If you’re truely passionate about something a great thing to do is to pass on your enthusiasm and knowledge to others. That’s exactly what Andrew who I work with at NPL has done, and has put together the following short video for a competition to highlight what he has tried, liked and then passed on to others.

You can watch the video below and maybe even become inspired yourself to teach and pass on your skills, and see how Andrew has used his academic studies in a vocational way!

If you like it or are felt inspired yourself you can leave a comment on his video on Youtube here: Youtube Page

More info on the Tried it, Liked it, Passed it on campaign.

A quick blog just to inform you that my laptop died for good on Sunday, and I’m in the process of ordering a new one. I’ll write about it properly once all is sorted, but for the mean time until my new laptop gets delivered (could be a week or so if not a little longer), I’ll be offline to an extent, ie. not on MSN and such.

I’ll still be checking my emails daily, thanks to Myles, so you can still get in touch with me through that, or on my mobile!

 So, toodles for now, more news soon hopefully!

Yesterday I purchased Casino Royale on DVD, and later that evening decided that I would watch it. Well, of course before you want to watch a new DVD, nowadays you are put through an unskippable promo about how you shouldn’t steal stuff, as it is a crime, and thus also not download movies as thats bad too…

…I wonder if the film industry has yet to realise that in order to watch said promo, you need to have actually purchased the DVD before hand, making the promo itself pretty useless, as it seems to be informing the wrong target audience.

It’s not just DVD’s though, it also happens when you go to the cinema. You go out and pay for the film and then sometimes pay a stupid amount of money on sweets and a drink, sit down and then you get greeted with a lovely anti piracy message telling you to go to the cinema instead of watching downloaded versions with people standing up to go to the toilet.

So, while watching the trailer about not watching a pirated film with someone getting up and going to the toilet, while someone is actually getting up to go to the toilet infront of you, the film industry is threatening you that they will get a crack squad of SWAT guys to burst into your house and arrest you if you don’t go to the cinema rather than watch a downloaded version… even though… you’re already in the cinema waiting to watch the film you’ve paid to watch, if you had downloaded it to watch it, there’s a pretty high chance you wont be sitting in that cinema seeing that message…

Just remember folks, next time you buy a DVD or go the cinema… remember… you should have instead brought a DVD or gone to the cinema, as piracy and downloading is bad… oh… wait a sec…

Hopefully not too somber; Inspired by my Project Management class the other day, I explored the inter-web for the chances of dying from various ‘accidents’ or ‘incidents’. Then I came across a website which gives a big long list of various ways you could have died… in America… in 2003, some of the more… random ones… follow;

Lightening – 1 in 6million
Earthquake – 1 in 9million
Flood – 1 in 11 million 
Winning the Lottery – 1 in 14million
Confined to or trapped in a low-oxygen environment – 1 in 18 million
Occupant of three-wheeled motor vehicle – 1 in 22 million
Fireworks – 1 in 26 million
Ignition or melting of nightwear - 1 in 97 million (Not really sure the causes to make that happen to be honest!)
Contact with venomous snakes and lizards - 1 in 145.5 million
Radiation – No chance of that happening!

So apparently in 2003, there was more chance of being hit by lightening, hit by an earthquake and drowned in a flood than win the lottery… but it’s good to know that Radiation wasn’t a high factor – boy is that a weight off of my mind!

Source: http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm (Numbers Rounded)

Cycestrian – cy-ces-tri-an / Pronounceation [sigh-est-ree-an]  / noun.
–noun 1. a hybrid of a cyclist and a pedestrian. 2. someone who travels either by cycling and walking

So, first things first, cyclists. Now, the last time I looked, bike lights are avaliable from many stores, Halfords for one, yet it would seem that 3/4 of the cycling population in Kingston have never even heard of them, let alone purchased one. Here’s my thing, driving along a road at night, and coming towards me, in the distance, is a shadowy figure floating towards me. No, wait a second, its a cyclist… with no lights. The amount of times I’ve come across someone riding a bike at night on the road with no lights is ridiculous. Now, with being only 30mins from Central London, you can expect the roads to be busy at pretty much any time of the day. Now to be riding a bike with no lights at night in Kingston is completely insane.

Now, its not like Torquay where there is 1 cyclist per 10,000 people, here it seems more like 9,999 per 10,000 people. (Well, that maybe a slight exageration – but you get what I mean). However, when you do see the lonely Torquilian cyclist, at least they have a light so they don’t increase the risk of death, whereas here they seem to have a death wish.

Now, onto the other half of the cycestrians – the Pedestrians. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a pedestrian myself obviously, but when you are walking behind slow walking people I just want to scream and/or punch them. It wouldn’t be as bad if they walked slowly to one side of the pavement, but its never that simple. Its normally in a large group of people all huddled around taking up 110% of the pavement space, the only way to get past is to walk onto the road and get hit by a bus.

But, it’s not just people who are walking in the same direction as you – but also people who are walking towards you. Again, in a group but also as simple as a couple or a trio of people, who seem to think that you are able to simply walk right through them as they fail to work out that if they are already filling up the pavement, they have to move in to let someone past. Arrrh!