Monthly archives: June 2011


Daily Blog 06/28/2011

  • The Nagant M1895 Revolver is a seven-shot, gas-seal revolver designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Léon Nagant for the Russian Empire. The Nagant M1895 was chambered for a proprietary cartridge, 7.62x38R, and featured an unusual “gas-seal” system in which the cylinder moved forward when the gun was cocked to close the gap between the cylinder and the barrel, providing a boost to the muzzle velocity of the fired projectile, and allows the weapon to be silenced (an unusual ability for a revolver).

    tags: weapons

  • At the end of the day, it is impossible to buy truly authentic Japanese swords on a budget of under US$300.

    Indeed, the starting price for most entry level Shinken is often much closer to US$1000 and goes up (and up and UP) from there.

    tags: swords japanese

  • An attempt to recover a Spitfire from a peat bog in Donegal will highlight the peculiar story of the men – both British and German – who spent much of World War II in relative comfort in neighbouring prisoner of war camps in Dublin, writes historian Dan Snow.

    tags: ww2 Ireland

  • Animals and wildlife prices are based upon publicly available documents and is quoted in US Dollars. Click on the price for source information.

    tags: animals blackmarkets

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 06/25/2011

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Walk Ten for Marie Curie Cancer Care at Tatton Park

Marie Curie Walk Ten publicity photos

Walk Ten for Marie Curie Cancer Care at Tatton Park

Sign up for a summer evening walk for charity, supported by HomeServe

Marie Curie Cancer Care is holding a summer evening walk at Tatton Park on Saturday 13th August and the charity is inviting people from across Cheshire to take part.

The 10k walk at Tatton Park is one of a series of unique ‘Walk Ten’ events being held at 20 spectacular venues across the country, supported by HomeServe, Britain’s dedicated home emergency and repairs experts.

The Tatton Park walk starts at 6pm and at the end of the walk, there will be fun activities throughout the evening, such as fireworks, live music, and picnics, in celebration of the work of Marie Curie Nurses. Registration is £10 per person (children go free) but everyone is encouraged to raise as much as possible to support Marie Curie Cancer Care, whose Nurses provide free care to people with terminal cancer and other illnesses in their own homes and in the charity’s hospices.

Tatton Park boasts some of the most impressive and dazzling gardens in the UK and is the perfect setting for Marie Curie Cancer Care’s Walk Ten celebration. The 10km sunset walk takes people through some beautiful landscapes, where deer roam. The park is usually closed to the public in the evening making this a unique opportunity to experience the stunning landscape at a magical time of the day.]

Jayne Neal, a HomeServe employee who took part in Walk Ten for Marie Curie last year said: “Walk Ten is a brilliant occasion, giving people the chance to walk 10k in stunning surroundings, but also to recognise the dedication of Marie Curie Nurses, who work through the day and night providing care to people with cancer and other terminal illnesses. There’s a real festival atmosphere at the end of every walk where friends and families come together. Then at 10pm, which is the time Marie Curie Nurses start their night shifts across the country, candles are lit and everyone is silent for a few moments to think about the nurses and the people they are caring for. The fun then continues late into the summer evening.”

This year’s 20 Walk Ten venues are: * New venue for 2011
Castle Howard, North Yorkshire*
Beaulieu, Hampshire
Stourhead, Wiltshire
Stormont Estate, County Down
Athelstaneford, East Lothian
Croft Castle, Herefordshire*
Dumfries House, Ayrshire*
Margam Park, Neath Port Talbot*
Clapham Common, London*
Tatton Park, Cheshire
Boughton House, Northamptonshire
Eastbourne, East Sussex*
Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire
Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire*
Herrington Country Park, Sunderland*
Shugborough, Staffordshire
Hill of Tarvit, Fife*
Omagh, County Tyrone*
Coombe Country Park, Warwickshire*
Belladrum, Inverness-shire*

For more information and to find your nearest Walk Ten go to www.mariecurie.org.uk/walkten or call 08700 340 040.

Photographs courtesy of spinneyhead.co.uk

Marie Curie Walk Ten publicity photos

Tuesday 14th was, luckily, one of the few days this month which was sunny all the way through. Which was good, because I cycled out to Tatton Park to take these photos for Marie Curie Cancer Care.


Watch this now- Made in Britain

This interesting documentary takes a look at the state of manufacturing in Britain and concludes that it’s not all as bad as some people make out. Whilst we may import more than we export, the UK is still in the top ten industrial nations. The more obvious and intensive industries- the ones which we kicked the revolution off with- have moved abroad, but we’ve developed more specialist and higher value products.

Plus, any television programme which features Bromptons in a skate park is automatically cool.

The BBC iPlayer will let you watch this programme until July 12th.


Daily Blog 06/21/2011

  • “Cyclists have for the first time outnumbered motorists on some of the country’s busiest commuter routes during rush hour.” reports Robin Henry in Today’s Sunday Times (p.11).

    Henry quotes monitoring data from Transport for London, Mouchel/Sustrans and the City of London. The Corporation of London’s assistant director for planning and transportation, Iain Simmons said “On some roads such as Cheapside cycles account for more than 50% of the traffic and these numbers are going up and up every year.”

    tags: london cycling

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 06/20/2011

  • Bitcoin—a pseudonymous cryptographic currency designed by an enigmatic, freedom-loving hacker, and currently used by the geek underground to buy and sell everything from servers to cellphone jammers. No, this isn’t a cyberpunk artifact from Snow Crash or Neuromancer; it’s a real currency currently valued several times higher than the US dollar, the British pound, and the Euro.

    Bitcoin is a virtual currency, designed to allow people to buy and sell without centralized control by banks or governments, and it allows for pseudonymous transactions which aren’t tied to a real identity. In keeping with the hacker ethos, Bitcoin has no need to trust any central authority; every aspect of the currency is confirmed and secured through the use of strong cryptography.

    tags: currency cryptography internet

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 06/18/2011

  • A museum of helicopters has opened in the summer center of Torzhok since 1989. The museum is unique, it includes 14 engines that represent the history of the helicopter industry in Russia. The museum director, Alexander Manko is a combat pilot who has 3600 flying hours and more than 150 combat missions in Afghanistan, he is also a retired lieutenant colonel. He was awarded with the Order of the Red Star for the development of Mi-24A, and with the Order of the Red Banner for combat missions in Afghanistan. He flew on Mi-1 Mi-2, the Mi-8 and Mi-24.

    tags: helicopters russia

  • The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (c.29) (POCA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provides for the confiscation or civil recovery of the proceeds from crime and contains the principal money laundering legislation in the UK.

    tags: crime uk

  • Capital flight, in economics, occurs when assets and/or money rapidly flow out of a country, due to an economic event (such as an increase in taxes on capital and/or capital holders or the government of the country defaulting on its debt) and that disturbs investors and causes them to lower their valuation of the assets in that country, or otherwise to lose confidence in its economic strength. This leads to a disappearance of wealth and is usually accompanied by a sharp drop in the exchange rate of the affected country (depreciation in a variable exchange rate regime, or a forced devaluation in a fixed exchange rate regime).

    This fall is particularly damaging when the capital belongs to the people of the affected country, because not only are the citizens now burdened by the loss of faith in the economy and devaluation of their currency, but probably also their assets have lost much of their nominal value. This leads to dramatic decreases in the purchasing power of the country’s assets and makes it increasingly expensive to import goods.

    tags: Economics

  • “In the 1970s New York City was not a part of the United States at all. It was an offshore interzone with no shopping malls, few major chains, no golf courses, no subdivisions. We thought of the place as a free city, where exiles and lamsters and refugees found shelter. Downtown we were proud of this, naturally.”

    tags: NewYork

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 06/15/2011

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Daily Blog 06/12/2011

  • Bosses of a leisure chain fighting a council for ownership of a historic building claim there has never been a better time to convert it into a hotel.

    The former London Road fire station is at the heart of a 25-year row between Manchester council and owner Britannia Hotels.

    Council bosses say the firm has repeatedly failed to start transforming the building into a hotel – and they are now trying to force Britannia to sell up.

    tags: Manchester

  • Money laundering is the practice of disguising the origins of illegally-obtained money. Ultimately, it is the process by which the proceeds of crime are made to appear legitimate. The money involved can be generated by any number of criminal acts, including drug dealing, corruption, accounting and other types of fraud, and tax evasion.[1] The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication from simple to complex.

    tags: money crime moneylaundering

  • The oldest trains on the London Underground network run on the Metropolitan line. They’re older than the trains on the Bakerloo line, which hit the tracks as recently as 1972. They’re older than the trains that trundle round the Circle line, which are merely in their early 40s. They’re older than the last surviving Victoria line trains, due to be phased out forever at the end of the month. Oh yes, the trains that run on the Metropolitan line are much older than that. Precisely fifty years old, as it turns out. Half a century old. Today.

    tags: underground transport london

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 06/11/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.