Off-Set Airline Economy Class Seating

If you take a look at the 3-abreast seating in a McLaren F1, you'll notice the space saving advantages of offset seating: There's more room for three passengers sitting abreast if the seats are staggered.

"A first for the economy cabin, a seat design offering you a truly relaxed sleeping position. It has a contoured shoulder area specifically profiled for sleeping. The shape was derived from numerous prototype and passenger trials to minimise the step-back of the seats. You do not feel like the seats are even staggered, allowing interaction between you and other passengers, while reinforcing a high level of privacy." -ThompsonSolutions

This arrangement allows either 15% greater passenger capacity or 2" wider seats. I wonder which configuration the airlines will use...

I'm Not Quite Dead

Decades ago, long before reality tellevision, there was "play" that consisted of a real family living their life on a theatre stage. Eating, reading, sleeping etc. The audience could come and go at anytime 24/7. Interesting, but I don't think it was a success.

Installations by Gregor Schneider
Now, if a venue can be found, German artist Gregor Schneider will use a dying person as a performance piece. Yes, a volunteer will die for Schneider's art.

Some people might think this is sick or exploitive. I have no problem with it. Dying is the final part of life. I'm not afraid of that.

Categories:Art

Joe's got a New Car

"Religion is the opiate of the people." -Karl Marx


The license plate on this 2002 272 horsepower Mercedes ML430 is "SCV 1", Italian for Vatican City State. Over the last 78 years Daimler Benz has been the unofficial car of the Vatican.

I thought the original bulletproof Popemobile was a based on an early 2-door RangeRover. Perhaps it wasn't bulletproof, but it set the style for future Popemobiles.

Categories:Cars

Dutch TV Advertisement

Warning: Not Office Safe.

By Selmore Ad Agency.

Thanks AdverBlog
Categories:Movies

Ceiling Fans

Last week I installed a 12 volt cable lighting system in our living room. It has a 200 Watt transformer, and we're only using 5 x 20W = 100W of that power. Once we've added three more lights there will be plenty of illumination in our living room.

So , I was looking for a simple pendant lamp to replace the chandelier that we no longer need. But then during last Friday's heatwave, the thought occurred to me that we should replace the chandelier with a ceiling fan!

Here's the type of ceiling fan I'm looking for:


These are all from the Modern Fan Company and range in price from $200 to $400.

The Great Flickr Donut Giveaway

"30% Chance of Sprinkles Today" by James Jordan

Flickr will be giving away donuts 11:00am today:

Bob's Donut & Pastry Shop
1621 Polk Street (at Sacramento)
San Francisco

It's all part of a whimsical campaign by Flickr member jakerome to "extort" free donuts from Flickr.

Steal This Idea

"A blackboard....a clock.... a magnet board...you decide how you want to use it, it does it all!

"It comes with a clock and you can also stick messages, photos, reminders, bills so basically a great useful item to have in the home or at work...

"Specifications: * Steel frame coated in blackboard paint. * Electric quartz clock mechanism. * 4 funky magnets. * Pack of chalk. * Wall fixings."

£59 here.

Thanks WereDidYouBuyThat.com
Categories:Gadgets

iMac Overheats like a Car

My iMac developed a problem on Friday: Horizontal lines (perhaps remanents of closed windows) appeared on the screen, soon followed by the iMac freezing. The only solution was to force a restart by holding down the "on" button.

I was puzzled by the problem, but I thought there might be a correlation with the unseasonably (unreasonably) hot weather.

So I used smcFanControl to crank up the cooling fans, and iStat Pro widget to monitor the internal temperature of the iMac. I sped all three fans up to 5,000rpm and watched the internal temperature drop. Problems solved! But lots of fan noise. So I cut the fan speed down to 1,500rpm to quiet things down, and that's done the trick.

Categories:Gadgets

BMW C1

This is the BMW C1. The C1 was designed by BMW and built in Italy by Bertone 2001-2002.

There was a 125 and a 200. The 125 has a 124cc four valve, water-cooled, fuel injected engine producing 15 bhp . The 200 has a 176 cc engine producing 18 bhp. Both engines were manufactured by Rotax and use a CVT variable transmission.

Categories:Cars