It Really Is Cold Outside!

While we may have been complaining in the UK over the last week or so about how cold it has been nothing has prepared me for the cold I have just experienced.

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while may remember that I spent a few days last January in Bled, Slovenia with work. Well while I have changed jobs since then somethings don't change and here I am again in Bled (even staying in the same hotel). Last year it was cold and crisp but there was no snow (other than that on distant mountains -- see my photos from last year). This year there is snow everywhere and it is exceptionally cold.

Imagine if you will the scene from the film Cool Runnings where the four athlete step out of the warm airport into the cold weather of Calgary and almost instantly freeze. Well believe me it can happen. I don't know the temperature inside Ljubljana airport but I do know (thanks to the cabin crew) that the temperature outside is a balmy -14 degrees centigrade. Believe me when I say that it really is cold. In fact I'd hazard a guess that if I stepped outside I could possibly spit icicles!

Expensive Coffee

We often have problems at work funding the replacement of kitchen items. We used to have lots of kettles but as they die they aren't replaced. We have a fridge in the office but this also isn't currently working and a replacement hasn't been ordered yet. Now I'm not complaining, I'm sure money in the University is just as tight as it is in the rest of the economy, I'm just setting the scene.

One Chicago school district was obviously not short of money (or maybe they were but the manager didn't care) as they spent $70,000 on just 30 coffee machines! What is even worse is that five months after they were ordered 22 of the machines were still unopened.

You can read the full story on the website of the Chicago Tribune.

Green Rooms

Click To Play

Whilst the rooms in this building, near Sheffield train station, may periodically be green I very much doubt that the light show is good for the environment!

Ferrari (Probably Not) First to Launch 2009 F1 Car

As an avid fan of F1 I have been looking forward to the launches of the new 2009 cars. The new rules that come into force this year will make the cars look radically different although as yet I'm not sure how different as the teams are all still to unveil their new cars. So I read with interest the BBC news article entitled Ferrari first to launch 2009 car in the hope of some clues.

It seems that Ferrari will unveil a car on the 12th of January, however, it certainly won't be their 2009 F1 car. Buried towards the bottom of the article is the sentence: When Ferrari present their 2009 car in Maranello next week it will not meet race specifications for the opening Grand Prix in Australia on 29 March. Now as far as I'm concerned a car that won't be eligible to enter the first race of the season can't really be a 2009 F1 car and so the entire article is a fallacy -- Ferrari NOT first to launch 2009 car would have been a more accurate, albeit less exciting, title.

New Job

For those who don't know yet I start a new job today having allowed my previous contract to expire (I choose not to take up the extension I was offered). Now those of you who keep telling me there are more employers in the world than the University shouldn't get too excited -- I'm still working in the Natural Language Processing Group, in fact I am keeping the same desk.

I'm simply moving from working on X-Media as part of the WIG group to working as part of the GATE group. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing but I'm heading to a LarKC project meeting next week so I should probably get back to doing some reading ready for that.

Batty Bat

The bravest animals in the land
Are Captain Beaky and his band.
That's Timid Toad. Reckless Rat.
Artful Owl and Batty Bat.
March through the woodland Singing songs
That tell how they have righted wrongs

For the rest of Captain Beaky & His Band visit Captain Beaky's official website.

Health and Safety

From the Department for Stating the Bloody Obvious comes this health and safety sign seen at the Chestnut Centre. Given that the centre is located in a woody valley I would have been surprised had the ground not been uneven with exposed tree roots! I'm guessing that this sign is only aimed at those of us who need Caution Contents Hot on coffee cups, or Warning: May contain fish on a can of tuna -- I don't know any of these people and I really can't imagine what they would be like as a conversationalist.

For those who need warnings about coffee being hot have a look at SmartLids. Everyone else can enjoy this list of ridiculous warning labels.