On Saturday Holly and I went to see some buildings as part of the London Open House thing. For one weekend each year, buildings, or parts of buildings, that are normally closed are open to the public. We saw the Royal Courts of Justice, 120 Fleet Street and Staple Inn.
Highlight was definitely the art deco interior of 120 Fleet Street, former home of the Daily Express. An absolutely amazing interior.
Photos we took are here.
So I bought a USB keyboard and mouse adapter, because this beastie only has USB. Works a charm.
Next step is to install an OS on the CF card and attempt to boot it.
Yesterdays ride ended up about 120km. My legs are very very tired, but it was a good ride. Good preparation for our big ride in a couple of weeks too. Gonna be a few days around that distance!
Part of the reason for the extra length yesterday was Lonely Planet's shitty directions and maps. It got me thinking: why hasn't someone come up with a satellite navigation system for this kinda thing? I guess cost is still too high, and probably not enough demand compared to cars.
For city cycling, though, it should be a relatively easy matter to overlay the government-provided cycle maps onto an existing map of a city. The navigation engine would be programmed to prefer the cycle routes, avoid motorways and A roads, and prefer shorter distances. I guess it could get difficult in hilly cities, a bit more complex as going downhill is a very different thing to uphill.
Perhaps something for the hobbyists to start?
An email on the Critical Mass Sydney email list brought a court case involving the NSW Summary Offences Act to my attention. My last clash with this insidious piece of legislation was when organising a protest against the Internet censorship legislation for EFA.
On that occasion, the coppers initially refused our protest because
it was at lunch time and involved a march which would cause disruption
to traffic. I now see why they backed down so quickly, with this
lovely quote from the judge:
It is in the very nature of the entitlement to peaceful protest that disruption will be caused to others.
I'd recommend the case to anyone planning protests in NSW. It basically says that the police have very very limited rights to oppose any protest that has been correctly notified to the Police.
And this choice nugget:
I order the Commissioner to pay the defendant's costs.
Lovely.
Seeing my logs scroll past, it looks like my Circle Line Party photos have been a hit in Blogistan. Loads of hits there, when all I did was stick 'em up, stick 'em on my blog and post them to the Circle Line Party's blog. Now the hits are coming in from all over the place.
Interesting to watch. I hope they don't blow my site's bandwidth cap...
Got a bunch of new photos up. This new camera sure takes beautiful pics!
This week the Great British Beer Festival has been on at Olympia, which is very close to our house. I think my favourite has been the dark German wheat beer I had last night. Delicious! Might see if I can make such a beast.
And if my head is anything to go by, steer clear of the (12%!) barley wine.
I bottled the Canadian Blonde last night. Should be a nice, light beer with loads of hop aroma. I bottled with 100g glucose priming and a handful of Fuggles hops boiled in for a few minutes. Tasted pretty good when I took a gravity reading. 4% or so alcohol.
Looks like the UK is finally getting a propaganda booklet about terrorism and emergencies. As usual, the poms are years behind everyone else. What's more, it doesn't sound like it's going to be a fridge magnet. And as my mate Kev pointed out, they'll probably plagiarise it from someone else's out-of-date information.
I want my fridge magnet that tells me how to duck and take cover!