beatnic - just wondering

• The Friends of Peckham Rye Park
  The Friends of Peckham Rye Park website includes history and a link through to the Yahoo! Group which you can join.
  (tags: peckhamrye peckhamryepark SE22 eastdulwich London parklife)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Netvibes is quite simply everything an intranet (homepage) needs to be.

As well as being a great way of managing all my stuff on the internet of course.

• The Future Of Learning Is Informal And Mobile: A Video Interview With Teemu Arina - Robin Good’s Latest News
  Thanks to Euan for pointing to this gem.

  The superbly articulate Teemu Arina talks about why we’re here. Reminded me of how I’d been inspired by the Demos report People Make Places about the use of public space in towns and cities and how it had helped

  (tags: teemuarina learning)
• 24 ways: Compose to a Vertical Rhythm
  Handy. “On the Web, vertical rhythm – the spacing and arrangement of text as the reader descends the page – is contributed to by three factors: font size, line height and margin or padding. All of these factors must calculated with care in order that
  (tags: web design webdesign typography space)
• :: Douglas Rushkoff - Weblog ::
  Oh blow… “Why is Vista so bad even after six years of development and a myriad of promises? Because instead of seeing computer users as its customers, Microsoft has apparently chosen to put the needs of its fellow corporations first.”
  (tags: vista rushkoff os ux linux penguin)

There’s talk over in the East Dulwich Forum that Channel Four’s Grand Designs has been filming in Landells Road in East Dulwich.

The episode is scheduled to go out on Wednesday 16th May.

And last night saw Kevin McCloud revisiting Peckham.

In 2005 my Dad walked up Mount Kilimanjaro. Here’s a spectacular picture he took from the summit.

It’s difficult to get a true sense of scale. And having watched An Inconvenient Truth, it’s a moment in time that may never be recaptured.

Nigel tagged me a wee while ago and I’ve finally had a moment to respond.

Here are a few things I do to keep fit:

• Running - it’s my Dad’s fault, and it’s his Dad’s fault! There’s nothing quite like it for clearing my mind. The more undulating the better… the Yorkshire Dales and the eastern Pyrennees are perfect, and East Dulwich and surrounding area has plenty to offer too.
• Cycling - to work - it’s a 12 mile journey each way and I’m managing about 6 journeys out of 10 a week at the moment.
• Not using lifts and walking up escalators - there are 124 steps at Elephant & Castle, down in the morning, up in the evening. When I’m not cycling of course.
• Walking - what better way to get to know somewhere than to have time to stop every now and then and look up.

• BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Mr Men to return in new TV series
  Hooray!
  (tags: mrmen childrens tv television books classics)

• What is coaching - The Coaching & Mentoring Network
  Useful overview of coaching and mentoring, their similarities and their differences.
  (tags: coaching mentoring)

• Accessify - Web accessibility tools and resources
  (tags: accessibility web)

• Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK
  “Do you call a ‘bread roll’ a cob, batch, bread cake, barm cake or scuffler? How do you pronounce the words cup and plant? And are you sitting or sat at this computer? The UK is a rich landscape of regional accents and dialects, each evidence of our s
  (tags: voices accents language)

It’s my younger son’s first birthday today.

He has been given some amazing presents, most of which make various electronic noises and tunes when bits of them are pressed.

It struck me that a lot of them don’t have an “off” button, or “parent button” as I call it. Some do, but many, like the fabulous Baby Einstein Animal Melodies, once they start you can’t do anything about it!

I was on the bus on the way home last week when I kept hearing a playful voice every now and then, followed by a little melody. And then 20 seconds later “Hug me”. It took me a while to realise the voice was coming from the John Lewis carrier bag at my feet containing the very cute and cuddly Fisher Price Laugh & Learn “Learning Puppy”!

As we are surrounded by more and more noise, we need to get better and better at listening.

• BBC NEWS | Technology | IBM helps blind ’see’ web video
  Technology giant, IBM, is soon to launch a multimedia browser to make audio and video content accessible to people with vision impairments.

  Codenamed the Accessibility Browser - or A-Browser - the software was created by a blind employee in Japan.

  (tags: accessibility web multimedia browsers)