So who’s won my podcast war. Or, to put it another way, which podcasts do I look forward to? There are five that I listen too. Here they are in order of preference, but I do like them all.
2) Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American
4) Seed’s Science + Culture Podcasts
I’ve recently added the TED Talks video podcasts as well. They look good but as always time will tell.
Watched the 1984 version of Dune on DVD today (it’s a holiday in Northern Ireland). If ever a film needed an extra hour added its this one. It’s not often you hear people asking for scenes to be added to a film. I don’t think it would be possible to understand the film if you haven’t read the book. Urban legend says that the first cut of the movie was 5 hours long. Interviews in the DVD Extras reveal that David Lynch wanted to release a 3-hour version in theatres but the producers wanted a 2-hour cut. Lynch was correct I think. It’s interesting in this era of long films that in the 1980’s it was deemed that a 3-hour release would be too long. Hopefully one day we will see a restored David Lynch Director’s Cut.
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As I said in a previous post I was switching the development of YAPT from REALbasic to Xcode. This was due to an overall slowness in the GUI in the REALbasic version. There was an irritating delay in activation and deactivating the buttons for each element when switching the application to and from the front on screen. Also the About… dialog box was sluggish in displaying. Add in the fact that REALbasic can’t create Universal Binaries for Intel based Macs yet.
The first development version of the Xcode Universal Binary version of YAPT is now available. It’s much snappier in use and uses the Cocoa framework and Applescript. Only Hydrogen and Helium do anything at present. I plan to finish the interface using these two elements and then add information for the other elements once I’m happy with the layout etc. I’d be interested in any comments. This switch to using Xcode and Cocoa means that YAPT will be Macintosh only. There will not me a Windows or Linux version. There are plenty of other Periodic Table applications for those platforms anyway. Actually there are several for Macintosh as well but I don’t like them 🙂
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I’ve been on a bit of a John Wyndham binge lately. Sparked off by rereading The Chrysalids. Fuelled by The Midwich Cuckoos. Just finished The Kraken Wakes. It was really good. If anything it was too short as the end seemed a bit rushed and maybe has a bit of a deus ex machina quality to it. The story itself was nothing like I thought it was going to be. I did expect sea monsters à la those encountered by Captain Nemo 🙂
It’s not like that at all. The story is told as a retrospective account of events by a pair of journalists who are husband and wife. Due to their position they have access to important characters and events. I like the way it’s done, apart from the rushed ending. Like in The Chrysalids I want to know what happened next! The character interactions towards the end of the book reminded me a lot of Adam Roberts’ The Snow. Wyndham’s book was first though I’m sure many others have used similar themes. I’m starting to think of Wyndham in the same terms as H.G. Wells. I’ve got The Day of the Triffids sitting here and three other books of his on order. I think I’ll take a break though and read Oxygen by Nick Lane as I’ve been wanting to get into that for a while.
This is good. There are videos of the lectures given earlier this year, by Professor Richard A. Muller of UC Berkeley, for the course Physics for Future Presidents. Basically physics overviews of the important stuff you should know if you are not going to be a physicist but are going to be a CEO, Judge, politician, etc.
There are other UC Berkeley lectures available on iTunes U as well. You can watch videos as well.
Someone took this picture of me in 1983 on my Honda XR250 coming over a jump on a track we used to use for off road motorcycling. It’s a bit blurry but I like it. You can see the “R-Plate” on the front fork as it was less than a year after I did my motorcycle test. They track we had was very good. We dug out berms at the corners, had both right hand and left hand turns, smooth straights, hairpins, 2 jumps and the straight up to the jump in the picture was very bumpy. This made the jump safer as you couldn’t hit it too fast. In the end the track was so good it attracted bikers from far and wide and the council closed it down after complaints about the noise 🙁
Still, it was fun for that summer in 1983.
The Hot Puppies are good. You can listen to some tracks and watch some videos at their website. The live Shoot Em in the Head video is good. Their debut album is on iTMS as well, although it’s not officially out until later in July. They have an excellent crisp sound. You can hear the vocals really well as they are not drowned out by the instruments. Good stuff. Early Queen recordings made a point of making sure the vocal mix was “crystal”. It’s something all bands should try to do. Well assuming they can actually sing, of course.
I needed a new chair to use at my desk. After much research I settled for a Herman Miller Mirra. It’s good. Still tweaking the various settings but so far it’s very comfortable and should help prevent back issues due to spending a lot of time at the desk writing, typing and computing in general. Click picture for larger view.
Another blast from the past. The Hot Space album from Queen. I love this album (except for Under Pressure which will surprise most people). I’ve loved it since it came out and has been my favourite Queen album since 1982. Most people hated it at the time. Even my Queen loving friends. Funnily enough most, if not all of them now love it as well. The 3 tracks at the start of Side A – Staying Power, Dancer and Back Chat are brilliant when played together like a single long track.
This album has provided me with many hours of pleasure since it was released 24 years ago. Including another hour earlier today.
I was at the Milton Keynes Bowl concert in 1982 that was part of the tour that promoted this album. This was recorded for The Tube on Channel 4 television and has since been released as Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl. I was right at the front on the right hand side of the stage.
Vacuuming is a pain right? To quote Homer Simpson, “Can’t somebody else do it?”. Well failing that how about a robot? Enter the iRobot Roomba. Set it down in a room. Press clean button. Close the door. Come back later and it’s done 🙂
Of course it doesn’t do behind furniture (unless you move it out of the way first), doesn’t do stairs and can’t get right into corners, so you still need to do real vacuuming periodically. But for sheer geek value it’s pretty cool. Plus it does a really good job in the areas it does reach. I still have to get into the extras like timed cleaning, automatic return to power station etc. For my other vacuuming needs I have a Dyson DC15 All Floors with the The Ball. That’s pretty cool as well. Can’t believe I’m posting about vacuum cleaners. What’s the world coming to?