A new type of fire alarm in Japan has been developed using the pungent smell of horseradish.
The device is drawing attention as a new way to warn people with hearing disabilities.
Medical equipment manufacturers have developed a technology to extract components of the strong odor of horseradish, seal them inside a can and spray them out.
Man, the last few days has been pretty crazy.
First of all, the new boiler has packed up yet again - guy coming to fix it tomorrow once again.
Then I haven’t had a good sleep for the past few days since Thursday due to something happened however I am starting to sleep a bit better now.
And our 2nd car we picked up yesterday has some issue and the garage is not very helpful, trying to decide what to do next.
So today has been half relaxing and half DIY thing - this morning, we went for a drive to Gt Yarmouth and checking out the new “£100 million redevelopment” and it’s an early start but it is already taking shape.
In the afternoon, I spent most of the afternoon moving stuff to the other side of the garage, and I made start with ripping out the old carpet out from the garage floor and left it to dry. While waiting, I painted the window frame, left it dry and fitted a new blind. But I didn’t have time to do the carpet tiles, so that will have to wait until next week or whenever I have time during the weekdays.
In the evening, we had late roast dinner & watched The Best of Top Gear and other TV shows.
I’m pretty worn out and hope to have a good sleep tonight for work tomorrow - blah!
I’ve been using Navizon for a while - it’s a pretty good program where it display your location on a map and help you find stuff around you. However it’s pretty new, so they are lacking data.
And that’s where I come into this - using my phone (MDA Vario III), I install the Navizon software on my phone and loaded it up. It hooked up my WiFi and GPS. And it collect all mobile phone’s cells and WiFi point (secure or unsecure) and when I’m done with it, I upload the data to Navizon server.
They will generate a map of where the mobile mast are and any nearest available WiFi point. This will be useful for other people who doesn’t have GPS but using GPRS to search for the nearest stuff (i.e. pub)
Copied & pasted from their website - “Navizon is a software-only wireless positioning system that triangulates signals broadcasted from Wi-Fi access points and Cellular towers to help the users find their way in most major metropolitan areas worldwide.”
And this is why I’m posting in here… got a mobile phone? Have access to WiFi (i.e. built in on your phone)? And have access to GPS (built in on your phone or bluetooth GPS) ? And do you want to earn some rewards?
If so, you can help! Sign up here, download the software (link here), making sure you download the correct phone software and away you go.
See here for a screenshot of the data I’ve collected. Green point is unsecured WiFi point, red is secured WiFi point and blue is mobile phone mast.
Pretty niffy, eh?
Dropped off my car this morning to the Ford garage for MOT and servicing. And picked up a Ford Fusion, which is half car and half van. 
After work, went back there to pick up my car. MOT passed with only three, small advisory which is good news. Paid for it and went straight to the used car garage.
And got another car! It’s really for the missus to use for work related, but it’s a car that we will share now and then, giving my ST170 a break. 
It’s a Fiat Punto 1.2 Sporting 16v (80bhp) - small car which is easier for her to use with a bit of more horsepower to get the car going quicker than the standard Punto (55 to 60bhp)
After checking the insurance for the missus, it came back as £179 which is a bargain! So got that sorted out. Going to pick it up this Sat.
Will take some photos when we have it.
For the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at different cars and test driven a few. We kept umming and ahhing about the budget to spend on. First it was £4,5k. We decided it is too much for a 2nd car, so we dropped down to 4k, then 3.5k then 3k and finally agreed to 2.5k.
And with that budget, we think we found a nice car this afternoon - a Fiat Punto Sporting 16v. Since we driven a Punto before, we felt we was comfortable with using it.
Test drove it, seems ok, apart from one issue which I spotted, but the guy says they will fix it before selling it to us. We are going to have a think about it and will decide by tomorrow afternoon. They are throwing in 6 months road tax and 3 months warranty, so it’s not too bad. Need to do some further research on this car before deciding.
Speaking about car, my Ford Focus ST170 is going to the garage tomorrow for MOT and servicing. They are going to give me a loan car so I’m interested to see what car I’ll be driving. More likely to be the Ford Fiesta but who knows?
We have heating and hot water!
Only took the guy abut 20 minutes to fix it.
The problem was Flute Gasket. He didn’t explain much what it is, but it seems to have cured the problem.
It’s soooo nice to have heating in the house once again!
Tomorrow, someone is looking at the boiler and hopefully replace it and not “ohh, need to order a new parts… we’ll come back in a few days time” - that would piss us off because we didn’t have any hot water or heating over the Xmas period.
Stay tuned for tomorrow…
Greeting and welcome to the year 2008! We saw lots of fireworks around our area going off and didn’t stop until about 1:30am or so.
Plans for today is to relax and maybe visit the coast side for a walk or something. Roads this morning was almost empty when I was on the way to the petrol station to fill up my car. Guess many people have hangover.
And I was driving around with my expired road tax… 31/12/07 - oops. I have the new road tax on my desk which I will need to put on before we head out today!
Have a relaxing day, everyone!
Hmm, looks good. Their own TV channel (channel 31) on Free to Air box. Why can’t we, the UK people, have something similar to this?
See http://www.deaftv.org.au/ for more info.
Good luck to them!
Yesterday was good, relaxing day in the house. Left the electric heater on almost all day so it was cosy and warm.
Presents was good. Had a nice, big roast dinner and ate pudding too.
So full up, we still have the “full up” effect this morning.
Can’t believe we’re going back to work tomorrow & Friday. 
Today is going to be another lazy day too. Not bothered about the Boxing Day sale out there, don’t think we need to buy ay more stuff apart from a new digital camera for myself which I badly need as the current one is broken. Going to hunt around online…
Hope you all had a nice Christmas!
Got here at 7:50am and its only me here at work. I hope there’s more people coming in…
Pretty heavy fog all day today. And the frost is starting to form now - the roofs along the houses are almost white.
I’m wearing two T-shirts and fleece with thick socks. Similar to the missus too. And blankets in the living room. We’ve turned on & off the heating now and then. Going to turn it on when we watch Top Gear at 8pm.
Parents been & gone - was good to see them. We swapped presents and we chatted about what has been happening from the past few weeks.
Not looking forward to work tomorrow - blah. Hoping the big boss will give everyone a half day…
Currently cooking dinner and getting ready for tonight’s TV. Oh yeah and we watched The Great Escape -a great Xmas TV show!
The lack of hot water is starting to get me. I can’t have a nice, hot bath. Yes, we do have electric shower but it’s so old, the pressure isn’t that good. I can’t wash my hand in nice, warm water, I had to use the cold water tap and it’s so cold, my hand goes stiff. I had to warm it up afterward.
As you guessed, no luck with bringing the date forward for the repair and it’s still on 2nd Jan.
Last night, we was so cold, we had to wrap up with blanket when we was watching the TV!
Christmas Day is going to be cold for us. Need to find a portable heating or something… but it’s going to run up a big electricity bill. :/
Ah well, things to do today, clean up house, washing our clothes at the local laundry as our washing machine needs hot water, which we don’t have. Then in the afternoon, my parents is popping round. Hopefully they will wrap up warm.
I forgot to mention about my Christmas card which I got for you all.
But not an actual card… instead of spending money on cards which will go waste afterward, I have decided to use the money I spent toward Oxfam Unwrapped and here’s what I got for them.
In Mali, where malaria-carrying mosquitoes are an everyday danger, Fadimata protects her new-born baby with a mosquito net.
School dinners for 100 children
In pastoralist areas in West Africa, the presence of a functioning canteen is probably the single most important factor in a parent’s decision to keep his or her child in school during acute food shortages. Having school meals available often determines whether a child learns to read and write.
I feel they should get more attention. We spent lots of money by buying presents and/or Christmas cards for our family & friends and if you have any spare change, please consider buying something through Oxfam Unwrapped - http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com
Thank you for reading this.
… until Christmas.
Did most of the Christmas shopping almost done this afternoon when I had a half day from work today.
Then wrapped them up.
Tomorrow morning, deliver the presents to families. Then do our weekly food shopping. And relax in afternoon. Sunday - my parents is popping round, so need to clean up the house a bit.
And on Monday… I’m going to work! I’m hoping they will give us half day. I don’t think many people will be at work anyway… so I really hope we will get a half day.
The boiler has been off since Monday and we are now starting to find it hard to be without hot water. It won’t be fixed until 2nd Jan. So we need to wrap up warm over the Xmas period. Bah, humbug!
The funny thing is… on the boiler’s website, they say they will come round to fix it on the next day. Yet the can’t do it. Hmmm! I think we will give them a call tomorrow and see if they can come round sooner…
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