Geocaching Logo

So, it would seem that my latest time-taker is going to be featured on the BBC show Countryfile tomorrow. The show is broadcast at 11am on BBC one.

Geocaching is outdoor treasure-hunting where participants use GPS to find containers full of “treasure”, but the pleasure is in the chase. Experts designed Michaela Strachan[1. Mmmm! Michaela!!] a personalised geocaching trail in the Chiltern Hills, where she had to solve clues in order to discover the three caches.

Ignore the link from the BBC page which actually takes you to Terracaching. Go to www.geocaching.com instead which is the largest (and best in my humble opinion) site for the sport.

The segment is around 8 minutes long and according to the forum thread on GAGB (The Geocaching Association of Great Britain), Michaela and the cameraman both enjoyed their adventure. The cameraman even reckoned he was going to get a GPS and go “play” with the family.

Don’t forget that if you’re out caching like me (and like you should be on a Sunday!) you can catch up with the show later on BBCs iPlayer. I will update this post with the link to the show when it’s available.

Update:  As promised, this is the link to the show on the iPlayer (UK only I believe).  Enjoy!

Anyway, surfing the the BBC news website tonight I noticed a small link that said “Albino Blackbirds spotted”.

It didn’t register in my tired mind immediately, but I clicked through to look at it anyway. I turned to Rach and mentioned the that my parents were talking about it. I scrolled through the post, quickly, and noticed Steve’s name, Gosport, Hampshire, in the text.

Nice one Steve!

The article, to see the video of the “whitebirds” is here.

CERN relinquishes all intellectual property rights to this code, both source and binary form and permissions is granted for anyone to user, duplicate, modify and redistribute it.

These are probably, singularly, the most important words user in the last two decades.

Why? On 30 April 1993 the two directors of the CERN particle physics lab signed a document that meant the internet was born and free to use to all.

Just stop for a second and think where we’d be without the internet.

Dialup to Bulletin Boards, no blogs, forums, information sharing would be almost nil, and (possibly a bonus) no Facebook.

Pete mentioned that he was leaving facebook behind a few days ago and I really can’t blame him. If I could delete my account I would. I don’t even use it for Poker any more.
There’s also an interesting article on the BBC dot.life blog about privacy and Facebook.

Anyway, this wasn’t meant to be a rant, just a wish for a belated happy birthday to the internet.

What would you miss if you had no internet access? What would you be doing instead?

Me? I can’t imagine. When I was at school all I wanted to do was work with computers (sad huh!) and guess what. I do. And I play with them when I’m not at work. I’m not a nerd though. Geek is fine, just don’t call me a nerd.

Anyway, while my lazy wife was sleeping this morning it gave me a little extra time to wander round the web. YouTube gave me Emmy Rossum with an awesome track (should be appearing via my Tumblog very soon.

Then I remembered all the advertising for the BBC’s new iPlayer. I hadn’t bothered looking previously as I expected it to be another of the “download this, subscribe to that, pay £300 a week” type jobs. Oh, how wrong I was!

It couldn’t have been simpler or less subscribery (what a word!) to use. Hit the web page, finding a show from the last 7 days, turn the speakers up and start watching.

I started out with last week’s Torchwood, watched a few minutes, realised I had already seen it and started watching this week’s instead (left – click for a larger version – slighly smaller than the BBC iPlayer full version).

While the picture quality isn’t too bad, the sound is very definitely up to par for a pair of 2.1 computer speakers. The picture is a little small in the window, but pressing the full screen button on my 19″ widescreen shows me the full picture (well, duh!). It does show the compression on the video a little more but is still watchable. You will need a reliable and fast internet connection for this though.

You’ll see that below the player window is an option to download the programme. This is where it could get annoying. Thankfully though, it doesn’t. Click the Download link from the current programme and the system will tell you it needs to install the BBC iPlayer Download Manager. Being a BBC product I was fairly confident that it would be of on my XP – Firefox system so I did just that.

The benefits of the downloaded version of a programme are supposedly better quality (I should hope so, the episode of Torchwood was a 258mb download!) and you can watch the programme off-line – useful if you’re travelling – 7 days of Eastenders on your laptop (not my cup of tea but it takes all sorts!). Of course, there is a downside. The download manager will only store a programme for 30 days after it has been downloaded and then delete it automatically if you haven’t watched it. If you have watched it through the player then you only get to keep the programme for 7 days before it is deleted. Sounds harsh? No, not really. The BBC is offering a second chance to see their programmes, not giving away the licence!

So, what does the downloaded version look like? Well, I don’t have High Definition TV, but I do have Sky. I would say that watching this version is like watching it on BBC 3 on an ordinary (Toshiba 32″ widescreen 100hz) TV through my Sky box. Certainly it is more watchable than the online version and if I miss a BBC show then I will use this to catch up with it. At the moment it won’t replace the broadcast, but I don’t think it will be long. It’s going to be restricted mostly by ISP’s connection speeds rather than the PC or web technology.

My only gripe? No Family Guy!

This has been a geeky production purely for information off my own back, not a sponsored post as I believe they are the route of all evil. ;)

I think you’ll find that’s a pretty resounding answer then! It would be really nice if the TV companies would listen to their audiences and rather than chuck out yet more “reality” bullshit like “I’m A Z Lister” or “Big Loser” get some decent programming on. Spooks, Doc Martin, even Neighbours (a cock up by the BBC has lost them that one…) are three examples of reasonable programming. Two of them are even UK made!

There are so many of these bullshit programmes it’s rare for me to even watch terrestrial TV now. I dread to think what I’d do if I had to cancel my Sky subscription. Eeek! I might have to talk to my wife!

Yes, she’s sat beside me as I write this. :)