So then, Michael, farewell.

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Thoughts on Schumacher

Without boring the world on my thoughts on the Most Boring Sport In The World (subsection: “To Which I’m Addicted”), the nature of sport, ruthlessness and competition, suffice it to say that I’ve read the two best comments on Herr Schumacher’s retirement:

“We will miss him a little bit as a driver. We will miss him a lot in the football matches.”
Jarno Trulli, Toyota driver

“He has broken every record in the book, has money in the bank, a loving family and lots of lovely homes but it will be very, very difficult for him to find a replacement in his life for what Formula One has given him.”
Murray Walker, former television commentator

Now then: how about going out as World Champion, eh? That’d have people forthing at the mouth…

Normal service will be resumed now that I’ve got this out of my system 🙂

Well, this sure beats filling in the feedback form! “Desperate Dad” attended the e-consultancy event last week and sketched the speakers. His summary of my presentation is largely spot on and my only gripe is that his pencil has given me a jowly look. Mind you, I normally use the “UnFatten” plugin in Photoshop for all my photos, so maybe I shouldn’t complain… 😉 Still, I also flatter myself that I resemble the (much slimmer) Mike Butcher here.

Interesting that this debate has opened: it would have been inconceivable until recently (when British Pride would have required us to rally to the LHR flag and keep pushing for more runways, more terminals and – go on – a travelator from Oxford Circus).

Leaving aside the undoubted environmental impact of creating a 4-runway, 10-terminal behemoth in the path of migrating birds etc, this idea must surely be tickling the fancy of the London Development Agency and the East London boroughs… Never mind the Olympics, why disband the team in 2012 – let just move downstream and start building!

This is one to watch.

So, loading the dishwasher and the little “gimme salt” light is on. As I dutifully pour in the lovely fat grains of dishwasher salt I got to wondering what the salt was for. Why, for example, isn’t it all washed out? Why don’t the dishes taste of salt (or, for that matter, of rinse aid)?

So, a quick google and we have the answer: water softening. Not directly, as I’d pondered, but rather to ‘charge up’ the inbuilt ion-exchange unit (which strips out the ‘hard’ bits of water by magic means that my schoolboy chemistry can only just follow. If there are pictures).

More interesting stuff than you’d ever think possible on dishwashers at Wikipedia.

Best of all though is the link to the engineer who found a way to clean his toaster in the dishwasher. Respect.

This is the most exciting thing of the week (apart from the Braxton Hicks contractions, of course): an origami envelope.

I saw this in Make and it led me on to Flying Pig’s website and the download page.

I won’t post the full folding instructions PDF since they request your email address – only fair in this case. Suffice to say that I turned a piece of A4 into a lovely envelope, to many ooohs and ahhhhs. Result.

I love the suggestion that you turn the instruction sheet itself into the envelope and thereby post the knowledge to other people. Neat.

Viral Origami 🙂

5ives

Fun site for occasional distraction. Certainly worth a place on your RSS subscription list. My fave from a quick scan – the first in particular would be great for finding images for corporate powerpoint.

Five suggested Flickr tags
April 11th, 2006

1. “Rows Of Seated White Men Typing At Conferences”
2. “My Underlit Dessert With One Bite Missing”
3. “My Defenseless Child In A Funny Shirt I Made Him Wear”
4. “Attractive Man In His Twenties Playing An Electric Guitar”
5. “The Photo From This ‘Impromptu’ Self Portrait Series That Suggests I Don’t Have A Dewlap”

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nice.

Graffiti Research Lab � LED Throwies

The GRL is “dedicated to outfitting graffiti artists with open source technologies for urban communication”. OK, whatever. It’s geek-meets-boarder-chic.

While I’d of course not condone the vandalism of property, it’s undeniable that there are ‘urban corners’ where the graffiti art (for indeed some of it is art imho) adds to the quotient of joy in the world rather than detracts from it. I say this as a Shoreditch resident, daily cheered by the Banksy art I pass on my walk into town.

Less permanent than point though are the “throwies”:

LED Throwies are an inexpensive way to add color to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighborhood. A Throwie consists of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED and a rare-earth magnet taped together. Throw it up high and in quantity to impress your friends and city officials.

They’d look nice on the railway bridges, I reckon.

Then, however, I remembered the EU directives on things with batteries, disposal thereof etc, and realised that this is probably not the most ‘eco’ of ways to make social comment and communication…