Jason Piper

@jv8p

Same mostly harmless tax nerd, cynic & petrolhead; same character-lite handle. Occasional music & cat content.

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Jason Piper@jv8p· 6d

Current status: Wondering what "Off it goes" could possibly mean.

Delivery notifications - 1:51am, "It's at the warehouse - Northampton", 9:56am "Off it Goes, Northampton" 4:51 pm "It's out for delivery".

Jason Piper@jv8p· 8d

I'd love to know how Anthropeum is so certain that this item *isn't* Maltese given how much of the Med & adjacent areas they think it might be from...

A screen grab of the Anthropeum result page for an individual item. Pretty much the whole of the Mediterranean coastline bar France, Catalonia and Aragon and Algeria and Morocco is highlighted, alongside the southern half of the Black Sea coast and most of Egypt and Turkey into Syria plus a fair chunk of the Balkans. On the Mediterranean islands front, Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete and Majorca are all highlighted in green as possible locations; the dropped pin on Malta is almost exactly dead centre of the range... and yet score is marked down as being "102km outside range".

Jason Piper@jv8p· 18d

Needs flying jacket, helmet & goggles. (Is a bit weather dependent though)

A vintage Aston Martin in a snow draped forest. Driver and navigator are both wearing flying jackets, flying helmets and goggles. The navigator also has a white silk scarf tucked into his jacket.

Jason Piper@jv8p· 28d

Well it's a step up from your average AI slop, and at least has the merit of some typographical heritage. Last time I saw that in the wild was in the middle of some Google AI "search" results.

Screen grab of a cropped section of Google's search results, showing that it relied on nine sources. Poster has scrolled through the list of sources and the fourth, under the heading "A Brief History of Accounting: Where did it start?" reads: "Regular paragraph copy lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, constetur..."

Jason Piper@jv8p· 29d

Sorry; probably ticks all those boxes. But every time I get behind the wheel I feel like Ferris Bueller.

A bright red Aston Martin DB4 raises a plume of dust on a dirt road somewhere in Colorado.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jul 12

Another week, another trophy... fun morning doing the Treasure Hunt/Classic Car Run for Bromham show with R18, and topped of with "Best Car in Show" trophy (popular vote, and more favourite than best I suspect; given how well used it is...)

A rather poorly composed photograph of a silver trophy in the shape of a steering wheel on the bonnet of a vintage car.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jul 10

...and this?

A steam train which has departed the station via an external 1st floor wall. The locomotive is resting nose first on the pavement and the tender dangles precariously above it. The rest of the train seems still to be attached, but is within the station.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jul 10

So somewhere between this...

A steam train whose internal boiler tubing is no longer internal. This is the image you get is you search "Cthulhu Train". It is not something you would want to have anywhere near anything you might want to travel on.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jul 7

Definitely. (That's Grandpapa in the background)

A young girl in pink and white spotted dress and sunhat stands in front of a dark green sportscar (Aston Martin DB5 drophead coupe Vantage) with a look of amazement and wonder on her face and her arms thrown up gesturing towards the car behind her.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jul 4

Fantastic day out at the Ecurie Bertelli 50th birthday party today; now feet up to watch Grand Prix highlights having prepped picnic for tomorrow’s day out at Henley.

Several vintage racing cars and lots of people milling about with trees in the background

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jul 2

Thought this one had been put to bed just after this pic, but was cajoled into picking up R18 & best mate from Prom in it. Glad I caved; best mate LOVED IT. There is something special about country lanes in a pre-war car by moonlight.

A 1932 Aston Martin ‘New International’ in the evening sun.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 29

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 18

Much as I'd have loved to, I wasn't able to run to the other one though.

The entire car from two posts ago (the one with the little price sticker reading £3,000,000). It's a dark green Aston Martin DB4GT; very rare, very fast and very desirable if that's what you're into. Also very expensive.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 18

This one, I actually brought home (from honeymoon as it happens)

A matchbox style model of Aston Martin AMR1 race car in a plastic blister pack. It has a printed label reading £3000.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 18

Saw this one in a used car showroom once (in case you were wondering how many digits those little sticker price guns go up to)

Top corner of a car windscreen with a price label, in the simple format of a rectangular white sticker as you'd find in a corner shop or an old fashioned iron mongers. It's for £3,000,000.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 18

Any excuse to repost...

Screengrab of an old tweet, which reads "something to bear in mind when you use a grandiose title on LinkedIn". The image is of a split-screen TV interview, with on one side "David Shing, AOL Digital Prophet" looking like someone whose prophecies you'd take with a whole damn bucketload of salt. On the other side is an earnest looking middle-aged bloke, whose caption reads "Tim Berners Lee. Web developer". (It predates his knighthood).

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 18

The survey came out in 2007; I know this because it was about the time my boss bought his first Porsche. Attached pic is how I decorated it for him on the day it was delivered; made up the poster to put on his office door before he got in next day.

Rear view of a Porsche 911 Carrera, with a stick-on placard attached to the number plate reading "Temporary transport: Aston Martin on order". The poster is captioned "Mr Groves had very quickly tired of explaining to people why he was no driving a Porsche", with the placard highlighted in a bubble boxout.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 17

Name a TV show you are positive no one remembers but you

Still from the titles sequence of Hardcastle & McCormick

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 12

See also pretty much every cab journey in central London... I know when Campion was filmed they used Liverpool for a lot of the "1930's London" shots; not sure whether that's still viable. Though the road outside our London offices often doubles for New York or Washington. As does UL Senate House

A London street in WC2N, just off the Strand, lined with American cars fro the 1980s used to complete the illusion, alongside replacing building numbers, covering blue plaques etc.

Jason Piper@jv8p· Jun 7

What on earth is UK Cardle up to? Three days running I get Make & Model perfect but it doesn't accept it and generates 5 reds, and now this...

Screen grab of UK Cardle announcing "Well done! The answer is Alvis TC 21". The guesses were XK 140, Wolseley and finally Alvis - make only, no model designation. Previously, the site rejected Dodge Viper for Dodge Viper and Volvo 850 T-5R for Volvo 850 T-5R among others.

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 31

.. the cat ate the fiddle. (Not really, but I wouldn't put it past him to try)

A ginger cat curled up inside a red velvet lined violin case - he's in the main body bit; there's a bright yellow duster in the headstock section.

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 28

I'm afraid you might be right that Lawyer A wouldn't have done - but the reviewer might/should have done? Ideally hovering on the link might give a thumbnail, a bit like the Google AI mode did when I tried it out. (It gave me the attached for one of its sources, which was useful if not helpful)

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 27

Anyone else finding that UK Cardle doesn't actually accept correct answers? (Still enjoy the pics & guessing, but the sowing of seeds of self doubt takes some of the gloss off)

Screen grab of the cardle.co.uk page (a full screen 3/4 view of the car, which players are supposed to identify from successively more revealing crops over five gueses), showing five completed answers, the second of which was "Reliant Kitten" and the result "Unlucky, the answer is... Reliant Kitten".

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 23

Yellow was one of the rarest colours (there's a few one-off tints around).

3 yellow Aston martin DB7s in a row; a "Driving Dynamics" i6 Volante, an i6 Coupe and the original Works Development i6 Volante.

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 23

They are quite snug. Not sure I'd want to drive anything going for half DB7i6 money though; the old adage about "I can't afford to buy one I could afford to run, and I can't afford to run one I could buy" springs to mind. Still love ours.

A biright yellow Aston Martin DB7 Volante in a spotless workshop, flanked by 15 engineers in blue overalls and one individual in black trousers, white shirt & dark stripy tie; presumably the Works Development manager.

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 23

Got bored & did a meme. (Actually opens up all sorts of discussions about nature of AI (Generative and Iterative) as a tool, the body/soul dichotomy and whether the closest parallel [it's not *that* close] is the development of writing. But mostly highlights how ill founded the hype is.)

The mem known as "Jealous Girlfriend", but the distracted/unfaithful male is labelled "Historical illiterates talking about transformative technologies", and his attention has been caught by the girl in the red dress, labelled "Gen AI". The disgusted girl in the blue dress is labelled "Vaccines, antibiotics, internal combustion, the steam engine, the seed drill, the loom etc. etc...". We could also add refrigeration, the washing machine, basic surgical hygene, bronze, electricity...

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 22

I'll see your Ascension Island and raise you a bug in the software. FWIW, having been to Yellowstone and Idaho (twice, although it was only looking at a map after the event I realised I'd been there twice) I found those easier than Singapore, which I did get rather closer than the score indicates.

Screenshot of MapTap results page, showing Singapore score of "0% Distance: 17,502km".

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 21

If you ever need a model for "nonchalant parsnip" can I offer this?

A curiously formed parsnip rests its 'head' on the handle of a chef's knife on a wooden chpping board. The top half of the parsnip is barrel shaped, but has two malformed side roots which look like arms with the hands thrust into jacket pockets, while the bottom half has split in two and the rotts ha crossed over so look like crossed legs.

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 19

Google docs did slightly better.

A magazine article with a picture of the bright yellow Aston Martin DB7 Volante works development car, and the title "Pulling a fast one" with the letters "A S T O N" from the last two words highlighted to read "Aston"

Jason Piper@jv8p· May 19

Apple have really nailed this one.