This is one of the ways it was introduced to the nation by the Decimal Currency Board.

While it made a kind of sense to go decimal, for supposedly making it easier to do currency calculations, I can’t help thinking that we lost something.  Yes it is a shame that we lost denominations such as the Shilling, Guinea, Crown and Half-Crown but we lost something more than the cultural.  The £SD system was not just random – twelves are far more versatile for dividing-up than tens (1,2,3,4,6,12 vs 1,2,5,10).  Even the Guinea (21 shillings or 252 pennies) has the versatility of division by 7.  There is a school of thought which says that our mathematical brains are far-less nimble at basic calculation because we’ve lost the knack switching between bases which the £SD system forced on us.  Calculators and computers would have played their part there too.   That said, now having easy and cheap access to versatile computing machines in business and personal life also makes much of the justification for going decimal moot.

I can recommend the excellent Archive on 4 programme Decimal Day – What’s That in Old Money broadcast by Radio Four to mark the anniversary.

M45 - The Pleiades - (C) Robert Gendler 2004

Monday night, myself and Mr 0tralala braved the cold to make some astronomical observations.  Were taking the GCSE in Astronomy at the moment, spending two hours a week at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich for lessons.  The coursework deadline is rapidly approaching and it doesn’t help that our endeavours have been hampered by the British winter weather – lots of cloud.

But Monday was clear.  We’ve also managed to find a nearby spot which is relatively free of street lamps, even if you can’t escape London’s appalling light pollution entirely.

The pointers we’ve been learning about in class also worked perfectly.  Orion, the Hunter is really easy to find in the winter sky, and from his belt it’s a short hop to the red star Aldebaran - the eye of Taurus the bull.  Following the line a bit further takes you to M45, better known as The Pleiades or The Seven Sisters.

To the naked eye, especially in South London, they look like a fuzzy blob but it’s the first time I had found them and was really chuffed.  Then I got out my binoculars.  They are only small, with objective lenses of 25mm, so not perfect for night-use but the view was still stunning.  This was the first time I’ve seen The Pleiades live rather than in pictures and could easily make-out the group of six brightest stars as well as many others.

Image (C) NASA - Found via Wikipedia

That brings me to another point – six brightest stars?  But these are the Seven Sisters.  Where is number seven?  Even in professional photographs, there are certainly six conspicuously bright stars.  According to Wikipedia, the nine brightest stars are named for the daughters of the Titan Atlas, from Greek myth along with Atlas himself and their mother Pleione.  So that’s now nine stars, all very confusing, especially as numbers seven to nine appear to be randomly assigned from a plethora of choices.

Somehow, I think that’s missing the point.  Whatever the mythic origin of the name, they are still a stunning sight.

You’ll probably have noticed these little squares appearing on your pastage and any mail-order items you receive.  They’ve been used for tracking packages for some time.  Apparently, in Japan, they have been appearing everywhere and much more visibly in the world of  but Marketing for some time too.  That’s a use that’s only just starting to gather pace in the US and UK and of course relies on there being a critical mass of smart-phone users able to scan them.

A couple of years ago, Google sent stickers with the codes on to 100,000 businesses in the US to tie them to their Places project in Google Maps.  Closer to home, the codes have started to appear on-screen in Waitrose TV ads.  They have even popped-up on the back of DVD boxes linking to a mobile trailer so you can see a little of what you’d get inside the pack while shopping.

They’re really easy to create too.  There’s a plethora of aps for iPhone and Android as well as online generator such as this one from delivr.com

One of the games I put together for this event was a version of the old TV gameshow Wipeout.  Rather than leave it languishing on my hard-drive forever more, I have put it up here for anyone to have a go.

Just like the gameshow, the player must choose a grid of clues to try their luck against from a selection of cryptic topics.  Then, once faced with the grid, decide how many correct answers they can see amongst the red-herrings.  Picking a single wrong-answer wipes-out their accumulated score.

Obviously, here, it’s difficult to reproduce the full gameplay of the TV show but it’s possible to have a go.

So try your luck against the categories below.  Click the letters in the answer-squares to make your choices:

For anyone interested in the technical details.  The game was put together in Adobe Flash CS4 and using Actionscript 3.0 for the logic.

As I’ve not ridden a bike in 15 years or so I opted for not much more than a jaunt around Hyde Park.  Luckily it seems that riding a bike is, well, like riding a bike.

As others have noted the bikes are very heavy – around 23kg, so I hear.  Its probably part of what makes them feel a bit tank-like to use, and give them quite a wide turning circle.  These are not really criticisms though; their sturdiness makes them feel very safe and stable.

I’m also blaming their weight on the fact I’m now knackered-out rather than just being plain unfit!

So the scheme and the bikes themselves are easy to use and a great alternative to the Tube or a bus in good weather.  But I suppose there had to be one flaw:  I’m sure it will prove to be temporary, but at the time of writing it is impossible to log-in to the cycle hire website.  It has been down for well-over 24 hours with not even so much as an apology or note that it’s being fixed.  Sort it out TfL!  At the very least an acknowledgement that there is a problem would be a start.

I made this in October 2006 soon after the new BBC One identities were launched.  The video was shot using my Sony Handycam in DV with the animation formed from several elements created and animated in Flash.  The BBC ONE logo was created in photoshop and the whole thing assembled and edited along with the music (from a genuine BBC Ident) in Pinnacle Studio.

This is rather smaller than the Magnificent Seven ring of better-known Victorian burial grounds.  It still has it’s charms, though, with a smattering of local luminaries, poets, musicians and, of all things, anarchists.

Despite the weather a highly enjoyable walk, even if it is a little alarming to hear that there are probably two or three unexploded German bombs somewhere there!

If you want to see the pictures I took, you can find the set on my Flickr pages.  I can also recommend the public Flickr group.

84 year-old goes for a quick drive

Yesterday was the State Opening of Parliament – the one time in the year when all three parts of our legislative system are all in the same place at the same time.  The commentators tell us that there are symbolic messages behind the ceremonial and serious political debate follows.  However, as it promised to be a gorgeous late spring day, and a good photo opportunity, I took the day of work and met my Dad to point and click.  You can find the results on my Flickr pages.

This was always going to be a more promising opportunity as the ceremony normally happens in November with November weather.  The only time it is set at other times is the Opening immediately after a general election.  Assuming the new bill to give us fixed-term Parliaments goes through, then every five years we’ll also have a nice spring day to watch.

Woo!

Shiny new air-conditioned trains all the way between Dalston and West Croydon.

It’s certainly made a difference to my commute already with a much easier interchange to the Tube avoiding the crushing hell that is London Bridge in the mornings.  I just hope that this isn’t just because people are yet to fully notice that the new service is up and running.

Now it should be easier to start exploring East London more.  Anyone up for a Brick Lane curry?