A ViewMaster collectible

Posted on by Ian C.

Now and then something quite unusual appears on my eBay MINI Collectibles watchlist, the 8-Ball is one such item (I’ve seen a few of them, and got one) – and recently there was this Achievements In Motoring ViewMaster; I suppose the ViewMaster itself is normal (except for the added on logo), but the image disc is surely unusual, featuring MINIs in unusual locations across America … to my surprise, scanning it was successful:

I was surprised to be able to take an image through the ViewMaster: “… or to Coltsville, Massachusetts, where there’s a shipwreck in a parking lot …” – since this is in my home state, I really should go and visit (oh, but Google says it’s gone from MA)

Other images:
The world’s largest fire hydrant in Beaumont, TX
The world’s largest covered wagon in Milford, NE
A drive-through donut in La Puente, CA
The world’s largest kaleidoscope in Mt Tremper, NY

Places to visit during MTTS’10?! 😉

Where are we, iPhones?

Posted on by Ian C.

Josh managed to get hold of one of the last 3G iPhones in Massachusetts last night … we compared the location seeking ability of my 2G (using a single hopeless AT&T cell tower with next-to-no signal), and his 3G which clearly used GPS – indoors – to get a very precise (and correct) fix!

iPhone location tracking

Also note the display differences – both iPhones are set to the same brightness …

Ancient History

Posted on by Ian C.

I was checking my (many!) registered domain names earlier today (including grabbing another one for $6/year to prevent it being poached), and I noticed that 1and1 still maintains the customer data I had when gbmini was hosted by them!

Of course, most of the links will go to (this) current website, but if you manually go to the old weblog you see the last post about the first MCSa at MINI of Peabody – this was back when I was driving Indi Blue GBMINI#2, before GBMINI#3 was ordered and of course way before my current MINIs were built!

It’s funny to see this data still sitting in 1and1’s servers, when I now only use them for domain registration … I wonder if I could use the storage there?!