Tag: JustMigrated

Should anyone ask, Heathrow needs a sweeping.

We’re in Heathrow awaiting the flight to Johannesburg.  Tired.  Thank goodness Julie had access to an executive lounge.  Booked a place in the nick of time to stay at which seems quite nice.

Very tired from staying up late packing and planning.

Looking forward to Cape Town tomorrow.
How can Heathrow end up looking so scabby?  The  scuffed carpets, vile staff uniforms and general warren like nature of all the interconnecting passages is a terrible gateway to the UK.

Must run.

Should anyone ask, 1… 2.. 2.5 seconds to reach 100km/h is fast

This car, subject of a recent crash in Surrey is seriously over specc’d. How tempting it must be to hit the accelerator for 2.5 seconds and be at 100 km/h. Not to miss the fact that holding down the accelerator for 55 seconds gets you to the top speed of 400 km/h at which point you will be burning a Hummer’ly satisfying 125L/100km. Contrast this with a new car coming out of Bavaria that burns 1L / 100km.

Bugatti Veyron

Should anyone ask, I prefer my TV viewing “auto-expired”

Mythtv was complaining since I hadn’t been setting show’s to auto-expire. 600Gb of recorded content later, it was failing to record new shows because it couldn’t expire old ones to make space.

This was simply solved and one of the reasons that I love mythtv:

mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or g.
Your MySQL connection id is 15
Server version: 5.0.32-Debian_7-log Debian etch distribution

Type 'help;' or 'h' for help. Type 'c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> use mythconverg
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed
mysql> UPDATE recorded SET autoexpire = 1 WHERE autoexpire = 0;
Query OK, 231 rows affected (0.02 sec)
Rows matched: 231 Changed: 231 Warnings: 0
mysql> exit
Bye

Done!

Now all my television programs will expire after a couple of weeks to make place for fresher programs.  That is unless I specifically set them to not expire which for some reason I had been.

Should anyone ask, the high seas are a dangerous place

This is a fascinating article about repossessing 100m long ships.

This repo man drives off with ocean freighters – Los Angeles Times

“I do not want my face seen,” he added.Such tactics were employed in April 1999, when Hardberger was asked to extract a 280-foot cargo ship that had put in for repairs at Drapetsona, a part of the
Greek port of Piraeus. “It’s a place,” he says, “where ship names are repainted quickly.”

The small freighter was Hungarian and, despite the fall of the Soviet Union, was still equipped with a commissar’s office. It contained a secret radio room and the complete works of Lenin.

When the repair company charged four times the agreed-upon price to fix a huge dent in the stern, Hardberger said, the owner refused to pay. Port officials then denied the vessel a clearance to leave.

Should anyone ask, I will be at the Biennale again this year

Venice’s Biennale is a great event and well worth attending if you enjoy the visual arts. Like the name suggests it takes place every 2 years. Last time was great, and I can’t wait for this year’s show. So much so that I’ve applied for 3 preview tickets. Not sure whether we (Marta and my mother) will be selected, but we also can’t loose anything. The show takes place in 2 locations – the country pavilions and in the Arsenale district of Venice.

The Arsenal once housed the might of Italy’s navy which makes it easy to see why the country was never considered a serious naval force. It’s a quaint industrial area filled with decaying buildings and industrial machinery too heavy to be removed. These pictures give you an impression of the area.

I’ll be taking the night train from Munich which gets me there at 7 in the morning.

Technorati Tags: