What a shambles! Surely the world cup final should have 50 overs per side? Even if it has to be played over 2 days! The end of the rain affected final over the weekend was a farce.
Having said that , Adam Gilchrist’s 149 from 102 balls was stunning. Put the fielders in the stands to save time when he is in that sort of mood.
Not long to go until Apple WWDC 2007. Just done my preliminary schedule based on the published session info so far. See the picture below. Will probably change a bit as there are some slots in the published schedules on the WWDC site that are listed as TBA. These are likely placeholders for new stuff in MacOS X 10.5 Leopard or iPhone. The picture also doesn’t show any of the evening activities such as the Apple Design Awards, The Scientific Poster Session, The Apple Campus Bash and others. There is also a session entitled Mac OS X Scientific Computing State of the Union that is in the full listings but not on the calendar view. It’ll maybe a lunchtime session. I want to go to that. Many of the sessions I’m going to are IT technology related rather than developer related. This reflects that WWDC is taking on a more technical conference feel rather than a pure developer conference. The IT related sessions are of interest for the education technology job I’m doing at present.
Click picture for larger view
Flight to San Francisco on 9th June. 6 weeks to go. Can’t wait 🙂
Most people know my view about life and the Universe. We’ll all be dead a long time and therefore we should do what we want during our lives to make ourselves happy (as long as it doesn’t adversely effect others). Steve Jobs articulated this view well in his Commencement Speech to Stanford University graduates in 2005. You can read the whole speech at the link above or watch it via YouTube (see below). I quote the following from it:
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
For the last while I’ve been using a similar process myself in relation to my job. At the start of the year I switched jobs. I think that my answer to the question posed in Jobs’ speech above has been No far too many times recently. I’ll need to rectify that…
It’s 4 years since my first post on the subject of testicular cancer. Like last year, I forgot about the anniversary. Which is still a good thing! The only legacy of the TC are the yearly check ups. Next one due in November 2007.
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. 🙂
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 🙂
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.
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 🙂
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.
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.
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 🙂
