Sunday 29 November 2009
odd words
I just generated my #TweetCloud out of a year of my tweets. Top three words: time, happy, friends - http://w33.us/x7e
Friday 27 November 2009
Eid
Poor Sid; there we were, ready to set off for his birthday lunch and discovered that there wasn't a gettable taxi to be had. Some had answering machines set to say "Because today is a religious holiday, we are closed until tomorrow", most didn't answer, and the best offer was a 3 hour wait. Hmmmppphhh.
I made Sid get on an omnibus. That's what they called them when he used them regularly, I'm sure. We *could* have walked into town, it's only about a mile, but the knee still whinges and I get bad-tempered when it does that. The little leggie is much improved but I decided to take the stick 'just in case', which turned out to be a little embarrassing when the three aged pensioners at the bus stop, two with their own sticks, held back and insisted I got on the bus first.
So, La Tasca, using up a 50% off voucher. It was class, we managed to spend four times as much on wine as we did on food, and thoroughly enjoyed both. 1996 Faustino, it was mmmmmmmmm. Recommend that teenage wine to anyone.
We did manage to get a taxi back, in a nicely fuzzy haze, and I blame the fine spanish Brandy for causing me to sleep through most of the first DVD when we got back. Watched "I was a teenage vampire" afterwards - class B movie, I loved it.
Last working day of my holiday and I've done mostly jack, de nada. Flirted with the dentist and gave him a lot of money to do unpleasant things to my mouth; spent a whole four days with mother doing mostly nothing. I had sworn I'd take her to see Les Miserables but she declared she'd rather see Les Enfants aka the shorts at home. I decided the best way for her to get to the airport was to park in an hotel (not that) near Luton airport and get a taxi. I wouldn't mind the £1 charge for dropping someone off; but it's simply not possible to drop anyone off next to the terminal and she was exhausted by the walk from the pickup/dropoff bit (I had fondly imagined a taxi might be able to get us closer)
At least the 'got to get your boarding card first' assistance counter let us use one of their wheelchairs to go an queue for almost half an hour to get her checked in. Extremely unamusing.
Barrelled off into the night to surprise Vikki only to find she'd given Dom the night off and had to work in the bar all evening. You'd think having your own pub would prevent that kind of thing. It's a bit alarming to find that my 'nearly-nephew' Robert will be 17 next month, has grown almost a foot taller despite taking up smoking and has managed to convince his parents to let his girlfriend move in! We missed the last couple of HP movies as he grew up faster than Harry Potter did, but he told me he still has the HP watch I gave him and considers it a treasured possession. Say AWWWW
Four day weeks till Christmas from now, then off till next year, using up the holiday I should have had much much earlier in the year. Early resolution, I will NOT have almost three weeks holiday still to take when it gets to next November, I'll - I'll - I'll..... not be able to take a whole week until April at earliest, later if the project overruns
Short people have been round several times; Paul is off to Amsterdam this weekend for his mate Simon's stag do. I've bought my sister's Christmas present, I have two more days before I have to go back to work, and just remembered I forgot to order a corporate heaven.
I made Sid get on an omnibus. That's what they called them when he used them regularly, I'm sure. We *could* have walked into town, it's only about a mile, but the knee still whinges and I get bad-tempered when it does that. The little leggie is much improved but I decided to take the stick 'just in case', which turned out to be a little embarrassing when the three aged pensioners at the bus stop, two with their own sticks, held back and insisted I got on the bus first.
So, La Tasca, using up a 50% off voucher. It was class, we managed to spend four times as much on wine as we did on food, and thoroughly enjoyed both. 1996 Faustino, it was mmmmmmmmm. Recommend that teenage wine to anyone.
We did manage to get a taxi back, in a nicely fuzzy haze, and I blame the fine spanish Brandy for causing me to sleep through most of the first DVD when we got back. Watched "I was a teenage vampire" afterwards - class B movie, I loved it.
Last working day of my holiday and I've done mostly jack, de nada. Flirted with the dentist and gave him a lot of money to do unpleasant things to my mouth; spent a whole four days with mother doing mostly nothing. I had sworn I'd take her to see Les Miserables but she declared she'd rather see Les Enfants aka the shorts at home. I decided the best way for her to get to the airport was to park in an hotel (not that) near Luton airport and get a taxi. I wouldn't mind the £1 charge for dropping someone off; but it's simply not possible to drop anyone off next to the terminal and she was exhausted by the walk from the pickup/dropoff bit (I had fondly imagined a taxi might be able to get us closer)
At least the 'got to get your boarding card first' assistance counter let us use one of their wheelchairs to go an queue for almost half an hour to get her checked in. Extremely unamusing.
Barrelled off into the night to surprise Vikki only to find she'd given Dom the night off and had to work in the bar all evening. You'd think having your own pub would prevent that kind of thing. It's a bit alarming to find that my 'nearly-nephew' Robert will be 17 next month, has grown almost a foot taller despite taking up smoking and has managed to convince his parents to let his girlfriend move in! We missed the last couple of HP movies as he grew up faster than Harry Potter did, but he told me he still has the HP watch I gave him and considers it a treasured possession. Say AWWWW
Four day weeks till Christmas from now, then off till next year, using up the holiday I should have had much much earlier in the year. Early resolution, I will NOT have almost three weeks holiday still to take when it gets to next November, I'll - I'll - I'll..... not be able to take a whole week until April at earliest, later if the project overruns
Short people have been round several times; Paul is off to Amsterdam this weekend for his mate Simon's stag do. I've bought my sister's Christmas present, I have two more days before I have to go back to work, and just remembered I forgot to order a corporate heaven.
innovative scots
Here's tae us
Fa's like us
Nae mony
an they're (nearly) a deid!
Road transport innovations
A gas mask: James Gregory (1638-1675)
A steam car (steam engine): William Murdoch (1754-1839) [10]
Macadamized roads (Not Tarmac): John Loudon MacAdam (1756-1836)[3] [1]
The pedal bicycle: Kirkpatrick Macmillan (1813-1878)[2]
The pneumatic tyre: Robert William Thomson and John Boyd Dunlop (1822-1873) [2]
The overhead valve engine: David Dunbar Buick (1854-1929)
The motor lorry: John Yule in 1870
The steam tricycle: Andrew Lawson in 1895
Civil engineering innovations
Bridges
Bridge design: Sir William Arrol (1838-1913), Thomas Telford (1757-1834) & John Rennie (1761-1821)
Suspension bridge improvements: Sir Samuel Brown (1776-1852)
Tubular steel: Sir William Fairbairn (1789-1874)
Canals and docks
Falkirk Wheel: ??? (Opened 2002)
Canal design: Thomas Telford (1757-1834)
Dock design: John Rennie (1761-1821)
The patent slip for docking vessels: Thomas Morton (1781-1832)
Crane design: James Bremner (1784-1856)
Lighthouses
Lighthouse design: Robert Stevenson (1772-1850)
The Drummond Light: Thomas Drummond (1797-1840)
Power innovations
Condensing steam engine improvements: James Watt (1736-1819)[1]
Coal-gas lighting: William Murdock (1754-1839)
The Stirling heat engine: Rev. Robert Stirling (1790-1878)
Electro-magnetic innovations: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79)
Carbon brushes for dynamos: George Forbes (1849-1936)
The Clark cycle gas engine: Sir Dugald Clark (1854-1932)
Wireless transformer improvements: Sir James Swinburne (1858-1958)
Cloud chamber recording of atoms: Charles T. R. Wilson (1869-1959)
Wave-powered electricity generator:By South African Engineer Stephen Salter in 1977
Shipbuilding innovations
The steamship paddle wheel: Patrick Miller (1731-1815)
Improvements in The steam boat: William Symington (1763-1831)
Europe's first passenger steamboat: Henry Bell (1767-1830)
The first iron-hulled steamship: Sir William Fairbairn (1789-1874)
The first practical screw propeller: Robert Wilson (1803-1882)
Marine engine innovations: James Howden (1832-1913)
Heavy industry innovations
The carronade cannon: Robert Melville (1723-1809)
Making cast steel from wrought iron: David Mushet (1772-1847)
Wrought iron sash bars for glass houses: John C. Loudon (1783-1865)
The hot blast oven: James Beaumont Neilson (1792-1865)
The steam hammer: James Nasmyth (1808-1890)
Wire rope: Robert Stirling Newall (1812-1889)
Steam engine improvements: William Mcnaught (1831-1881)
The Fairlie, a narrow gauge, double-bogey railway engine: Robert Francis Fairlie (1831-1885)
Cordite - Sir James Dewar, Sir Frederick Abel
Agricultural innovations
Threshing machine improvements: James Meikle (c.1690-c.1780) & Andrew Meikle (1719-1811)
Hollow pipe drainage: Sir Hugh Dalrymple, Lord Drummore (1700-1753)
The Scotch Plough: James Anderson of Hermiston (1739-1808)
Deanstonisation soil-drainage system: James Smith (1789-1850)
The mechanical reaping machine: Rev. Patrick Bell (1799-1869)
The Fresno Scraper: James Porteous (1848-1922)
The Tuley tree shelter: Graham Tuley in 1979
Communication innovations
Print stereotyping: William Ged (1690-1749)
The balloon post: John Anderson (1726-1796)
Roller printing: Thomas Bell (patented 1783)
The adhesive postage stamp and the postmark: James Chalmers (1782-1853)
The mail-van service
Universal Standard Time: Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915)
Light signalling between ships: Admiral Philip H. Colomb (1831-1899)
The telephonedisputed) Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)[4]
The teleprinter: Frederick G. Creed (1871-1957)
The television: (disputed widely) see Paul Nipkov.John Logie Baird (1888-1946)[5]
Radar: Robert Watson-Watt (1892-1973)[8]
Fax Machine - Alexander Bain
The underlying principles of Radio - James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
Publishing firsts:
The first book translated from English into a foreign language
The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768-81)
The first English textbook on surgery (1597)
The first modern pharmacopaedia, the Materia Medica Catalogue (1776)
The first textbook on Newtonian science
The first colour newspaper advertisement
The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK
Scientific innovations
Logarithms: John Napier (1550-1617)
The theory of electromagnetism: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
Popularising the decimal point: John Napier (1550-1617)
The Gregorian telescope: James Gregory (1638-1675)
The concept of latent heat: Joseph Black (1728-1799)
The pyroscope, atmometer and aethrioscope scientific instruments: Sir John Leslie (1766-1832)
Identifying the nucleus in living cells: Robert Brown (1773-1858)
Hypnosis: James Braid (1795-1860)
Colloid chemistry: Thomas Graham (1805-1869)
The kelvin SI unit of temperature: William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
Devising the diagramatic system of representing chemical bonds: Alexander Crum Brown (1838-1922)
Criminal fingerprinting: Henry Faulds (1843-1930)
The noble gases: Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916)
The Cloud chamber: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869-1959)
Pioneering work on nutrition and poverty: John Boyd Orr (1880-1971)
The ultrasound scanner: Ian Donald (1910-1987)
Ferrocene synthetic substances: Peter Ludwig Pauson in 1955
The MRI body scanner: John Mallard in 1980
The first cloned mammal (Dolly the Sheep): Was conducted in The Roslin Institute research centre in 1996 although by two Englishmen, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell.
Seismometer innovations thereof - James David Forbes
Sports innovations
Main article: Sport in Scotland
Scots have been instrumental in the invention and early development of several sports:
several modern athletics events, i.e. shot put and the hammer throw, possibly derive from Highland Games events
Curling
Cycling, invention of the pedal-cycle
Golf (see Golf in Scotland)
Shinty The history of Shinty pre-dates Scotland the Nation. It is thought to have originated in Ireland.
Medical innovations
Pioneering the use of surgical anaesthesia with Chloroform: Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870)
The hypodermic syringe: Alexander Wood (1817-1884)
Pioneering the use of antiseptics: Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
Identifying the mosquito as the carrier of malaria: Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932)
Identifying the cause of brucellosis: Sir David Bruce (1855-1931)
Discovering the vaccine for typhoid fever: Sir William B. Leishman (1865-1926)
Discovering insulin: John J R Macleod (1876-1935) with others
Penicillin: Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955)
Discovering an effective tuberculosis treatment: Sir John Crofton in the 1950s
Primary creator of the artificial kidney (Professor Kenneth Lowe - Later Queen's physician in Scotland)
Developing the first beta-blocker drugs: Sir James W. Black in 1964
Glasgow Coma Scale: Graham Teasdale and Bryan J. Jennett (1974)
Household innovations
The Dewar Flask: Sir James Dewar (1847-1932)
The piano footpedal: John Broadwood (1732-1812)
The waterproof macintosh: Charles Macintosh (1766-1843)
The kaleidoscope: Sir David Brewster (1781-1868)
The modern lawnmower: Alexander Shanks (1801-1845)
The Lucifer friction match: Sir Isaac Holden (1807-1897){
The self filling pen: Robert Thomson (1822-1873)
Cotton-reel thread: J & J Clark of Paisley
Lime Cordial: Lachlan Rose in 1867
Bovril beef extract: John Lawson Johnston in 1874
The life ring, or personal flotation device: Captain Ward in 1854
Electric clock - Alexander Bain
Weapons innovations
The Ferguson rifle: Patrick Ferguson in 1770 or 1776
The Lee bolt system as used in the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield series rifles: James Paris Lee
The Ghillie suit
The MacKellar Heat Seeking Bullet: Kieran MacKellar in 2006 [3]
Economics innovations
Adam Smith; Smith was born in 1723, hailing from Kirkcaldy, a Scottish town north of Edinburgh; the 18th century Scot considered to be the father of modern economics; Smith's ``An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which argued that minimal government interference in commerce would promote human welfare and alleviate poverty, was published in 1776. He is the first Scotsman to appear on the central bank's currency in England, replacing Elgar's image in the next few years on as many as 1 billion notes.
Miscellaneous innovations
The digestive biscuit, invented by McVitie's in Edinburgh in 1892 by Alexander Grant.
Boys' Brigade
Bank of England
Bank of Scotland
Bank of France
Colour photography: the first known permanent colour photograph was taken by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
The Comb - Aberdeen
The Keyring - Aberdeen
Robinson Crusoe - influenced by the real-life Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway
We also gave the world Chic Murray and Billy Connolly and we humbly apologise for Gordon Brown.
Hong Kong was also a Scots idea.
Fa's like us
Nae mony
an they're (nearly) a deid!
Road transport innovations
A gas mask: James Gregory (1638-1675)
A steam car (steam engine): William Murdoch (1754-1839) [10]
Macadamized roads (Not Tarmac): John Loudon MacAdam (1756-1836)[3] [1]
The pedal bicycle: Kirkpatrick Macmillan (1813-1878)[2]
The pneumatic tyre: Robert William Thomson and John Boyd Dunlop (1822-1873) [2]
The overhead valve engine: David Dunbar Buick (1854-1929)
The motor lorry: John Yule in 1870
The steam tricycle: Andrew Lawson in 1895
Civil engineering innovations
Bridges
Bridge design: Sir William Arrol (1838-1913), Thomas Telford (1757-1834) & John Rennie (1761-1821)
Suspension bridge improvements: Sir Samuel Brown (1776-1852)
Tubular steel: Sir William Fairbairn (1789-1874)
Canals and docks
Falkirk Wheel: ??? (Opened 2002)
Canal design: Thomas Telford (1757-1834)
Dock design: John Rennie (1761-1821)
The patent slip for docking vessels: Thomas Morton (1781-1832)
Crane design: James Bremner (1784-1856)
Lighthouses
Lighthouse design: Robert Stevenson (1772-1850)
The Drummond Light: Thomas Drummond (1797-1840)
Power innovations
Condensing steam engine improvements: James Watt (1736-1819)[1]
Coal-gas lighting: William Murdock (1754-1839)
The Stirling heat engine: Rev. Robert Stirling (1790-1878)
Electro-magnetic innovations: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79)
Carbon brushes for dynamos: George Forbes (1849-1936)
The Clark cycle gas engine: Sir Dugald Clark (1854-1932)
Wireless transformer improvements: Sir James Swinburne (1858-1958)
Cloud chamber recording of atoms: Charles T. R. Wilson (1869-1959)
Wave-powered electricity generator:By South African Engineer Stephen Salter in 1977
Shipbuilding innovations
The steamship paddle wheel: Patrick Miller (1731-1815)
Improvements in The steam boat: William Symington (1763-1831)
Europe's first passenger steamboat: Henry Bell (1767-1830)
The first iron-hulled steamship: Sir William Fairbairn (1789-1874)
The first practical screw propeller: Robert Wilson (1803-1882)
Marine engine innovations: James Howden (1832-1913)
Heavy industry innovations
The carronade cannon: Robert Melville (1723-1809)
Making cast steel from wrought iron: David Mushet (1772-1847)
Wrought iron sash bars for glass houses: John C. Loudon (1783-1865)
The hot blast oven: James Beaumont Neilson (1792-1865)
The steam hammer: James Nasmyth (1808-1890)
Wire rope: Robert Stirling Newall (1812-1889)
Steam engine improvements: William Mcnaught (1831-1881)
The Fairlie, a narrow gauge, double-bogey railway engine: Robert Francis Fairlie (1831-1885)
Cordite - Sir James Dewar, Sir Frederick Abel
Agricultural innovations
Threshing machine improvements: James Meikle (c.1690-c.1780) & Andrew Meikle (1719-1811)
Hollow pipe drainage: Sir Hugh Dalrymple, Lord Drummore (1700-1753)
The Scotch Plough: James Anderson of Hermiston (1739-1808)
Deanstonisation soil-drainage system: James Smith (1789-1850)
The mechanical reaping machine: Rev. Patrick Bell (1799-1869)
The Fresno Scraper: James Porteous (1848-1922)
The Tuley tree shelter: Graham Tuley in 1979
Communication innovations
Print stereotyping: William Ged (1690-1749)
The balloon post: John Anderson (1726-1796)
Roller printing: Thomas Bell (patented 1783)
The adhesive postage stamp and the postmark: James Chalmers (1782-1853)
The mail-van service
Universal Standard Time: Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915)
Light signalling between ships: Admiral Philip H. Colomb (1831-1899)
The telephonedisputed) Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)[4]
The teleprinter: Frederick G. Creed (1871-1957)
The television: (disputed widely) see Paul Nipkov.John Logie Baird (1888-1946)[5]
Radar: Robert Watson-Watt (1892-1973)[8]
Fax Machine - Alexander Bain
The underlying principles of Radio - James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
Publishing firsts:
The first book translated from English into a foreign language
The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768-81)
The first English textbook on surgery (1597)
The first modern pharmacopaedia, the Materia Medica Catalogue (1776)
The first textbook on Newtonian science
The first colour newspaper advertisement
The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK
Scientific innovations
Logarithms: John Napier (1550-1617)
The theory of electromagnetism: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
Popularising the decimal point: John Napier (1550-1617)
The Gregorian telescope: James Gregory (1638-1675)
The concept of latent heat: Joseph Black (1728-1799)
The pyroscope, atmometer and aethrioscope scientific instruments: Sir John Leslie (1766-1832)
Identifying the nucleus in living cells: Robert Brown (1773-1858)
Hypnosis: James Braid (1795-1860)
Colloid chemistry: Thomas Graham (1805-1869)
The kelvin SI unit of temperature: William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
Devising the diagramatic system of representing chemical bonds: Alexander Crum Brown (1838-1922)
Criminal fingerprinting: Henry Faulds (1843-1930)
The noble gases: Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916)
The Cloud chamber: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869-1959)
Pioneering work on nutrition and poverty: John Boyd Orr (1880-1971)
The ultrasound scanner: Ian Donald (1910-1987)
Ferrocene synthetic substances: Peter Ludwig Pauson in 1955
The MRI body scanner: John Mallard in 1980
The first cloned mammal (Dolly the Sheep): Was conducted in The Roslin Institute research centre in 1996 although by two Englishmen, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell.
Seismometer innovations thereof - James David Forbes
Sports innovations
Main article: Sport in Scotland
Scots have been instrumental in the invention and early development of several sports:
several modern athletics events, i.e. shot put and the hammer throw, possibly derive from Highland Games events
Curling
Cycling, invention of the pedal-cycle
Golf (see Golf in Scotland)
Shinty The history of Shinty pre-dates Scotland the Nation. It is thought to have originated in Ireland.
Medical innovations
Pioneering the use of surgical anaesthesia with Chloroform: Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870)
The hypodermic syringe: Alexander Wood (1817-1884)
Pioneering the use of antiseptics: Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
Identifying the mosquito as the carrier of malaria: Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932)
Identifying the cause of brucellosis: Sir David Bruce (1855-1931)
Discovering the vaccine for typhoid fever: Sir William B. Leishman (1865-1926)
Discovering insulin: John J R Macleod (1876-1935) with others
Penicillin: Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955)
Discovering an effective tuberculosis treatment: Sir John Crofton in the 1950s
Primary creator of the artificial kidney (Professor Kenneth Lowe - Later Queen's physician in Scotland)
Developing the first beta-blocker drugs: Sir James W. Black in 1964
Glasgow Coma Scale: Graham Teasdale and Bryan J. Jennett (1974)
Household innovations
The Dewar Flask: Sir James Dewar (1847-1932)
The piano footpedal: John Broadwood (1732-1812)
The waterproof macintosh: Charles Macintosh (1766-1843)
The kaleidoscope: Sir David Brewster (1781-1868)
The modern lawnmower: Alexander Shanks (1801-1845)
The Lucifer friction match: Sir Isaac Holden (1807-1897){
The self filling pen: Robert Thomson (1822-1873)
Cotton-reel thread: J & J Clark of Paisley
Lime Cordial: Lachlan Rose in 1867
Bovril beef extract: John Lawson Johnston in 1874
The life ring, or personal flotation device: Captain Ward in 1854
Electric clock - Alexander Bain
Weapons innovations
The Ferguson rifle: Patrick Ferguson in 1770 or 1776
The Lee bolt system as used in the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield series rifles: James Paris Lee
The Ghillie suit
The MacKellar Heat Seeking Bullet: Kieran MacKellar in 2006 [3]
Economics innovations
Adam Smith; Smith was born in 1723, hailing from Kirkcaldy, a Scottish town north of Edinburgh; the 18th century Scot considered to be the father of modern economics; Smith's ``An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which argued that minimal government interference in commerce would promote human welfare and alleviate poverty, was published in 1776. He is the first Scotsman to appear on the central bank's currency in England, replacing Elgar's image in the next few years on as many as 1 billion notes.
Miscellaneous innovations
The digestive biscuit, invented by McVitie's in Edinburgh in 1892 by Alexander Grant.
Boys' Brigade
Bank of England
Bank of Scotland
Bank of France
Colour photography: the first known permanent colour photograph was taken by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
The Comb - Aberdeen
The Keyring - Aberdeen
Robinson Crusoe - influenced by the real-life Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway
We also gave the world Chic Murray and Billy Connolly and we humbly apologise for Gordon Brown.
Hong Kong was also a Scots idea.
Saturday 7 November 2009
Jedi
Vinod Gupta is the man with the laser - I made a sudden decision, after over a decade of thinking about it, researching it, talking to my opticians about it, and finally sorted out a consultation thing, and decided to get my left eye star-warred the next day. *blink*
~ found this lying around in the draft box : never did get round to finishing it, unless it's somewhere in the depths of my proper diary headbook which has a readership of one.
~ found this lying around in the draft box : never did get round to finishing it, unless it's somewhere in the depths of my proper diary headbook which has a readership of one.
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