Author: Rachel

life

50 Foods to eat before you die

One of the programmes this morning was 50 things to eat before you die, a viewers poll by the BBC. Here’s the top 10 – not very imaginative are we… 1. Fresh fish 2. Lobster 3. Steak 4. Thai food 5. Chinese food 6. Ice cream 7. Pizza 8. Crab 9. Curry 10. Prawns I’ve […]

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life

Family History

For a few years I’ve been tracking down my family history; it’s been a very slow process and I usually spend only a few days a year on it. Yesterday was one of those. Usually I go to the Family Hostory centre, which is about an hour away, but decided to try the National Archives, […]

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fun, life

Does my bum look big in this?: an academic study

Dr Lisa Macintyre, of Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, has started an academic study to establish what combination of cut and material do make bums look big…and therefore advise clothes designers how to minimise the effect. Volunteers will be photographed in lots of different clothes before the photos get assessed by an expert panel .“This […]

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life

Brothers-in-law and Computers

The wonders of family life! Spent the last 5 hours buying computers with the brothers-in-law and then ripping and transferring multiple CDs and MP3 files into portable devices which have been bought by other relatives who do not own computers to allow them to get music on the devices. I start charging very very soon.

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blogging

BlogPulse Review

Blogpulse have put up it’s review of the year, trying to summarise the trends in blog posts over the year. In their top people, they’ve listed Harry Potter at number 1; this fictional person is joined in their list by Donnie Darko and James Bond as people that were most blogged about. The trend pages […]

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life

Post Christmas

That’s the day over for another year; the rest of the rest of the week will be spent in that perculiar limbo between holidays, not at work and still doing the family visits. Yesterday, my nearly 5 year niece declared that she now likes me, as she can now speak ‘adult talk’. When she coould […]

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life

Merry Christmas

Season’s greetings from a dull, wet, Midland’s morning. Santa’s been and gone, but he’s still out there according to NASA

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blogging

Commercial Blogging

A good post by Gia on the frustrations of doing commercial blogging. She’s publishing a blog for a new Danny Boyle film called Sunshine and has to face the publicity machine every single time she wants to post pictures. It’s an ‘official’ blog, so she has to play by the rules. Not so much on […]

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entertainment, travel, web stuff

Christmas Blogs

BL Ochman has a round up of some relevant Santa blogs. And don’t forget the annual event of the NASA tracking webpage, which shows you exactly where Santa is at any time during his journey around the world. EDITED: I found the right page, whioch was not the one that sits on top of google!

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life

Family Time

Up to visit the family for a few days, so blogging may be light…or may not be dependong on how much time I’ll need to escape from chaos ;o). Only a few final gifts to find, and get everything wrapped up and then I’m ready to face the festivities.

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blogging

Random Acts in Book Form

I missed this the other day, but I see that Tom Reynolds, the London EMT, has a book deal. As well as publishing in solid form, the book will also be released online under a Creative Licence The idea of publishing it under a Creative Commons license was my idea. I think that the Friday […]

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marketing, technology

Women in Technology buy technology

A survey conducted by Women in Technology of around 1200 current and former members of the WiT group found that they like buying technology and gadgets for Christmas presents. The top 10 were: (1) Digital Camera, (2) iPod, (3) iPod Accessories, (4) Laptop Computer, (5) HDTV, (6) Videogame Console, (7) Camera Phone, (8) Desktop Computer, […]

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fun

Jelly Bean Cascade

One of the agencies sent over a Christmas present to a couple of us at work today – Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. Between the 2 boxes there’s over 1000 beans of multiple colours. All we need now is a decent slope or set of stairs, a good camera and to work out if they can […]

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web stuff

The Bar

Recently, my company launched a new website, focused on the US market, called thebar.com. It’s got a few firsts for us such as a portfolio site and a heavy flash interactive site, plus some heavy marketing coming in the new year.

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technology, web stuff

Station Freebie

At Waterloo this morning there was a scrummage around the small team that were handing out free gifts. Joining in, I found that BT were giving away headsets, promoting their VOIP system, BT Communicator. Useful in that you can easily make calls to phones far cheaper than using the ‘landline’ and then it all comes […]

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life

Singing together

Singing together Originally uploaded by RachelC. I went along to the carol service in Parliament Sq, testing the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which bans any demonstrations within a half mile area around Parliament. Over a 100 people (and probably around 15-20 press) sang songs for an hour. The police were not present, A […]

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General

What not to do…

…if you’re running away from security guards after being suspected of being involved in a robbery. Do not, under any circumstances, climb into cage with an annoyed Bengal tiger. The odds of getting out alive are very low, as a this suspect found out. A criminal suspect on the run ended up being mauled to […]

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web stuff

Performancing

I’ve set up Performancing for Firefox;  an extension to the browser that enables you to publish to multiple blogs form a single interface.   As I publish only to the one, it’s not going to add that much to what I usually do, ecxept for the note saving which is a far more flexible method than […]

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google, web stuff, zeitgeist

Google Zeitgeist

Google releases its review of the year, looking at the trends in searches. In the top gainers of the year, there are 2 cultural references which stand out from the other web/media terms. The first is Leonardo de Vinci, I’m guessing driven from the Dan Bown book and the Spielberg film. The other is Green […]

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life

Model Santa

Model Santa Originally uploaded by RachelC. The shop round the corner which has had the summer lawn sprinkler outside every day for about the last 18 months (through 2 winters) now has a new attraction. A 5ft singing, dancing Santa that chortles, sings and gyrates to music all day long. Almost everytime I pass it, […]

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