Nice use of satire
Peter Olofsson has written an excellent satirical review of the latest Anne Coulter book. Check it out at the Richard Dawkins’ site. Coulter is to be pitied rather than engaged with. Satire is a good way of doing it. 🙂
Toys for the boys
Finally stepped into the High Definition television age. I got a Sony Bravia KDL-40W2000 LCD television and a Sony Playstation 3. The TV has a 1080p HD display and the PS3 has a Blu-Ray HD drive in it. As a bonus I get a games console in the Blu-Ray player for free 🙂 Here is a picture of the beasts in situ. The image on the screen is from a Mac mini that I use as my music centre with iTunes.
The quality of Blu-Ray movies via the PS3 and the TV is stunning. Very, very happy. I had to take the first PS3 back as the fans would come on and once they got to a high speed, whilst playing a game for example, they would stay at the high speed until the unit was switched off. This was irrespective of what the PS3 was doing after the fans speeded up. So if I left it idling the fans would never slow down again. This was annoying when using it to watch movies when in a quiet part of a film. You could hear the fans over the film sound. The replacement PS3 seems to be quieter but I’ve still to test it fully.
The game MotorStorm is stunning on the PS3. Really, really good fun as well. It outputs at 720p resolution and looks excellent on the Bravia. Here is a picture of a bike from the game. It has a bit of motion blur.
So I’ve cast my die into the Blu-Ray camp in the great HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray face off. Hopefully Apple will go down the Blu-Ray route with their HD optical drives in Macintosh machines. A Mac mini with a Blu-Ray drive and a version of DVD Player that allowed playback of Blu-Ray movie discs would make a very nice media hub indeed. It’d need to output 1080p via HDMI cable though.
50 Years of The Sky at Night
The BBC programme “The Sky at Night” has been on air for 50 years. The special anniversary programme is online and worth watching. Includes Dr. Brian May amongst others.
Song of the day
I’ve got an iPod nano in my car that I listen to via a Kensington FM Transmitter. Now the iPod in question only has about 850 tracks on it, and as I hand picked them all, they are some of my favourite pieces of music. So it shouldn’t really be surprising when on random play the iPod throws up a song that I really, really like. Today it threw up Machinery of the Gods from The Franklin-Neumann Project. Been playing it a few times since then. Marvellous stuff.
Unbelievable
This post was going to be about Ireland beating Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup. That is still unbelievable. Unfortunately it has been overshadowed by the news of the death of Bob Woolmer. Very sad news indeed. Bob Woolmer was one of the fixtures in the English cricket team when was growing up. I was shocked when I called up the BBC Sport page to see if England had beaten Canada and the headline was Woolmer’s death.
Desert Island books 1
In a complete rip off of the question asked at the end of the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs, were the participant is asked what book they would take to the island with them, I’m going to post a few of my favourite books. Incidentally, on the programme they give The Bible and The Complete Works of Shakespeare for the island. At least they’ll be useful for kindling to get the fire going. [Update: See Note 1]
One book i would definitely want to take to the island with me would be Hellstrom’s Hive by Frank Herbert of Dune fame. I’ve just noticed when searching Amazon for a link to put in this post that there is a new edition being published on April 7th. Cool. My copy is about 20 years old and could do with being replaced. I’m a bit reluctant to put too much info here about the plot as it’ll be a spoiler for anyone who wants to read it. Suffice it to say it’s a brilliant story that deals with a human population that have decided to live separately from the rest of humanity and have a society that is modelled on social insects. Which is fine until the Government starts to take an interest…
Hellstrom’s Hive would be one of the books I’d take to the island. Others to follow. Feel free to say what books you would take in the comments.
Note 1: Andy Kershaw was on Desert Island Discs this week and he rejected the offer of The Bible and Complete Works of Shakespeare. Good man.
Boy racers…
Why is it that in about 99% of cases were you get overtaken by other drivers, when you are going at the relevant speed limit for the road in question, that the car in question is either a –
1. Volkswagen Golf
2. Some model of BMW
3. A small hatchback with a really big stupid looking exhaust
Boy racers? I expect that the BMW drivers used to be Golf drivers and that the silly exhaust hatchback owners will be Golf and BMW drivers as they get older and get some disposable cash. Twats.
Belgariad & Mallorean – David Eddings
Took the notion to re-read David Eddings’ Belgariad and Mallorean a few weeks ago. I’d first read The Belgariad when it was published in the 1980’s. It’s very formulaic. Fantasy written to simple recipe. The books towards the end of the Mallorean have a bit more depth. Some of the characters are very likeable, such as Silk. I’ve always seen Eric Idle as Silk. Still do. Some of the dialogue between the characters can be a bit twee and superficial in the books as well. Still, it’s good simple stuff to switch off to. I’ll read it again in another 20 years! Going to try some of Julian May’s later fantasy next. Her Intervention book is one of my favourite books.
Hot Fuzz
Went to see Hot Fuzz last week. It was good. Some really funny parts, in a schoolboy humour kind of way. Maybe a bit long. It reminded me of a Frank Herbert or John Wyndham small town gone bad story.
Scrivener – author project management application
Scrivener is a stunning piece of software. It is designed to help mange ideas, notes, writings research and other items related to a writing project. This could be a book, a short story, a project report, a piece of scientific research, whatever. If it’s a piece of writing then Scrivener can be used to organise the interim drafts and stuff.
It uses a really nice cork board metaphor with notes and ideas pinned to it. Folders can be used to organise the notes. This is only one way of looking at a project. There are other views as well. The interface and attention to detail is very, very good. Take a look at the Scrivener site for more info. If you use a Mac and do any writing then prepare yourself to stump up the cash for this excellent piece of Mac OS software. I did a few days ago 🙂
Papers – Public Preview 2
A 2nd public preview of Papers was released today. Papers is an app for searching PubMed and organising references and PDF files of journal articles. It can also be used to manage any local PDF files already on your Macintosh. It’s like iTunes for scientific papers. The new version interacts with EndNote X which is a nice addition. I’m hoping that Papers will be very useful for a chemistry project course I’ve just started.
WWDC 2007 dates confirmed
As rumoured, WWDC 2007 will be held from 11th to 15th June. Happy days. There is a good chance that the iPhone will ship during WWDC and probably Leopard as well. Looking forward to it. Last year was fun.
Travel Checklist To Do:
Buy WWDC e-Ticket ✔
Book flight from Belfast to Heathrow ✔
Book flight from Heathrow to San Francisco ✔
Reserve hotel room ✔
Book time off from work ✔
All done. That’s me sorted. Now I just have to wait 🙂
Whatever happened to…
David Lee Roth? Spotted doing a bluegrass version of the Van Halen song Jump. It’s actually pretty good stuff!
Van Halen are reforming for a tour as well.
Smokin’ Aces
Went to see Smokin’ Aces last night. Weird. Bizarre. Strange. Drivel. Funny. Violent. About 2 hours of mindless mishmash. Good for escapism. Some parts try to be profound but fail. Quote from the girl I was with about 10 minutes into the film:
Like watching a train wreck
:-)I didn’t care though as I was in very contented mode after an truly excellent dry roasted chicken with korma sauce and rice at the Indian Ocean Restaurant in Belfast’s Odyssey Complex.
And off we go again…
The first mailing for one of the OU science courses I’m taking this year was delivered yesterday. S343 – Inorganic Chemistry. It covers the chemistry of the transition elements. Started reading it today. Happy days. I love chemistry 🙂
WWDC 2007 – June 10th to 15th??
UPDATE: AAUC have removed the entry referenced below from their June 2007 calendar.
Apple WWDC was very late in the year in 2006. August in fact. Hopefully this years will be earlier. Just seen that the Australian Apple University Consortium have an event calendar that has WWDC 2007 as running from Sunday June 10th to Friday June 15th 2007. They even have a deadline for their members to take advantage of a special rate for the San Francisco Courtyard Marriott hotel.
Nothing in the Moscone Center event calendar for those dates yet. But that’s not unusual. I hope the AUC are right as June would suit me. Hopefully Apple will confirm the dates soon so I can get flights and hotel booked. Yeah. Summer in San Francisco.
Bacon butties, chicken and chips…
Still recovering from gum work. So eating a lot of Weetabix and Soup. I am so looking forward to a bacon butty or a big plate of chicken and chips when my mouth heals. Lightly toasted bread, buttered hot, very crispy streaky bacon, thinly sliced tomatoes, a big mug of piping hot tea…
Bliss city 🙂
New build of YAPT posted
Be a while since I’ve done anything on YAPT. Just posted a new build. See the YAPT page. Here is a screen shot from the latest version:
Click Picture for larger view
Titanic quarter redevelopment
There is an ongoing programme to redevelop the docks area of Belfast. A plan has just been submitted to redevelop the Titanic Area where the infamous Titanic was built. I’ve always wanted a house by the sea. But I also like city living. Getting an apartment in the Titanic area with a view over Belfast Lough and Belfast City might be nice. I’ll have to keep and eye on this new development.