Al Gore’s follow up talk at the TED conference on climate change is available to watch via video podcast from the iTMS. Well worth watching. The video of Sir Ken Robinson’s talk is very good as well. In fact, I’d recommend subscribing to the podcasts via iTMS and watching them all.
Author Archive | Ian Robinson
Ireland vs. England Cricket
I was at the inaugural one day cricket international last week between Ireland and England. It was held at Stormont which is about 5 minutes walk from my house 🙂 I’ve posted about Stormont before here.The atmosphere was excellent. There where about 7000 people there, including a contingent of the English Barmy Army. When I was playing cricket it was Stormont that I played at. I’ll be back to play again, if not this year then certainly next year.
Steve Harmison can bowl a bit. Very quick! Here are some pictures taken on the day.
YAPT update
It’s been a while since I posted about YAPT. I said I was going to release early and often. Not much has happened on the often front…
I’ve decided to develop this using Cocoa rather than REALbasic. This means that there will not be a Windows or a Linux version. I’m doing this for fun and recreation, and as such I want to use the Xcode and Cocoa so I learn how to use them.
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
As mentioned in a previous post, I got a copy of John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos to read. I finished it a few days ago. It was very good. I still like The Chrysalids better. Still worth reading both though. I’ll probably grab the rest of Wyndham’s novels and read them.
MacBook – First Impressions
Got the MacBook today. Some first impressions:
• It’s black. Really black. The references to Hotblack Desiato’s ship are fully justified. The case seems to absorb all light. I like it 🙂
• The magnetic screen closure. Good strong magnet.
• Screen angle. I can push the screen pack as far as I need. It certainly goes back as far as I ever used the PBG4 display.
• Screen covering. Glossy. Like a mirror when the backlight is off. Seems fine so far in use but all I’ve done is run the initial set-up and allowed it to download all the latest updates.
• Screen size. Nice and wide. It looks a bit to small in height though. 1280 x 800 in size. Be interesting to see if the 800 is limiting.
• Screen image. Very crisp. Very nice colours.
• Keyboard feel. Typed a few paragraphs to test it. Good feel in that test. Again time will tell. I’m not writing this message on it.
• Keys. It looks like the characters on the keys are offset to the right. In reality they are in the centre of the keys. This is a bit distracting. Probably get used to it.
• Keyboard position. The keyboard is sunken into the case. Hopefully it won’t touch the screen with the lid closed. Can’t close it to check as the software update is in progress.
• Heat. It’s been on for about an hour. The palm rests are room at temperature. There is a warm (not hot yet) bit on the left hand side near the power input and about 2 inches in radius. Goes over to the 2-W-S-Z-alt keys. Not hot. Just warmer than the rest. The right had side of the case feels cool to touch. Bottom is warm in the same area as described above on the left. Middle and right side is cool. Hopefully it’ll stay that way in real use.
• Weight. About the same as my PBG4.
• Fit and finish. Excellent. It’s really well made. Too me it’s like the offspring of a Titanium PowerBook and a Pismo G3. I really like it.
So far: Very nice indeed.
Wasted – Def Leppard
The Def Leppard song Wasted, from their debut album On Through The Night, has always been one of my favourite rock songs. Probably due to the the context of my life when it was released. Lots of good stuff happening like parties etc. 😉 I bought the album on tape originally. I think it’s still lying in a box somewhere. I’ve been checking the iTMS periodically waiting for it to appear there so I could download it. I know I could have went a got the CD – but I didn’t. Anyway, I noticed tonight that it was available on iTMS UK. Happy days. Listening to it as I type this. An excellent album. Wasted is the best track though. I never liked any of their stuff after this. Went a bit “American rock” for my tastes. Still, they did release a damn fine album as a debut.
The Chrysalids – John Wyndham
I took the urge to reread John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids a few days ago. Don’t know what made it pop into my head. I’d dumped my old paperback copy, that I’d had since secondary school, in a book bin at the local recycling centre a few months ago. So I ordered a copy from Amazon UK along with a copy of The Midwich Cuckoos.
I read a bit of The Chrysalids over a few nights but last night I was up to 03:30 finishing it. It really is an excellent read. I won’t outline the plot or anything about it as that’d be a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t read it. I’d highly recommend it. It’s a pity that there was never a sequel. Not that the the story is left needing one, but I’d like to know what happened to the characters in the years after the end of the book. On to The Midwich Cuckoos. I’ve never read this but it was the filmed as as Village of the Damned and dramatised on BBC Radio 4 about 3 years ago. I’ve got the BBC one on my iPod. It’s excellent.
Sonic Arts Research Centre – Queen’s University Belfast
Apple have an article on their Pro website on the use of Apple products in the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Queen’s University.
New Apple store in NYC
Another reason to visit New York! The new underground Apple Store with the glass cube entrance. There is a nice time lapse video at the store home page.
WordPress upgrade
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.