Author name: Ian Robinson

WordPress upgrade

| | General

I’ve just upgraded the version of WordPress that is used to deliver this site from version 1.5.2 to version 2.0.2. I think every thing is working okay but if anything breaks use the email link in the sidebar to let me know. Or comment on this entry.

The reason for the upgrade, bearing in mind I’m a fan of the if it ain’t broke broke, don’t fix it maxim, was a result of installing the Akismet anti-spam module. I wanted to make sure I was using the latest version of both to ensure they worked okay. In the last week there has been about 50 or so attempted SPAM comments to various entries here. All have been blocked as I have to approve all comments. I’ve never got any attempted comment SPAM before about a week ago. The start of it is probably related to an influx of twats in uk.comp.sys.mac Usenet group I read and post to. Recently we’ve had an influx of not very intelligent script kiddies who think posting offensive comments and thousands of SPAM posts is smart. Apparently they are not smart enough to know that people just get their software to automatically delete and/or ignore their posts.

New MacBook

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I’ve ordered a new black MacBook (or BlackBook as they are increasingly being referred to). I’m glad I returned my MacBook Pro now. The new BlackBook has everything I need in a portable and from what I’ve read so far the case on these doesn’t get as hot on the top as the MacBook Pro does. This is to be expected as the polycarbonate case is not as good a conductor or heat as the aluminium in the MacBook Pro case. I expect the fans to have to work a bit harder to pump the heat out of the case. I can live with this. The BlackBook is more or less the same size and has the same screen resolution as the titanium PowerBook I use at present. Except the BlackBook will be about 5 times faster. The only concern I have is the glossy screen. We’ll see how that performs. I like the black case with the white glowing Apple logo. I had a PowerBook G3 Pismo before the titanium PowerBook and really like the way it looked.

According to the TNT parcel tracking page my BlackBook left Suzhou in China about an hour ago 🙂

Down the line – BBC Radio 4

| | General

The new BBC Radio 4 comedy Down the Line is well worth a listen. It’s a spoof and parody of talk radio. The 2nd episode takes on religion and how to name a new primary colour. It’s priceless. You can listen online. The 2nd episode will be replaced online by episode 3 on Wednesday 17th May.

Double standards

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Many people on lists I read and post to, mainly posters from the USA, will end their posts with some variant of “god bless” or “I’ll pray for you” in response to someone’s problem. If they think that praying to this god character is a productive use of time and that said entity will be able to help with the problem at hand then I’d like to know where it was when the problem started. If the entity could intervene to sort out, say an illness, then where was it when the illness started. Funnily enough they never seem to address this question. Double standards? Hypocrisy? Or fairy tales?

3 years later

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On the 20th April it was 3 years since my first post here on my Soapbox on the subject of testicular cancer. Oops. Missed the anniversary. This is good. As far as I’m concerned after 3 years the TC is something that is in my past. I was really lucky as I got a form of TC that science and medicine have more or less made 100% curable over the last 30 years. Others are not so lucky and there are more aggressive forms of TC. I still read the various TC related lists and from time to time there are posters with untreatable variants. So there is still a lot of work for science to do to win the battle against cancer.

YAPT

| | Science

I’m developing a MacOS X and Windows application to use in the chemistry courses I do with the Open University (OU). It shows the long form of the Periodic Table of the Elements and displays information about the elements that I need when doing the courses. It’s pretty rudimentary at present but it’ll get better. Working on the “release early, release often” principle I’m making it available for download for anyone who wants to use it and also shape the direction it goes in the future. Here is a screen shot from the Macintosh version.

The colours used in the application are taken from the periodic table used in several Open University chemistry courses, like S205. At present only Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium have any data for the few fields that are available. All the rest of the elements will just display their name when clicked. You can copy the fields that are populated and paste the data into other apps. This’ll be one of the main uses for the app for me. If I’m writing, in Word for example, I’ll be able to cut a needed piece of data from YAPT and paste it into Word. All of the elements have a tool tip that shows the Name, Symbol and Relative Atomic Mass when you hover the mouse over them.

BTW the name YAPT is an acronym for Yet Another Periodic Table. There are loads of periodic table applications out there after all. This one will be focused on providing the data I need when doing the OU chemistry courses in particular and other OU science courses in general.

MMS 2006 – San Diego

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I’m in San Diego for the Microsoft Management Summit 2006. My first impressions of San Diego are good. It’s a nice modern city. The Gaslamp Quarter is very nice, as is the hotel I’m in. Very Shinny! Here is a picture of the city taken from the floating museum, USS Midway.

Sandiego

Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov

| | General, Technology

Saw this on Cosmic Variance. We are all still here thanks to the common sense, nerve and intelligence of the Soviet military officer Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov. See the details on Cosmic Variance, but basically he decided that a computer alert that the USA had launched a few missiles, likely with nuclear warheads, was a computer error rather than a real launch. So he failed to pass the info up the chain of command and therefore most likely averted a retaliation and possibly a full nuclear exchange.

Apple Hot plate

| | Technology

I bought a MacBook Pro. I took it back a few days later. I already have a cooker in my kitchen. I didn’t need another one. Boy did that thing get hot. The serial number indicated it was manufactured in week 9. There is anecdotal evidence that those with week 12, 13 or later serial numbers run less hot. I’ll wait until later in the year and get one after a revision of the design I think.

Towards 2020 Science

| | Science

This weeks Nature journal has a series of articles on the future impact of computers on science. The articles are all free for non-Nature subscribers. This access is sponsored by Microsoft Research who have a site on the Towards 2020 Science project.

You can download the 2020 report from the site or request a print copy. It’s a weird paper size so requesting a print copy might be a good idea. The Nature Podcast this week also includes info on ion channels and Towards 2020 Science. Available via the Apple iTMS (you need iTunes installed for this) or at the Nature site directly.

The 2020 stuff is really good if you are interested in the interface between computing and science.

Good book review

| | Science

There is a good review of Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, and also Lewis Wolport’s Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast. I like this section:

But what really troubles us, and what is not really tackled by either author, is the fact that a belief in the existence of deities invariably comes with an intense urge to shove that conviction down everyone else’s throats and to proselytise. This can lead to tensions, to put it mildly, a point succinctly made by my old friend, Katharine Whitehorn, the former Observer columnist. As she once wrote: ‘Why do born-again people so often make you wish they’d never been born the first time?’

V for Vendetta

| | Uncategorized

Went to see the new movie version of the V for Vendetta books tonight. I loved it. Lots of ideas and layers at work in this film. It certainly made me think. Some people are complaining that it glorifies terrorism. I think the word bollocks is an apt response to that. Well worth seeing. I’ll be going again.

People should not be afraid of their Governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Daniel Dennett Interview

| | Science

There is a good interview with Daniel Dennett it today’s Observer. It’s based around his new book, Breaking the Spell. I like this quote:

“Of course I’m going to hurt people’s feelings,’ he says, ‘but I don’t want to offend people casually. I really want to do it on purpose.”

Yep. If people are believing idiotic ideas, then call them idiots.

Liquid water on Enceladus

| | Science

Rumours, and premature press releases!, indicate that a paper in Science by the Cassini Imaging Team suggests that there is liquid water near the surface of the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. That would be interesting in its own right but it seems that they have detected simple organic materials, and that there is more heat on average emerging from the south polar terrain, per square meter, than from the Earth. The bit in italics is a quote from the Cassini Team page. It’s a bit ambiguous. What do they mean by materials and when they talk about the heat output do they mean more heat per square meter when compared to the polar regions on Earth or other regions of the Earth?

I’m looking forward to getting the paper from Science.

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