Colin Seymour

Blinking Reflection

2010-08-26T11:56:00+01:00

Here's a little challenge for you. Take a good look at the picture below (click it to open the full size image)...

Notice something odd? Look at the boy's eyes. They're closed in the main part of the picture but open in the reflection on the TV. Apparently this picture has not been Photoshopped or manipulated in any way, so how can this happen? How can the boy's eyes be open and closed in the same picture?

Magical Weight Loss Elixir

2010-08-24T10:19:13+01:00

What would you say if I told you I could sell you an appetite-control agent that requires no prescription, has no common side effects, costs very little (ie is incredibly cheap) and is very effective?

"How much and where do I send my money?"

As I'm a nice guy, I won't take your money, instead I'll direct you to someone else who will gladly take your cash: Coca-Cola and your local water board. Yes folks, the magic elixir is WATER. Good ol' H₂O.

Scientists yesterday reported results of a new clinical trial confirming that just two 8-ounce (~225ml) glasses of the stuff, taken before meals, enables people to shed pounds.
&mdash EurekAlert

So there you have it folks, 2 glasses of water before every meal will help you lose weight and won't break the bank at the same time, unless of course you insist on drinking two glasses of this stuff 3 times a day :-)

Bathtub With $10 Million in It

2010-08-21T09:10:38+01:00

Ever have a dream of filling a bathtub with $10 million? I have and have now done so so I can tick this off my list of things to do before I die...

$10 Million in a Bathtub 

As you can see, it's not very impressive, and having a trillion Dollars wouldn't have made it any more impressive. Maybe it's because I used Zimbabwean Dollars :-) I added the ducks because the money was looking a little lonely on it's own at the bottom of the bath.

The note itself isn't much to look at with the crudest of anti-forgery "technology", but that isn't really surprising considering the note has an expiry date on it.

Z$10 Million in closer detail

Given Zimbabwe's astronomical inflation rate at the time the note was issued - 66,212.3% in December 2007 which rocketed to 231,150,888.87% in July 2008 - I'm surprised they even gave it 6 months.

Anyway, I'm now an expired millionaire and wallowing in my wealth. Not quite like Scrooge McDuck, but near enough. Thanks Mum for making me a millionaire.

Nature's Supermarket Open For Business

2010-08-18T08:51:02+01:00

This weekend Claire and I popped out for a walk and took a long a small plastic bag just in case we encountered some ripe hedgerow fruits. Well, pickings were a little thin when we started - either the birds had beaten us to it, or the other foragers - but our return leg yielded a whopper supply of blackberries...

715g of free organic blackberries

That bowl contains a hefty 715g of lovely ripe 100% organic pesticide free blackberries which would have set us back about £7.50 had we bought them from Tescos.

We could have picked more, but we decided to be very selective: nothing below mid-thigh (dog height ;-) ) and nothing that didn't come off easily. This ensured we only picked nice ripe berries (it is still early in the picking season) and left the unripe on the branches for further ripening and picking by other foragers. We were also in summer wear so nettles and prickles were a bit of a deterrent.

We've not decided what we'll make with our blackberries just yet (jam or crumble are on the list so far) so we've washed them and frozen them for the moment. We're going to give it a couple more weeks and head back to gather some more along with some rose hips and damson berries which definitely are not ready for picking yet.

Rest in Peace Randburg Granny

2010-08-15T09:54:16+01:00

Randburg Granny (then 82) and Sami (then 2) in 2002

I received some sad news this morning. My mum's mum, affectionately known as Randburg Granny, passed away in the early hours of this morning.

Rest in peace Gran, you've enjoyed a very long (91 years) and good life and you will be dearly missed.

Spending Challenge Suggestion

2010-08-06T11:21:47+01:00

In an effort to save money and get the public more involved, the current government has setup a website - Spending Challenge - where members of the public can make suggestions on how the government can cut costs and save money. The best ideas will be considered as part of the Spending Review, which will set out four year spending plans for all government departments as well as considering other areas of spending including welfare, will be published on 20 October.

Apparently they've received over 100000 suggestions so far, including a suggestion of switching all government and public service computers to run on free Linux and open source software. I couldn't agree with this one more but given the government views it too expensive to upgrade away from IE6, I doubt we'll see this happen any time soon.

Anyway, this post isn't about what ideas the government will or will not implement, it's about my own spending challenge suggestion. I've not actually made this suggestion as I only have evidence of one occurrence, but it's worth pointing out none-the-less:

Stop spending money on installing new street signs when the current sign is perfectly good.

The other weekend on my way to work, I happened to notice a nice shiny new sign on Reading Road just as you enter Wokingham, and I thought to myself: "Why? What a waste of money". Seeing shiny new signs isn't anything special and it's good to see signs being maintained, but this is not one of those situations. Here is the new sign I spotted...

As you can see, the Highways Agency put in a whole new sign less than ONE meter away from the old sign. Why on earth did they do that? What's wrong with the old sign?

Well, a quick look on Google Street view may reveal what could be the problem they were trying to fix...

Reading Road heading into Wokingham
(Google Streetview)

Reading Road heading out of Wokingham
(Google Streetview)

Yup, it looks like they were trying to sort out the problem of a missing 40 mph sign on the back. Unfortunately, their decision to put in a whole new street sign to cater for the missing 40 mph sign is way more expensive than just putting up a new sign on the back of the current, but more importantly it doesn't have the desired effect as the new sign is obscured by the old sign, so you can't see the 40 mph side anyway.

The only reasoning I can see for this decision is the heath and safety trained "sign hanging and cleaning operative" wasn't available, but the health and safety trained "sign erecting operative" was :-) . Whatever the reason, it seems like a complete waste of money to me.

A Replacement For Bendy Buses

2010-08-04T13:32:13+01:00

In an ever increasingly populated world, town and city planners and transport ministers are having to think up ways of dealing with congestion. Here in the UK they've increased taxes on fuel, increased taxes on cars and introduced congestion charge zones in an attempt to draw people away from their cars and onto public transport. Sadly, there hasn't been a notable corresponding investment in public transport other than the controversial bendy buses in London.

Had the UK decided to invest in the public transport infrastructure, they would have turned to the drawing board to come up with ways to improve and expand the current system. Ideas like trams, more buses, underground extensions and light rail systems would all have come up and very quickly been consigned to the bin due to the cost to build, run and maintain.

Those ingenius chappies in China have come up with a brilliant way to improve their public transport system in an efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly way: straddling buses...

Futuristic big bus which may become a reality in a city near you

The idea is the bus straddles the road and fills the gap between the top of cars and the bottom of bridges and tunnel roofs so it doesn't take up any space that cars could (they just drive under it) and the system wouldn't need much in the way of structural changes either. The buses would either run on rails laid on either side of the road or use auto-guiding technology to follow some white lines. They'll be electrically powered using super capacitors that are charged very quickly at the bus stops and discharged between stops with solar power being used as another source of power.

Safety measures in the way of vehicle detecting lasers, flashing lights and loud noises will be built in too to try and keep drivers aware of the buses. Here is the presentation, with SimCity like videos, by Song Youzhou, chairman of Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co. Ltd. selling the idea and it's pretty amazing, even if you don't speak Chinese...

[ View post for video ]

Now this may all look very futuristic and a thing dreams are made of, but it's not. A pilot is due to start in Beijing’s Mentougou District at the end of the year and if it proves to be a success I can see this being rolled out elsewhere. I'd certainly love to see something like this rolled out in the UK.

You can find more details on the system in translation of the above video below it here.

The World's Strongest, Most Expensive Beer - Inside a Squirrel

2010-08-02T13:18:04+01:00

Not content with attaining the "strongest beer in the world" title with it's Sink the Bismarck, the guys at BrewDog have taken things a step further with a new brew that comes in at a whopping 55 percent ABV and carries a princely $765 price tag: The End of History.

Now you may thinking what on earth warrants paying $765 for a bottle of beer? Well it'll be the high ABV, the skills needed to brew this beer and the taxidermy skills needed for the bottle. Yes, the taxidermy skills!!! Only 12 bottles have been made (all sold now) and they come with a dead animal wrapped around the bottle, or more precisely the bottle stuffed into the animal. The 12 bottles featured seven dead stoats, four squirrels and one rabbit. James Watt, one of the two guys behind BrewDog, succinctly put it: "The impact of The End of History is a perfect conceptual marriage between taxidermy, art and craft brewing." Just what we've all been waiting for!

Anyone for a furry beer?

This is the last insanely high ABV beer these guys will be making and what a bang to go out on. You can read a bit more on the whole idea of the beer and a little video here.

For those interested in the beer itself, it's a blond Belgian ale [...] infused with nettles from the Scottish Highlands and Fresh juniper berries. Interesting.

Who Said You Don't Get Tigers in Africa?

2010-07-30T09:33:06+01:00

Panjo the hand-reared bengal tiger

Someone once told me "don't be silly, you don't get tigers in Africa" when I said I was going to the bush to see 'lions and tigers' in my thickest South African accent. Well, they're wrong. Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday saw Africa with a real live bengal tiger roaming the bushveld. Yes, a real tiger (pictured) was loose in the African bushveld.

So how did it happen? Well, on Monday, a man in the small town of Delmas in Mpumalanga, South Africa decided it was a good time to take his 145kg hand-reared bengal tiger to the vet to be vaccinated and chipped (just in case he got lost ;-) ). Like every pet going to the vet, Panjo had other ideas. Panjo must have been watching all the TV programmes about how beautiful South Africa is and decided to check it out for himself so he hopped out the back of his dad's bakkie (flat-bed truck) and went for a mosey instead.

Naturally, all pandemonium broke loose and people started to panic and the searching began. Two days later, and quite some distance away, Panjo was found safe and sound in Verena. Given what's between Delmas and Verena - lots of nothing with a two nature reserves and a great big dam - I think Panjo had a great mid-week break seeing the best wildlife Africa has to offer and will be happy to get back to his home comforts...

It's like having the family cat on the kitchen counter

So there you have it. Africa ~~does~~ did have a tiger in the bushveld.

How amazing would it be to have a bengal tiger as a pet? From the picture above, and the others in the article, it looks like it's just like having a normal domestic cat, except maybe for the ravenous appetite. I want one.

Dear Santa...

How to Spot A Fake £1 Coin

2010-07-27T17:42:10+01:00

There's quite an interesting programme on BBC1 at the moment - Fake Britain - and in last night's episode they covered the topic of fake cash and credit cards. Fake credit cards and notes are well known and in the case of notes, most people are well versed in checking for fakes, but what was surprising was the number of fake £1 coins in circulation and how little people about it or how to identify fakes.

On the programme, the scientist gave a few methods to easily check and then today, Love Money conveniently provided a more extensive list that I thought was worth passing on...

The coin has been circulating for some time according to its date of issue, yet it looks surprisingly new.

The design on the back of the coin doesn’t match the official design for the year it was issued. You can check which designs were used in each year at the Royal Mint website. £1 coins were first introduced in 1983 and the design has changed every year since. Check out Britain’s £1 Coin Designs which shows the designs that should appear on the reverse of the coin for every year from 1983 to 2010. Remember, if the date and the design don’t match up, you’ve got a fake.

The lettering or inscription on the edge of the coin doesn’t match the corresponding year. Take a look at the Counterfeit Coin Guide which will show you the correct specifications and inscriptions on £1 coins according to their year of issue.

The designs on both sides of the coin aren’t well defined compared with a real coin.

The alignment of the design is at an angle. Hold the coin so that the Queen’s head is upright and facing you. The design on the back should be upright too.

The ribbed edge of the coin is poorly defined.

The lettering on the edge of the coin is uneven, badly spaced or indistinct.

The colour of the coin doesn’t match the genuine article. Fake coins are often more yellow or golden than the real thing.

Fake coins are often thinner and lighter.

Remember, most counterfeit coins won’t be accepted by vending machines unless the forgery is particularly good. This is a clear indication that you have a fake.

— Love Money

Whilst not all practical to check whilst out and about, there's enough info there for you to have a quick look at any pound coins you may get and quickly hand it back and ask for another. If you've already got a few, pop by your local police station and hand them over - I don't want them, and neither does anyone else.

Of course whilst this info is useful to us, it's fantastic for the forgers too.

Oh yes, and does anyone know where I can get one of those front doors the credit card forger had. Over 15 minutes for the police to get through is pretty impressive.