Nac's blog

McSpicy Paneer

2011-05-02T15:43:00.002+01:00

Just returned from a two week holiday in India, not really a fan of McDonalds but did rather enjoy the McSpicy Paneer.

Everything is OK

2009-10-25T16:56:00.001Z

Here's a good montage of the "Everything is OK" guys.

The dangers of Aspartame

2009-08-13T22:23:00.008+01:00

Here's a very good video about the dangers of Aspartame, hopefully it will make you think twice about drinking that can of diet cola.

Mindfreak

2008-05-27T20:51:00.001+01:00

I just happened to have discovered some great Criss Angel videos whilst checking out youtube a couple of weeks back, thought I'd share some of his better tricks.

Criss Angel levitates from building to building

Criss Angel and half a woman

Criss Angel gets impaled on a fence

Criss Angel walks on water

George W. Bush admits plans to attack Iran

2008-02-09T18:36:00.000Z

Interview of George Bush on an Israeli channel.

Ron Paul, the revolution begins

2007-12-15T16:09:00.000Z

Is it just a dream that Ron Paul will become President? Is the USA doomed to have Hilary Clinton in the oval office?

2008 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul in discusion with Google executive Elliot Schrage as part of the company's Candidates@Google series.

WTC and JFK

2007-07-08T23:37:00.000+01:00

Is an orange really an orange? A short video about controlled demolitions and WTC7.

Here's an interesting clip about JFK. You can clearly see the bodyguards being told to move away from JFK before entering the grassy knoll where he was shot.

All the world's a stage!

2007-06-15T22:31:00.000+01:00

A really good documentary featuring 9/11 news footage and excerpts from other productions such as Loose Change and Terrorstorm. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from this video.

Aerosols aka Chemtrails

2007-05-31T09:24:00.000+01:00

These two videos will make you look up towards the sky next time you go for a walk outside. Scary stuff indeed.

Chemtrails: Clouds of death

Chemtrails, Nano-Tech and Morgellons

Aerosol Crimes

The Ultimate Con 9/11

2007-03-15T20:59:00.000Z

Rest in peace grandpa

2007-01-19T21:03:00.000Z

It must be about time to add another entry to my blog as I haven't updated it since late last year. Now that I've finally got a few moments to write something I might as well explain what I've done recently.

Since my last entry I visited Shanghai for 10 days to see friends and also do a bit of sightseeing. Though in all honesty it was very cold and wet there so we didn't visit too many places. It's not very often I go travelling half way round the world to visit somewhere which is colder than the UK. Still the food and company was good so I can't complain too much. I did discover a pretty good tune from Bruce Springsteen when watching some of the local TV in China. I wouldn't consider myself a fan of country and western, but this song did have me hooked.

I also managed to visit some places not too far away from Shanghai.
Suzhou is around an hour away from Shanghai by train and is a very picturesque city with some nice canals. I've heard people call it the Venice of the east, though having never been to Venice I'm not sure how true that is.
I also got an opportunity to visit Xitang which does remind me a lot of Lijiang. It was used to film a few scenes from Mission Impossible 3.

http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/photos/abroad/china4/

Last weekend (13th January) I went to visit my brother and his family. Whilst my brother and most of his family seemed to be suffering quite badly from colds it didn't dampen the weekend too much. It was also nice to kick the ball around the garden with Dylan, he's also very good at sweeping. Next time he comes to Exeter he can have a go at cutting the grass ;)

The happy weekend wasn't to last for very long, at around midnight on Saturday I received a call to inform me that my grandfather had passed away at around 8pm India time. I found it extremely difficult to sleep that night, partly due to the fact that I was thinking I should have visited him when I went to India last year. My grandfather was cremated on the Sunday, I didn't get chance to talk to my father until Monday morning before heading off to work.

Here's a picture of my Grandfather taken in 2003 when I last saw him in Assam, India.

107 years and out. Rest in peace

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

2006-12-21T21:54:00.000Z

A very well put together documentary about 9/11. It focuses on the facts rather than speculating on various theories. A must see!

I haven't watched all of this documentary, but fast forward to the interesting bit just after 9 minutes if you are the impatient type. Look out for Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Meyers when questioned about direct energy weapons used in Iraq.

A passage to India

2006-11-27T21:51:00.000Z

Having returned from India a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would be a good idea to document what I did before my memory completely fails me. Links to the photos and videos are at the bottom of this article should you have no desire to read through my travel blog.

I flew from London Heathrow to Kolkata (Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose) International Airport arriving in the early morning to be picked up by Yipi and my cousins.

The flight arrived perfectly on time, and I must grudgingly admit that this British Airways flight was much improved from my previous experiences. I arrived in good spirits and only a little exhausted. On greeting them around 6am we make the journey to Serampore by car, which was quite interesting, especially being able to watch various festivals taking place en-route. I stayed at Serampore for a couple of days, which provided a good opportunity to catch up with relatives and see the festival in Rishra.

We managed a day trip to Kolkata to see various attractions such as the Victoria Memorial and Howrah Bridge as well as catching up with even more relatives (Indian families tend to be quite large).

The next evening we make the journey from Howrah station to New Jalpaiguri by overnight train, which was comfortable, if a little noisy. Sleeping is a task that is incredibly difficult to do on trains in India, due to the amount of hawkers on the train selling practically everything under the sun.

On arrival at New Jalpaiguri we grabbed some breakfast and hired a driver and vehicle to Gangtok in Sikkim. The scenery soon started changing the closer we approached Sikkim, the warm lowlands soon made way for the Himalayan foothills. We eventually reached the checkpoint to Sikkim after a few hours; we met with the border official to obtain permission for entry to Sikkim. Sadly Yipi was refused entry to Sikkim due to her Chinese passport, our efforts to convince him otherwise were futile. We then end up retracing our route and then head towards our alternative destination of Darjeeling via some spectacular views of the river Teesta.

Darjeeling is famous for its tea; whilst I had dreams it would just consist of tea plantations it was in fact a bustling town, with a huge amount of activity. We made Darjeeling our base for several days staying in the Hotel Dil.

There are plenty of attractions in and around Darjeeling; highlights include the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (where Tenzing Norgay became director), Tiger Hill to watch the sun rising, Tibetan monasteries and various tea estates.

Just up a small hill from the Mall there is a Buddhist temple with prayer flags everywhere and some cheeky little monkeys that look ready to steal your shoes.

Kurseong was our next destination from Darjeeling, which although not really a great distance, it took over 3 hours by toy train. No prizes for guessing why it's called the toy train, incidentally it must travel at something between walking and running speed (Good opportunity to do a Superman impersonation!).

We arrived in Kurseong in the evening and eventually found a satisfactory hotel, which served extremely good food.

The following day we did a local sightseeing trip of Kurseong and the surrounding area. We went to the Makaibari Tea Estate on a Sunday, which meant the place was closed for viewing but we were able to buy plenty of tea.

Kalimpong was our next town we stayed at for a couple of nights, before heading to Lolegaon via Lava. Lava is an extremely small place with not a great deal to offer apart from a nice Tibetan monastery.

Lolegaon is basically a small village with very little to do, though fortunately saved by its magnificent views of Kangchenjunga and a canopy walk.

We had to settle for accommodation in the half built Yankee's Stay hotel, as we weren't able to get a bungalow on the forest range. Lolegaon is surrounded by forests and is an ideal area for trekking; a perfect spot for watching the sunrise is around 4km away. We were unable to see the sun rise due to cloud cover, but did see some superb views of the Himalayan range.

Siliguri was to be our final destination before heading back to Kolkata. The journey to Siliguri takes about 2/3 hours and you can notice the temperature rising incredibly quickly as you start to descend.

I guess by the time we reached Siliguri from Lolegaon the temperature must have doubled. We arrived in the afternoon and eventually decide on staying at the hotel Dolly Inn. Siliguri is a large and extremely busy city, especially compared to the towns we had visited in the previous week. We spend most of our time here shopping in the crowded markets.

The following day we check out of the hotel and manage to cram five of us and all our luggage in an auto-rickshaw for the journey to New Jalpaiguri train station.

We catch the evening train to Sealdah train station which arrives on time in the morning, where we fight with taxi touts before getting a taxi to Howrah station and then finally back to Serampore.

We take a well deserved rest back in Serampore and then do a little shopping in the evening for saris etc.

The next day we pay a visit to the Science City in Kolkata, followed by some more shopping, eating and meeting relatives before I head back to the UK in the early hours of the following morning.

India is one of those places you either love or hate, whilst it can be extremely noisy and chaotic the good parts definitely outweigh the bad. Hopefully I will be returning within the next year.

Photos http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/photos/abroad/india2/

Videos http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/videos/#india2

Collection of UFO videos

2006-10-15T22:24:00.000+01:00

Here are a few interesting UFO videos worth looking at, no idea if they are authentic or not. To me they look like they are real, mind you it doesn't mean these flying objects are necessarily from another planet.

Onto the videos...the first one is shot in Australia.

Next we have a UFO shot (not literally) in Nanjing, China.

Another from Bulgaria

The next one is a commercial for the Sci-Fi channel, though I think it's fictional.

Finally we have a short talk from the Disclosure Project.

War signals?

2006-10-01T19:16:00.000+01:00

Article from The Nation....

"Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war planning. He says, "I know that some naval forces have already received 'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about like the date" of any possible military action against Iran."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff

Terrorstorm

2006-09-16T10:13:00.000+01:00

A film by Alex Jones which covers in detail the proven history of government sponsored terrorism. Featuring the collapse of the WTC on September 11 and the London 7/7 bombings. A must see documentary.

Secret rulers of the world

2006-09-05T21:14:00.000+01:00

Jon Ronson investigates the secrets of the Bohemian Grove.

Jon Ronson investigates a secret organisation called the Bilderberg group, which supposedly rules the world from behind the scenes.

Alex Jones predicts a major attack before October 2006

2006-08-16T18:39:00.000+01:00

Alex Jones predicts a major attack in one of the following countries (USA, Canada, UK or Israel) before October 2006. Stay tuned these coming months to see if Alex really is able to see the future in his crystal balls.

An old video about the 911 cover up.

Au revoir Zidane

2006-07-10T20:41:00.000+01:00

Zinedine Zidane will quite likely be remembered for his headbutt actions during the final of the 2006 World Cup in Berlin. Whilst I am in no way condoning his actions, we shouldn't forget about what Zizou has brought to the world. He really did make football the beautiful game. It is unfortunately a rather sad way for Zizou to make his exit from professional football and he will be sadly missed. All the best Zizou!

Here we can watch Zidane perform some of his magic.

Krrish takes on Superman Rreturns

2006-06-30T09:21:00.000+01:00

Here is Bollywood's answer to Superman just released on the 23rd of June.

Nice set of lungs

2006-06-26T22:21:00.000+01:00

Here's a good site if you want to test your lung capacity.

http://www.lungtester.com/

Pepsi advert

2006-06-21T21:20:00.000+01:00

England v Sweden match

2006-06-21T08:25:00.000+01:00

Did you find the England v Sweden match incredibly dull last night? I certainly did and if I hadn't been in the pub I think I would have come close to falling asleep. I hope the next match is a bit more exciting...

Here's an advert from a few years ago to keep you amused whilst you wait for the next match.

Enter the dragon

2006-06-08T07:03:00.000+01:00

Having just returned from a short break in Hong Kong and Macau I thought I'd write a few words about my holiday. I took just over a week off which in all honesty isn't really long enough to do Hong Kong justice. I managed to see most of the major attractions, though there was a great deal left for me to see. It doesn't help suffering from jet lag as well, which made it extremely difficult to sleep at night time and very tired in the morning.

I arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on Sunday the 28th of May and what a pleasure it was to arrive at this airport. It makes Heathrow Airport look so very sad indeed, not only is Hong Kong airport so clean and efficient there is plenty of space and natural light entering the building. It was no surprise that I quickly zipped through arrivals to be met by my father. A 30-40 minute bus ride later and we were in the Yau Ma Tei area of Kowloon.

The next morning I went down to Tsim Sha Tsui by MTR (Mass Transit Railway) for a brief walk around the area before catching a bus to the airport to meet Yipi who was flying in from Shanghai. I must say getting around Hong Kong is a breeze, especially with the handy Octopus card (Whizzy card which you can add money to, and use to pay for public transport and purchases in many shops). During the afternoon we visited Wong Tai Sin temple and explored around Tsim Sha Tsui and the view overlooking Victoria Harbour. We then took the famous Star Ferry across the harbour to Central, which unfortunately made Yipi feel a bit seasick.

The next day week took the MTR to Lantau Island and then a bus around the nice countryside to Po Lin Monastery. Po Lin is quite famous for having a large bronze statue of the Buddha, in fact it is the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha. We climbed up the stairs to see the statue and then looked around the temple and paid our respects.

We proceeded back to Hong Kong in the afternoon and decided to take the Peak Tram up to the top of Victoria Peak. The views of Hong Kong are amazing from here, even with overcast weather.

The next morning we started the day with Yum Cha or sometimes called Dim Sum, which consist of small dishes you choose from various carts being wheeled around the restaurant. There is nothing like having breakfast in Hong Kong, and it's quite surprising how busy the restaurants are at 8am. I heartily recommend having Yum Cha if you ever decide to visit Hong Kong, especially the London Restaurant on Nathan Road between Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei.

During the day we explored Hong Kong, especially around the Central area, Mid Levels and Man Mo temple.

We then looked around the Space Museum and wisely visited the Bird and Flower market.

The next day we visited the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort on Lantau Island and unfortunately for us the weather wasn't brilliant. The placed looked very promising at first, but you soon discover that this is a very small resort. It's still got some quite reasonable attractions, though we kind of felt disappointed leaving the resort. The saving grace of the resort must have been the 3D cinema and the Space Mountain ride (we even went on the ride twice). I don't think Yipi enjoyed the ride particularly the first time, as she didn't stop screaming for pretty much the whole ride.

The next day we took a ferry trip to Macau from the Shun Tak ferry terminal in Sheung Wan. The journey by ferry takes around an hour, even in the horrible weather we had to endure. It rained for the best part of the day, though we still managed to see quite a lot of Macau as well as spending a bit of cash in the Casino Lisboa.

The following day we decided to take a leisurely look around the Mong Kok area, mainly an excuse to buy lots of junk for friends and relatives back home. Mong Kok is an excellent place for shopping, as there are so many markets in that area. You name it and I'm sure you can find it there. I recommend the fruit market and ladies' market especially towards the late afternoon when things are getting busy. This area of Hong Kong is so buzzing, especially late in the evening and feels extremely safe.

Before I knew it the holiday was over and I would be heading back to the UK aboard a Cathay Pacific flight to London Heathrow.

More pictures from my Hong Kong trip at :-

http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/photos/abroad/hongkong2/

Elephants Dream

2006-05-20T19:03:00.000+01:00

Here's a very good release if you're interested in 3D animation, and it's free to download as well.

"This is the final stage of a successfully completed Open Movie project which has been community-financed, using only Open Source tools, and opening up the movie itself as well as the entire studio database for everyone to re-use and learn from. The movie and production files are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 2.5, which only requires a proper crediting for public screening, re-using and distribution."

http://www.elephantsdream.org/

Enjoy

Weekend in London

2006-05-16T22:45:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I went with Squirt and the ever so slightly weird TJ up to London to visit Nigel. I guess Nigel wanted us to come down, partly because he was bored and also because his wife was away in Thailand.

I drove down to London on Friday night, leaving around 6pm and getting to Nigel's just after 10pm. The drive was actually very good and fortunately we didn't encounter much traffic, not even on the M25. I suppose it helps by taking the A303 past Stonehenge towards London.

We all chilled out in front of Nigel's extremely small TV (cough cough) by watching the classic cult zombie film "The Return of the Living Dead". It's actually not a bad film, especially with its extremely cheesy special effects and bad 80's costumes. I did find it very amusing at times and it's unlike other zombie films I have seen. Worth picking up on DVD for a few quid.

The next morning we all woke up reasonably early and headed off to the Millennium Dome (now renamed the O2) to park up and catch the tube into the heart of the city. We thought we'd do the tourist thing, as it was a really nice day, if a bit grey at first. We initially started off at Westminster to see the Houses of Parliament.

Then carried on walking over to the other side of the Thames towards the London Eye.

Walked further towards the Tate Modern, Millennium Bridge and then St. Paul's Cathedral.

We gave St. Paul's a miss, as it was close to ten pounds to go inside!!

We then went past the Bank of England and onto Tower Bridge.

The Tower of London and then we caught the tube to St. James's Park to see Buckingham Palace.

We took plenty of photos of Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial.

New Scotland Yard

Then Harrods's. TJ incidentally had to take several pictures of a large 102-inch Hi-Def TV. You wouldn't believe how excited a person can get just by looking at a large TV! Still that's TJ for ya.

Then Piccadilly Circus before heading back to the O2, where it started chucking it down with rain.

We headed back to Nigel's place after grabbing some pizzas from Asda. We stuck on an extremely amusing film called "The 40 Year Old Virgin". It seemed even funnier as the main character of the film had an uncanny resemblance to TJ.

We had to leave mid afternoon on Sunday to make it back to Exeter for around 7pm, a very good and quite tiring weekend. Beats staying at home cutting the grass.

More pictures at :-

http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/photos/uk/london/

Gundamn you!

2006-05-01T16:07:00.000+01:00

During my visit to Toronto I stumbled across a comic book store not too far away from Spadina. They had some pretty cool models in the window and for some strange reason I was attracted to the japanese robots. I plumped for the fairly cheap at 8 canadian dollars model of Strike Gundam. I've just finished assembling earlier on today and here is the end result....not bad eh!
Think I might have to purchase another one when I go to Hong Kong.

Curry n rice girl

2006-04-27T22:35:00.000+01:00

Hehehehe I can relate with the folks in this video...

More photos of Canada trip

2006-04-26T00:28:00.000+01:00

I have uploaded some high quality images of my trip to Canada and put a few up on my flickr.

Enjoy

Short break in Canada

2006-04-25T23:54:00.000+01:00

Having just returned from a short trip to Canada during April, I thought I'd share a few of my memories and pictures on my first visit to Canada.

I arrived at Toronto Pearson International airport after an 8-hour flight from London Heathrow, which seemed to take an age for some reason. I must say after flying Virgin Atlantic the previous month, the Air Canada plane seemed very basic indeed. I can remember barely being able to see the movie, which if I remember correctly was In the Line of Fire. It was by no means the worst plane I have been on, though having some decent food might have gone some way to improve the experience.

Enough moaning about the flight and onto explaining what I did in Canada. I won't go through everything as I'm sure that will bore most people to death and you'll probably just end up looking at the pictures anyway.

On my first day I got a feel for the city by having breakfast at a place called Over Easy on Yonge Street, incidentally Yonge (pronounced young) is supposedly the longest street in the world, not that I was going to find out by walking from one end to the other. I got chatting to the guy who worked there, who quickly worked out that I wasn't from around here and told me about a few places worth visiting.

My first stop was the CN Tower which although incredibly tall, so far as being the tallest in the world, isn't really much to look at and is also really difficult to take photos of from close by. Though it's not until you go up the CN Tower do you really get to appreciate it, the views were incredible and I was extremely fortunate that I had a whole week of very warm and sunny weather. I really couldn't have wished for better weather, it was just perfection. The icing on the cake of the CN tower must be the glass floor, great views, though not for the faint hearted. I enjoyed it, but I could see a lot of nervous looking people around me.

I managed to cram in a visit to the Rogers Centre that used to be the Skydome until a large telecoms/cable company called Rogers bought it out. The Rogers Centre is absolutely huge and it was quite interesting being shown around the place and seeing the various facilities. It even has a hotel joined onto the centre, with about 70 rooms looking onto the field.

I also did a cruise of the harbour and Toronto Islands from Queens Quay West, which was very nice and relaxing. The captain of the ship was a very good looking girl as well, which made it all the more pleasant. I recommend taking a tour and you're in for a treat if she's on the same boat!

One thing about Toronto is that I guess close to 50% of the population are immigrants, which is great as you've got plenty of different types of food to choose from and most groups will have their own district like China Town and Little Italy. Kensington Market is an excellent area to check out, there are just so many different people from all parts of the world there.

Toronto is a great place for shopping as well as having some huuuuuuge great malls; it has a city beneath a city. In fact there are other 27km of underground shopping arcades. I did manage to get lost a few times as the directions aren't always straightforward.

I visited Niagara Falls, which was quite a nice attraction, but ultimately I felt a bit let down because of the cheesy amusement arcades and casinos within 2 minutes walk of the falls. The Maid of the Mist was a truly excellent boat tour, which after you have put on your raincoat goes past the Bridal Veil Falls and then towards the mist coming off the Horseshoe Falls. This is the perfect opportunity to get soaked, just make sure you put your camera away somewhere!

The Bad: Toronto can be quite expensive, lots of homeless people, though most are very pleasant and helpful.

The Good: Good eating, very clean for a large city, plenty to keep you occupied and the nicest female captain I have ever met.

So would I go back to Toronto again? I would have to say definitely yes.

Moody Stonehenge picture

2006-04-13T13:15:00.000+01:00

Here's a pic that I captured yesterday on my trip to Wiltshire....I think it looks very good in black and white, especially the clouds. I've also uploaded a few pictures to My Flickr!

A grand day out

2006-04-13T12:03:00.000+01:00

I was getting quite bored on Wednesday morning and I thought to myself I better go out and do something, instead of playing on my PC or watching daytime television. Initially I was just going to mooch into town and look around, but I thought it was a bit pointless seeing as I had been in town the previous day to get hold of some Canadian dollars.

I had enjoyed my previous short trip to Dartmoor on the weekend and decided to go somewhere else today, though not knowing where to visit I filled up my car with petrol and headed onto the M5 and then onto the A303 going towards London. I must have driven around 90 miles or so and spotted a sign for Stonehenge.

I stopped here for a short break and decided to stump up the princely sum of five pounds and ninety pence to visit the famous stones. Incidentally you get to listen to a free audio guide inside the area, which makes the price a bit more bearable. I spent in the region of about half an hour or so walking around the stones and talking photos. I remember when I was young that you were allowed much closer to these stones, but these days you seem to be a fair distance away.

I drank some green tea whilst in my car and then decide to leave the car park and head off somewhere else.

On exiting the car park I notice a guy wearing a hat thumbing for a lift. I pull over onto the side and ask him where he is headed, he replies in an Italian accent Salisbury. I wasn't planning on going in that direction, but he convinces me to go that way as it's only about 9 miles away and I didn't have anything better to do.

His name is Massimo and he's from Sardinia, Italy. He explains he is here for 2 weeks visiting various places before he has to return to Italy at the end of the month. He mentions that he is heavily involved in music and does some band promotion work.

We arrive in Salisbury and notice a sign for Old Sarum. He reads out a section from his Rough Guide to England book which sounds very promising....hell even the English Heritage site promotes it well.

When we arrive we are sadly very disappointed, there lies very little in the way of remains of the castle, though the hill and what used to be a moat is quite impressive. We agree three pounds is a bit too much to spend on some old castle remains and decide to walk round instead.

Then we park up in the town centre and head towards the nearest pub for a quick drink before heading to Salisbury Cathedral.
The Cathedral was definitely a lot more impressive than Old Sarum and some of the buildings nearby are also very nice, reminds me a lot of Exeter.

It is approaching 4:30pm and I say I must head back to Exeter and offer Massimo a lift somewhere as there is not a huge amount to do in Salisbury. He agrees and I gave him a lift to Glastonbury, where we arrive a bit later than planned after missing the exit on the A303. I park in the town centre conveniently close to a backpacker's hotel, where Massimo dumps his backpack.

He asks a local for directions to the nearest McDonald's and gets told the nearest one is in New York! Sensing this guy was a local I quickly follow up by asking where the nearest fish n chip shop is, he happily points us in the right direction to a local award winning chip shop.

After eating some chips I say goodbye to Massimo and wish him good luck on his journeys as I head back to Exeter.

Amazing Mazinger

2006-04-03T21:30:00.000+01:00

OMG! Look at the size of that thing....it's Mazinger as rendered by Jose Manuel Liébana.

Miniature of Hong Kong

2006-04-02T18:35:00.000+01:00

Well after months and months of hard work I've finished creating my model of Hong Kong. Well one of the streets on Hong Kong island. You'll notice that I've gone to immense lengths to add some details to the miniature like people. Hope you like it... ;)

Foolish Romance

2006-04-01T09:57:00.000+01:00

Looking for some lurve, well why not try this site courtesy of our friends at Google! ;)

http://www.google.com/romance/

Subtitle a bollywood movie

2006-03-11T19:12:00.000Z

Ever fancied subtitling a bollywood movie, well here's your chance to subtitle a short clip. There are plenty of short clips to choose from, and once you've created your masterpiece you can email them to your friends.

Bombay TV

Minority Report

2006-03-10T18:38:00.000Z

Ever wanted to look like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, then this is what you need to look the part.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Nac

2006-03-05T22:45:00.000Z

Have just returned from a 2 week holiday in China, this time visiting Yunnan province in the south. Visited some amazing places including Kunming, Shangri-la, Deqin, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Lijiang, Dali and Shilin.

Pictures are online at :- http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/photos/abroad/china3/

Optical illusions

2006-02-17T21:32:00.000Z

This is going to be my last post for a couple of weeks as I'm off to do some travelling. Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena by Michael Back is an interesting website full of some really trippy optical illusions. Guaranteed to make your head spin in next to no time.

Enjoy

Nac

If you look around in the below figure you will notice the appearance and disappearance of black dots at the crossings.

Woooooooooooooo

2006-02-15T08:38:00.000Z

How's this for some impressive ball skills! Makes you wanna go woooooooooooooooo.

Matrix Ping Pong

2006-02-12T12:39:00.000Z

Fancy a bit of ping pong action matrix style....?

Fight Club

2006-02-11T13:05:00.000Z

Fight Club with a difference, this time a bollywood remake of it with all your usual song and dance numbers. I can't wait to see this one....

More info about it here with various trailers and not forgetting the official website.

Jet Set Willy

2006-02-09T18:47:00.000Z

Way back in the mists of time before the Internet existed I grew up on a cute little personal computer about the size of a paperback book with rubber keys. It was the beloved Sinclair ZX Spectrum, it had a whole 48K of memory and you would load in software from a cassette tape (assuming you were lucky enough for the game to load without the dreaded tape loading error). I spent hours on this computer doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things with it, but I'll have to admit I did enjoy playing games on, especially one of my favourite games of all time.

Jet Set Willy

I suppose you could describe it as a super mario type game where you had to collect lots of discarded glasses and bottles from various rooms in a mansion. The original version and a spectrum emulator you can download from worldofspectrum.org. I've recently discovered a PC port of Jet Set Willy which is pretty fab, which you can download from retrospec.

There are lots of other classic games on this site that have been ported to the PC, such as Manic Miner.....the prequel to Jet Set Willy.

Enjoy

The moon is made of cheese!

2006-02-06T18:04:00.000Z

Following on from an earlier post where I linked to the google maps and google sightseeing sites. It looks like the folks at google have discovered the moon is made from cheese. Don't believe me?

Check out Google moon

Then zoom in as much as a possible and voila evidence the moon is made from cheese! ;)

Diesel in water at Exeter

2006-02-06T11:54:00.000Z

"People living in parts of Exeter are being warned not to drink their tap water after diesel got into supplies."

How am I going to get a cup of tea from work today? Doh!

More info from the BBC.

Play

2006-02-05T09:18:00.000Z

Here's something to keep you entertained for a few minutes, nice and completely pointless.

Play

If you enjoyed Play, why not check out more of the same at

Play more

Suits you sir

2006-02-03T22:33:00.000Z

How's this for a fine bit of digital attire, provided courtesy of Stortroopers. Oh suits you!

Sudoku

2006-01-31T21:03:00.000Z

In need of something to keep you occupied during your lunch breaks, why not spend a few minutes figuring out a game of Sudoku.

Happy Chinese New Year

2006-01-30T19:25:00.000Z

Happy Chinese New Year! It's only a day late....this year is the year of the dog. Remember kids eating dog can be extremely harmful to your digestive system, trust me I've been there! :(

Sad but true

2006-01-28T08:42:00.000Z

Here's something similar to the asian backstreet boys I posted earlier, this time it's a group miming to Metallica's Sad but true.

Enjoy

Too lazy to travel?

2006-01-25T21:23:00.000Z

I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel that travelling to some exotic location abroad is a very tiring experience. I'm going to head off to China fairly shortly and the thought of a long coach journey to Heathrow and then a 12 hr flight really puts me off travelling. The rewards are worth it in the end, but I guess it would be so much easier if I could travel through the Internet.

For those that don't have the energy why not check out Google Sightseeing.

Loose change 9-11

2006-01-18T23:04:00.000Z

A one hour analysis of 9/11 and how it is more likely than not that the government was actually behind the attacks.

Friday night madness

2006-01-12T23:12:00.000Z

The Heist

2006-01-04T23:18:00.000Z

Received this text message earlier on tonight from Jen, a friend who used to study at Exeter Uni a while back saying that she was going to be on TV tonight! This is the second time in the last few months that a friend of mine has been on TV, surely my time must be due soon. ;)

After having a quick look online to find out what this programme is and almost half expecting some documentary about PVC or something similar, I was a bit surprised to find out it was Derren Brown.

"Under the guise of a motivational seminar and a follow-up documentary, can Derren Brown persuade any of his group of responsible, middle-management businessmen and women to steal £100,000 in an armed robbery?"

Would our Jen be upto the challenge? Let's find out....

Gosh last time I saw Jen she had pink hair, guess it must have been time to revisit the gothic look.

OK, let's see her reaction when it comes to getting the drinks in! It's looking extremely painful and it's damn sight more expensive than buying the drinks in the Lemmy.

She feels quite at home nicking a packet of jelly mix from a convenience store.

And even more comfortable nicking some meat loaf from the store. I believe it's the food she's about to steal rather than the ageing rock and roll performer.
What's more surprising is that she's a veggy, or certainly was back in her uni days.

Good choice kiddo, you can't go wrong with a pot of marmite.

Sadly not....as they decided it took her a bit long to recover after electrocuting someone in the Milgram experiment. Well done Jen!

Shinobi

2005-12-30T23:23:00.000Z

Want to look like a ninja, then check out houseofninja for a really simple way to look like a deadly assassin. It basically involves putting on a t-shirt inside out, though the results do seem to look quite good...well at least a couple of the examples do. I might even put one of my own examples online. ;)

Merry Christmas

2005-12-24T15:29:00.000Z

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to all. Here's a very seasonal website for you to create your own snowperson!

Slow boat to China

2005-12-11T13:28:00.000Z

Well I've just returned from my lovely vacation in China last weekend and had an amazing time. I initially flew into Shanghai and spent a few days relaxing before visiting Hangzhou, Guilin, Yangshuo, Ningbo and Putuo Shan. Guilin must have been the nicest place, with just an unbelievable scenery and nice people.
Have just managed to complete putting my photos online, so without further ado I introduce pictures of China part II.

Enjoy

Asian Backstreet Boys

2005-12-07T21:11:00.000Z

Got this from an old friend....it's a video of a couple of Chinese kids miming to a song by the Backstreet Boys. It's very funny worth checking out.

Fish n Chips

2005-11-13T00:10:00.000Z

Had a pretty hectic week at work sorting out various videoconferencing problems which don't seem to be improving. Thursday was the busiest day of the week, so busy in fact I didn't get chance to have lunch and had to make do with a slice of cake and cup of tea at around 3 in the afternoon.
By the time I left work it was close to 7pm and in all honesty I didn't have the energy to cook. In these circumstances I would normally get Chinese takeaway, but I thought I haven't had fish n chips for ages....so why not pop down to the "Tasty Plaice" on Cowick Street.

Here's the result from my trip to the fish n chip shop.....delish, especially with a nice cold beer!

Revenge of the Sith

2005-11-07T19:15:00.000Z

Happened to be strolling through town on a Saturday afternoon and noticed these fellas hanging outside the WHSmith shop in the Guildhall promoting the Revenge of the Sith DVD. Thought it would be a good opportunity to grab a few photos, shame Darth didn't shout "Noooooooooooooo!".

Enjoy

Gromit

2005-10-29T21:07:00.000+01:00

Check out this cool Gromit mug you get with special boxes of PG tips. His nose even changes colour when you add some hot water!

Fame at last

2005-10-05T18:49:00.000+01:00

One of my close friends from Uni had her few seconds of fame today as she managed to appear on the BBC Spotlight news programme today. She basically talked for a few seconds about the launderette in the area where she lives. I'm sure she's going to be coming into work tomorrow with a smile on her face, maybe if I'm lucky I might even get an autograph from Judit. Hehehehe

Unfortunately the story was about a murder that took place at the Silverspin launderette on Blackboy Road in Exeter.

I can't understand women

2005-10-02T18:29:00.000+01:00

Is it me, but I just can't understand some women. One day you can be talking to them on the phone and they seem cheerful and relatively happy. Then the next day they don't want to say a word to you even if they agreed to talk to you the previous day. You ask them what's wrong and they say everything is fine, but clearly it's not. I guess these women must think us guys are psychic and are able to read their minds from over 6000 miles away.
I just can't be doing with all this......I just need to find a normal decent girl!

Manic Monday

2005-09-26T18:56:00.000+01:00

Well I had to say goodbye to ickle Dylan this morning as I had to head to work for an extremely busy day. Dylan and company had to head home in the afternoon after a rather exciting weekend playing around with remote controls, mice and beer bottles.

My day at work consisted of lots of interesting activities such as doing a videoconferencing QA Test with the guys up in Edinburgh and providing a training session for a few academics from the English department. It went a lot better than I thought it would, especially as the lecture theatre I had booked seemed to be occupied by another group. It was quite lucky that Newman A was free in the afternoon.

Hectic Saturday

2005-09-24T19:46:00.000+01:00

Well it's Saturday night and I feel quite tired for some reason. I spent the best part of the morning cleaning the house ready for my bro and his family to come down to Exeter for the weekend. I also managed in between cleaning to have a nice chat with my girlfriend today, think we must have been on the phone for around an hour or so. I didn't realise when I phoned her yesterday that she had to pay for receiving the call. Still it was a pretty enjoyable conversation and I'm sure we've got quite a lot to talk about in the future.
I picked Ugy, Dylan + Astrid up from the train station at around 2pm or so and brought them home. I gave Dylan his slightly late birthday present, which he wasn't too interested in playing with at the time as he had discovered the TV remote controls. Though the bear did seem to grow on him later in the day.
I then had to head back into town to meet Seumus to have a chat at Costa.

Traffic

2005-09-18T18:10:00.000+01:00

Here's a pretty cool game to waste lots of time, it's a simple game involving try to get vehicles from one end of the screen to the other negotiating traffic lights which you can change from red to green. Enjoy

Sadness part 2

2005-09-18T16:30:00.000+01:00

Well I finally managed to get hold of a birthday present for my nephew and it's none other than a nice teddy bear from M&S. Hope he likes it when he comes down next weekend.

When I got back from town after hunting down the bear, I got an interesting email from my ex. I couldn't entirely work out what she was trying to say apart from having a bad day on Saturday and that she was stupid to hurt herself twice. She didn't really explain very well if she hurt herself twice yesterday or over a period of time.

It sounds to me that she's showing me the door and I'm not welcome anymore. She's definitely on the look out for a better than Nac model boyfriend as she's placed an advert on her blog section of MSN spaces.

Bugger, looks like I won't be going to Shanghai this year then....still at least it gives me time to book a holiday to somewhere else instead. Where's it going to be I wonder.....New York, Hong Kong, Toronto, Dubai or Hanoi......hmmmmm.

Sadness part 1

2005-09-17T13:13:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure why but a few of my online friends all seem really sad right now, they all seem to be suffering for various reasons and there's not a great deal I can do to help them. One of my friends has basically had a net relationship for such a long time and she's just found out that he's been cheating. I had a feeling for a long time that this relationship was a non-starter but I guess she didn't want to hear that from me before. There are others who are just sad and I haven't got to the bottom of it yet, why is there so much sadness in the world! Why can't we all get along......
I feel that the usually happy and cheerful Nac can't do anything to put a smile on their faces, and it's almost like I've lost my jedi powers. I hope they manage to sort out their relevant problems as soon as possible.

I'm going to spend some time away from the net and go into town to find a nice birthday present for my one year old nephew Dylan. I've really got no idea what to get him at the moment, fingers crossed I'll get some inspiration a bit later today. ;)

Hitchhikers guide to ISDN

2005-09-13T20:15:00.000+01:00

God damn I must have spent pretty much all of today trying to get the damn Polycom Viewstation SP 384 working on ISDN. Initially I went to double check the serial number of the device and also help Norman out as he plugged it in and all it seemed to do was just restart. OK so no big problems there for the supposed video conferencing guru. It took a few minutes to change a few options here and there so it would stop resetting itself. I put in the various ISDN numbers and changed the switch protocol to one for use in Europe.
OK so far so good....then lets call someone, so we called Paul down in Tremough and that's where our problems started. For some bizarre reason it wouldn't connect at more than 128k speeds. We tried a few different numbers just to make sure it wasn't our unit that was at fault such as the Duckcam and Crossmead. Both calls worked fine, but that was due to them being 128k sites, what we needed was a test site at 384k. Finally dug out the number for the UKERNA test site and it worked a treat. Therefore it's not a problem at our site, or so I thought. I got Paul to try it and he successfully managed to call at 384k. Bizarre.
Time to go back to the office and think about a few things and also send an email to the boss telling him the serial number which he wanted a few days ago. Doh think my memory must be going.....
During my lunch break I had a few minutes to talk to the ex girlfriend about various things. I think she wanted to know why I wanted to go back to Shanghai, which I tried to explain in the best possible way. The conversation went pretty good and I certainly was quite happy with it. Though sadly I couldn't talk for so long as I needed to grab something to eat. I went to the Ram for a quick snack + latte and before I knew it was over just as Kellie arrived.
I was back trying to fix the ISDN problem. Think I tried everything possible to get it working and eventually found out the numbers of each of the ISDN outlets by getting the Polycom to ring my mobile (Thanks Martin!). I managed to talk Eleanor in helping me test the system by connecting from the Innovation Centre. After numerous calls the best she could do was connect to me using ISDN4, even though I could connect to her using ISDN6.
I've come to the conclusion it's got to be something to do with the line number ordering. What a shambles....but at least I've made some progress.

Insomnia

2005-09-12T22:14:00.000+01:00

Do you have problems sleeping? Well I know someone who can talk about sailing for hours and hours, which seems to be just the ticket if you're having problems sleeping. Failing that you could always do worse than check out his rather interesting website.

Christ

2005-09-12T21:52:00.000+01:00

Hurrah it's another fabulous Monday and also the start of another exciting week at work. The morning consisted of watching some video stream being sent from Plymouth just to check out everything was ok. Fortunately there wasn't any problems, so I could get on with the rest of my tasks. I was surprised how much I managed to get done this morning, must be a new world record for me.
Lunchtime came very quickly today and after waiting god knows how long for K to get her act together we finally made it to the Ram. It's been closed for 2 weeks so it was nice to pop in and be greeted by the friendly staff. I decided to go for the healthy option as per usual and had a baked potato and salad, whilst the big jelly decided to go for a slightly less than healthy option of cheesy chips and mayo.
As the weather was so nice we sat outside to talk about your typical nonsense like we always do, though I admittedly got distracted a few times and couldn't really engage in conversation for the most of our lunch. It's a real shame that I can't multi-task, but I think by then Kellie had already given up on me and I suppose if she could...she would have rather had a conversation with herself. The finishing touch for me was when a certain female decided to stretch before getting up and I exclaimed "Christ". I guess you had to be there to appreciate it/them, they are the most perfectly formed jubblies I've ever seen. Luckily there aren't too many girls I've seen lately that have that sort of affect on me, otherwise the conversation would be non-existent. I must have came close to raising the table. ;)

Crappy weather

2005-09-10T12:36:00.000+01:00

What crappy weather this morning! It's been chucking it down this
morning, though I suppose I should be grateful as it's given me an
opportunity to do the cleaning in the house. Looks like the weather is improving a little bit now so I might use it as an excuse to nip into town for a bit.

Photos of Exeter

2005-09-08T19:20:00.000+01:00

Just thought I'd plug my own personal website by mentioning that I've added some photos of my home town Exeter. Sadly there's not much on the Exeter page so far, but I hope to add a few more over the next few weeks. I've got a few nice ones of Exeter Cathedral and one of a parade a good few months back (one to keep Seumus happy).

http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/nkjdatta/photos/uk/exeter/

Qualifications: Agressive

2005-09-07T21:13:00.000+01:00

I decided to stay in tonight as Jack (one of my friends from Shanghai) asked me to make some corrections to his CV. It was quite a challenging job for me as I had great difficulty understanding some of his English in places, though it was quite funny. Personally I think Jack is planning on becoming a wrestler.
It took me just under a couple of hours to re-work it which seemed to fly past thanks to some cheesy 80's music and Savage Garden.
Still his English is a damn sight better than my Chinese, so I can't really complain. I finally managed to come up with something half decent and it's also quite lucky that I've helped someone else with a CV quite recently.

Jack it's going to cost you some of your father's cooking if I goto Shanghai this year dude. No stir fried dog though! ;)

World Wind

2005-09-07T08:09:00.000+01:00

Stumbled across an interesting application from NASA called World Wind which lets you view the world from all their satellite imagery they've acquired. It's incredibly powerful as it lets you zoom in and look at everything in 3D.

Keystone cops

2005-09-06T20:46:00.000+01:00

Didn't really have a proper lunch today as I spent a fair amount of my time talking to my ex gf, which actually went better than I thought it would. We've not been getting on particularly well for the last week and a bit I guess for various reasons I won't discuss. I hope things improve from now onwards, as it's not been fun this last week.

Decided to go over to the University supermarket which still surprises me by being recently renamed KeyStore to grab a coffee and sit on the benches outside. I joined a table with some foreign students learning English and a few minutes later Kellie pops up and joins me after sending me a few abusive text messages. She always sends me abusive messages when she has to walk more than a 100 metres or so, especially if it's up hill. Todays abuse was something along the lines of muppet!

Kellie went into the supermarket to get her usual giant sized baguette and latte. A few minutes later the rest of the Compass team joined us to feast and admire the splendid views. The views were much better than the dismal views in the Imperial yesterday and at least there were a few people we knew especially the ones with interesting faces!

Kate was the first to leave as she had to do some training in the afternoon, though she did bump into someone with a nicely fitting suit. A few minutes later I received this text message from her.....

Dibley

2005-09-04T19:58:00.000+01:00

Got a text message from Judit today to meet up for coffee this afternoon at the Boston Tea Party. I must have got into town at around 3pm or so and decided to waste a bit of time wandering round the city centre. I was getting a bit bored as most of the shops were closing at around 4pm and decided to wander towards the cathedral as you do and who was there but none other than Dawn French.

I overheard some people mention it was some special service for some cancer thingy, perhaps a cancer charity organisation. I must eavesdrop better next time to find out what's going on.

This is the best photo I managed to take at the time as Dawn had a habit of looking in a different direction whenever I got close or someone getting in the way when I was taking a snap. Still I'm quite happy with the shots I managed to take and for those interested I'll put some better quality ones up on my website.

I then headed off to meet Judit and John at the BTP for a cup of coffee.

Ping pong

2005-09-04T10:30:00.000+01:00

Popped into the city centre yesterday to get some birthday cards for my brother and sister, though unfortunately couldn't find anything which I liked. So it looks like I will have to return again to the centre to try again, though at least I've got plenty of time. Bumped into several people who I haven't seen for a while, first person that I saw walking down the High Street from MVC was Caroline. I just about recognised her in her new gothic look. So we had a fairly long chat on the seats outside of Boots about life in general, work and of course the love life. I got interrupted about half way through the conversation when Squirt phoned, and after repeated calls and messages I went towards WHSmith to meet him and his bro. We popped down to the Impy for a quick afternoon drink and after much discussion about whether we should eat something, we decided not to. All three of us returned to the city centre and went out seperate ways. I was still starving so I thought I'd make a head for the nearest Subway for a bite to eat, and on the way through the Guildhall literally flew past Ines with her bags of shopping.

Later on the in the evening went to the Three Fat Fish for a few drinks with all my friends, though to be honest they're more likely family now (alright Dad!).
Squirt wimped out, something about having to work in the following morning....pah feeble excuse. Lots of questions were directed to me about marriage and where I shall go next for my holiday, see what I mean by them being more like family. Whilst I was planning to go back to China this year, am not sure it's going to happen at the moment. I also had to answer questions about if I had been in contact with the Cambodian girl that I met at the Duty Free shop at Siem Reap airport and also when the Chinese girl would come to the UK as they all want to meet her. Eeeek time to quickly change the subject...

FLAC off

2005-08-31T21:17:00.000+01:00

Well what can one say about a fairly uneventful day at work, mainly consisting of updating some videoconferencing webpages, sorting out a few techie things in XFI, giving some IT advice and taking some photographs of a lecture theatre. I guess the most interesting thing from today must have been removing a couple of CDs from a CD player that fell out of the drive tray for someone from the ELC. It's not as if the CDs were especially good, unless you like Whitesnake and Foreigner. Still a job well done by Gary and myself.

Popped down to the Impy at lunchtime as the Ram is closed for two weeks with fellow chavs Gary and Kellie for a spot of lunch and a drink. We were too lazy to walk down to the Imp, so we went down in the Kevmobile with twin exhausts at faster than light speeds. Quite amazing for a car that has two baby seats in the back. Once at the Imp it was straight to the bar for a half of Guinness, bottle of Cobra and some Abbot Ale. We admired the magnificent views for all of ten minutes or so before ordering a rare sirloin steak, Belgium waffle and apple pie. Unlike previous days Kellie wasn't feeling as hungry as usual and just had a Belgium waffle, she was even lucky enough to have some parsley on her waffle. I was trying to avoid Gary rolling his peas at me. We returned to work after we were all satisfied with our feasts and much staring at dodgy moustaches and Weatherspoon's employees!

Later had to explain about FLAC files and where to find the relevant download in order to play the files with winamp. I suppose it's better than explaining that DVD-R is the same as DVD MINUS R. There are just some people you can't do anything with....

Imperial march

2005-08-28T21:54:00.000+01:00

Just been looking through my bookmarks as you do on a boring Sunday night and I stumbled across a scratch mix of the Imperial March, it's a bit on the short side but still pretty well done.

Local copy of the clip (3.8MB WMV)

Lots of other nice scratch videos at DJ Keltech scratch vids. There's also a pretty well done version of Knight Rider on his page with some geezer doing some beatbox.

First entry

2005-08-28T19:07:00.000+01:00

I've just signed upto to blogger so when I can think of something interesting to write I'll chuck it up, hopefully in the next few days.