Toy #1 took to nursery.
Glosssary
A glossary of terms used within this website.
ww – wonderful wife
#1 – son number one
#2 – son number two
GT5 – Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3
PS3 – Sony Playstation, third version. A delight.
MGS – Maidstone Grammar School
Lego 4 Model 5816
Made this for #1. He has given up dummies and posted them to Santa. When he had returned from the post box Santa had left him a Duplo set. Why the dummies had to go in an envelope when Santa was visiting anyway to drop the present off I don’t know! So here we have Mack, Lightning McQueen and the Sheriff from Cars. All superglued together as usual.
Toys of the son part 3
The next set of toys #1 took to nursery.
Toys of the son part 2
Next set of toys #1 took to nursery.
Toys of the son part 1
An occasional commentary of the toys the sons are playing with or breaking. This time a toy #1 took to nursery for the day.
Lego 3 Model 7235
Made this as a reward for son coping with Tesco shopping. Again, superglued it together to make sure he doesn’t feed the small pieces to his small brother.
Lego 2 Model 4642
Made this for my son. Glued it with small amounts of superglue so hopefully he won’t pull it apart. He played with it in the bath. It isn’t very stable as a small amount of water will cause it to overturn.
Lego 1 Model 8092
The first in a series of posts about Lego models I make (with the kids in a few years time). I made many when I was younger and also some over the last decade.
So this one was a present from Penguin after the birth of my second son. I bought him a “new dad” present and he reciprocated. Nobody remembers the dads.
Anyway, Lego model 8092, Luke’s landspeeder from the Star Wars universe.
Constant speed or constant throttle?
So, which of these types of driver are you? Now, I’m not claiming to be a good driver, I’m too human to think I’m any good, I wouldn’t even claim I’m a good Gran Turismo driver! But I do know that these two types exist and I’m definitely one of them. This is probably a continuum so I’m not claiming a complete dichotomy.
Type A – Constant Speed
This type of driver maintains a constant speed along a motorway by varying the throttle as gradients increase or decrease. For instance, earlier today while travelling along the M20 I maintained a healthy and legal 70mph. I did this by increasing the throttle uphill and decreasing it downhill. Simple really.
Type B – Constant Throttle
This type of annoying driver maintains the same pressure on the throttle independent of the gradient of the road. This means that as the vehicle goes uphill it slows and then speeds up again as the gradient levels or goes downhill. Many times I have overtaken a car uphill only to be overtaken again going downhill. This is clearly wrong. How do I know this is wrong? Because cars have speed cruise control and not a throttle control.
This type of driving being wrong does not apply to big trucks but definitely to vans who like to go as fast as possible but slowing uphill because they are heavy, thereby blocking the outside lane.
Learn how to adjust your right foot, morons!
iPhone Apps
Here are some of my favourite iPhone apps and why:
General apps:
- Podcaster – I listen to lots of podcasts! There’s a list here.
- Tunein Radio – when I do the washing up I listen BBC Radio 4 via the internet as the FM signal in the kitchen is a bit iffy. I also listen to Radio Rock – Helsinki
- Met Office – Get the weather and rain maps. Just great.
- WordPress – for editing this site on the move and when I am away from a computer.
- Wolfram – for maths stuff and finding out things that require time series or comparisons.
- Flickr – puts my family photos onto the Flickr site.
- Twitter – I can follow my favourite people and occasionally tweet about the aero-fauna I see.
- IMDb – ever recognise someone in a film and wonder what else they have been in? If so then you need IMBd. I remember it when it was based in Cardiff (that’s a long time ago).
- GTPlanet – I use it to check out interesting things about the Gran Turismo series.
Sport apps:
- WTCC – keeps me in touch with the World Touring Car Series.
- William Hill – I can place my usual amount on the sporting outcomes on offer.
- Spurs – just to keep up to date with the score and Premiership table. Football on the whole bores me as a sport.
- ECB Cricket – because cricket is a sport that matters.
- NFL – after motorsport this is probably my favourite sport.
- F1
Games:
- F-Sim Shuttle – in top 3%
- X – Plane – 4G
- RC Plane 2
- F.A.S.T.
- Real Racing 2
- Slayer Pinball HD
- Angry Birds – in the top 9%
- Sailboat Pro
- Flick Golf
My GameCentre name is Kurtz72
Random:
- Wind Tunnel – as an aero engineer (by degree) this is fascinating.
- Star Walk – it’s always good to know what stars you are looking at.
- Fractile – zoom into the Mandelbrot set which is just lovely and fascinating.