Manchester’s Truancy poster

by

While heading in to town with my unschooled daughter we had a chuckle at a poster that had appeared by the bus stop…

The Truancy The Facts website mentioned on the poster links back to the Manchester City Council site. Alas their school education appears not to cover [wikipop]proofreading[/wikipop] and so they happily start a sentence with And and insert, random commas which, make no sense at all and a trip to the website reveals some bizarre paragraphing:

And so you will probably be better off not bothering with school at all if this is what they have to offer. Ho Hum.

Mac Pinball HD controls

by

At least a copy of Pinball HD from the Mac App Store means that I no longer have to steal borrow the girl’s iPad to get my daily fix of The Deep table:

Alas there does not seem to be much in the way of instructions or a high score table (not that I ever get on it!). Thus far I have figured:

Down arrow: To pull back trigger/launcher (moves slowly – keep pressing to get any power)

Left & Right arrows or shift keys: left & right flippers

C: Toggle camera view Zooming, fixed perspective, fixed looking straight down

Esc: Exit full screen

Γ’Ε’ΛœF: Enter full screen

Space: Nudge the table (use with caution)

Enter: Toggle pause

You have got the mission…

Update: The app was updated on January 26th, through the App Store, rectifying many of the problems with the early version – but still no high score table πŸ™

From Sale to Chorlton in under 4 minutes

by

When cycling in the [wikipop]Cotswolds[/wikipop] you could not go more than a mile without hitting a hill. Here you can cycle all day without hitting a hill. Although people do seem to buy bikes with lots of gears or, even stranger, mountain bikes. So without any hill climbing challenges one has to resort to speed. Starting from the bridge over the [wikipop]M60 Motorway[/wikipop] round the [wikipop]Sale Water Park[/wikipop], across the bridge over the [wikipop]River Mersey[/wikipop] and along the riverbank to Chorlton Water Park in under 4 minutes πŸ˜‰ The recent snow has left everywhere wet and muddy πŸ™

[video:http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sale2chorlton.mp4|http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sale2chorlton.ogg|http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sale2chorlton.flv http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sale2chorlton.jpg 680 550]

I turned the camera upwards while crossing the motorway bridge thinking it might make a neat kaleidoscopic movie…

[video:http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bridgekaliedoclipsnd-desktop.m4v|http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bridgekaliedoclipsnd-desktop.ogg|http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bridgekaliedoclipsnd-desktop.flv http://blog.duncanmoran.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bridgekaliedoclipsnd-poster.jpg]

Bullshit, Baloney & Big Business

by

Someday I will get around to writing a post about my time working at [wikipop]Tesco[/wikipop] which, I often imagined, was being run by a bunch of 7 year olds. But then you see the candidates on The Apprentice and you realise that these are 7 year olds in adult bodies. They do take themselves, and their vacuous ramblings, so seriously but it is usually little more than bullshit.

So no sniggering at the announcement from the people at Alexon (so young yet had so many jobs!) who are blaming the current cold weather (in winter?) for their lack of success. In the spring they were spouting some positive bullshit but by the summer they were blaming volcanic ash. Bollocks.