Goodbye to the Fairway Driver / 95 / FX4

As you know Sheila and I have a Fairway London Taxi.

The DVLC have recently launched a new website – http://www.howmanyleft.co.uk.

The graph of the numbers of classic original, Fairway (FX4) London Black Cabs is interesting.

When the Fairway ceased production in late 1979 (and the TX1 took over) there were over 26,000 of them on the roads. In the third quarter of 2011, the last few of these were still plying their trade but most of them had retired.

It’s right now – January 2012 – that the very last of them are being retired; you won’t see any more “FX4s” on the roads as working taxis from now on!

In Q3 2011 there were just 3,879 on the roads, but I suspect by Q3 this year, that figure will be significantly lower again as it will be only people like us who will keep them running.

Welcome, Claire!

A while before Christmas, my daughter, Claire, said she fancied writing a Blog. Being a supporter of personal expression, especially by my children, I bought her the domain name clairebell.co.uk for Christmas.

It will take her a couple of weeks for her to get it set up to her liking, but keep an eye on it and maybe subscribe to her updates, should you feel so inclined.

Welcome to the world of Blogging, Claire!  :-)

On the Brink

Do yourself a huge favour and watch this from Ericsson.  It’s not an advertisement, but it is a wake up call.

Should we welcome this future or dread it?  Probably both.  But it doesn’t matter.

“We’re at the lightbulb stage of the internet.”

“On The Brink,” touches on the past, present and presumed future of connectivity — an informed look at what our planet might look like once ubiquitous broadband is a reality.

Personally, I say “Bring it on!”

Arrogant NASA

I just sent this email to NASA:

I wish comment on your UARS news releases.  For example:

Update #10 Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:45:08 PM GMT

” . . . The satellite’s orientation or configuration apparently has changed, and that is now slowing its descent. There is a low probability any debris that survives re-entry will land in the United States, but the possibility . . . etc etc . . .”

May I just point out how arrogant this is?  Do you think ONLY people in the USA are interested in where it falls?  I realise the chance of it hitting me personally are 1 in several trillion, but the attitude of your news feeds is incredibly insensitive!

You may have put UARS up there, but everyone is watching to see where it comes down.  However – as long as “There is a low probability any debris that survives re-entry will land in the United States“  Ahhh… fine … so that’s alright then.

Grrrr!   :-)

Loving Google+

My current main Google+ Circle

A lot of my content is now going to Google+

I resigned (with difficulty) from Facebook – oh – it must be  a year or more ago,  but I love the concept of being able to share pictures as they happen, my location, being able to ‘check in’ to places we’re visiting and add more bits of information in such an amazingly rich graphical format.

What Google+ lets me do is to share the things I think people will be interested in with only the people I think will be interested.

There are so many different parts of my life – my daughters, Sheila’s family, work colleagues, friends and lots of other people; with Google+ I can get to them all – or whatever subset of them – I wish to.

To my mind, G+ far outshines Facebook in useability and tight, almost uncanny integration with Google Maps, Lattitude, Google Photos (Picasa), YouTube, Google Earth, Gmail, Google Check-ins, Calendar, my (and Sheila’s) phones (including their GPSs and cameras) and more.  It’s a serious piece of work.

Once you start using it, you find all sorts of ways the bits work together – without even having to ask them to!  Google really have got this one right.

Basically, I’m hooked, but I realise that like Wave, it needs people to use it.  Worldwide however, it’s prospering – hugely.  People using it, love it.

Give it a try folks.  And if you still need an invitation to Google+ ask me or anyone who’s already got it, they’re readily available now.

60 Seconds on the Internet

Leave your keyboard for 60 seconds and this is what happens.  Amazing.

How could you think of sleeping for 8 hours?

Click the image for the full screen version.