberjack; after all, I did sleep all night after working all day.

And now the completely different something is a man who does watercolors of ninjas attacking sushi.

And the link-posts begin...

Today's link is about a facinating link between physics and hard-core number theory. Readers of Douglas Adams will be pleasantly amused as well.

Short Dream Interlude

So I'm apparently in some cafe with Allison.
We look at the menu and I see something called a Beef and Yellow Blood sandwich.
I ask the waitress about it and she explains that it is made of egg yolks and cashews.
I choose a different sandwich.

An Evening in Akron

There is not much to add to Duamuteffe's quality account except to confirm I had a great time. I got some more good driving practice in - it was mostly highway apart from a fruitless midnight narrow-gauge shortcut. Devo were on-form, as always. I'm going to suggest that the performance was a little better than Manchester, possibly due to the home crowd. And their parents being present:)
Seeing Ms Hynde was a bonus, she has a great voice. Apparently her local restaurant is doing well also. The wind-down chatting in Luigi's was very welcome, as was the food. I can definitely recommend their award-winning pizza.

Picture Test

The trees around the lake have turned a lovely color.

Pseudo post

Ok, this'll do for now. I had fun editing the CSS, but I found if you mess with the expanded widget templates you get serious errors, as I'm sure everyone knows.
Had a nice walk today to see the golden leaves of Autumn, I mean Fall. Yes.
Right, going to a concert tomorrow - perhaps there will be a proper blog-post then.

Test Post 1

This is a small postlet, for display purposes only, while I get this unappetizing orangey blog template knocked into shape.