Glad I got a hybrid car

| | General, Technology

I wrote about getting my new Honda Civic Hybrid in January. I got this model because I liked the body shape, the interior and the technology it uses in its IMA Hybrid Engine. I didn’t buy it to reduce the amount and cost of the fuel I used. The Honda sales guy kept offering to do calculations in a spreadsheet to show the fuel savings I would get. I kept telling him I wasn’t interested and I wasn’t getting the car for that reason.

Given the rise in petrol costs, I’m interested now! I filled the tank yesterday from reserve. It took 37.68 litres @ 117.98 pence per litre; or £44.42 to fill the tank. This is about £10 less than it took to fill the tank on my Renault Laguna late last year. Plus the petrol was around the 95 pence per litre price point then, if I recall correctly. One of my colleagues in work drives a large 4×4 Volkswagon and it costs him about £120 to fill the tank. Another one who drives a diesel Audi A4 (I think) fills his tank twice a week at £70 each time. He was asking me how I like the hybrid during the week…

Honda claim an extra urban miles per gallon reading for the Hybrid of about 65 mpg. Hmmm. For general start, stop driving around Belfast I’m getting (according to the onboard computer) about 42 mpg. Not too shabby all the same. I did some testing on longish runs recently and got the following fuel consumption figures:

Dual carriageway (50 MPH speed limit – cruise control set for 50 mph) = 55 mpg fuel consumption.

Motorway (70 MPH speed limit – cruise control set for 70 mph) = 46 mpg fuel consumption.

So the claimed 65 mpg is probably for 30 or 40 mph cruising. Still; I’m very happy. The Honda is a lovely car. It’s comfortable, well made and has enough grunt from the engine for normal driving. In fact it feels much the same as the 1.8 petrol Laguna’s I’ve driven for the last 6 years. The Honda has a 1.4 litre engine, drinks petrol like a 1.0 litre and drives like a 1.8. Works for me. Over the 3 years of the leasing agreement I have it on I should save quite a bit on fuel. If the cost of fuel continues to rise it’ll just get more beneficial.

Are you changing your car soon? Get a hybrid!

New Nina Kinert album

| | General

Just got the new Nina Kinert album. It’s on my iPhone, but I haven’t listened to it yet (apart from snippets on her MySpace page). The last album was brilliant. I mentioned it here. Looking forward to hearing the new one, Pets & Friends. Now where are my headphones…

nina_pets_200x200.png

Update: The album is good. Not sure if it’s as good as Let there be love.

Delicious Library 2

| | General

I’ve been using Delicious Library since it was released. The new version has been in development for a long time. It won an Apple Design Award at WWDC in 2007. I didn’t think this was right. Applications should be available to win an award.

I really liked Delicious Library 1 and the interface that it presented. I liked the flow of the eye from left to right in the window. Indeed this was used as an example of good Mac OS X application design. It was however a bit slow.

Various snippets of information that have come out about Delicious Library 2 have outlined how it would require Mac OS X 10.5 and it would use lots of the technologies that Leopard delivers. Well it’s out now. What’s it like? In my opinion its a step backward from the previous version. The new one is certainly snappier but they have changed the Interface and moved the info section from the right of the window to below the shelf view. The whole concept of the flow of the eye from left to right has been broken. On my MacBook Air with its small screen the new version is largely unusable. I’m really, really disappointed. You can’t even double click on an item in the library and get a separate window to view detail information. Plus there are bugs, such as: it shows links to Amazon as Amazon (null) in the Item menu and the Context menus. I expect this should be Amazon (United Kingdom) in my case. I store my iTunes Library when using my MacBook Air on an external disk with an Alias to the iTunes folder in my Music folder. It doesn’t seem to like this and the iTunes import didn’t work. I’ve been waiting for this for ages to replace the slow v1. I’m afraid the new version isn’t for me.

Instead I’ve bought the Bruji bundle of their 4 ‘pedia apps to store my book, DVD, Game and Music info. Those apps imported my info from Delicious Library with no problems. They are fast on the MacBook Air. They give me a better view of the data on the Air display than Delicious Library 2 did and the CDpedia app imports my iTunes music info. One downside is that there are 4 apps instead of one. I’ve created a small Applescript app to start all 4 at once and have stuck that in the Dock with a nice icon showing a storage box. So a single click gives me access to all the apps.

The bundle cost me 3 times what the Delicious Library upgrade would have. I think it was worth it. If Delicious Library 2 wins another Apple Design Award this year it’ll be a travesty.

Phoenix safely on Mars

| | Science

Happy days! The Phoenix lander successfully set down on Mars in the early morning (UK time). The first pictures have been sent back. Hopefully there will be some really good science done over the next year or so as it probes its surroundings. The following sites have more info:

Nasa Phoenix Lander Site

BBC News

The Bad Astronomy Blog

Plus, John Welch has some pertinent observations on the fact that it was science that made it possible for humanity to send this probe to the Mars.

FirstPhoenixPicture.jpg Click picture for larger view of picture taken by Phoenix lander (© Nasa)

BBC iPlayer

| | Technology

Virgin Media’s cable TV service now provides access to the BBC iPlayer service.. Excellent. It’s the best way to watch any TV programmes that have been on the UK BBC channels in the previous week. Just watching the first episode of Dr. Michio Kaku’s Visions of the Future.

Blogging is good for you

| | Science

As reported by Scientific American. Writing about your experiences can have beneficial effects. From the article:

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

I think my scribbling here certainly helped me.

Good news

| | General, Science

MP’s in the UK House of Commons have rejected moves to block scientific advancement by throwing out amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have banned hybrid embryos and tissues typing to select IVF embryos to make it suitable for use as a tissue donor.

The voice of reason has triumphed. A good day for the UK. There are more votes to come tomorrow but they are not as important as today’s votes. Only about 2% of abortions occur after 20 weeks so if the time limit is reduced it’ll not matter (beyond emboldening the anti-crowd). I think that abortion on demand up to 20 weeks should be available. After that it should be available if there is a risk to the mother (either physical or mental) or if the foetus is found to have defects that would lead to severe complications after birth.

The other contentious amendment to the bill about not having to consider the father in deciding who should have IVF treatment hasn’t really registered on my radar. I’m nit really fussed about it one way or the other although if pressed I would support the right of single women and lesbian couples to get IVF on the NHS if they are in a position to provide a good secure home for children.

Book clear out

| | Uncategorized

I’m having a tidy and the following books are in the to go pile. Free to a good home. Email me or comment if you want them:

Evolution by Douglas Futuyma (Hardback – the first 90 pages are not bound into the book but are there. I removed them for easy carrying to read when in England).

Step into Xcode by FritZ Anderson

Learning Cocoa with Objective-C by James Duncan Davidson

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds (I have this in Sony eReader format so don’t need the paperback copy. It’s in perfect condition.

I’ll have other books to give away over the next few weeks so check back. It’ll be next weekend before anymore are posted.

Russell Blackford on “framing”

| | Science

The has been a bit of a kerfuffle in the science blog and science communication communities recently about how to deal with creationists, and their apologists. Basically there is a camp that thinks that those of us who are outspoken in our anti-religion rhetoric, should shut up and let those with a gentler message more amenable to those who are religious, frame the arguments in a way that doesn’t offend or frighten off the moderate religious types.

I’m in the camp that says that we need to have people of all views, expressing said views in any way they feel like. If this offends some people then that might be unfortunate but its not a reason to silence those with strong views. I advocated this position when I was a member of the DebunkCreation mailing list.

Russell Blackford has written a very interesting blog post on this topic. It’s well worth a read.

I Am Legend

| | Uncategorized

I missed the I Am Legend film when it was on release in the UK. One of my work colleagues lent me the Blu-ray version last week. I watched it last night. I watched the alternate ending version then the theatrical release ending. The alternate ending is much better than that shown in theatres. The latter is the proverbial happy ending that was probably used after test screenings. The alternate ending is much more satisfying.

More from The Hot Puppies

| | General

I’ve written about The Hot Puppies before. They’re excellent. They have some new stuff out and a new album forthcoming. The new stuff isn’t on iTMS yet but there are 4 new tracks on their MySpace site. Well worth a listen. I love a lot about their music. The vocals are exquisite. But the good thing is that the rest of the music complements the singing really well. I see they are playing a gig in Cardiff on May 10th. I’ll be in that general area working. I might stay for the Saturday and go see them. Here there are live performing Shoot em in the head –

Scroll to Top