Martello

I first came across the Live Plasma project in early 2006 but rediscovered it again recently. This article on Visual Complexity describes it as:

Liveplasma maps and displays music and movie search results with linkages and groupings, making a good use of Amazon.com’s API. After the search term is submitted, it’s immediately surrounded by other artists; the closer they are, the more similar they are in style to the target. The user can search, map, discover new movies or artists then save and share their maps.

It really is quite a lot of fun to use, and good for discovering similar bands to ones you already listen to. It’s also good for finding movies with your favourite actor that you may not have seen before.

I also noticed on Michele Neylon’s recent article that the Last FM Playground project looks to be doing something along the same lines. I wonder if the are also using the Amazon APIs.

A work colleagues sent me a link to Radar Virtuel recently and I was fascinated by the very existence of a website that shows flights in the air in real time. Each aeroplane symbol in the frame below is a real flight in the air, right now. Clicking on it allows you to see where it came from, where it is going and which airline it is.

You might need to dismiss the help overlay (blue X button in top right corner) to see the map more clearly. The grey overlay (circa 16 April 2010) shows the Volcanic Ash from the volcano in Iceland, and as was mentioned today, it is so rare to see the entire northern section of England and all of Ireland completely barren of any flights.

The site is more impressive during the day when there are more flights in the air.

Rocky Mills hails from Tramore, Co. Waterford in Ireland and has been an Elvis impersonator for over 50 years. One of his many claims to fame is that he has been singing Elvis songs longer than Elvis himself!

Rocky was honoured by his native Tramore in 2010 when he was asked to be the grand marshal of the Tramore St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Whilst walking by the starting point of parade on the day in question, I was fortunate enough to overhear the following priceless conversation between a young girl and her father, who was obviously a fan, which went as follows:

Girl: “Look Dad, it’s Elvis”
Dad: “Why, that’s not Elvis …… that’s Rocky Mills!”

You can watch a full documentary made about Rocky Mills in 2006 on YouTube.

I have always been an admirer of the Crosaire Crossword in The Irish Times but very rarely deciphered more than a handful of the clues, and mostly opted for the Simplex version instead. I was saddened to learn of the recent death of the man behind the Crosaire, Derek Crozier, who had been compiling it since 1943. He died on Saturday last (3 April 2010) at his some in Zimbabwe, at an impressive age of 92. May he rest in peace.

Source: RTÉ News

I have often wondered where people get their figures from when quoting average mileage on cars. Personally, I’ve had a figure of 10,000 miles per year floating around in my head for as long as I can remember, and think I originally got this figure from my father.

However, whilst perusing through the second hand car market recently, the issue of average mileage came up again but this time in relation to Petrol versus Diesel cars. To be honest, I’d never really given much thought to the fact that the average figure might different depending on the fuel type. However, according a Private Motoring Energy Usage report by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland in 2005, there is indeed a difference (of around 50%) between the two:

• Average annual mileage of all cars: 16,894 kilometres (10,498 miles)
• Average annual mileage of Petrol cars: 15,969 kilometres (9,923 miles)
• Average annual mileage of Diesel cars: 23,817 kilometres (14,799 miles)

Whilst the report is now 5 years old, I can’t image the relative figures for 2010 are that different. It also looks like my father was not too far off the mark either!