Daily Archives: Sunday, April 5, 2015

  • Courts interpreting fiasco rumbles on… expensively

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Although it may not be hitting the headlines in the way it was a couple of years ago, Capita Translation & Interpreting’s cack-handed execution of its interpreting contract for courts and tribunals with the Ministry of Justice continues to waste public money, as well as delay and deny justice (contrary to one of the few clauses of Magna Carta still in effect. Ed.), as evidenced by this cutting from the latest edition of Private Eye.

    cutting from Private Eye

    Hat tip: Sarrf London.

  • Calibre 2.23 released

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Open Source, Tech

    Softpedia reports that the Calibre eBook reader, editor and library management package has been updated to version 2.23.

    The full list of changes since the last release can be seen in the changelog.

    screenshot of Calibre

    One of the major changes is the updating of the Qt cross-platform application framework bundled with Calibre to 5.4.1. This fixes various minor bugs, most notably improving text rendering on machines running Linux.

    Furthermore, the new release of Calibre now allows users to add an empty ebook in various formats to existing book records. What is more, the ability to create additional empty formats to the ‘Add empty book’ command has been implemented.

    Calibre 2.23 is available for download for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

    If you’re on a Linux machine like me, your easiest way to update Calibre to the latest version is via the command line by running the following command as root:

    wget -nv -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/master/setup/linux-installer.py | sudo python -c "import sys; main=lambda:sys.stderr.write('Download failed\n'); exec(sys.stdin.read()); main()"

    This sets the process in motion and you’ll have the new Calibre installed in no time.

    downloading and updating Calibre via command line

  • Plastic peregrine

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

    peregrine falcon image
    Peregrine falcon
    Yesterday it was a joy to discover that the peregrine falcons which nested on the old generator house by St Philip’s Bridge were nesting there again (posts passim). Talking to a gentleman on the bridge who’d been watching them through binoculars, it would appear our urban peregrines are also adapting to our urban environment and are also learning to hunt after sunset using the city’s streetlighting.

    A couple of weeks ago, my attention was caught by peregrine calls when walking down Redcliff Street. They weren’t emanating from a falcon at all, but it’s taken your correspondent until now to track down their source. Looking up at the roof of the old, soon to be redeveloped Patterson’s building, I saw the sight below.

    fake peregrine

    Note the electric wire and turntable. It’s a plastic peregrine which looks very realistic to the local gull population. It rotates on its turntable, flaps its wings and also calls like a real falcon from time to time. It won’t fool me again.

    Update 09/04/15: Today I discovered the Redcliff Street plastic peregrine has a brother not far away in the city. He’s called Brian, lives on the roof of At-Bristol and has a Twitter account.