Kitten Fluff

Rise Sir Jamie,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

I have been watching the repeats of Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners. For any – and I do mean any – readers who are from the US, Jamie Oliver is a posh-ish top chef who has spent the last 18 months trying to educate schools and dinner ladies as well as the kids about healthy food.

The man deserves a knighthood. He has probably done far more for the future of the UK than any other “Sirs”. The change in the behaviour and health of some of the kids was incredible. It was perfectly clear. You could solve a whole raft of social problems if you sort out the diet. Seriously.

So compelling that the UK government has inevitably caved in and thrown some money at them. Good.

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box sleeper,
originally uploaded by jmw71.

This surely can’t be comfortable.

It’s weird – this picture had loads of comments about it. Which was nice. But it made me feel a twang of guilt that I whore Flickr and people’s photo efforts out to my blog. Instead, maybe I should “join in the community” and actually comment on the photos too. Hmmm. A thought.

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Right Royal blooper,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

This made me laugh out loud. Poor old Chuck. Got caught out with the uber-powerful press microphones that caught him mumbling how much he hated posing for them.

He also decided to share his thoughts on the BBC’s royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell*. Not particularly flattering. There is a video here of his “reaction”. Very amusing.

*I saw him on the Tube once. Before the days of cameraphones.

Boing Boing: New Dr Who star quits after one episode
I can’t believe he has quit Dr Who after only one episode has been aired. He was great. The whole episode was great – except for Graham Norton cutting through at the start… Duh.

My colleague who is well-versed in these things says it is about money and he wants more and when he gets it could be back. We shall wait and see. Seems odd though since he emailed the team to get the part.

I think Eddie Izzard would make a great replacement.

Atlas,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

I now have the photostream of Easter in Amsterdam 2005 up on Flickr.

Lots of cats.

Whisky bosses search for new cat,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

BBC NEWS Scotland Whisky bosses search for new cat

Awww bless the wee mite! He munched his way through 30,000 mice and protected the precious whiskey for a cat-tastic 24 years.*

Must have been the fumes of the lovely stuff that kept him going for so long. The Water of Life Indeed.

Maybe they should hold a Cat Idol to find the replacement. I’d watch that.

*In Scotland they also use geese to protect the whiskey – they are far more effective than alarms when any intruders try their luck.

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my flickr contacts,
originally uploaded by curiouskiwi.

This is a nice applet for Flickr users that puts all your contacts into a single mosaic picture… Nice representation of your “community”. I must have very little “community spirit” as I only have two picture that come up. Hmm.

This is hilarious. The US government, says Wired, is doing a PR job on RFID - radio frequency identification – tags which they plan to attach to passports to “keep track” of who is entering the country. There are lots of fears around this emerging technology. Lots of them obviously centre around their potential use to invade human rights and privacy. It is fair to say they have had a bad press so far.

The Department of Homeland Security says now that they are not RFID tags – shuh. No, they are using contactless chips.

Happy Easter – for yesterday,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

Happy belated Easter to one and all – well OK, maybe two.

Loving this Easter chick from the B3ta board.

The reason for the lack of posts has been because Blugg and I took our Easter in Amsterdam… Woohoo! We are loving the Dam. Back now though. Obviously. Although I am on me own until Saturday. So plenty of computer time and blogging.

Will get my arse in gear and upload some of the photos from the weekend. Loadsa random and known cats.

Conducting wood,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

Now this is what we need. Moving towards the idea that technology should and will be built actually into the fabric of furniture – including wood. No more messy snakes f cables!! Yee har! Wishful thinking…

Says Engadget:

The basic idea – sandwiching two layers of conductive metal between layers
of wood to integrate power into the furniture – strikes us as an elegant,
creative way to get rid of the tangle of wires that we’re forced to contend
with when using normal furniture.

They do also point out that wood is flammable. I am sure some nanocoating or other would solve that problem.

Screen Licker,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

This is my most favourite screensaver I have ever seen. Click here to play it…

Don’t forget the sound.

I don’t know who originally did it. If anyone does know, tell me. Via comments.

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Invisibility Screens,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

Damnit! Cory Doctorow spotted this Flickr group before I did…

The challenge is to take a photo of the background behind your computer and set it as your wallpaper – you can see by the picture.

But it does remind me of the Invisibility Cloak in Harry Potter. This is seriously a way they – Japanese scientists – have created one.

Cool.

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Better than Robosapien,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

These self assembly robots are much better than your average Transformer – or even Robosapien.

The M-TRAN II robot, developed by the Japanese Distributed Systems Design Research Group, is made up of a dozen of modules. Each has two linking blocks. The can each rotate 180 degrees around the link that connects them. Each module has a switchable magnet inside which means it can link to more modules in the system, says We Make Money Not Art.

Our robot future has only just began folks.

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è±?è±?,
originally uploaded by tinghua.

Did I eat them already?*

*Please excuse btw the rash of cat posts. There are just so many around!!

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Rico,
originally uploaded by san291.

This feline epitomises to me what cats are all about. Look at that strut. Look at the hanging angle of the head. Classic. Hard As Fuck.

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IMG_0035,
originally uploaded by Elias.gomez.

This cat reminds me of the anime/Manga type All Knowing But Still Cute cat characters in those films that is the brave companion to the vulnerable hero.

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All five,
originally uploaded by Mister Rossi.

I’ll have them all pleaseeee!! Oh, alright then – one will do…

If Blugg and I ever do get a cat (here’s hoping) then he would have to go to the cat home to choose one. I wouldn’t be able to it. I suppose they come to you with their puurrrrsonalities.

Heh. Going to Amsterdam tomorrow! Woo hoo!

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Flickr rich!,
originally uploaded by Mister Snitch.

Talking of Flickr…Yahoo has bought it, in case you hadn’t heard, and there is a lot of dicussion in the groups there about what “Bonuses” Pro account holders will get.*

Some are saying Hoodies, some are saying flan and tiaras… Frisbees are popular too.

I say SHARES PLEASE and a Pentax 7 megapixel “retro” camera. Thanks.

*I am a Pro… It basically means that for around $49 a year, you can upload shit loads of photos. You are limited if you are not a Pro.

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picture a day – exploding dog,
originally uploaded by notext.

I haven’t blogged for three days! Yikes! Not that anyone is reading anyway apart from Sharonspotbottom! Thanks!

Anyway, this Flickr picture caught my eye – I think places like Flickr really inspire people to expand what photography is. Most computers come with software that people can use to edit photos. Being Digital Is Great.

Like the original, this blue pen and notepad version of the game is utterly addictive and a very clever idea… :0)

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amarrados,
originally uploaded by danib.

What the… There are some real gems among Flickr Everyone’s photos…

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Wag the dog message,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

I don’t usually blog about dogs, but this is such a good idea… It uses the persistance of vision thing to broadcast pre-programmed messages.

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ITSY SPEAKING,
originally uploaded by Torrie.

Excellent cat pose.

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Watching TV,
originally uploaded by hale_popoki.

Heh. If we had a cat it would have no choice but to watch TV. I have often wondered what cats can actually do see when they look at tellies, and in fact whether do actually think what they are watching is coming from inside the box.

I love Mark Hibbett’s Hey Hey 16k. Now he has done a song about QOLEDs.* These are in fact Quality of Life Enhancement Devices to be precise.

They are just the little things that we don’t realise we need until we have them. Like a dust buster. Or four way adaptors.

Anyway, Mr Hibbett invites people to send in their QOLEDs.

*This may not indeed be new but I just found it via BleepBlog

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,
originally uploaded by tsogy.

I hear Verdi, or Carmen, or whatever.* A very operatic pussy indeed. In fact, I would pay good money to see a real Cat Opera.

*I am not “up” on opera. To me it is the name of a browser

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image00558,
originally uploaded by MagicHappens.

I *really* hope that this cat chose to sleep there. Eurgh.

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picturephoning.com
This is fun. Spell with Flickr lets you spell out any word with Flickr photos. Good clean fun.

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The inventor of Rss, Dave Winer, gets assimilated with two aliens in their Bluggcast skyperview. Fun trans-Atlantic chat with the coder and the aliens about RSS, bloggers and the Universe.

4203,
originally uploaded by The Kitten’s Toe.

p2pnet.net – the original daily p2p and digital media news site
Heh – this makes me laugh. Apple are furious that a Taiwanese company has set up stalls at Cebit to show off its Luxpro’s Super Shuffle. Looking at the two side by side is like trying to do those spot the difference games in cheap magazines.

Apple are “considering their options”, according to P2Pnet.