Island Bay Summer Annual

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The Beano summer annual was a staple diet of my childhood and this Island Bay mural reminds me of their covers
Island Bay (Wellington, NZ) mural

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Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

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If you run a sports club, this post is for you. If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you If you host events, this is for you. If you put on shows, this is for you. In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you'd like to share with people, this is for you . Yep, probably for all of us. Sharing calendars can be both: an effective way of letting everyone know a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region If you've posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don't even think about integrating with somebody else's "events page". Ok, so we all know the problem. What's the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) ... yep, it's a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that's enough geekery, if you want

We Live Better Than Medieval Royalty

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It's an almost common phrase, "We live better than a king of old!" Ok, let's do some a lot of searching and see if that's true in any sense at all BUT first ... Some definitions ... "We all" Almost exclusively this is white, middle-class / middle-level, in the top 10-15%, sort of people. Also, European or of European descent, i.e. those that think being a medieval king is a thing to emulate. "live" Doing our general stuff but not one-off things like wars, marriages, and deaths. Think of it as the life we live on a Tuesday afternoon. "better" Hmmm, I think this is a combination of ease, ability, availability, and cost. "Medieval" The medieval period , also known as the Middle Ages or the Dark Ages, began around 476 A.D. and ended between 1400 and 1450. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to describe the time between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. "royalty" Absolutely thinking

Signs Of Old

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Cheap, I assume, but effective way to make your newsagent feel solid and like a permanent member of the community, cover it in signs of products you might've sold "back in the day". So says the cynic. I, of course, love old shit like this. And it says it's been around since 1872, so deserved. So, what have we got ... Smoke PLAYER'S TOBACCO AND CIGARETTES . Beautifully Cool and Sweet Smoking LYONS Coffee and Chicory EXTRACT Drink TIZER , The Appetizer THE LARGEST Weekly Paper. NEWS WORLD OF THE WORLD . THE LARGEST Weekly Paper TUG-O-WAR PLUG . It's made by the 'MICK MCQUAID' people PALETHORPES . Royal Cambridge RUB IT IN! GODDARD'S White Horse Oils EMBROCATION . Sold Here in Bottles 6d 1/- & 2/- Maynards By Gum They're Good WINE GUMS R WHITE GINGER BEER . Luncheon, Dinner & Supper FRY'S High Class CHOCOLATE Black Cat Pure Matured Virginia Cigarettes THE BIG SUNDAY DISPATCH . 24 Large Pages. Free Family Insurance PARK DRIVE FOR

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

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It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

W. C. Fields quotes

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The office has all been moved around - new desks (with starter handles to raise and lower them), new high(er) speed network and ... the same old work. At least I have a differing view of the world, my team (well, the team I'm a part of not "my" team) is a lot closer - finally - and it's like an office from the 80's ... or even a classroom. But I still have time to move the crap off the PC : ------ Any man who hates dogs and loves whiskey can't be all bad. Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! Who stole the cork from my breakfast? Now don't say you can't swear off drinking, it's easy. I've done it a thousand times. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit, no use being a damn fool about things. Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they alwa