City Life is to close, the last issue will come out on December 7th. I never really utilised the magazine much, but I did get mentioned in it three times- the blogging article earlier this year, a nasty review of my self published novel and a mention for a mini comic I put out years ago. I do think it’s a loss, if only for those four times a year I picked it up to find something new to do.
via Public Relations Consultant
Technorati tag: City Life, Manchester
Oxford based children’s author and traffic campaigner Ted Dewan set up a series of art installations in his residential street as traffic calming measures. The “roadwitches” included giant bunnies, a bed for a sleeping policeman and a living room in the middle of the road. Of course, some drivers showed the IQ reducing effects of too long in their smog boxes.
“A driver of a 4×4 didn’t so much disapprove – he was too crazed and violent for that. He seemed to be made psychotic by the idea that roads could exist for anything other than him to drive on,” he says.
This motorist deliberately drove into pieces of the living room furniture and then called the council to demand that they shift whatever was left lying in the road.
via BoingBoing
Technorati tag: Transport, Traffic calming
Forget the Cage/ Jolie/ Jones remake, this is the real deal.
H B “Toby” Halicki wrote, directed, starred in and did many of the stunts for this classic car heist/ chase movie. For $400,000 his character and a team of insurance investigators with a sideline in Grand Theft Auto have to steal 48 cars to order. Most of the thefts go smoothly, bar the occasional wild animal or trunkfull of heroin, but it’s the final car, Eleanor- a Mach 1 Mustang, that causes all the trouble and sets up a forty minute car chase across California.
The acting’s a little ropey, but in a charming way, and the film doesn’t slow down long enough for anyone to embarrass themselves with excessive emoting. The chase is the heart of the film, some of it shot on open roads and with genuine accidents incorporated into it. There’s none of the more-is-less feeling you get with car chases in so many recent movies. You know that half the stuff in Matrix Reloaded is done on a computer, so you’re not really excited by it (impressed, yes, but not excited). Plus it serves as a time capsule, holding the same sort of fascination as an episode of the Sweeney or similar, with all the 70’s hardware, cars and fashions.
Halicki died whilst making Gone in 60 Seconds 2, but also made Junkman, the trailer for which is one of the special features on this disc.
This is one of those cases where Amazon’s rental service has done its job. I definitely want a copy of this film. As you can see from the list in the left hand column, we’ve got a varied selection of movies lined up for the coming months, all of which interest me, but none of which I’d just go ahead and buy without seeing them first. It’s a great system and I highly recommend it.
The surgery was performed Sunday, said a statement from medics at hospitals in Lyon and Amiens. The surgery was performed in Amiens in northern France, but doctors from both hospitals participated.
via Sploid
Technorati tag: Transplant
Five snowboarding greats from, as the trailer puts it, four generations of snowboarding get together to ride some of the last truly virgin slopes and tell tales of the history of snowboarding. Released in the US this week, don’t know when in the UK.
via Extreme Sports
I wrote a cheque on the eighteenth. The money left my bank last thursday. Jessops still haven’t received the money and won’t give me my shiny new camera until they do. They also expect it to take a fortnight for them to get money from a cheque payment.
What exactly is their bank doing with my/their money for the week and a bit between taking it out of my account and putting it into jessops’?
So that it can be turned into useful tools by a blacksmith in Sierra Leone.
Peace is paying dividends in Sierra Leone. The same civil war that depleted the country of tools and work is now providing ample raw material for recovery: weapons. Enterprising blacksmiths and metal workers convert them into farm implements so that a Kalashnikov becomes hoes and axe heads and a rocket launcher transforms into pickaxes, sickles and even school bells.
The indisputable heavyweight champ is a tank (or a heavy duty 16 wheeler) that can provide a year’s work for 5 blacksmiths, turning it into 3,000 items vital to equip a farming village of 100 families. Jobs, tools, agriculture. It isn’t everyday that what you long for comes true.
via BoingBoing
Technorati tag: Charity, Redevelopment
I’ve talked up Firefox before. It’s a far better browser than Internet Explorer, more secure, better organised thanks to tabbing and with loads of third party plug ins. Version 1.5 has just been released.
Yet 78% of you (well, of the last 100 visitors, anyway) still use Explorer to visit Spinneyhead. So I’m going to ask you to trade up to something better and help me earn some money at the same time. Click on the link at the top of the page, download- for free- a superior browser and install it, and I’ll get a dollar. I’d recommend Firefox for free, but this way is even better.
Technorati tag: Firefox
Tony Blair’s nuclear announcement got the reception it deserved.
Greenpeace protesters have disrupted a speech used by Tony Blair to launch an energy review which could lead to new nuclear power stations in the UK.
Technorati tag: Nuclear Power, Tony Blair is a liar
The Daleks have made a porn video. Another reason to hide behind the sofa.
Abducted By The Daleks – which features grey, red and black pepper-pot baddies watching a lesbian scene – was “five years in the making”, says the sleeve.
via Fleshbot
Someone on Radio 4 just said that the soon-to-be-proposed new nuclear power stations would need a budget of £17 billion. Even if that’s only American billions that’s a stupid amount to shell out on a scheme that won’t come online for ten years and will still be dangerously polluting (not at the plants, a huge amount of energy is required to mine the fuel and all mines have run-off, can you imagine what a uranium mine leaches into the water supply.)
Technorati tag: Nuclear Power
A councilman in the New York suburb of Queens is trying to make it illegal to pave over lawns. Of course the car junkies, who are more interested in parking space than flood risks, don’t like the idea.
Technorati tag: Green city
Two possible sources of bike lockers- Trimetals and Cycle-Works.
Technorati tag: Bike
Delegates meeting in the Canadian city of Montreal are to discuss how targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions over the next seven years will be met.
Thousands of scientists, officials and environmentalists are attending 12 days of talks.
Nuclear power may have to be embraced in a bid to combat climate change even though it is not a “sustainable” energy source, Margaret Beckett has admitted.
The environment secretary said she was very reluctant to build new nuclear power stations, but that she had “accepted that it could happen”.
But Mrs Beckett said any investment in nuclear must not be at the expense of renewable energy sources.
I don’t know. I just think there’s a lack of imagination from the Government. They can only think in terms of big fixes, building more power stations to take up the increase in demand rather than thinking about cutting the demand. Higher energy efficiency standards for new homes and increased grants for people installing solar and wind systems should be considered well ahead of building any new nuclear, (clean) coal or oil power stations.
Technorati tag: EcoHouse
Speaking at a conference of business leaders, the secretary of state for transport, Alistair Darling said “radical measures” were needed to tackle congestion and he added that he supported the development of a national road pricing scheme.
“One of the biggest threats to economic expansion we face in the next 10 to 15 years is congestion on the roads in our towns and cities,” Mr Darling told delegates. “Congestion is bad for business, frustrates motorists and hurts local economies.”
Manchester is likely to be one of the areas affected.
Technorati tag: Transport, Congestion Charge
That’s £13million worth of thefts, which is probably less than an average Saturday’s profit. What do they take? “Top of the list are razor blades, according to the research. Followed by cosmetics, alcohol, toiletries, lingerie, CDs and DVDs.”
Technorati tag: Shoplifting
Play Java powered versions of old arcade favourites.
via Screenhead
Technorati tag: Nostalgia, Arcade Games