Random mission: Get to Mornington Crescent.

Less random mission: visit Sir John Soane's House- I never thought a 200 year old townhouse could teach me so much about design, especially from a modernist point of view. Get there before doors open if you can as architects and students queue round the block to visit it.

Homepage | Sir John Soane's Museum

(www.soane.org)

Even less random mission: Have a few beers in The Social, Little Portland Street. Great little modern pub tucked away down a back street, nice mix of people, feels like a speakeasy, designed by David Adjaye.

(www.thesocial.com)

In XP just left-click once on the blue bar at the top of your SU window- it'll turn white until SU or the Ruby Script has finished its task. Hardly a progress bar, but it's better than nothing.

The clue about having built the most square metres in the 20th century has me completely stumped. I thought that was Ingvar Kamprad (IKea).

It can't be Portzamparc. I'm stumped.

Jean Nouvel?

Pilou,

Looking more closely I think you've been a bit sneaky- you mean the architect of the modern doorway. Is it Meier? Foster?

Stinkie- v. impressive for a non-Scandinavian!

Pilou- Your clue is more baffling than helpful! Is it Vitruvius?

EDIT: upon noticing the GREEK text in the image... answers own question: NO it's not Vitruvius Jackson you fool! Was Vitruvius Greek? I don't think so... get to the back of the class!

OK, another one. Clue: the architect is known almost only for a single very famous and influential building.

Yay! You learn something new every day- I had never put 2 and 2 together before and realised that both "Kaufman Houses" were for the same "Kaufman". Lucky, lucky b@stard. I'm glad his roofs leaked!

OK, Stinkie, I'll go for it- the Kauffman (spelling?) House by Richard Neutra.

As I'm not 100% about this one I can feel the shadows of my old university tutors looming over my shoulder!

EDIT: NO WAY! You ruined my moment of glory with a simul-post! LOL

Might be easier for European educated architects...

As if the story wasn't weird enough, the "red mercury" is purportedly only found in the needle of the sewing machine. I wonder how many of the thousands/millions of antique Singer sewing machines in existence still have their original needle fitted? (Talk about trying to find a needle.... groan). Even if you found one which did, why buy the whole +10kg sewing machine when it's just the needle you're after? There's at least two in my family, but I suspect this hoax was over as quickly as it began.... dammit!

Nice find Alan!

Absolutely amazing plugin Fredo, words fail me for this incredible achievement and generosity- such a useful and well-designed ruby! Donation is on its way as soon as pay day arrives.

@jackson said:

he's struggling by on £58k per month.

@remus said:

Is that a note of cynicism i detect there

Yep there's something about hearing that he'll be getting more per month for not doing the job which he was not able to do than most people will ever earn in a year (even if they do their jobs very well) that brings out the cynic in me!

@remus said:

With regards to fred's pension: definitely not acceptable, but to get the facts straight, its £700k a year.

Oops, my mistake, got my months mixed up with my years (maybe that where Sir Fred's accounting went wrong too?)... he's struggling by on £58k per month.

@remus said:

except it wouldnt work. $1 million isnt enough to last a person 25 years (and quite possibly longer.)

The majority of state pensioners survive on a lot less than $40k per year (or probably even less than $25k if all recipients lived to 90). By the time you throw in the annual interest earned on a $1m lump sum over 40 years, the fact that many would be very close to paying off their 25 year mortgage anyway and that many would be married (maybe they would receive $1.5m?) I'd reckon as much as it sounds awfully like beer-glass-econonomics most people could actually get by on it.

Certainly couldn't do more harm than say Sir Fred Goodwin, ex boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland resigning from the bank and being rewarded with a +£700k pension per month (+$1m pcm). If anyone is any doubts or unaware of the extent of Sir Fred's skills at running a bank, then the figures speak for themselves: when he accepted the post as CEO around 10 years ago RBOS had a share price of around £4 (400 pence). The day he resigned they were 60-something pence. In the months since it has dropped as low as 10 pence. Happy retirement Fred!

Hear, hear!

I saw a documentary once, something to do with the staff and diplomats whose job it is to organise anything to do with state visits, etc. They showed a room in one of Her Maj's residences filled with the most incredibly awful (but extremely expensive of course) trinkets every one of which was an official gift from visiting dignitaries and weddings presents. It was ludicrous- imagine 95% of your wedding, birthday and Christmas presents during your whole life were

a) very expensive.... but non-exchangeable or refundable.
b) specifically associated with the homeland of the giver... I mean how many samovars, lacquered boxes, boomerangs, etc can you use?
c) pretty ugly.... unless you like the gold, gem-encrusted, fur-lined variety of ornament. (Hmmm... they probably do)

No wonder the rich just keep getting richer. They should auction it all off and donate the proceeds to charity (the British economy?) Having seen the cr*p they normally receive (and in light of the world's financial problems right now), maybe the iPod was actually pretty sensible... she can at least pass it on to one of her staff. Though that might cause a diplomatic scandal.... "Regiftgate".

@wazzer said:

My chosen Laptop is the
IBM ThinkPad Lenovo T61P 6460-E8A
Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 2.6GHz
4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
250 GB S-ATA Harddisk 5400rpm
15.4" UXGA Screen 1920 X 1200
256 MB Nvidia Quadro FX 570M

Sounds good. SketchUp 7 will only use one of your CPU cores, but 2.6GHz is a respectable speed.

rombout,

It works for the apple just the same as it does for a sphere. Sadly I tested the cylindrical UV wrap and it doesn't work for bananas!