I’ve finally finished uploading my photos to my new SmugMug gallery. It has just about every photo I’ve taken over the past eight years, so have a browse!
Author: david
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Swiss Re
Last Wednesday we had lunch at 30 St Mary Axe, otherwise known as the Gherkin. Designed by Foster and Partners, it is the second tallest building in the City and one of my favourite London buildings. For years I’ve been meaning to see inside on one of the London Open House days so I was excited when Kathryn managed to book a table for lunch at the exclusive restaurant at the top of the building. The restaurant is a private dining club and so is not open to the public.The very top of the building houses a bar with an incredible view. The effect is so stunning it is hard to describe. It really is at the top with nothing but a cone of glass above. This means that unlike most skyscrapers, the building cannot house the lift equipment at the top so a standard lift goes to the 34th floor and then you have to change to another lift that pushes you up to the 39th. This is the restaurant floor and then a marble staircase leads up to the 40th floor bar.
Unlike the day before the sun was shining and we could see all the way from Canary Wharf to Battersea Power Station and beyond. Check out the pictures in my new SmugMug gallery.
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Drill Squad
I used to love being in the Drill Squad at 10 Flight AIRTC.
It might seem strange to some people for a kid to want to give up his spare time to wear a uniform and march around a parade ground but I really did love it. We got to carry rifles and there was real pride in getting a sequence together and being the best.
We weren’t quite this good though.
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Happy 2008!
Wilma stayed with us on New Year’s eve and she was a very well behaved little monkey. In the morning we went for a walk along the river before Jonathan and Louise collected her.In the afternoon we had our traditional Afternoon Tea on New Year’s Day, although this year it was at the Lanesborough as the Savoy is closed for a year for refurbishment.
The Lanesborough turned out to be excellent. We had a table by the fire and the scones were particularly good. There is simply no more civilised way to see in the New Year.
Here’s to an exciting 2008!
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Poznan
I’ve been in Poznan this last week working with the guys in our Polish office. It’s been a lot of fun and tonight is the first night I’ve got back to the hotel before 10pm.Monday night saw us drinking Żywiec at the Lizard King pub in the lovely Old Town Square or Stary Ryneck. The square is in the centre of the old town and apart from a couple of communist era cement monstrosities in the middle it is a beautifully colourful collection of Renaissance and Baroque architecture.
Tuesday was ice skating at Bogdanka before finishing up again in Stary Rynek where Radek unsuccessfully attempted to get me to try a bowl of flaki.
Last night we played some pool after work before we all got together at the WZ restaurant for a meal. No amount of encouragement was going to get me to order golonka so I had pierogi which was very nice and seemed to be authentically Polish enough.It’s been great fun working with and getting to know the Polish guys, and their friends and family, too.
There’s just one thing left. The famous Poznan goats make their appearance at midday so there should be just enough time to see them before my flight tomorrow!
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Rise of the Machines
Seriously. Don’t they know what happens at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th?
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Remember, Remember
On the weekend we went to a CCO party at Hywel’s place and, it being (nearly) the 5th November, fireworks were involved.Alan had originally planned to bring just a few sparklers along but once he got to the firework shop he couldn’t resist purchasing a small arsenal of rockets, roman candles and something that looked like an anti-tank mine. Sanchia also brought some rockets along so there was no shortage of things that go bang.
We were a little nervous about setting off these things in Hywel’s fairly small decking at the back of his house, especially the ones with directions to light the fuse and then retire at least twenty-five metres away. But the ghost of Guy Fawkes was smiling on us and it turned out that Dylan was a qualified fireworks technician so everyone sat back and let him run the show. He assured us that they only say twenty-five metres in case the thing tips over and starts strafing the onlookers with white-hot pyrotechnic stars but it was ok because we were putting them in a big pot filled with cat litter.
It was awesome. Especially the anti-tank mine. And by awesome I mean, you know, terrifying.
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Pictures from the US
I have added pictures from our recent trip to LA, Las Vegas and San Francisco to the gallery.
I forgot to mention before that we wandered into the Musee Mechanique at Pier 45 in Fisherman’s Wharf while we were in San Francisco. This is a fascinating place that houses one of the world’s largest collections of antique arcade machines. They have a few classic video games like Pole Position which I dropped a few quarters into but mostly they are cabinets containing strange little diaramas with bizarre names such as “The Drunkard’s Dream”, “Bimbo Box” and that old classic “Opium Den”.Also, I have converted the video of the Fountains of Bellagio into flash and embedded it into my previous post. Do check it out. It was taken on Kathryn’s phone and 320 x 240 pixels doesn’t really do it justice but it does give you more of an idea than still photos. Dancing fountains might sound corny but something about it was just memsmerising to watch.
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Old Computers
This site has some beautiful images of old computers including an amazing picture of a Cray CDC 6600 that seems to have huge glowing green eyes. This was the world’s fastest computer from 1964 to 1969 and looks like something from the set of Blake’s 7.
They also have a picture of the Neiman Marcus Kitchen Computer(!) from 1969. According to wikipedia:
It sold for $10,000, weighs over 100 pounds, and is used for storing recipes (but reading or entering these recipes would have been very difficult for the average cook as the only “user interface” was the binary front panel lights and switches). It had a built in cutting board and had a few recipes built in.
There is no evidence that any Honeywell Kitchen Computers were ever sold.
No shit.
Update: The images are from Mark Richards’s book Core Memory – A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers.