Here’s the latest tech I’ve bought. I’m a bit of a Logitech fan so this was always going to be something of theirs.
Really nice sound and rechargeable batteries to carry it around.
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.
Fiction
Picture of part of my bookshelf. Note the fiction title surrounded by reference books!
Ambition
Think I’d like to break into the top 10000. Doing ok at the moment on Angry Birds. Have spent far too much time playing it though.
Now I’ll have to keep going!
Just put an iPhone dock in the kitchen and cleaned the microwave top as that’s where it goes. Then looked at wall and thought I’d wipe it. Whoops! Now have to clean the whole wall! Shouldn’t have touched the wall.
This is not a dirty house I should point out. How often do you clean your walls?
Update: 29 August 12:00
Wall now clean, although from picture you’ll have to decide if I cleaned it or just re-dirtied the clean bit!
What happened next!
It wasn’t weather, it was aliens landing. Wow, who’d thought Hollywood could get it so right?
Aliens have landed in Kent. This is the view of the Burham Nature Reserve where Romans defeated the Kent tribes and crossed the river.
Independence Day
Another dog walk another thing of interest. Nice weather front formation. Dark clouds preceded by clear bright skies turning to overcast.
Facebook and me
So Mr Facebook! Our relationship is almost non-existent. The only influence I maintain on Facebook is from my wife’s account and my friends who find out about me from her.
There’s a history. I started a website in 1994 for the student union that employed me. I was in a sabbatical post in charge of clubs and societies so when we got some web space I wrote the union’s web pages. The latest which are absolutely nothing to do with me are at www.su.ic.ac.uk
I didn’t do any more web stuff until about 1999 when I bought some web space and had my own web pages designed using MS Frontpage. These were at www.iparish.org.uk
Other sites I’ve had are www.ianparish.me.uk and then www.iparish.plus.com and now finally this site.
The point is that when social networks really took off with myspace I had my own site. I didn’t need another website to write stuff or advertise my own presence to the world. So I pretty much ignored all social networking while I had a website. Facebook didn’t bother me, if people want to stay in touch with me or vice versa then we could talk or email or text.
Over the last few years I have recognised that it would be easier to keep in touch with friends if I was on Facebook but it’s too late. I refused for so long that I just can’t do it now. There are principles at stake. Not going to take the plunge now.
My wife finds this amusing and slightly annoying as I sometimes ask her to send messages to people for me, not that often though. Also I am on twitter, mainly to follow F1 and NFL. I keep in touch with one friend through twitter but basically I don’t do social networking. Just don’t see the need if you have your own website, which I do.
FFRF
Signed up to the Atheist out of the Closet campaign on Freedom From Religion Foundation website. Also starting to listen to their podcast. Like it.
They do very good work in USA making sure church and state separation is maintained. We could do with something like that over here, but our parliament is hard wired for religion. Our head of state is the leader of our church! We have bishops in the House of Lords ffs. When can we get rid of that? Current plans are to have representation from all major religions in the Lords. How stupid. When do you know to stop? How do you choose which religions? How big do they have to be? Remove all religious representation and let them lobby like everyone else (not that I’m keen on lobbying groups).
