Marie Antionette's Plaything

One of the cottages built in Marie Antoinette's private village at the Petit Trianon at Versailles and built around 1784.
Labels: france, photos, versailles
A pseudorandom collection of thoughts, photographs & useless facts. Often reviews of things I've seen, read, eaten or visited. Occasionally a stream of consciousness, occasionally considered thought.

Labels: france, photos, versailles





Labels: photography, photos





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Well it wasn't quite that spectacular when I went to visit over the weekend, but then again it had flowered on 28 September! Still, I thought it would make a nice abstract photograph.One of the most spectacular plants to be found in the wet tropics zone of the Princess of Wales Conservatory is the titan arum. With its huge flowering structure (inflorescence) rising some 3m above the ground and its single immense leaf, it certainly is a giant among plants, as its name suggests. Coupled with its characteristic foul stench, and the rarity of flowerings, this plant has always hit the headlines. - Kew Gardens website.
Labels: photos
I made the decision to replace my CPU heat sink and fan to a larger more powerful model which should also be quieter, and in order to keep my case cool a few extra fans. Lastly I was going to replace my main hard disk drive as it was beginning to sound like a cross between a banshee and two duelling tomcats. This is the story of what happened...
Removing the now redundant hardware was easy, sure I had to disconnect a few cables and remove the front facia from the case (which was more difficult that it should have been and required the gentle use of a small hammer), but it only took about twenty minutes. Happy with my progress I had a quick fag break and another cup of coffee.
Next came the heat sink/fan combo. No problem removing the old one, installing the new one required what felt like motherboard snapping force and the use of a screwdriver but that wasn't too bad, only took five minutes. Turned on the computer to make sure everything was okay, watched the CPU temp for about 5 minutes to make sure that it was okay, and then switched off again.
Onto the fans. Nothing in life could be easier than removing a pair of 80mm case fans, done in ten minutes. Adding the new fans took a bit longer because of those damnable self threading screws. You need to apply an obscene amount of torque to get them screwed in tight. As I was working in quite a tight space, I had to use my left hand quite often, it was a bit of a pian. Once they were installed I noticed an extra 3-pin fan header on the motherboard - excellent, not I could monitor the speed of the one of each of the fans at the front and back of the case. To top things off these new fans have funky LED lights that give the case a nice glow when they are in use. Things were going swimmingly. Time for another fag break and another cup of coffee.
Three hours later - a special kind of hell. Yes I was in a special kind of hell, the kind where you do nothing but stare at a monitor for hours hoping that the progress bar will move, feeling overjoyed when it does, and then realising that the tiny movement to the right took an hour. Thinking about all of the things you could be using your computer for, but can't because despite running for what feels like days, the hard disk copying is still at under 20% and its eight o'clock and the noise of the new fans that you were so happy with is beginning to drive you slightly potty. So potty that you think that there are two glowing eyes glaring at you from inside the PC case, tormenting you. Then you notice that everything in the house is pitch black and that you hadn't noticed because you have been staring at the progress bar, willing it onwards, knowing that it will take as ling as it takes, which is too long. All this time asking yourself "will the old disk last long enough for the process to complete?". Everything after that was a blur; I can't remember anything until...Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!Please insert bootable media...
Two hours later, after replacing IDE cables, putting back the original IDE cables, rearrranging IDE master and slave devices, kicking the PC, and doing the dance of shame - twice. I finally get the bios to recognise all of the devices and the PC to boot. Finally we are getting somewhere. Windows boots, thank the gods, all of them in turn. Take a quick photo before putting the case back together.
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The words were written by William Blake (1757-1827) a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver; who illustrated and printed his own books. The poem is actually an excerpt from the preface to one of his "prophetic books", Milton (1804-8).And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green
And was the holy lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills
And was Jerusalem builded there
Among those dark Satanic mills
Bring me my bow (my bow) of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spears o'clouds unfold
Bring me my chariot of fire
I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my (my) sword sleep in hand
'Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land
'Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land- William Blake
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A foot (plural: feet) is a non-SI unit of distance or length, measuring around a third of a metre. There are twelve inches in one foot and three feet in one yard.
The standardization of weights and measures has left several different standard foot measures. The most commonly used foot today is the English foot, used in the United Kingdom and the United States and elsewhere, which is defined to be exactly 0.3048 metre. This unit is sometimes denoted with a prime (e.g. 30′ means 30 feet), often approximated by an apostrophe. Similarly, inches can be denoted by a double prime (often approximated by a quotation mark), so 6′ 2″ means 6 feet 2 inches.
In addition to the current standard international foot, there is also a slightly different U.S. survey foot, used only in connection with surveys by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, it is defined as exactly 1200/3937 m (610 nm greater than 0.3048 m).
The foot as a measure was used in almost all cultures. The first known standard foot measure was from Sumeria, where a definition is given in a statue of Gudea of Lagash from around 2575 BC. The imperial foot was adapted from an Egyptian measure by the Greeks, with a subsequent larger foot being adopted by the Romans.
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Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.



