From The Cotswolds, UK to Boston, USA

I haven’t devoted as  much time to the blog as I should but I’ve noticed that many bloggers begin with an apology for not posting recently so perhaps I’m not so out of step… Anyway, the start of a new term, new opportunities and new challenges after a summer of relaxation, work and mixed weather. During the break, I tried to combine all three in one mini-project where I took advantage of the gaps in the summer rain to do a bit of walking and record progress using some easy-to-use GPS and then post to a free website service – the result: The Cotswold Way…

I would have tried the same thing to record my journey when I was lucky enough to visit Boston, USA to provide some training and insight on UK education. Northwest Airlines (bless it) decided to lose my luggage (containing the GPS tracker) for 48 hours though, so that didn’t work out. Boston’s a great city to visit though and well worth spending a day following the Freedom Trail and taking a boat trip to George’s Island.

That’ll do for now…

World’s worst song – official!

Grateful for wired.com for this important information: the world’s most unwanted music has been researched and recorded.

According to Wired, conceptual artists Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid and David Soldier gathered data about people’s least favourite music and lyrical subjects ( holiday music, bagpipes, pipe organ, a children’s chorus, cowboys, political jingoism,  Coca Cola, bossanova synths, banjos, harp glissandos – you get the idea) and then did the world a great service by combining the elements in one piece of music. It’s amazingly listenable, recognisable and hilarious.

Well worth the listen!

The World’s Worst Song

Don’t try this at home…

National Bike Week it may be, but that’s no excuse for this kind of behaviour! Amazing…

How long will it be before the Bond franchise picks this up, as in the Casino Royale parkour/free running chase?

Bambuser

More on the ‘dog walking on its hind legs’ theme. This time with Bambuser which, simply, streams live video from the camera on a mobile phone.

Create an account, download the app to the phone, log in and that’s it. Stunningly simple.

Daily Motion

Only recently discovered The Daily Motion Less chaotic in organisation than YouTube, there’s some higher quality video content and genuinely well-crafted material, including this…

Like a dog walking on his hind legs?

They’ve not made a lot of fuss about it but Auntie Beeb is quietly testing live TV for mobile phones. It requires a wireless connection but 3G is apparently on its way. And it’s surprisingly good too. Runs pretty smoothly on my Windows Mobile phone. In fact better than the live radio that’s also being tested.

Live BBC TV on my mobile

A novelty perhaps at the moment. To misquote Dr Johnson, “Sir, live TV on your mobile phone is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Have a Flutter

Still struggling to really engage with Twitter. Maybe I should try Flutter!

Wild thing…

Where the Wild Things Are has probably stirred more discussion, word for word, than anything else published – it’s only ten sentences long! It’s a brilliant book and I hope the forthcoming film does it justice. The trailer looks promising…

Street Viewed

In London for a meeting earlier this week and at a location I’d not been to before. Good opportunity, I thought, to try out the much-trumpeted and recently launched Street View from Google. Simply entered the post code and found the venue easily in Street View. Even better, I tracked the walk from the tube to the meeting. OK, a tad geeky but the test (and the proof) came when next day I walked out of the tube and, confidently, straight to the meeting  – as if I’d been there before. Both reassuring and kind of spooky.

I didn’t bump into Wally though, who had been placed in Street View as a clever marketing ploy and spotted only a day or two after the UK launch.

Devolve yourself

There’s been a lot of media noise about the 150 years since Darwin’s Origin of the Species. The Open University’s very own Charles Darwin site includes a nice nonsense tool that allows you to ‘devolve‘ yourself by uploading a photo and regressing a few million years. Which figure from the current government is this? No prizes on offer here… Try it yourself. Incidentally, you can also order a free Tree of Life poster showing branches of evolution.