Archive for October, 2009

Sometimes it’s good to get away from your desk. Or out of the office. Or out of the country. Here’s some photographic evidence that the access team do have lives outside of work…

Estonia: Paul and his boys spent a boozy week away; it was brrrilliant!

Minorca: Mark and his pint-sized body double on the beach at Calle en Porter.

Italy: A holiday is not a holiday for John unless there's a risk he might never come back.

France: Mia decided not to go to Sweden, and went partying at 'The Bubble House' in Nice instead.

USA: 10 hours in a car with Anthony, driving to Yosemite National Park. I don't know how Fiona survived.

USA: Anthony thinks that this picture of some rocks is good enough to allow him two entries in this post.

Greece: I'd like to thank this Gheko for sticking around whilst I took ages fiddling with the settings on my camera.

South Africa: Kirstine wisely decided to go Great White Shark spotting in a helicopter rather than a rubber dingy.

Zante: Michelle wonders why the famous Blue Caves of Zante don't look blue at all.

York (England): Just like his hero Blade (or do I mean Buffy?), Simon goes demon hunting a little closer to home.

Oz: Our resident newly-wed can't remember where in Australia she was when this picture was taken.

Italy: Sipping Champers on Lake Maggiore and dining on Isola dei Pescatori. Helen's penchant for attending weddings must be tiring her out.

Morocco: In the excitement of the Marrakech markets, Ruth didn't realise that the leather bag she was buying actually smelt like a dead cow.

Vietnam: Good job Sarah took her mobile because she couldn't find a telephone anywhere.

Cambodia: Sarah gets two entries as well... because she takes great pictures.

The client says ‘I need a picture of a man throwing a frisbee and a dog jumping to get it’

Normally that would either involve hours of stock photography searching, hiring a photographer or trying to comp things together, which again would take lots of time. Imagine if you could just do a rough sketch of the composition and somehow it would magically turn into the image you need.

Enter Photosketch, a system developed at Tsinghua university. Sketch your image, label the elements and wait for the image.

At the moment there’s just this video although an online demo is promised.

Well this is my first post as a blogger!

And I pondered what to write about. I thought it needs to be something interesting, something that will make others think, something to wow you all….and I drew a blank so I thought I’d blog about something ridiculous, bonkers and totally pointless. With that in mind I would like to introduce you to the Lying Down Game (other wise know as Lying In Public Places or LIPP-ing).

There has been a lot of media coverage recently with reports of employees being suspended and even sacked for having a bit of harmless fun!

So, some friends and I thought we would have a go at it a go to see what all the fuss is about. Here is my best effort! It required great skill, balance…and several glasses of wine!

LIPP-ing on a bollard!!!!

Yes it is very silly, and it is very funny! So give it a go! All you have to do is lie down in a random public place! The Telegraph website has some tips.

BUT please LIPP responsibly! Enjoy x

A little update to my last post about Geocaching. Simon and I have found all the caches within walking distance around the office and a fair few beyond. Simon’s cache count is 35 found, I’m not too far behind with 31.

We thought it was about time that we created our own cache with a twist. This week we posted  ‘The Fallen Few’  which is a three stage ‘multi-cache’. Should anyone interested care to attempt it you can either visit the global geocaching website or use the information here; if you don’t have a GPS you can borrow one of ours.

N 53° 27.813 W 002° 17.341

The above co-ordinates will take you to the start of the quest, it is around 1 mile from here to the finish (nice easy walk).The cache itself is the standard clik lok box containing the log book, pencil and the usual variety of goodies!

The journey starts with 3 sporting heroes.
On the plaque beneath them are just six words.

Count the number of characters in each word and then use those numbers:

1st word = A
2nd word = B
3rd word = C
4th word = D
5th word = E
6th word = F

N53° (B -D) (C) . (C – A) (B + D – C – E) (F – B)
W002° (D – A) (A + D). (C) (A + B) (F)

Following the new co-ordinates will take you to some more heroes of another kind. On the large centre plaque there are columns of names. You will be finding surnames and again, count the number of characters in each name and use those numbers. You will also need to keep the results from the first task to help you solve the second.

1st column, 4th name down = G
4th column, 1st name down = H
7th column, 5th name up from bottom = J

N53° (J – G) (C) . (H – A – B) (G ) (G + A)
W002° (G – D) (J). (J) (J) (B – D)

These last set of co-ordinates will take you to where the cache is hidden.