Technology course cancelled
I’ve decided to cancel my registration on the OU Technology course I posted about here. I’m going to use the money for a trip instead. Probably WWDC 2007.
General
Helen Fisher TED talk
I’ve posted about the excellent TED talks before. The one just posted by Helen Fisher is very good indeed. You can get it at the TED website or on iTMS.
Thank the maker for BBC Internet streaming
I’m in San Francisco for Apple WWDC. When I was up in the wee hours this morning I was listening to BBC radio streamed over the Internet. A sanity saver when away if ever there was one. Said it before, but Radio 4 is worth the license fee on it’s own.
Isn’t US TV awful? Obviously they produce really good individual shows, Seinfeld for example, but the daily stuff is just dross. They do know how to do a mean bacon and eggs breakfast though 🙂
Walking and shopping planned in San Francisco today.
Urban myth
I’ve always known that Prince of Wales Avenue from the gates of Stormont to the Parliament Building was a mile long. The reason I’ve known it is because it was perceived wisdom. Everyone said the road was a mile long. But is it? When testing my Nike+ iPod Sports Kit I walked the full length of the road. I figured this would be a good test of how accurate it was. The iPod reported that the road was about 0.6 miles long. What? I was disappointed. How could it be so wrong? Bummer.
There is a road that runs parallel to Prince of Wales Avenue just beside the Stormont grounds (Castlehill Road on the map below). It is more or less the same length. I use it regularly to and from work. I have reset my car tripmeter turning into this road the last couple of times and it reports that his road is between 0.6 and 0.7 miles long. Just what the Nike+ iPod Sports Kit was reporting for Prince of Wales Avenue.
I’ve just used Mapquest to measure the length of Prince of Wales Avenue on screen and using the scale on the map it turns out that the road from the gates to the top, just below the steps of the parliament building, is 985 metres!
Looks to me that the common knowledge that it’s a mile from the gates of Stormont to the Steps of the Parliament building might be an urban myth. I’ll have to check the park layout board at the gates (which I’ve never read) and see what it says. It’s more like a kilometre long it seems.
Here is a picture from Mapquest showing the Stormont grounds. Prince of Wales Avenue is listed as Ulster Way on this map.
Click picture for larger view
Sunset play count hits 100
I noticed today that the play count for the Kate Bush song Sunset has hit 100 in iTunes on my Macintosh! I said I was listening to it a lot. This includes iPod and desktop plays but not the plays via CD in the car. Here’s a picture of my top 10 in iTunes by play count (click picture for a larger view).
Max Woosnam
Heard a piece on the Today program on Radio 4 last week about a new book on a sportsman called Max Woosnam. Apparently he was brilliant at everything he did. Here is the introduction from the entry on him at Wikipedia –
Maxwell “Max” Woosnam (September 6, 1892 – July 14, 1965) was a British amateur sportsman who excelled in many sports during the early part of the 20th century. In lawn tennis he was an Olympic gold medallist and Wimbledon champion, both in doubles, as well as captain of the British Davis Cup team. In association football he was the captain of Manchester City and once played for and captained the England national team. In snooker he scored a maximum 147 break; in cricket he scored a century at Lord’s in a schoolboy match, and in a table tennis game against the actor and film director Charlie Chaplin he won while playing with a butter knife instead of a bat.
I love that last line about the table tennis. What a guy 🙂 The new book is available here.
Max Woosnam (1892-1965)
XR 250 Enduro
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.
Under The Crooked Moon – The Hot Puppies
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.
Hot Space – Queen
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.
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
I first read this book when it came out years ago. I lost my copy a few years ago when I lent it to a mate and never got it back (Brian – you own me a pint!). I bought a new copy from Amazon UK recently as the release of the remake of the Omen film gave me the urge to read it again. It’s brilliant. It tells the story of the antichrist growing up on Earth after there is a mix up at the maternity clinic. Rather than being raised as the son of an American diplomat, he ends up in Lower Tadfield in middle England. He therefore doesn’t get the required demonic education…
There are several strands to the book that are expertly tied together at the end. Good stuff. It also contains a very interesting insight in the music of Queen and car stereos!
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.
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.
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.
New MacBook
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
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.
MMS 2006 – San Diego
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.
Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov
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.