J.B. Banks & Son Ltd Ironmongers in Cockermouth | Urban Ghosts |
Located in the market town of Cockermouth in northern England’s Lake District, J.B.Banks & Son Ltd ironmongers and hardware shop was established in 1836. To date, this spellbinding shop has survived two serious floods and three truck crashes, and boasts a counter-top decorated with keys and pre-decimal coins, an ornate National Cash Register and an enchanting chiming clock.
That’s the beauty of this city. You go into town to buy some cds, and you bump into a bike ride on closed roads on the way in then a parade on the way out. I think it’s a celebration of Manchester’s Italian (or Scottish, given the pipe bands) community. Feel free to correct me.
On Thursday my pc fell over so seriously that, after two days of trying to fix the booting issues, I installed Windows again.
This morning, it’s told me it needs to catch up on a few updates rolled out since the factory install disk was burnt.
I’m off out. It may have sorted itself by the time I get back.
This is cool. Imagine the zero-g Scalextric track that would be possible with room temperature super-conductors.
via Gizmodo
On Wednesday I spotted this sign-
Which, for reasons that shall become obvious, reminded me of this-
And, after a brief interlude where my computer suffered a serious breakdown, inspired me to create these-
These may appear as the front and back images on a T-shirt after I’ve cleaned them up a bit.
A new song by Pixies? 🙂
Big tray of ‘shrooms for £1.50? Why, thank you. I’ll work out what to do with them later.
(Fry-up for breakfast, stroganoff for dinner, what else can I do?)
This has been the wettest day in a while, so Critical Mass was always going
to be less well attended than normal.
The fire’s in Aldred’s Buildings at the end of Edge Street.
Somewhere near Hyde, a couple of weeks ago.
Yet another location close to work. I think I’m officially in Salford now.
Some times, I’d like to listen to music when I’m out and about. But I have no desire for an iPod, and I don’t want to use my phone as a music player. And I work for a company that sells hifis, so I aspire to something better than an Apple product. So today I went looking for portable media players that could do justice to high quality files. I haven’t had a chance to test any of them, but I found a few with very impressive specifications, with prices to match.
At the top end of the price range, coming in at over a grand, is the Astell & Kern AK120. It’s very stylishly finished and can hold up to 192Gb of music, thanks to two micro SD card slots. It also has very potent digital to analogue conversion, capable of decoding “master tape quality” files (24bit/192kHZ, CD quality is 16bit/44.1kHZ) and outputting them at the quality they deserve. (You’ll need to get headphones worthy of the output, though, and that could easily be several hundred pounds more). The AK120 is for someone who travels first class and wants the sound to go with it, not we pleb s who catch the bus.
There is an AK100, which comes in at about half the price. It has less storage and lower grade (but still very good) components, but should still provide excellent audio.
Coming in at about the same price as the AK100, and looking gorgeous, is the Colorfly C4. I think it lacks some of the clever features of the AK100, but just look at that lovely walnut case.
Closer to the price of an iPod, and something I might be able to afford, is the C4’s little brother, the Colorfly C3. It only sports 8Gb, but it’s also not up to master quality audio, just CD quality, so the files you stick on it are going to be smaller. You’d need to get earphones or headphones worth £50 or so to match the quality of the output, of course, but it would be worth it.
It’s time to start saving.
Another one from close to where I work. There’s some interesting signage near the office, so I’m good for a few more of these.
“In 1964 the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) designed a hypersonic aircraft capable of flight at five times the speed of sound, nicknamed MUSTARD (Multi-Unit Space Transport And Recovery Device).
Another piece of time capsule signage near to where I work. It’s not as clear whether this is still a going concern.
Under the Mancunian Way.