Ian Robinson’s Soapbox

With apologies to Douglas Adams for nicking the line uttered when Arthur Dent uses his bottle of Retsina to gain access to the flying perpetual party in HHGTTG. But I discovered a new pleasure tonight. Thatchers Coxs Single Varietal cider. It’s really tangy and crisp. Delicious chilled and over heaps of ice. Even better, they [...]

I had my yearly TC check-up today. Is it really a year since the last one? Had the usual physical exam and a chest x-ray. Assuming the x-ray is clear, and it should be, I’ll have another exam same time next year. Happy days

You may have noticed that I’ve changed the theme in use by WordPress for the Soapbox. The new one is based on Man~ja. I want to change the colours of the entry headers to blue and the colours of the links in posts to a different colour as well. I’d also like to change the [...]

I suggest you read this. Do yourself a favour and look at the alternatives to Zune first if you don’t want an iPod. Then do yourself a big favour and buy an iPod anyway.

Saw this on Brian May’s Soapbox. New initiative to try and preserve dark skies at night so that people can see and appreciate the stars, nebulae and other celestial objects. At present the amount of light that goes up into the sky from lights is ridiculous. Just take a look at the pictures of cities, [...]

I’m having another look at MacJournal to see if it’ll work as my personal diary tool and also as a blog editing tool. I’m writing this entry using v4.1d4, which is the latest available development build from Dan Schimpf. The editor is nice. Probably a bit better than ecto form a Macintosh GUI perspective. I [...]

I’m moving to a new job!! If you look at the side bar it says that I’m employed as an IT Consultant by a UK based IT services company. I live in Belfast, UK, and work mainly in Northern Ireland. Well that’ll soon have to change to something like I’m employed as a Senior Solutions [...]

The Royal Society of Chemistry have started a Podcast, hosted by Chris Smith of Naked Scientists and Nature Podcast fame. You can get the RSC podcast here.

And has every right to be. The march of the religious right in the USA has taken a few knocks. Read his thoughts, and celebrations, about it at SFGate.

Is this the best team talk ever?

Finished reading Michael Palin’s excellent Diaries 1969-1979 The Python Years yesterday. I loved it. It gives an inside view (abridged admittedly) of the birth of Python, the ups and downs and tensions within the group and the transition from the TV series to the films of the 1970′s. Palin’s thoughts on the Ripping Yarns TV [...]

Hubble has returned many stunning images in its lifetime. Hopefully now that NASA plan to send another service mission to replace faulty parts and install updated instruments it’ll continue to provide images for a few years more. There is a collection of the top 100 Hubble Space Telescope Images at the spacetelescope.org site.

I want one. So does Mark Morford.