Another Brick In The Wall

I am the Dr. Chinnery of DIY repairs

2011-10-11T14:38:00.001-07:00

You may recall Dr. Chinnery, the hapless Vet from the League of Gentlemen. The guy who blew up poodles, electrocuted koi carp, and generally did his best to execute the animals in his care.

This is him.

Well, it seems I am the Dr. Chinnery of DIY repairs.

A few weeks back I cracked the screen on my iPhone. I had also damaged the OLED screen underneath but didn't realise that at the time. No matter thought I, the new iPhone is coming out soon, and I shall upgrade for free anyhow, I'll just use the iPhone with the broken screen until then - it was perfectly usable you see, just cracked.

This week, I ordered an iPhone 3GS screen repair kit from the USA, with the intention of fixing the cracked screen, and selling the phone when my shiny new 4S turns up on the 14th.

Alas! the Curse of the Monkey's nuts!

To cut a long story short what should have been a five minute repair turned into two hours with associated cursing and swearing.

Seems I got the wrong iPhone screen as the connectors would not line up. And I broke the incredibly small film connector for the home button. And did I mention that the OLED screen was broken anyhow, and now has a colour distortion anyway?

A pox on fixing things myself. Next time I'll just send the phone away to be fixed.

The Decline And Fall Of Azeroth.

2011-08-18T12:27:00.001-07:00

I've noticed that recently a lot of people have left World of Warcraft, which I've played for nearly four years now. Then I had it officially confirmed - Take a look at this link - here - 900,000 subscribers gone?

This isn't just the usual decline a few months after a new expansion is released. It's more fundamental than that.

The first warning signs were there a while back. Our guild found it harder and harder to schedule a raid, because we couldn't guarantee that 10 people of the right mix would be online at the same time. In a guild with 177 members (ok, a lot of alts there), and a peak online mix of 18-25 people a night, that was odd. We used to field two 10 man raid teams practically every night. And when we did have 10 people on, there were arguments about what they should do - some people were not as geared up as others, so it became a bit frustrating, either with well-geared players doing trivial content and then attempting to get achievements while they were there, or with poor-geared players doing challenging content and the group as a whole wiping as a result.

Next, we saw the "last online" for some people increment. Days turned into weeks, weeks to months, months to years (yes I mean you, Sahand!) … while some people announced their intention to retire from WoW, others just never came back.

It started elsewhere as well. Other guilds, larger guilds, reported similar problems. A lot of new guilds were set up, mopping up the bones of dead guilds in an attempt to get enough people together.

And then the final nail in the coffin came with Patch 4.2. The Firelands, the new endgame raid, should have only really been the province of the best guilds with the best geared players. Instead, it has become the domain of PuGs looking for easy rep - and hence easy gear from vendors - from trash mobs. They clear the entrance, reset the raid, and do it again until they get a cheap epic iLvl 378 cloak.

Imagine if that had happened with the Black Temple. Or the Sunwell. Or Icecrown (though it did happen with Icecrown a bit towards the end of WotLK).

Of course it couldn't happen with the Black Temple due to the requirements to get access to the place - the long and somewhat arduous quest chain restricted access to all but the best anyhow.

I don't have a single Cataclysm raid achievement. Not one.

I don't know if it is due to rival MMORPGs like Rift and Conan, or if WoW is just becoming more of the same, or if it is the changes to the WoW mechanics and UI, or if WoW has just run its course - it is, after all, nearly seven years old.

But I do know that unless something happens soon, WoW will no longer be the biggest MMORPG in the World.

Good Evening, London.

2011-08-14T04:07:00.001-07:00

(with apologies to V For Vendetta).

Good evening, London.

Allow me first to apologise for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine - the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke.

But given recent events, I thought we could take some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

You see, the truth is there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?

Our children, the next generation, roam the streets in feral packs, setting fires and looting stores.

Our police cannot act, fearful of litigation against their own, taking the path of least bureaucratic resistance.

Our leaders squander our taxes, burden the country with debt, conspire with media organisations, and fiddle their expenses while London burns.

How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will hopefully be held accountable one day, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it.

There had been a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Not just poverty, not just injustice, not just criminality, not just envy, not just the wanton wish to destroy, but all and none of these things, and more.

You were caught up with the mob mentality, doing things you would never normally do, carried along in the safety of numbers.

If you were motivated to vote at all, you voted for what you believed would solve those issues. Who wouldn't do that? But no matter who is in charge, the issues remain.

You lost your way.

You forgot that hurting your community hurts you. You forgot that in this age, a simple act can be seen world wide. But most of all, you forgot who you are.

It's time to wake up. It's time to remember who you are. It's time to change things not by violence and vandalism, not by theft and destruction, but by responsibility, consideration and reasoned action. It's time to change things through your mandate, through your own endeavour.

Before you are lost to the rest of us, too.

The Devil And Idle Hands

2011-08-09T06:35:00.001-07:00

I feel moved to comment about the current disturbances in London.

I'll call them disturbances, because that's what they are. These are not noble protests for Justice. There's no common cause, no message, no political wrong to be righted here. Those involved are not seeking to overthrow a dictatorship, or free innocent people who disagree with a regime.

What they are is "youths" aged 14 to 20 having a go at the police, setting a few fires, and looting whatever they can lay their hands on. The devil has found work for idle hands. They're on their summer holidays. They're bored. It's something to do.

Most of those involved don't even know who the guy who was shot in Tottenham was. They don't even know his name.

A thousand MPs, police, social workers, psychologists, urban commentators of all sorts will no doubt crawl from under their respective stones in the next few days, taking advantage of these disturbances to blame it on austerity, or social deprivation, or one hundred and one other things. The Government will blame the aggro on the social policies of the previous government. The opposition will blame the Government for the state of the economy or something. It will go round in circles, and nothing will change.

Yes, there is poverty in the UK. Yes, there is an economic recession. Yes, a man was shot in Tottenham - though the jury is still out on what exactly happened there.

But we do not have a lost generation. Our "youth" (God I hate that word) live in one of the largest economies in the world. They do not want for clean water, or a place to sleep, or health care. They do not want for food, or education. They do not live under a harsh regime, or in a Police State. They claim to be socially deprived and yet most of them seem to be able to run a mobile phone bill and BBM their mates. Those that can claim benefits - yet they always seem to have cash for booze, fags, partying, whatever.

Compared to the protestors of the Arab Spring, or the peoples of the developing world, or the refugees of countless natural disasters and war zones worldwide, these kids live in nothing less than paradise.

Thing is, that opportunity exists. If you can't find a job, create one. Get an idea together, and do something. Plenty of people have started with nothing and made something of themselves. Richard Branson and Lord Sugar to name just two. Go out and offer to clean windows. Sell gardening services. Start a business collecting shopping for old people. I don't know, there is always some niche to make good.

Apparently - according to Wired magazine this month, anyhow - The UK and Europe are full of successful start up companies.

The problem though is that these kids expect everything on a plate. That's why we have so many immigrant workers in menial jobs. This generation sees itself too good to do the crap roles. It's somehow beneath them.

It's not so much a lack of hope, or investment, or whatever. It's a culture of laziness in a way. Even looting is lazy. Why earn the money to buy something you want? Just steal it.

It's this whole "something for nothing" culture that lies underneath this. Whether it expresses itself as the media pumping out a reality TV and/or talent show where celebrity is a destination in itself, or a crazy injury compensation culture, or kids running amok at night on city streets, it's the same thing.

There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, between self-empowerment and self-importance, between boredom and anarchy.

It seems some people have now crossed that line, and we're reaping a bitter harvest.

A few wise words of advice.

2011-08-08T15:32:00.001-07:00

A long time ago my father said to me, "neither a lender nor a borrower be".

Sadly I didn't live up to that advice, and I have plenty of debt.

I now live within my means insofar as possible. I don't borrow money, don't use credit, don't take out payment plans or hire purchase agreements. If I don't have the money, I don't spend it. It's as simple as that.

Thing is, I know I am crap with money.

What I do not understand is how an entire country - take your pick, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, the USA, whatever - cannot follow the same advice. They have whole teams of people - the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of XXX, - basically tame accountants, whatever they call themselves, to handle all of this.

So, how can the USA be in so much debt that this year its debt will exceed its GDP?

That's 15 TRILLION dollars. 15,000,000,000,000 dollars.

Ok, people live longer, welfare costs are soaring, manufacturing jobs have gone to the Far East, so we have less tax revenues and import more than we export. And that's just the UK.

But honestly, people must have seen this coming.

Surely the time for austerity measures was a LONG time ago, not when the crash hit in 2008, not with sovereign debt crises in 2011.

Did no one have their head above the parapet?

Did no one think that borrowing was a bad plan?

Did no one think to tighten their belts just a little?

Did no one think?

An Asthmatic in an Ashram.

2011-08-08T14:29:00.001-07:00

First of all, some numbers. Because we all enjoy maths, right?

Let's assume that I have smoked since I was 23. I know that is wrong, because I had first cigarette way before 23, but I didn't smoke every day until a few months after 23, so it probably averages out to my 23rd birthday.

So 19th January, 1993. At the time of writing, I make that 6,776 days ago.

Now, let's assume that I have smoked an average of 35 cigarettes a day - that's 20 or so a day to start with, right up to 40-60 a day at the end, kind of "guestimate"-averaged out across the entire time.

So 35 cigarettes a day, for 6776 days. 237,160 cigarettes in total.

Every 20 cigarettes is about 54mg of tar. So, that's (237160 / 20) * 0.054g of tar, or 640.332g of tar - say 640g - over that time. That is nearly two third of a kilogram of tar inside my lungs.

And at today's prices, those 237,160 cigarettes have cost me about £66,400 over those 18.5 years. In terms of spending power, it is 66 grand in today's money … ouch.

So why all the mind numbing statistics?

On Friday, I went to see some friends in Hertford, have a meal, and generally chill out. I hadn't seen Mark for years, he lives in the USA now - and Sally and I hadn't been out of the house as a couple for a long time either, thanks to health issues, work, money, you name it.

But by 9pm or so, I was fighting to breathe in the back of an ambulance, thanks to a combination of evils resulting in an asthma attack.

Let's examine those evils.

I'm asthmatic, with a reduced lung capacity anyhow.
I suffer from hay fever. Have done since I was a kid. The principal symptom is I generate loads - and I do mean loads - of nasal and sinal mucus. Lovely, eh? I used to sneeze a lot. Now it just bungs me up.
I had a possible lung infection a week or two ago. I went to the nurse at the local GPs for an asthma review and had a very low peak flow rate.
I had just eaten - not very much, but enough to distend my stomach and compress my already overworked lungs.
I had emptied a hoover dust chamber earlier that afternoon and got a face full of dust and other niceties - which probably didn't help. And I know that household dust, cat hair, and everything else in that hoover doesn't help with my asthma at all.

But all of those are just the chorus line. The star of the show is that despite all of the above, I was smoking 40 to 60 cigarettes a day.

I'm not stupid, I have a high IQ, work in a technical job - and yet smoking with all of the above was rather like pricking your finger on a needle then using a chainsaw to apply the elastoplast.

But there I was, having collapsed a hundred yards or so from the restaurant, coughed my guts out on the pavement, unable to breathe despite my mouth being wide open, excruciating pain in both lungs, and oh yeah, just to add to the mix, I managed to evacuate my bowels too because when I was coughing apparently my brain couldn't cope with managing my sphincter at the same time.

What a great way to end an evening that comes around once every three or four years.

Imagine the Olympic equivalent. Well, ok, London 2012 will probably be the Olympic equivalent of my Friday night experience. So let's not go there with that analogy.

The long and short of it is that I've had enough.

I'm quitting fags.

Slowly.

I'm using an electronic cigarette to stave off the cravings a bit. I'm still having the odd real cigarette, admittedly, so I am not off them yet. But I am getting there, and already my lungs feel way better.

Because I am never going to be leaning against a lamp-post again, fighting for breath, when I should be having a good night out.

Information Wants To Be Free

2010-12-15T00:59:00.001-08:00

Regular readers of this blog – yes you, dear reader, all one of you – might wonder where I have been for a few months. Well, in a sense I never went away ; I just haven’t had anything much to say. It’s been a busy year, what with work, and did I mention work? Oh, and some work, too.

Anyhow, the real reason for this blog entry, is to say five words.

Information wants to be free.

It’s a sound bite from the Cyberpunk Manifesto, now a dated 80s document, though it still has some relevance in the modern socially networked world.

However, this one line is very relevant to the current ridiculous decision by our schizoid coalition powers-that-be to charge students £9K in fees.

You see I am a strong believer that education should be free, too. Charge something, anything, and you start excluding people from education. It doesn’t matter if it is £900, £9000, or £90000 – there will be those that can pay, and those that can’t. I don’t believe that your chances of a good education should be dependent on your parent’s bank balance.

Fees are just another way of creating a division in society. Sure education costs – but the Government should be meeting that cost – let’s call it an investment in the future. Not the students.

Ba-da Bing

2010-05-18T01:15:00.001-07:00

Well, Bada is here.

The much hyped Samsung mobile phone platform SDK has been released (OK,OK, it was two weeks ago, I’ve been busy).

Question is does it live up to the hype? Well, certainly Samsung think so. They’ve launched a competition with millions of dollars of prizes and $300,000 as a top prize.

The Thick Of It, Special Debate Episode

2010-04-29T17:49:00.001-07:00

Well, come on, the TV debates and the election in general are beginning to look like that, aren’t they?

However, I’ve watched all three debates. I’ve cringed over the same lines as everyone else, from Cameron’s “if I were your Prime Minister”, to Clegg’s “here they go again”, to Brown’s “I agree with …”.

So who to vote for? Ultimately that’s between me and the ballot box.

Monster Raving Loony ft. William Hill is looking good …

The Crime Is In Getting Caught.

2010-04-28T11:10:00.001-07:00

By now, the so-called “bigotgate” story is all over the media and the Internet.

As my father used to say, the crime is in getting caught.

And Gordon has been well and truly caught. Various online monitoring tools watching Twitter and the like watched his popularity and positive sentiment score nose-dive after this story broke.

He is on record for saying that he did not want this election to be about personality and presentation. How ironic then, that his downfall should be directly as a consequence of both.

Word Cloud

2010-04-23T07:36:00.001-07:00

I fed my blog into http://www.wordle.net and this is what I got :-

Interesting, isn’t it? For one thing, it tells me I am blogging more about work now and less about me.

Yet another election blog.

2010-04-23T01:12:00.001-07:00

I have resisted blogging or tweeting about the General Election until now. I figured that there was already enough commentary out there, and that there was nothing to gain by adding another voice rather than another vote.

My advice? Choose who you will vote for on the day the election is announced. Then ignore all media regarding the election until the ballot day itself. Ignore the spin, the smears, the hypocrisy, the PR, the canvassing, the promotion, the endless debates and arguments. Read the manifesto for your chosen party – and others. And then vote. Exercise your mandate.

That way, the whole process will be far more likely to produce the government you wanted, rather than the government you were sold.

Father of the Personal Computer Dies

2010-04-02T10:27:00.001-07:00

Dr Henry Edward Roberts, the “father of the personal computer”, has died at the age of 68. See here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8600493.stm.

I am of the generation that can just about remember ads in Byte and other deceased magazines for his invention, the Altair 8800. While my first personal computer was a Sinclair ZX81, I remember the shape of the Altair 8800 as a futuristic 70s vision of what a computer should be. Thanks in part to that vision, we have the technology of today.

RIP Dr Roberts.

A Smartphone Development Roadmap

2010-02-28T07:42:00.001-08:00

Interesting little image this :

Source : Gartner.

So there are twice as many Blackberry devices as iPhones, and surprisingly more Windows Mobile devices than I thought.

The “delta” is the most interesting thing though. Symbian is not surprisingly losing market share, no doubt partly due to its arcane C++ development process and lack of momentum. Windows Mobile is likewise on the decline, but I expect that Windows Phone (WM7) will change that dramatically. “Pure” Linux is a dead duck on mobile it seems.

The fastest growth seems to be Android, but at 3.9% it’s still not the major player the hype would have you imagine.

Note how the two top OS platforms allow J2ME development, and Android is a Java platform too – which promotes code reuse, shortens development time and also means mobile Java of one form or another is a staggering 70.7% of the market.

Investing in mobile Java is thus a very wise decision I’d say, at least for the foreseeable future. It’s not hard to write a “pure” J2ME application that conditionally compiles to make use of the net.rim.* APIs on Blackberry where available ; It is also possible to reuse a lot of Java code on Android with careful planning. In fact, if you’re very careful about how you divide your interface from your code, it should be easy to port the Java code to C#.

In other words, build a pure J2ME version first, use a clever ANT script to build Blackberry from the same source, reuse components in Android as far as possible, then port it to Windows Mobile/.NET Compact Framework/C# next. Then once those three platforms are nailed, or in parallel, do your iPhone port. Worry about webOS last.

Simple, eh? Now get to it.

Goodbye, Frankenmac.

2010-02-28T06:05:00.001-08:00

I was, for some time, running an Intel-based Compaq laptop with Mac OS X 10.5.x on it. I called it Frankenmac.

It did the job. It was unstable (if the screensaver kicked in, it would crash). But it worked.

Sadly, it had to go. I needed Snow Leopard for iPad development amongst other things, and I got tired of lugging the USB keyboard and mouse around for it (I never did get the drivers for the laptop keyboard and touchpad working).

So now I have a 13” white plastic MacBook. A little old, circa 2007, but give it 2Gb of memory and install Snow Leopard on it, and hey presto.

Somehow or other though, I still miss my Frankenmac.

The Hypocritic Oath

2010-02-28T05:57:00.001-08:00

Apple refuse to put Flash or J2ME on the iPhone citing performance issues and the fact that they seem to want to go with open web standards like HTML5 and so forth.

The hypocrisy is unreal.

Apple have a history of making their software and hardware closed off in its own little bubble. Just look at one example - CoverFlow on the iPhone looks great – but it is a protected API, and you can’t develop with it. Use it, and Apple will kick your app out of the App Store. In fact, pretend to use it – i.e. roll your own CoverFlow, and they will kick it out of the App Store – at least they have done in the past. Take a look at Peeps.

Hardware wise it is only in recent years that you could maintain anything on a Mac and you still can’t scratch build one the way you could build a PC. As far as I am aware, you can still only swap out the memory and hard drive. Want a better graphics card, motherboard or processor? Tough. One of the strengths of the PC platform – and one of the reasons it became so popular and widespread – was the fact that once “clean room” BIOS implementations became available (thanks to Phoenix, Compaq and others), it was possible to roll your own, and upgrade it almost endlessly. I had a 80286 machine years ago, which i upgraded to a 80386 and finally a 80486 with all new hardware over and over. The only original components were the keyboard, mouse, case and power supply. Everything else evolved as my needs grew and technology improved. It went from DOS to Windows 98 with me. I would have carried on upgrading if I hadn’t switched to laptops for convenience – but even these are upgradeable to some extent these days.

Show me one Mac owner who can say the same was possible. Anyone running a modern Mac in a Lisa case? Nah.

So Apple are hardly able to wave the Open Standards flag without some degree of proprietary sin themselves.

Next, there is the problem of ubiquity. Flash might not be an open standard as such (waits for the comment saying actually it now is) – but it is certainly a de facto one. Practically every desktop system supports it, and most mobile platforms support Flash Mobile at least. Likewise, J2ME is present in hordes of mobile devices.

It’s like the PKZip story. Although a proprietary shareware application back in the nineties, it became the de facto standard for compression and archiving on PCs and eventually other platforms. Most Operating Systems now come with Zip support built in, which I think is a fitting legacy for the late lamented Phil Katz, the original author. I can think of other examples. PGP, anyone?

My point? Flash and J2ME are ubiquitous technologies that are de facto standards on the web and in the mobile world respectively. People want Flash, and to a lesser extent J2ME, on iPhone.

Sure Flash might be slow on an iPhone. Yeah, J2ME is kinda lame these days. But why can’t I see a Flash presentation on a web site on my mobile device? Why can’t I transfer a game I paid for to my iPhone and still play it? I can still run ancient PC games on my modern laptop. Some of them – like a chess implementation I got years ago – are still a challenge. Maybe they look a little dated … but then so what, if I like them?

Apple need to rethink their strategy, and loosen their grip a little, especially since other mobile platforms have a competitive edge here as a result of Apple’s current stance.

Sun already have a J2ME implementation for iPhone. Likewise Adobe have a Flash implementation in the wings.

All they, and us mortals, are waiting for, is for Apple to change it’s mind.

A Quick Look At MIDP 3.0

2010-02-12T18:22:00.001-08:00

I have acquired and downloaded the MIDP 3.0 Reference Implementation (developed by Aplix, and available on the Motorola Opensource site).

The ZIP file you download is encrypted, and you have to send off an email accepting license terms and conditions before you can decrypt and extract the files. Furthermore, remember to run the main executable as Administrator under WIndows Vista – the PlatformUI.DLL won’t register otherwise. Oh, and the default locale is Tokyo, Japan … but hey, you get what you pay for, and this is free.

Get through that lot, and this is what the emulator looks like when it is up and running -

Anyhow, I’ve had a brief play, and I’m impressed with the new features I’ve encountered so far -

Addition of “standard” system properties for IMEI, IMSI and MSISDN at long last – no more proprietary system properties, hurrah! – and a Unique device ID system property separate from these values;
Addition of a text editor item for Canvas displayables (yes, Canvas gets Items now) – and this text editor theoretically supports handwriting too;
FormLayoutPolicy finally allowing better/custom positioning of Items on a Form;
The Event Manager, which allows you to trap battery charging, voice call, system shutdown, and user profile change events, some of which were possible but nightmarish under MIDP 2.0;
There’s also support for auto-launch on successful installation.

Apparenly Aplix are demonstrating MIDP 3.0 at MWC this coming week. Hopefully it will get out to phones soon – though I have to ask myself, in the current era of iPhone/Android/Windows Mobile 7, whether J2ME is beginning to look a bit dated. Yes, MSA gives us advanced media, 3D, GPS and numerous other extensions, but we still don’t have touch other than simple pointer events, and a lack of support for third party but popular APIs such as Google Maps out of the box, whereas (for example) iPhone OS and Android definitely do. Nor do we have support for common UI controls such as a spin control or calendar/date selector.

The killing blow to J2ME though is there is no J2ME app store. Like it or not, Apple’s App Store/Android’s Market/Windows Mobile’s Marketplace/Nokia’s Ovi Store are now the de facto business model for selling apps to end users.

I guess we won’t see a MIDP 3.0 phone until later this year, probably Q3/Q4 2010 at the earliest. I’ll be interested to see who gets a MIDP3.0 device to market first.

The iPad

2010-01-28T14:35:00.001-08:00

I watched the iPad launch on apple.com yesterday, digested it, and here are my thoughts.

Overall, I’m impressed with the sheer only-Apple-do-it-like-this sexiness of the iPad.

However, I can’t help but think that there are things missing.

Where is the front facing camera for webcam video chat? In fact, where is iChat?
Where is the camera on the back of the device to take photos and video with? Do we have to sync with a Digital Camera all the time via the Camera accessory? I know the chance of a flash and zoom were low given the camera (always the weakest part of the iPhone in my opinion) but even so.
Where is the SD card slot? Come on Apple, allow us to upgrade memory ourselves.
The iPad doesn’t multi-task. Are they kidding? So I can’t have a Twitter app and Web browsing at the same time?
Where is the Adobe Flash support?
Where is the Silverlight support, for that matter?
Where is the Java support? It’s about time that Apple allowed Java applets to run in web pages on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad – same with the possibility of Java J2ME MIDlets too.
Why can we only charge via a 30 pin connector? Where’s the magnetic induction charger?
Why can’t we have a USB port on the device? HDMI output for video What about IR? Would be nice to use the iPad to control my TV.
Not sure about this microSIM thing, or the 3G model. Will it do voice calls?
Wouldn’t it have been cool if you could have attached it to your Mac mini as a touch display for the mini? There were laptops at CES this year that did similar stuff. Why not the iPad?

So yes, wonderful device. And yes, I want one, though I admit more to develop on than to use in a way.

However, so much more could have been done. It’s rather like a larger iPhone, but with no camera. I may wait for the next iPad, rather than be an Early Adopter.

And also, this App Store closed shop model is all well and good, but to be honest I wonder if it limits what you can do with the device. If it isn’t on the App Store, well you’re stuffed.

One last thing. Apple quite 140,000 apps on the App Store. But a large number of those are duplicates, as there is a free version and a priced version of many Apps – and a lot of the Apps on the App store are pointless slideshows of semi-naked women.

Still, it makes the Kindle look utterly, utterly pointless and over priced, which is what I’ve always maintained.

And no doubt the tablet market will change dramatically now. Microsoft, Nokia and others have all launched tablet PCs and internet slates and what have you beforehand, but now Apple have done this, I’m sure the tablet market will hot up dramatically.

It’s a game changer. But it’s not a new game.

Life begins today

2010-01-19T00:24:00.001-08:00

I have reached the grand old age of 40 ... And I woke up this morning after a deep and refreshing sleep to realise actually I am quite content today. Male menopause? Nah. Apart from an overwhelming urge for coffee, nothing has changed!

Kindle for iPhone now available in the UK

2010-01-09T11:14:00.001-08:00

That’s right.

Kindle for the iPhone is now available in the UK --- FOR FREE. Just search on the App Store and save yourself hundreds of dollars on a piece of hardware you don’t need.

And it works like a dream. Just installed it.

Happy days.

3D TV

2010-01-09T10:33:00.001-08:00

I hear that the next Big Thing in the television industry is 3D-TV.

Now, I am of the generation that remembers dodgy red and green glasses given away with cornflake packets. Ok things have moved on a bit, but it was a gimmick then and it’s a gimmick now.

I saw Coraline in 3D a while back. The glasses may be different, the effect more impressive – but to be honest it’s not really 3D, more like 2.5D, and in any case after a while it gave me a headache. In fact let’s call it 2.5D. Or a sort of parallax scrolling embossing. It’s not real 3D for sure. Go on, walk around behind the set and see the back of your favourite presenter’s head. Yeah, exactly.

So before the furore of HDTV has even settled, and years ahead of the last analogue signal being broadcast, we’re meant to dash out and buy a 3D-TV set to replace the HD ready one we’ve just purchased? I don’t think so.

Would you really like to see Jeremy Clarkson leering in 2.5D in your living room? Me neither.

TV manufacturers should be sorting out some other features, I feel. I’d like to see more integration with other equipment to be honest, more SCART or HDMI sockets, that sort of thing, and perhaps a more friendly user interface to configuration settings. Maybe a built-in HDD or something useful like that. But 2.5D? It’s not worth it.

The End of Tennant

2010-01-03T05:49:00.001-08:00

Ok, I have to admit it, I actually liked David Tennant’s swansong as the 10th Doctor. Spoilers follow, if you’ve been cut off from the BBC’s bombardment of the story line over Xmas.

Not the first part so much, though the Cafe scene with Wilfred, the scene where the Doctor and the Master chat in the “wastelands”, and the scene with Minnie the Menace are all top quality moments. Oh, and the Master eating a burger … loved that too.

But the second part just rocked. Best thing Dr. Who has produced in a long time, at least since Blink.

There was, perhaps unsurprisingly, an element of Hamlet to the story and acting. That whole unmentioned thing about the Doctor’s mother – yes mother – played by Clare Bloom (that’s one in the eye for Lungbarrow I guess, no more Looms) ; the agonising over taking a man’s life after Wilfred locked himself in the Nuclear thingy. In particular, that last set piece between the Doctor and the Master while the Lord President looked on was reminiscent of Hamlet’s fateful duel at the end of the play. Here though, the “poison” was not physical, but metaphorical, the dilemma of what should be done.

But that one moment, when Wilfred knocked four times. Brilliant. I knew there had to be a plot twist, that it could not be that simple, that the Master was too obvious. But Wilfred? Simply stunning. Didn’t see that one coming.

For once in the not-so-new franchise, Dr. Who just delivered. As previous posts may have indicated most episodes of Dr. Who I can take or leave, mostly leave – the overly-emotional “pat on the back” ending of Journey’s End for example, the ridiculous premise and unbelievable behaviour of people in the Waters of Mars, and let’s not talk about the farce that was The Next Doctor at all, which just descended into CyberGodZilla vs. Victorian London.

But the End of Time was a return to form. Now if they had kept up that level of acting, writing and dialogue in general when they did the rest of the series and specials, it would have been so good.

Oh and Matt Smith? No idea yet. Too early to say. We’ll see.

2010

2010-01-03T05:29:00.001-08:00

Well we’re here.

2010 is the year the USA and Russia are meant to be sending manned missions to Europa … sorry Mr. Clarke, but you got that badly wrong. No Cold War any more, and no manned missions back to the Moon, let alone Jupiter. Mind you, Gerry Andersen had us defending the Earth from UFOs in the 1980s wearing purple wigs, so hey, not too shabby. Don’t even get me started on Tomorrow’s World.

Anyhow, I digress.

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. A resolution, in my opinion, can be made any time, so why wait for a particular date? Besides, no one keeps resolutions made on New Year’s eve. No one.

However, there are some things I need to sort out, just like last time the calendar rolled over, so I will endeavour to carry on sorting them out. Call them ongoing resolutions :-)

Changes are a-coming. Within 153 days so the BBC News site tells us, we’ll have a General Election. While I don’t really care what happens, as long as Labour are kicked out I’ll be happy.

Media-wise, we have a new Doctor Who and a new writer for the same too. Several films are coming up that look like they may rock – Legion, for one, the Book of Eli for another.

With a little luck and some hard work this will be a good year for me and mine. It really can’t be any worse than 2009 with its ongoing saga of credit crunches both personal and global, climate upheaval and inaction, and so forth.

So here’s to 2010. Hope you all have a good one, even though we’re now three days in.

NORAD tracks Santa….

2009-12-24T06:27:00.001-08:00

I’ve always loved this.

Since 1955, NORAD has been tracking Santa as he goes around the world on Christmas Eve.

You can track him yourself, here, thanks to NORAD, NASA, and Google Maps.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Marcus Brigstocke : Dr Seuss’ Copenhagen

2009-12-22T18:17:00.001-08:00

Marcus Brigstocke’s wonderful take on the failed talks at Copenhagen on The Now Show, in the style of Dr. Seuss – a piece of pure Genius -

The delegates came and the delegates sat
And they talked and they talked till their bums all went flat
Then a delegate said of the country he knew
"We must do something quick but just what should we do?"
So they sat again thinking and there they stayed seated
Sitting and thinking "the planet's been heated"
"I think" said a delegate there from Peru
"That we all must agree on some things we could do
Like reducing emissions at least CO2"
So they nodded and noted then vetoed and voted
And one of them stood up and suddenly quoted
"It's the science you see, that's the thing that must guide us
When the leaders all get here they're certain to chide us"
So they sat again thinking about what to think
Then decided to ponder what colour of ink
To use on the paper when they’d all agreed
To be selfless not greedy McGreedy McGreed
"But how do we choose just what colour to use?"
Said a delegate there who'd been having a snooze
"We need clear binding targets definitive action
We must all agree clearly without more distraction"
So they sat again thinking of targets for ink
But the ink in their thinking had started to stink
And they started to think that the ink was a kink
In the thinking about real things they should think
"If ze climate needs mending then zis is our chance"
Said the nuclear delegate sent there by France
"We need to agree on one thing to agree on
Something we all want a fixed guarantee on"
"Yes" said another who thought this made sense
Some value for carbon in dollars or pence
But the mention of money and thoughts of expense
Had stifled the progress and things became tense
The fella from China with a smile on his face
Said "Who put the carbon there in the first place?"
"Wasn't us" said the U.S then Europe did too
Then a silence descended and no words were spoken
Till a delegate stood up, voice nervous and broken
"Is there nothing upon which we all can decide?
Because on Wednesday my chicken laid eggs that were fried"
"We all like a sing song" said the bloke from Down Under
But then the great hall was all shouting and thunder
Policemen had entered and were wearing protesters
Who they'd beaten and flattened like bloodied sou'westers
The police had decided to downplay this crime
With prevention detention and beatings in rhyme
The Greenies who'd shouted and asked for a decision
Were now being battered with lethal precision
All sick of inaction and fed up of waiting
All tired of the endless debated placating
They'd risen up grating berating and hating
So the police had commenced the related abating
Ban Ki-moon put his head in another man's lap
And was last heard muttering something like "crap"
But the chap next to him said "It's more like it's poo"
So the great hall debated not what they should do
But how to decide between crap cack and poo
"It is poo" "It is cack" "It is crap" "We agree"
Which was written and labelled as document three
"I think if we all find one thing we agree on
Then maybe Brazil might be left with a tree on"
So they sat again thinking of trees and Brazil
And of glaciers which had retreated uphill
And they thought of the poor folks whose homes were in flood
But less of the protesters covered in blood
They pondered the species so nearly extinct
It's as if they all thought that these things might be linked
"We need a solution we need action please"
Said a lady who'd come from the sinking Maldives
The others all nodded and said it was fact
That the time must be now not to talk but to act
Then Obama arrived and said most rhetorical
"Action is action and not metaphorical"
"Wow" they all thought "he must mean arregorical [sic]"
"I love it when Barack goes all oratorical"
"But the problem I have is that Congress won’t pass it
"Bugger" said Ban Ki then "sorry" then "arse it"
Then Brown said "I've got it now how does this strike you?
It's simpler when voters already dislike you"
He suggested the EU should lead from the front
So The Mail and The Telegraph called him something very unpleasant indeed
So the delegates stared at the text with red marks on
Ignoring the gales of laughter from Clarkson
No-one was satisfied nobody won
Except the morons convinced it was really the sun
And they blew it and wasted the greatest of chances
Instead they all frolicked in diplomat dances
And decided decisively right there and then
That the best way to solve it's to meet up again
And decide on a future that's greener and greater
Not with action right now but with something else later

I think that says it all, in a nutshell.

Bah! Humbug

2009-12-22T12:09:00.001-08:00

So, the festive season descends once more.

To be honest Xmas here is likely to be a bit strange. Oh, the tree is up, the turkey is defrosting, there’s just a little food shopping to do – but with the exception of some stuff I pre-ordered for Sally and which arrived this morning – Amazon were on next day delivery and failed miserably thanks to the snow - we haven’t actually bought any presents.

The main reason for this is the crumbling edifice of our finances yet again. We lost a regular contract back in November, and have lurched on with some income from an older client ever since. It also hasn’t helped that “Veronica”, our battered old Corsa, did the big firework a few weeks back. So no car, and a bit skint.

Looking on the bright side the kids will get something in the sales as soon as our funds clear if they don’t clear before the Big Day, so it’s possibly not a bad thing in some ways, we’re sure to get a better deal then. Of course, Sally and I will sort something out for them for Xmas day itself.

Certainly, it’s not all doom and gloom.

However, being temporarily impoverished has made me much more keenly aware of just how Xmas – which is just ONE day a year – actually costs. I think I’d rather spread the cost throughout the year on birthdays, rather than take a huge hit in December.

Bah, Humbug.

Minaret, the thing the Swiss can’t get …

2009-12-06T07:06:00.001-08:00

With apologies to the excellent Now Show on Radio 4, where that title came from, sung to the tune of that razor advert …

Ok, the Swiss have voted en masse to ban Minarets from structures in their country, a move designed to affect mosques.

Odd thing is that they have – wait for it – FOUR mosques. Hardly a major deal then.

Dr. StrangeGod, or how I learned to despise Organised Religion.

2009-12-06T00:38:00.001-08:00

I am amazed yet again at the consistent and ridiculous hypocrisy in the Anglican Church. Apparently there’s some hoo-haa over the selection of a lesbian bishop in the USA. Apparently that’s just not Christian Cricket.

Oh, please. Get over yourselves. Homosexuality occurs in the animal kingdom. It’s perfectly natural.

Something else, along with anti-abortionists, sexual inequality (only a few years ago, it was women in the priesthood …), hushed up paedophilia in the Irish Catholic church, radical extremism and terrorism in Islam and elsewhere, television evangelism, so-called ethical resistance to stem cell research (which saves lives, remember?), creationism (little C, because I don’t think it’s worth capitals) and a host of other issues that have only served to show organised religion, be it of any denomination, to be an anachronistic bunch of superstitions we can do without.

I should point out here that yes, I am an agnostic with atheist leanings. It’s not actually the concept of God I am opposed to, particularly though – it’s what people do supposedly in His name.

There are enough issues in the world, without arguing over childish things. Mankind is slowly maturing, growing up. Time to leave the fairy tales on the bookshelf.

ClimateGate

2009-12-06T00:10:00.001-08:00

Surely, it does not matter if mankind is responsible for climate change or not.

What matters is what we do. Climate Change is real ; it is a complicated system of cause, effect, feedback, and so forth. It’s not easy to see how things change. Yet there are changes, and whether we are responsible for those changes on our own, in part, or even not at all, something needs to be done – the outcome is still to our detriment.

Doing nothing is not an option.

RIP Veronica

2009-12-01T15:58:00.001-08:00

Our car, a blue Vauxhall Corsa of advanced years which Sally had nicknamed Veronica, has passed away.

I’m no good with cars, but I understand the “head gasket” has gone. I should explain that a bit … I understand the science that makes cars work, I know what to do to drive them, but I am just not a mechanic. My father, he could jury rig any car to do anything it seems, and kept a long line of old wrecks on the road for years – some of which were more rust than car as far as I could tell. I didn’t get that gene though.

The Good News is that our carbon footprint has been drastically reduced and we’re getting more exercise. I’ve walked further in the last few days than I had in the previous month I suspect.

The Bad News is that we’re walking everywhere right this minute. Well, mostly walking – there’s an element of public transport, borrowed vehicles, lifts and so forth in that.

So if anyone wants to sell me a car – a cheap car – then I might be interested.

David Rohl and the New Chronology

2009-11-27T04:39:00.001-08:00

I watched, thanks to the freedom of 4oD, David Rohl’s Pharoahs and Kings TV documentary last night.

I saw it for the first time over 14 years ago. It still amazes me that Rohl, who calmly presents reasonable arguments that shake Egyptian archaeology to the core, is not more widely accepted. I’ve yet to hear a counter-argument to his claims which can satisfactorily explain them away.

Rohl himself is the sensible face of revision of the existing chronology. While I do not subscribe entirely to the theories of the so-called pyramidiots – like Hancock, Bauval and their cronies – I do suspect strongly that there are numerous anomalies with Egyptian civilisation and history, with Egyptian architecture and knowledge, that current theories do not adequately explain.

The purpose of the shaft in the Queen’s Chamber ; the 70 ton single block of stone that is so large it cannot have been moved by just ropes and rollers ; the weathering of the Sphinx, which may have been caused by rainfall, or by modern pollution ; and many other enigmas underlie Egyptology to the point where even the most sceptical individuals like Zawi Hawass must sometimes wonder why things are the way they are.

One thing is for sure. There’s much more to the tale of a 3000 year old Empire than we know.

Stratospheric Aerosols : The Solution to Global Warming.

2009-11-27T04:32:00.001-08:00

I read recently about a clever scheme to solve Global Warming, or at least get us some breathing space.

Seed the stratospheric with microscopic dust particles, similar to those released during volcanic eruptions, to reduce incident solar radiation and thus cool the planet.

The beauty of it is that we have data already on the effects, thanks to numerous volcanic eruptions in the past ; we’d be doing nothing different to the volcanoes, so we shouldn’t upset the Gaia apple cart too much ; we don’t need a delivery system per se – we have thousands of commercial airliners that could possibly chemtrail the stuff into the atmosphere already with some refitting ; And best of all, it’s cheap.

Apparently 1kg of sulphur compounds offsets hundreds of thousands of kg of CO2.

So why, oh why don’t we just do it?

Is it because CO2 horse trading is more profitable? Or because the solar power lobby (surely the worst green energy source for so many reasons) don’t want Global Dimming?

Solving Global Warming via Geo-engineering is our last, best hope. We will never reduce CO2 levels or emissions, and attempts to do so are normally a mixed blessing.

Even some recycling actually uses more power to process rubbish – and hence generates more CO2 – than it does to bury the stuff.

It’s time the Green Lobby and the Politicians realised that the best way forward is not necessarily a huge step back.

FrankenMac

2009-11-27T04:23:00.001-08:00

Is back up and running.

For those of you who don’t know, it’s a Compaq laptop jury-rigged to run Mac OS X 10.5.7 and iPhone SDK 3.1.2/Xcode 3.1.4.

All I can say is that the iATKOS v7 release is just simply brilliant, it just works.

Of course, to be legal you need to own a copy of OS X, and I do … and I have an iPhone of course, so I guess that covers the legality side of things.

Windows Development on the iPhone

2009-11-22T01:24:00.001-08:00

http://hostfr.x50.cc/wisdk/.

Now, why can’t Apple do this I wonder?

All I Want For Christmas

2009-11-22T01:15:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid, my maternal grandmother had a habit of singing a nonsense rhyme whenever the subject of what I might like for Christmas came up.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth …

Ironically, now I can actually attach some meaning to this rhyme. It’s true that I’ve got a LOT of dental working outstanding. A combination of genetically weak teeth, two years of not looking after myself properly when I was at my lowest ebb of depression, a high sugar diet, smoking, and a quarter century of cowboy “bodge-it-and-patch-it” dental work has left me with numerous broken and missing teeth, including my left maxillary central incisor.

In other words, my teeth are utterly, utterly screwed. I make Shane McGowan look like an amateur.

Which brings me to the point of this blog.

To get my teeth sorted out – i.e. the dead ones and broken teeth removed, the few OK ones sorted out, and dentures so I can eat and smile and talk properly again, will cost about £1K minimum. Actually, if I wanted implants (and I do, but wait for it) I could part with £10K.

However, in this country, we are blessed with a National Health Service.

When I broke my big toe, did I pay to get it fixed?

When I had a life-threatening kidney stone, did I pay to get it removed?

No.

So why the hell do I have to pay for dental work?

I can understand purchasing the dentures. I really can. It’s like a prescription, or glasses, or something. In fact, glasses are a good analogy, surely – you can have the Joe 90 style NHS glasses or spend money to get an aesthetically better pair.

But extractions? Fillings? X-rays? Surely the NHS should just offer these?

Dental caries is the most common health problem in the western world – well, along with smoking-related issues, obesity and asthma.

And it is the only one I have to pay through the palette for.

The Drooling of Mars

2009-11-22T00:57:00.001-08:00

Doctor Who, Waters of Mars. Oh, where to start.

Let’s imagine that you and a handful of others are in a base on the surface of Mars – and a stranger turns up. Imagine Apollo on the Lunar surface for a moment … and what would have happened if the primarily military crew had encountered a stranger there.

You then lose communication with two crew members while you are questioning this unexpected visitor.

Do you then go with this new visitor to investigate? And pair off alone with him having found a crew member down and having known this visitor for like, ten minutes ? Or do you throw him into custody and investigate without him ?

Yeah, thought so.

Then there’s the next one.

If you want to get to Earth, surely it’s best not to let on you exist at all. Just hide in the crew members like the Maggie character, infect the shuttle – and then let them get away at the end of their mission thinking they’re safe when they are not. Wouldn’t that be better than forcing the hand of the pilot and base commander to hit self destruct? Water may be patient, but it strikes me it’s downright stupid too.

Ok, admittedly the Flood or whatever we’re going to call these aliens didn’t seem to know about Earth until the medical room sequence – but even so – I’m sure that once they had learned about Earth they might rethink their strategy.

Infiltration by unfiltered water.

Mind you if the best new alien in Doctor Who can be defeated by the 21st century equivalent of a Brita water filter, well …

I pity da fool …

2009-11-22T00:32:00.001-08:00

… who parted with hard cash for an Amazon Kindle.

Amazon has released its Kindle software for the PC. For free. I’ve installed it, it’s cool.

But wait, say the nay-sayers and those fools who purchased a Kindle … a PC, even a tablet PC, is no match for a Kindle, right?

True enough.

However, with Kindle for the iPhone in the USA, I reckon it’s only a matter of time before the Kindle is so much obsolete tech.

iPhone Review

2009-11-13T16:05:00.001-08:00

Ok, so here’s the inevitable iPhone review.

I’ll keep it brief, and compare it to my old HTC Touch Diamond.

To be honest, the iPhone beats the HTC Touch Diamond in a lot of areas without breaking step. The User Interface is slicker and more responsive, the iPod functionality is much, much better than the Windows Media Player, Safari is much better and far faster than Internet Explorer, and so on.

Except.

I have some issues.

The first is the lack of Windows-based development tools. As it goes, I have converted an old laptop to Mac OS X, and installed the XCode toolset on that. But surely it makes more sense to provide a Windows based IDE – maybe based on Eclipse or similar?

The second is the lack of Java support. Even my Windows Mobile device came with a MIDP/CLDC compliant JVM – which when you think about Microsoft’s stance on Java is nothing short of a miracle (though admittedly the JVM is from Esmertec and installed as an OEM afterthought). The iPhone has no support for Java whatsoever. I suspect it would not be hard to write a JVM for iPhone – and I bet one already exists – but Apple’s resistance to one is simply inexcusable. Java is on almost every mobile device out there ; to not include it on the iPhone is just odd. Also, I’d like to be able to run Java MIDlets on the device as iPhone apps … it would save a considerable amount of time porting existing projects to run on the iPhone.

The third is the App Store. Thousands of applications, yes. Sadly many of them are just pointless – like the numerous “babe” photo shows / slideshows and God knows how many identical social network apps – and there are many duplicate entries (for example where a free and a commercial version of the same application exist).

You can’t personalise the Home Screen like you can on other devices. Yeah you can change the wallpaper, but what about the colour scheme? The font size?

Last but not least we come to the camera. The iPhone camera sucks. The HTC had a flash, digital zoom, and a host of other simple but effective features. The iPhone seems to have none of these. Also, the camera lens is small, and located to one side on the back of the device where it is easy to put your finger over the lens entirely.

So, some things I’d like to see on the iPhone

A Windows based development tool chain
A few more powerful apps for the iPhone, like a command line shell, a web server, maybe a port of Perl and so forth. A syntax highlighting text editor would be nice, too.
J2ME MIDP 2.0 / MSA.
A better camera app.
I’d also like to be able to sync files from Windows Explorer, not just from iTunes.

And while they are at it, maybe the next iPhone could have a built-in DAB radio. That would rock.

As a related comment, why don’t Amazon allow you to get the Kindle for iPhone app in the UK? Anyone know?

Final Score – iPhone gets 8/10.

From my iPhone

2009-11-11T14:14:00.001-08:00

Just making sure it works ...

A Postcard from not anywhere near the edge at all.

2009-11-09T02:07:00.001-08:00

Some random thoughts and updates all in one go –

I’m going to get an ebook reader in the near future. I’ve got well over 10GB of ebooks, mostly development manuals etc, which corresponds to a fair amount of shelf space and just isn’t easily luggable from place to place. One thing I do know is that it won’t be the somewhat laughable Kindle, which has ridiculous lack of support for well known formats such as mobi and does not properly support PDF files. I’ll still buy books from Amazon – but in PDF format – and I’ll have the advantage of Google Books too. Currently I’m looking at a Sony Reader with probably a 16GB memory stick. Besides, the Kindle software will be downloadable for a PC shortly, so turn your tablet PC into a colour Kindle …

Sad to see that hardly anyone was wearing a Poppy on Sunday. While I don’t encourage or support armed conflict, I have the utmost respect for those individuals who risk their lives in battle. I don’t necessarily agree with the reasons for conflict (WWII, and perhaps the Falklands, were probably the only actions of the British military of the last century or so where I think we were actually compelled to act in defence – I have my doubts about WWI (Imperialism), Desert Storm (Oil), and so forth). My father was a soldier, and while he only saw action in Northern Ireland, he nonetheless served his country for nine years.

Sesame street is 40 years old. Another thing that’s as old as me.

This week I get an iPhone 3GS on Orange. On a 26 month contract. That’s not a typo, I did say 26 months. Mind you I’ve been with Orange for over 15 years, so I don’t think it matters too much.

I’ve “acquired” all of the White Wolf books I sold – over 50 of them – as ebooks. I’m very happy with that. In fact, I now have quite a few more books than I originally did! I might actually get back into table top role-playing, been a long absence. Can’t actually remember the last game I took part in, or ran … Another good reason for an ebook reader – all those heavy rule books in a simple device, nicely highlighted and bookmarked …

Jeremy Brett was the quintessential Sherlock Holmes. I got the entire DVD set the other day for a bargain price, and I’ve watched a few … he’s simply the best. I remember it from the first time around on ITV, nearly 25 years ago … loved it then. Such a shame he passed away in ‘95 from a heart condition.

I see the Labour Government, having not acted for its entire tenure, is now putting the responsibility for nuclear power on the shoulders of the next government. Cowards. We have no choice now, but Fission in the short term and Fusion in the future. No other power source will do. Forget your Wind Turbines, Solar Energy and so forth – the simple fact is that for our climate, and our available land mass, we need to go nuclear to supply our energy needs whilst preventing emissions for climate change. The French understood this decades ago. We need to do the same, and soon. Otherwise the lights will go out.

My daughter Autumn turned 13 last week. I’m very proud of her.

… more ramblings as I think of them.

Stargate: Unbelievable

2009-10-29T01:00:00.001-07:00

I’ve watched episodes 1-5 of the new Stargate spin-off, Universe. And I have to say that it is just, well, awful.

The ship is billions of light years from home, yet thanks to the miracle of the handheld communication “stones”, the crew can not only talk to home in real time, but can in effect swap bodies with someone at home. It’s bad enough that the device allows real time communication across such vast distances (causality just rolled over and died, though it is at least consistent with the gate technology) – but personality transfer as well?
The people who get visited by these “possessed” individuals seem to have little problem dealing with it. A little doubt at best. Don’t know about you, but if a stranger turned up in my house telling me that they were my daughter when the latter was missing, I’d think it was time to call the Psycho Ward. Or the police. Or both.
The ship dives into Gas Giants and Stars – yes, inside Stars – without the crew feeling anything but a little turbulence. Even if you buy the fact that the shields can take the radiation, heat and so forth, the gravity should be crippling. At cloud tops, Jupiter has a 3G gravity field. On the “surface”, the Sun has a 28g gravity field. Slingshot movements through that sort of gravity well should be serious stuff to say the least. Not just a bit of turbulence. For a better treatment of aerobraking around a Gas Giant, see the movie 2010, which is better though still not correct. The G forces involved should cause black-outs, red-outs, severe physiological stress, cardiac arrests … you name it. And that’s in trained and physically fit combat pilots – the somewhat less than fit civilian crew would fare worse.
The very same shield that can protect the ship against such hostile environments can’t protect the ship against a micrometeorite taking out the shuttle window.
Two crew members dialled a different world via the planet side Stargate in Episode 2. They then got stranded there. No one mourned them, no even mentioned them afterwards. Yet other crew members get mentioned all the time when they disappear for even a few moments. I guess these two were just very unpopular.
We’re told that Eli took over a month to solve a single equation set by the Ancients – and that’s in a form that Rush had simplified and altered for the video game format. Suddenly, two days later, he’s an expert on Ancient linguistics and can operate the unfamiliar computer systems in a matter of minutes.
Fixing one air reprocessing scrubber instantly cleans the air to the point where everyone can get up straight away. It seems it can process the entire atmospheric volume instantly rather than lower the CO2 level over time.
Telford, when possessing Young, can’t deal with his injuries and is shown in agony just moving. Young however just walks with a limp. What a tough guy, eh?
The people who got such bad sunburn on the planet surface just recover straight off. No peeling. No sore skin after a few hours. One moment the Lieutenant has bright red skin, under 24 hours later he’s back to normal.

I could go on. It’s an easy target. It does annoy me that vastly superior TV shows, with better character acting, more believable and internally consistent science, and less emotional melodrama, like Firefly, or the Sarah Connor Chronicles, or Threshold get cancelled, and plotless eye candy like SG:U gets the green light.

He’ll Blend In …

2009-10-27T15:23:00.001-07:00

He's got friends in every country, he speaks a dozen languages, he knows all the local customs, he'll blend in, he'll disappear, you'll never find him -

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

I stopped being so active on Facebook, Twitter, Skype, MSN, and a thousand and one other online services for a while over the summer.

I dropped off the grid for a while, kept a low profile and all that. Well, ok, I didn’t pay some bills which limited my connectivity, now thankfully resolved.

But, belatedly, I’m back to blogging. It is therapeutic, after all. I know few people read this … but nonetheless it’s nice to air my thoughts such as they are once in a while.

Do Andys Dream of Electric Razors?

2009-10-27T15:17:00.001-07:00

I am now the proud owner of a Remington Dual Track Rechargeable Rotary Shaver.

I like it so much, I bought the company.

Ok, so I didn’t buy the company, but it is a thing of beauty.

Not only am I saving God Knows how much on razors, but it actually just works. No fuss. No cuts. No soreness. No queuing for the bathroom.

Bliss.

I.D. Cards – as in “Incompetent Design” ….

2009-08-06T19:03:00.001-07:00

I read in a newspaper today that the Government ID cards released in Manchester can be forged, duplicated and changed in under 12 minutes with some simple technology and a little know-how.

Hardly the level of security they claim, is it?

The investigating reporter and his technical colleague even changed the data to read “I am a terrorist, Shoot me on sight”.

Not that this matters too much. Apparently very few readers for these cards have been made available, so no one can read them anyhow.

I knew the reported £5bn scheme was a waste of money ages ago. Now perhaps they will drop it entirely.

It’s a pointless, easily circumvented, and hardly reliable mechanism.

What with USB keys and laptops and CDs left on trains or otherwise mislaid, and now this fiasco, I’ve come to the conclusion that the sooner the Government admits that it has no f**king clue what it is doing, the better.

You cannot build a good system by just throwing money at it.

And you should hire the people who know how to break security, the hackers, the forgers, the people who can bypass this stuff, to design it.

The Lunatic Who Took Over The Asylum

2009-08-06T18:56:00.001-07:00

Stephen Timms, one of the architects of IR35, the worst tax regime ever imposed on small companies, has been appointed the Digital Britain “Tsar”.

This is a man who along with Dawn whatshername caused the freelancer and contractor industry in the UK to crash spectacularly in April 2000.

This is a man who presided over a tax that cost £1bn to implement and recovered £90m.

This is a man who has done more to sabotage the IT Industry in the UK than the Credit Crunch, the dot-com bubble bursting, and the Financial market collapse after 9/11 managed together.

I have no faith in him, whatsoever.

Hopefully, Labour are out next year. And when they go, Timms will go, too.

The Contractor and the Bee

2009-08-04T07:30:00.001-07:00

Sort of half-watched a documentary on Bees and their declining population last night.

And it occurred to me that IT contractors are like Bees.

We both extremely work hard for other peoples benefit, but sometimes for little reward. After all, what does the Bee get for making Honey for us? A pat on the back? A long service award from Tesco? Yeah, exactly.

We both seem to be in decline – for Contractors, that’s thanks to out-sourcing, the Credit Crunch and a host of other issues. Hard to compete with an outfit in India who will code for food, after all. Shame that most out-sourcing outfits I’ve encountered – not all – are about as good at coding as I am at speaking Ancient Etruscan.

We both spend inordinate amounts of time gathering – Bees get pollen, Contractors browse the web for the solutions to technical issues …

We both waggle dance. Ok, that’s not true. Bees waggle dance, Contractors propagate the latest viral email of the day or send out URLs to pointless but humorous sites.

But most of all, modern society can’t live without us. Bees pollinate crops – without them, we don’t eat. Contractors oil the machinery of our new technical age. Without them, we’re back in the 1950s.

So pity the poor Bumble-Coder …

iPhony, iPhony, they’ve got it all iPhony …

2009-07-31T06:06:00.001-07:00

I hear that the iPhone – you know, the phone that is seriously over popular based on its admittedly glossy look and feel but still doesn’t have half the capabilities of its apparently lesser rated rivals – can be hacked and disabled remotely by – wait for it – a single text message.

The mind boggles.

I don’t know the exact details, but I suspect it’s a trick with a weird UDH header, or a buffer overrun, or unsupported UTF characters, or some other wonderful way of screwing your iPhone up good and proper.

I just think it is amusing that Apple, with their supposed claim to a safer computing experience, have let this one through. A bad text message? Very, very poor. Known about it for over a month and no patch yet? Even worse.

The very least they could do is get the patch out now. Today.

And on the seventh day God created Football

2009-07-31T05:58:00.001-07:00

Ok, pet peeve.

Football, as far as I am aware, is a sport where people kick an inflated ball around on a muddy patch of grass with the intent of getting past the opposing players and between two wooden poles.

That’s all it is.

Yes, there is athletic ability and skill involved. Yes, it can be entertaining … if you are actually playing.

But that’s still just all it is.

Why then, do we have such over inflated amounts of cash spent on it, hours of endless television programming dedicated to it, players on vastly unrealistic salaries – you know, an average family home price per week etc – and acting like toddlers at their local nightclubs, WAGs with their cosmetic surgery, designer looks, bitch tantrums and “kiss-and-tell” stories, the whole shebang.

Because it is still just a game.

To me watching football is about as exciting as watching chess. And that’s the point – I like playing chess, but I can’t stand watching other people play it.

The final straw?

Tranmere football club appeared on eBay yesterday. For £10 million quid. Right up there with the plush toys and human organs.

Sure, I can see my Paypal account allowing me to do that. Not that I would ever part with ten pence let alone £10 million on anything connected to football (apart from maybe spending a couple of quid on a cheap football for a kick about where I am actually playing …)

Religion is no longer the opium of the people. Football is. Good thing I don’t like opiates.

They’re doing what to Who?

2009-07-23T16:28:00.001-07:00

I’ve seen the photos of Timothy Dalton in the Dr. Who Xmas special. Yes, he’s there, playing some Time Lord or other, in Gallifreyan costume too. Thought there weren’t any left? Wrong!

I’ve seen the photos of John Simms returning as the Master in the Dr. Who Xmas special, too. Didn’t see that one coming. He’ll knock four times. Drumming in the head. Duh-duh-duh-DUH. Sigh. May as well put it up in neon letters.

Somehow, none of the above actually makes me that keen on Dr. Who. Suspension of disbelief? Yeah, can do. Suspension of consistency? Well, not so much.

Dr. Who has always had consistency issues (look up End of Atlantis and Doctor Who a few times on Google and you’ll find that they did it more than once) and a hundred and one fan explanations (it’s all parallel universes and hand-waving timey-wimey) but in the end, Dr. Who suffers from things being ret-conned into oblivion.

Gallifrey is meant to be in its own time stream and Gallifrey is time locked. Therefore you can’t go into Gallifrey’s past. Likewise the entire Time War is time locked. Therefore you can’t undo the destruction of all the Time Lords. So, why is Dalton playing a new one? Are we to believe some survived? Or that you can now go back into Gallifrey’s past? No.

The Master got shot, didn’t regenerate. Sure, inevitable they’d bring him back – but Time Lords can and have died in the past. Besides the Master as a bad guy is boring. Bring back the Valeyard. Far more original.

In fact, forget Autons, Sontarans, Cybermen, Daleks and the Master entirely. Let’s have something DIFFERENT.

How about a special with the return of Omega?

Or perhaps a special with the War Lords?

Or perhaps the return of the Zygons?

Or best of all, the Black Guardian? Now there’s a candidate for a Universe shattering special, surely.

Because I for one am very very tired of seeing the same limited spectrum of old school bad guys. I want to see some less well known but still brilliant bad guys in Who. You know, the ones who never made the top ten.

I might even accept that the Rani survived the Time War. At least it wouldn’t be the same crowd over and over.

Incidentally, I’ve also seen the photos of the new Doctor. Young, but in a tweed jacket and a bow-tie.

Oh, please.

Every Doctor has worn a shirt, coat/jacket, tie, whatever. Smartly dressed. Even if a little bizarre.

Why can’t the new Doctor wear jeans and a t-shirt? Or something different, at least. Maybe even go a little punk, or gothic, or something. Just be the one who experimented with his wardrobe. The casually dressed Time Lord.

Planet of the Dead was good, if a little contrived in places. Didn’t like Michelle Ryan’s character at all particularly, way too Entrapment / Mission Impossible with a dash of Raffles for me. However, it was mostly original. So is the forthcoming Waters Of Mars, or so it seems.

But the Xmas special? More Time Lord – Master and probably (don’t ask me) Dalek or Cyberman stuff again. Yawn.

If the best Doctor Who can do is rehash the same limited array of villains for its specials, then that’s a bit sad.

Hopefully at the next writers meeting they will say “Ok guys, no Davros. No Daleks. No Master. No Gallifrey. No Time-Lords. No Cybermen. Yes Casually-Dressed. And some one go see if we still have some Zygon costumes in storage somewhere. And while we’re at it, let’s go back to four or six part story arcs with cliff hangers – after all, American audiences have now learned to cope with 24 … ”

I can live in hope.

iPhony

2009-07-23T16:00:00.001-07:00

Have you noticed the number of iPhone developers all of a sudden?

I wonder how many of them can actually code on an iPhone?

Think about it a moment.

When J2ME came out, an army of Java developers knew the language and moved straight into mobile development.

When Windows Mobile came out, an of army of VB and subsequently .NET developers knew the language and moved straight into mobile development.

When the iPhone came out, an army of Mac …. hang on, you’re telling me there were THAT many Mac developers? Seriously? You’re kidding, right?

Just a thought.

My Karma will run over your Dogma

2009-07-23T15:55:00.001-07:00

Hearing of Spinvox’s considerable troubles recently all I could think was that what goes around comes around. ‘Nuff said.

Sam Raimi to direct WoW Movie

2009-07-22T07:33:00.001-07:00

You heard it here first. Sam Raimi of Evil Dead fame is to direct the World of Warcraft movie.

Mixed feelings here. Not sure there should be a movie, but guess it’s inevitable. Not sure Raimi should direct either, but Spider Man is OK, so you never know.

Anyhow, it won’t be out for 18 months at least, so plenty of time for things to change.

Oh – and this :-)

2009-07-18T18:28:00.001-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8157368.stm

View of the lunar landing site from the LRO satellite.

Were we there then?

2009-07-18T17:27:00.001-07:00

Just a quick follow up – read this. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

It sums up why the Conspiracy Theorists who say Man did not go to the Moon are just plain wrong.

Enough said.

Lunar Blues

2009-07-18T17:20:00.001-07:00

It’s near enough the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon.

And yes, we did land on the moon, it’s not a conspiracy theory. I’ve heard all the arguments for the faked photos – which don’t actually stand up when you just think about them – and so forth. I’ve yet to hear anything which really disproves the moon landings, but I have seen and heard a lot which proves they happened.

So conspiracy theories aside, 40 years ago give or take a day or two, mankind walked on the moon. Then we went back a few times, the ratings dropped, America lost interest … and we never went back.

Now the Space Shuttle is about to become history in favour of what is basically just a 1970’s-style rocket.

Ok, there’s a credit crunch, a war on terror, no Cold War, a whole legion of reasons why things are different.

But we should not take backwards steps.

Go back to the Moon, permanently. Man it. Build a base. Hell, build one for each nationality. Whatever. Replace the Space Shuttle with another re-usable transport vehicle. Start actually going to Mars. Do something constructive, not retrospective.

This planet is dying – but we can do something about it. Solutions to energy production, resource shortages, climate science, and many other great matters of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries lie on our celestial doorstep. Want an example or few? Try these : Those hydrogen powered cars being touted as the next Big Thing and which will remove our dependence on fossil fuels use fuel cell components originally built for the space programme. Solar energy can be collected far more easily in orbit than down here. Helium-3, useful for fusion power, could be mined on the lunar surface. If it wasn’t for the satellites which now criss-cross the planet in myriad orbits, we wouldn’t even know about the Ozone Layer and Global Warming now. Even vaccines for Swine and Bird Flu are simpler to manufacture in microgravity, so I am led to believe.

Credit crunch or no, it’s time to seriously invest in Space. The risks are always going to be high. The cost is always going to be literally astronomical. But the pay-off, that is what might just save something of the World for our children and grandchildren.

Real Time vs. Bank Time.

2009-07-18T17:04:00.001-07:00

I was expecting a transfer from a client today. To be fair they did the transfer at 3:54am this morning.

However, it’s gone midnight and the transfer hasn’t reached my account.

Now, I simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND this.

I work with computers, you see. I understand secure communication protocols, encryption, databases, atomic transactions, robustness, scaling, redundancy, backups, cloud computing, the works.

So why, in this day and age, does it take so long for mere numbers to move from one customer account record to another? It should take seconds, if that.

What on Earth do banks use as computer systems? Do they still have punch cards and valves?

Because I can’t see why it takes upto THREE working days for money to move from A to B, in the same country, sometimes within the same bank.

It’s so strange, isn’t it? You can stream video from half the world away and watch someone on a webcam in Argentina, but you can’t move money from banks in the same street for days. It would be quicker to take the cash out at an ATM, pop it in the post, collect the post, and then pay cash in at the ATM of your own bank.

So can anyone tell me why it takes so long? Why is this not real time?

A Suspension of Disbelief Too Far

2009-07-18T16:56:00.001-07:00

I saw, with the aid of some electrickery, the sixth Harry Potter film today, the Half Blood Prince.

Now before I go any further, let’s make some things clear. I am not a fan of Harry Potter. Far from it. I have never read the books. I didn’t enjoy films 1-4 particularly much, and found 5 just about bearable, though mainly for the end sequence which at least had some sense of something actually happening at last. Yes, I’m that guy, I have kids who wanted to go and see the films, so that’s why I ended up going.

So being a hardened Harry Potter critic and nay-sayer, I wasn’t looking forward to the sixth film.

First time I wrote this blog I started listing all the numerous suspensions of disbelief – Flocks of innocent 17 year olds who don’t dabble in porn / beer / cigarettes / loud music / sex / drugs / radical politics / mobiles / hoodies … ; Kill curses which are only ever used for dramatic effect and never used in more mundane disagreements – wand crime just doesn’t occur to people it seems ; Bad guys who just suddenly stop attacking Harry and Co when they feel an emotive scene coming on ; The sudden disappearance of some plot devices in earlier films which would have resolved things better in this one – I could go on and on – but that’s too easy.

So I scrapped that.

One flaw remains, however.

This entire sorrowful saga could have been condensed down into one year. One term even. Harry finds out he’s a wizard, goes to Hogwarts. thwarts You-Know-Who, done deal.

Instead it has dragged on for seven books and now apparently eight films.

I find myself rooting for Voldemort now. The Nasally-Challenged One should just take out Harry and be done with it. Dark Lord 1, Boy Who Lived Didn’t. End.

After all, he would have got away with it before now if it wasn’t for those pesky, meddling kids.

The Gas Man Cometh ….

2009-07-16T03:31:00.001-07:00

Our regular gas inspection took place this morning.

However, the engineer came in, walked into our back room, took a deep breath, complained the dog smelled, and left.

Now Chester is not the nicest smelling dog, I’d agree. But he was outside, the floor is quite clean, and to be honest the back room smells more of the tumble dryer than anything else.

Why oh why do I suspect that the engineer just wanted any reason to skive off work?

Fonebank

2009-07-15T03:44:00.001-07:00

I’ve just packaged up my old mobile phones – the old test phones I don’t need anymore and so on – to send off to www.fonebank.com. Ten phones, and a total of £169 to me. Lovely jubbly.

Even my knackered M5000 was worth a few bob.

Still have 9 mobile phones left tho – three are currently in use as test phones, the rest are well, so obsolete even foneback turned them away …

Apocalypse : 1983

2009-07-11T16:50:00.001-07:00

Sally is watching a program on the events of 1983, and the fact that tensions escalated between Russia and the USA during the NATO “Able Archer” simulated European war exercise, almost resulting in a Third World War.

One event – highly reflective clouds looking like missile launches to Russian early warning stations – almost resulted in a retaliatory strike from the USSR.

One man trusted his intuition rather than the warnings, and because he did, we’re all here now.

We were seconds – not minutes – from WWIII.

That was just one event. There were others too. Reagan called the Soviets the “Evil Empire”. The USSR shot down an unresponsive and off-course Korean airliner by accident. Intelligence was misinterpreted. The American Embassy in Beirut was attacked. Grenada. And so the game of Chinese Whispers went on.

Scary thought. I would have been just thirteen years old.

Today we worry about terrorism, about small scale attacks. Yet, in 1983, the world could have ended, and would have done, had one man not doubted his instincts.

Puts it into perspective, really, doesn’t it?

Ten Years On

2009-07-05T08:42:00.001-07:00

Last night Sally and I went to the Hatfield Forum reunion, at the Horse and Groom pub in Old Hatfield.

Bloody good night … the weird thing was that no one had changed – well, not much - and conversations just naturally picked up where they left off a decade ago.

Weirder still, some people we hadn’t seen in years have lived just around the corner for ages, and we’ve never bumped into them.

It’s a decade since the Forum closed. They’ve even salted the earth there it seems. But the people, the essence of the place, there’s something the Council never demolished.

Resurrecting Ants

2009-07-01T12:41:00.001-07:00

My daughter, Autumn, just had me in tears of laughter. Without prompting, she said -

“I can resurrect Ants.”

I inquired further.

“Well, I squashed one yesterday, then I felt guilty and was a little bored, so I put it back together. Then it just got up and walked away.”

Slightly confused, amused and a little disturbed by the messianic powers implied by this act, I asked how she had put it back together.

“Well it didn’t stay together. When it crawled off it only had one leg …”

Don’t you just love kids?

Oompa Loompa

2009-06-28T04:51:00.001-07:00

Sally’s father Bob has, within the last hour, taken off en route to Kuala Lumpur. He’s already been once this year, this is his second trip in as many months.

More power to the man. He’s not been well, and the last few years haven’t been great for him really. So it’s nice to see him go off and enjoy himself.

Oh, and Oompa Loompa? Sally’s mum got her words confused. She said he was going to Oompa Loompa, not Kuala Lumpur. Bless.

The King Is Dead. Long Live The King’s Back Catalogue.

2009-06-26T11:22:00.001-07:00

It is immensely sad that Michael Jackson died. He was a great talent, that much is certain, though personally I never liked much he did after BAD.

He was a product of fame. He never lived a normal life. He was on the stage at five years old, and at 24 or so had the best selling album of all time. I think he was still a child of sorts mentally. He lived in a world removed from ours by layers of hangers on and behind a wall of money, so he just wasn’t the same as everyone else. He was certainly dogged by controversy, and if he was a monster, I wonder if he was made a monster. Not that that would excuse him, but it might explain him.

However, what makes me really sad is the media circus.

Within half an hour of his (at that time) unconfirmed death, the BBC rang his friend Uri Geller for his reaction. The man had only just learned that Michael Jackson may be dead and they were interviewing him on live TV. Whatever happened to giving people space to grieve? Respecting people’s feelings? And what reaction did the BBC expect to get out of him anyway? Shock? Grief? Well, that was unexpected, eh, Auntie Beeb?

Then, Twitter and many other sites – the Internet itself to a large extent actually – slowed down/crashed under the sheer wait of traffic as people tried to find out what was happening. The BBC presented 404 pages for video feeds. Facebook was paralysed and sluggish. TMZ, the site that originally posted that Jackson had died, was completely unreachable.

Just two examples of the kneejerk reactions to his death, and the chaos in his wake. I was playing Warcraft at the time, and even the trade channel was suddenly immersed in MJ-related comments, “news as it happened”, and the obligatory jokes.

You can bet that it will a while before things settle down. Echoes of this event will ripple on for decades, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, I’m sure that the ghouls will be out, buying/selling his back catalogue, memorabilia (wonder what the O2 ticket price on eBay is now – bet they’ve become collector’s items overnight), and so forth.

Just let the man go in peace. It’s over. Let people grieve, and let’s move on.

Packing JAR Files

2009-06-26T06:55:00.001-07:00

Some techniques to compress J2ME JAR files just a little bit more.

Repack the JAR file using KZIP before Signing the JAR. Shaves off an extra 3-5% of the JAR file size.

Compress PNG files using PNGOUT and PNGGauntlet. Can reduce file size by upto 50%. Very impressive results, and maintains the alpha channel too.

Put all your resource files into a single resource file, with a utility like BamFS, or a home rolled alternative depending on your needs. One large file compresses better than many small ones.

Stupid People

2009-06-25T09:17:00.001-07:00

I just got two calls from the same debt collection agency, about two minutes apart.

Both times I told them that I would re-instate my arrangement with them, just as soon as I am paid.

The conversation went like this -

Debt Collection Woman : “Mr. Brick, we sent you three options for settlement in the post. Did you receive those options?”

Me : “Yes.”

Debt Collection Woman : “Which option do you want to take up?”

Me : “None of them. I don’t have the funds to do any of the options right now”.

Debt Collection Woman : “I see. Can you make a payment for one of the options today?”

Me : “..er … I just told you I don’t have the funds to do any of the options right now. I am waiting to be paid.”

Debt Collection Woman : “Ok, so which option will you be taking up today?”

You get the idea. This conversation was repeated twice.

I don’t know who they employ to make these calls. Anyone who has an IQ less than their shoe size probably fits the bill. I would be delighted to report that this was one of those non-English speaking call centres but the woman who called both times (not sure it was the same one) was Scottish.

Not only did I have to answer the same questions over and over in one call – presumably because the caller was living in denial – but I also had to answer the same questions IN THE SECOND CALL moments later.

Are these people really that incompetent? Are they really that stupid? Does their script for the conversation not allow for any other answer, so they have to mindlessly repeat the same question until they get the answer they want so they can move on to the next one? Jesus.

What really annoys me about this is that you remember they sent a letter through to me? You know, the one that had options, in the plural there?

It had one option. The repayment plan I suggested to them.

Original people, aren’t they?

All Alone In Da House

2009-06-25T04:25:00.001-07:00

Just realised.

Brock and Autumn are at their respective Schools. Sally is at work. Perry is at her mum’s.

This is the first time in months I’ve been all alone in the house.

No wonder I’m actually getting stuff done.

I’m just 96 hours from Tulsa.

2009-06-25T04:12:00.001-07:00

In order to get some stuff over and done with I have elected to do a coding marathon this weekend.

Yes, I am going to sleep and cheat a little bit. I’m no spring chicken, and there will be some sleeping and eating involved. I don’t want a coronary, after all …

You can help by sending donuts, coffee, Pro-plus, Red Bull and the occasional word of encouragement via Twitter, or on this blog.

Seriously, its just I want to get something done, and this seems the best way to do it. It’s dragged on long enough in my humble opinion.

So, here goes nothing. Knowing me I will run out of steam way before I get to 16 hours, let alone 96. But we will see.

House Keeping

2009-06-25T04:07:00.001-07:00

I’ve just added Google Ads to this blog (well, I need cash for fags lol), added a new banner image and some gadgets at the bottom of the page, and removed moderation from comments.

:-)

#Follow Thursday … erm …

2009-06-25T02:36:00.001-07:00

Some excellent people to follow on Twitter.

@GreatDismal – William Gibson, he of Neuromancer fame, the man who did not coin the term cyberspace but made it known Internet wide. A true visionary.

@MitchBenn – A comedy genius, whose satirical songs never fail to make me laugh. Pirates of the Somali Main and Toddling Along are firm favourites, and as for IKEA …. Catch him on The Now Show on Radio 4 (repeated on Radio 7)

@pennjillete – One half of Penn and Teller, who should need no introduction. If they do, shame on you. Only Mr. Jillete could tweet in Finnish – and make the Finnish national press as a result …

@exeus – Yours truly ….

TweeetDeck, again

2009-06-25T02:28:00.001-07:00

Someone pointed out to me that TweetDeck is at 0.26.2. Now it doesn’t crash!

TweetDeck

2009-06-24T13:19:00.001-07:00

TweetDeck is a clever concept. Multiple columns tracking everything you could wish for on Twitter, with all sorts of features. Absolutely Brilliant.

However, it’s as stable as wet paper.

Every 10-15 minutes, it crashes. Don’t know why. It gets bloody frustrating, as I have the setting set for hiding previously read Tweets – so when I start it, it’s blank. (Undoing this setting seems to make it crash more often).

Hopefully the next release will be far more stable.

A Tale Of Two Ex-Clients

2009-06-24T05:09:00.001-07:00

Two client related stories from this morning.

The BAD : “PS” agreed in April to pay me for three days work, then used every contextual twist to get out of paying me, finally resulting in a heated email exchange as of this morning and no payment. Penny pinching (ahem).

The GOOD : “JB” paid me an extra 10% today, just because he’s an excellent guy. And, on top of that, going to send me some free funky stuff to help sort out my shoulder. Diamond Geezer.

All that in one morning. Just shows you how people can be so very, very, very different. Shame that the industry doesn’t have more JB’s and less PS’s to be honest.

The Old Mad Woman In The Attic

2009-06-23T03:44:00.001-07:00

For reasons I will not go into here, I do not speak to my mother anymore, or have anything to do with her. Suffice to say that she is not a very nice nor a very sane person, and that’s a considerable understatement.

Today, she will be 63 years old.

I don’t celebrate her birthday any more, far from it. I won’t be ringing her to wish her many happy returns or whatever. There will be no card, no gift, no party. Today will just be another ordinary day. After this blog, I won’t even allow myself to think about it any further. That way there be dragons.

I no longer seek reconciliation with her, either. I don’t want her back in my life. She burned that bridge so very long ago now.

All I want is for her to finally realise the horrendous consequences of her inhumane and frankly bizarre actions, and to understand the terrible and drastic effect that they have had on myself and also my partner Sally, and our children. I want her to accept that heavy burden of guilt and shame without caveat. I want her to tell the truth, to stand up and say “I did this, and it was wrong”.

It won’t change anything between us. It’s too late for that.

I just believe people should do the right thing.

It won’t happen. I won’t hold my breath. She hasn’t told the truth in 28 years or more, so I don’t see why she would start now. She inhabits a delusional world of her own making.

I’m just naive, I guess.

Livin’ on the Edge

2009-06-23T03:20:00.001-07:00

Yes, it’s an Aerosmith lyric. So? I liked them, still do. Saw them live at Wembley Arena and Donnington, back in the early 90s. Long time ago now, but it was cool.

Lyric sums it up though. I’m living on my nerves, hence my current migraine and lack of sleep, so I will keep this brief. It might not make much sense, so my sincere apologies, dear Reader.

Money is the root of all evils, as usual. In that I have none.

So, going to get my head sorted out, then going to go and make something happen. No matter how bad it gets, as my father used to say, there’s always a chance it could get better. Has to eventually, law of averages and all that. Then he would go on about the wheel of fortune, cyclic Karma, and other stuff that sometimes made me doubt his sanity. But I digress.

I’m a glass half full kind of person, or I try to be. But then, as my father also said, the glass doesn’t really matter. What matters is what’s in it, and who bought the round :-).

Tunguska

2009-06-22T12:32:00.001-07:00

Sally’s watching a documentary on the event in Tunguska, 1908.

It’s interesting stuff. I’ve been interested in it since I was a kid. Everything from comets to Aliens has been put forward, as usual for any unexplained events in the sky.

The popular scientific opinion is that a small stony asteroid hit the Earth at 07:17am local time on June 30th, 1908, leaving an impact crater in the form of Lake Cheko.

But it was over a hundred years ago, no eye witness really understood what they were seeing, and to be honest, it may remain a mystery for a long time yet.

Interval : Introducing the Guild.

2009-06-22T12:11:00.001-07:00

I play World of Warcraft, as I have mentioned before.

My character is a level 80 female Blood Elf mage, called Silya. You can learn all about Silya here. (Yes, a female character, you didn’t read that wrong. I made the choice because Male Blood Elves look like blonde rabbits. As for the name, it’s just “Tolkienesque” pseudo-Quenya and a play on Vilya, the Ring of Air.).

I’m not doing too bad. I’ve got a fair stack of achievements under my belt, I’ve been to Naxxramas both 10 man and 25 man versions, and I’ve downed Flame Leviathan in Ulduar. I’ve been slacking a little lately – I’ve still got loads to do for the Argent Coliseum for example – mainly due to Real Life time- and money- related issues.

However, what really makes Warcraft for me is not the game itself as such. It’s the people.

So let me introduce you to them. Together, they form a guild called the Ancientz.

Interesting stuff for J2ME development

2009-06-22T03:23:00.001-07:00

A collection of useful libraries and tools I’ve found while browsing and coding …

TWUIK – a user interface replacement for J2ME written using JSR-184 techniques for 3D style effects. Very pretty, and probably very expensive to license.

Bouncy Castle – encryption library for J2ME (and other Java platforms). Highly recommended, just for the name !

J2ME Android Bridge – get your J2ME applications to run on Android with minimal changes. This one is free ; there is another library at NetMite but that is commercially licensed.

JSR 298: Telematics API for JavaTM ME– support for vehicle management from J2ME. Open your sunroof, check your fuel consumption, the works. Not going to be a widespread API, but the mind boggles with the possibilities. KITT, anyone?

Not an API but Batik – Set of freeware SVG libraries and tools, including a funky font converter that can change TrueType and OpenType fonts to SVG. Run that through the SVG2SVGT converter in the Series 60 SDK from Nokia, and you have fully scalable TrueType fonts usable by JSR 226: Scalable 2D Vector Graphics API capable devices. Nice.

On the same topic – TTME is a TrueType API for reading and using TrueType fonts directly on a J2ME device.

JPEGDecoder for J2ME. Useful for reading/displaying camera images.

Father’s Day

2009-06-21T01:26:00.001-07:00

Happy Father’s day to all. It may be a Hallmark festival, but sometimes it’s nice to have a day dedicated to us Dads.

And while he may have been always “working late”, sometimes less than entirely honest, and bit of a geezer all round, for all that, Happy Father’s Day, Michael Sean Brick. May you rest in peace.

Family

2009-06-20T03:45:00.001-07:00

I was quite touched yesterday.

In the space of an hour, Sally’s father bought us a load of food shopping and Sarah, her sister, tidied the house.

It meant a hell of a lot to all of us here. Right now we’re in another cash-flow crisis, money-to-tight-to-mention, sort of situation. We didn’t however ask anyone to help out – we’re too proud, too embarrassed perhaps, and everyone has their own problems in any case – but they offered, and that was simply bloody wonderful.

Sincerely, thank you.

Oh, for the love of….

2009-06-18T03:33:00.001-07:00

Just had two old dears come round the front door who wanted a little chat about Him upstairs, that non-corporeal omnipotent bearded chap. I politely told them I wasn’t interested and off they went.

Now, I have strong feelings about religion. First and foremost, I dislike organised religion, especially if it is needlessly ritualistic or pompous. Secondly, I believe that religion is a personal and private matter, not a communal and public one.

The first belief comes from a quote from the Bible. “Where two or more are gathered in my name, there shall I also be.” In other words, you don’t need a priest, or a church, or anything else to commune with God. Forget your incense, and your Sunday morning attendance at the local temple. Throw away your hymn book. Put down those prayer beads. You don’t need props and chants to get your religion on.

The second belief comes from the simple historical fact that religion – especially hypocritical, indoctrinated, organised, ritualistic religion – is indirectly responsible for so many conflicts and so many acts of intolerance and cruelty. Keep it to yourself. Don’t convert anyone else, or consider them to be inferior because they don’t see things your True Way.

If you want answers, you seek them out.

So when two old dears come to the front door, representing an organised religion that is still ritualistic, and has been responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in human memory (Crusades? Witch Hunts? Sexual Repression and Abuse? ), my blood boils.

But rule #2 above preaches tolerance, so I was polite.

As for what I actually believe in? Well, I don’t know to be honest. I am still looking for answers. Agnostic, I believe the word (not The Word, of course) is. The jury still out. Maybe I’ll blog it later or something.

Whatever I do, it won’t be in His Name. If He does exist, He gave me free will, so bit of a design faux pas there.

Anyone know a good accountant?

2009-06-18T03:10:00.001-07:00

I need a UK-based (preferably in the South East/home counties, Hertfordshire ideal), accountant.

The ideal accountant will be very good at what they do, have a very good understanding of Tax as it pertains to individuals, Limited Companies, and IR35/56 and S660, and will be prepared to sort out my tax situation so I know where I stand.

If you are one, or you know one, get in touch. I need to sort this situation out for once and for all, so please don’t hesitate.

The Hour of the Wolf : Part 2

2009-06-18T03:01:00.001-07:00

11am, and I’ve had two hours sleep.

I’m getting too old to be up all night ;-).

The Hour of the Wolf

2009-06-17T19:56:00.001-07:00

It’s 3:47am as I write this. The sun is starting to rise, it’s twilight outside, the birds are singing their daily chorus, and finally everyone else in the house is asleep.

I was going to go to bed at midnight. But I wasn’t finished with coding, had some stuff to do, and that took some time.

Sally couldn’t sleep for a while, she’s got aches and pains. Takes her a while to get to sleep. Brock came in, apparently Perry had been bitten by a cat flea and was having trouble sleeping.

So, at 2am, I figured I’d go to bed. Then Autumn woke up, her eczema troubling her on her legs. I tried giving her an antihistamine, running her a cold bath, I’ve even stripped her bedding and tried to remove anything that could be aggravating her skin. Finally, an hour and three quarters later, she’s back in bed, and falling asleep. Just got my parenting badge I think.

So here I am, at the lowest point of the diurnal cycle, everyone else sound asleep, me wide awake.

In a couple of hours everyone will be up. No point in sleeping now, may as well stay awake. I might even go for a walk or something.

Still, at least the sunrise is beautiful.

3D User Interface components

2009-06-17T08:47:00.001-07:00

I recently started developing user interface components for J2ME using javax.microedition.m3g, the package for 3D rendering for mobile devices.

I’m not the first person to do this. I know that there are user interface libraries like TWUIK and others out there that do this already.

Still, it’s very effective, and a very powerful technique. Painting a component onto a 3D mesh allows a number of unique transition effects and animations. Not only that, but using Sprite 3D allows for a “Windowing” style approach to screen layout. I might post a sample component on this blog at some point soon.

Why “Exeus”?

2009-06-17T08:40:00.001-07:00

Ok, I get tired of explaining this one, so here goes.

People sometimes ask me where I got the word “exeus” from. I use it as a screen name on Twitter, it’s my company name (Exeus Development Limited), domain name/email address (andy at exeus dot com), and you’ll find it connected to me all over the place in one form or another. I also use the form “exeusdev”, for obvious reasons.

So, here’s the answer.

A long time ago (well, the summer of 1986 to be precise) I was on my summer holidays after my O levels and before entering the Sixth Form.

Back then, myself and some friends got together and played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Well, it was too hot for much else.**

Before we actually started, I needed a good name for my character. So stuck for inspiration, I pulled down an old Latin dictionary and had a look for interesting words.

I found “excelsus”, which is Latin for “elevated, lofty”. It was a bit of a mouthful though, so I shortened it to “exeus”.

Fast forward 11 years. In November 1997, long after the long carefree summer after my exams, I founded a company for me to work through as a contractor/freelancer. I needed a unique name, and Exeus was as far as I knew then, meaningless in most languages and unique to me. So I chose that.

It turned out that the word Exeus is not actually as meaningless as I thought. There was a George Exeus of the Unite pour la Democratisation des Entreprises Publiques (UDEP) in 1995/6 in Haiti, for example.

Still, that’s how it came to be. Now you know.

** I still play role-playing games. Nerdy they may be, but I enjoy them – though these days it’s mostly MMORPGs.

Hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to code I go

2009-06-13T09:45:00.001-07:00

I’ve been coding solidly for weeks now.

As a result I’ve been neglecting family and personal obligations and relationships, and some people have made the point that I’m always at a laptop screen doing work rather than doing anything else. Sally feels she’s doing everything on her own ; Autumn feels neglected, compounded by the fact she’s off sick ; I honestly don’t know what Brock thinks.

Still, they’re very right. I’ve been overdoing the work for a long while now. Weeks. Months. I honestly don’t know, it’s become a blur. Once upon a time I stopped working at when I came home … those days seem a lifetime ago. I was very different, back then. Now some nights I code away until the dawn chorus. Not good for me, not good for anyone else.

Hopefully just a few more days like this and then I can sit back and breathe a lot easier, and take more time for the important people in my life.

I’m not a number ….

2009-06-13T03:11:00.001-07:00

… I am a Facebook user name, apparently.

http://www.facebook.com/andy.brick

First World Poverty

2009-06-12T03:53:00.001-07:00

My net worth today.

£1.44, in my bank account.
457 Nectar points. That’s about £2.50 in real money.
About £2 in cash.

That’s it. A grand total of £6 or so. No savings, of course. Unpaid bills, for sure. Debts, don’t go there.

Bah. Might go and buy a lottery ticket. You never know.

Fair-Weather Friends

2009-06-12T02:43:00.001-07:00

Recently, I found a mate of mine on Facebook. He emigrated to the USA a while back, hadn’t spoken to him in ages, and so I thought I’d get in touch.

He never accepted, and blocked me on Twitter as well, for good measure.

I have no idea why. I can’t remember offending him, nor can I think of any real reason why he would. Guess he’s just not interested.

It then occurred to me that quite a few people, people I’ve know for a very long time, have dropped off the radar lately. Not everyone, but enough to be noticed. Admittedly some long term people have come back into my life, so there’s sort of a balance I guess.

I’m not going down the depressive route – people are as people do. Up to them in the final analysis.

People are fickle things, I suppose.

Grazing

2009-06-11T01:50:00.001-07:00

Got my first free box from www.graze.com this morning, and I’m not impressed. Three small pallets of fruit and nuts for what would have been £2.99. That’s ~ £1.00 per small pallet – I can get much more fruit / dried fruit / nuts etc at my local Morrisons. I’ve cancelled the order but agreed to participate in a focus group if they hold one. I still like the idea of graze, but they’ll need to do something to beat just popping out to a local suburban supermarket.

Avatars Anonymous.

2009-06-10T17:54:00.001-07:00

Hello, I’m Andy.

(Hello Andy, replies the motley crowd of gaming addicts in the room, with their tired eyes and shaking hands …)

I play both World of Warcraft, and Age of Conan, and I’m an addict.

(A round of applause goes round the room.)

Yeah, it’s probably nerdy and sad, but yes, I play both MMORPGs. It’s so relaxing to be honest, whether I am raiding the ancient Titan citadel of Ulduar in WoW or hitting the mean streets of serpent infested Khemi with my trusty blade in AoC.

In a way MMORPGs make up for the lack of good old table top role playing games, which I reckon I haven’t played in at least two years now. I never seem to get it together enough for that any more. Bah! Seems so long ago now, those halcyon days of the late eighties and early nineties when I refereed Traveller on a weekly basis then went down the White Horse after the game.

Actually, MMORPGs are actually social networks if you think about it. And yes, I’m sure that comparison has been made before, but there really is a similarity between Facebook and WoW.

Sadly, I can’t play online at the minute. I’ve got way too much work to do, with deadlines mere hours or days away, and in any case both my accounts are currently frozen as I haven’t paid for more game time.

It is like some sort of virtual cold turkey not to be playing online. I’m getting sweats, I swear. I miss my guilds. I’ve got a lot of good friends online, and I haven’t spoken to them in ages.

For the moment, I’ve got no choice ; but as soon as I can, I’ll be back in both Azeroth and Hyboria.

As I used to say about table top gaming – you can pry my dice from my cold dead hand …

Ridin’ the Unicode

2009-06-10T12:25:00.001-07:00

I’m still impressed with the elegance of the Unicode standard. It just works perfectly, and has done for years.

Why we have to continually convert back to ASCII or Windows 1252 or whatever is beyond me.

Tube Strike amusement

2009-06-10T02:52:00.001-07:00

I work from home mostly.

I used to commute to London daily, do the sardine thing on a train, and generally moan about all the things commuters moan about. Been there, done that, got caught in the bomb scare, got stranded by a strike.

Thing is, they are now moaning about today’s Tube Strike.

Central London is not vast. You can walk across in no time at all. Half an hour or so will get you from Kings Cross to the Planetarium, or from KX to Oxford Circus.

And guess what? They’ve recently discovered walking is good for you.

So strap on the iPod, take a deep breath, and walk to work.

Not just today.

Every day.

If everyone did that, rather than relying on the world’s oldest and least ventilated tube network, then the RMT would have something to moan about themselves.

Thing is, no one would care.

My own, personal credit crunch.

2009-06-10T02:43:00.001-07:00

The problem with money is that I never seem to earn enough, and when I do I’m no good at keeping it.

Today is another day when I’ve reached the bottom of the barrel, and am negotiating with clients to try to sort something out.

I worked out the other day that to put myself back on the straight and narrow I need something like £110K. That would clear all my debts and resolve a whole host of issues for me in one go.

£110K is, by today’s standards of trillion dollar bank deals, not that much. Some people spend that much just renovating a house, or buying a couple of Land Rovers. Jeez, some people wear that much in bling.

Therefore, I need a plan. Obviously no one is just going to turn up and give me the money. I need to “leverage” my skill set, or do something that will bring in the green.

I don’t want to go bankrupt. It’s a matter of pride I guess, more than anything else.

So I thought a bit more, and decided that the only person who can sort this mess out is me.

So I’ve set myself a target. In January, 2010, I will be 40 years old. I’ve decided that by that date, I will have that £110K. I don’t know how just yet, but that’s the target.

Wish me luck.

Finally, I get mashed up

2009-06-09T14:13:00.001-07:00

I’ve recently connected all my online presences together. So my Twitter account updates my Facebook, Windows Live, Skype and other status messages in one go for example, and my blog is repeated all over the place.

Considering I’ve been online since the early nineties, it’s taken me long enough to do it.

As part of this effort to keep my digital life in sync, I’ve restarted my blog, thanks in part to Windows Live Writer. Never liked typing a blog into a web page anyhow.

So here it is, my new first entry.

Just testing Windows Live Writer

2009-06-09T13:53:00.001-07:00

Just testing out Windows Live Writer.

Chrysalis

2007-08-21T08:50:00.001-07:00

I'm going through a bit of large scale rethink at the moment. Sort of a 13757 day overhaul of the mind. So some of my older blogs, which don't comply to the rules of the new regime have been edited away to nothing. So if you are wondering where they are, if anyone actually misses them, well, they're gone.

(and yes, 13,757 days old or thereabouts ..... scary ....)

Oidhche Bhealtaine

2007-05-02T05:16:00.000-07:00

It's just past the festival of Mayday - or Beltane as it should be called. No, I didn't celebrate by dancing naked around a bonfire. :-)

Beltane has a complex etymology, it's derived words meaning glowing embers, dying ashes, but also shining - the same root is used in the word Baltic - hence the Baltic Sea is the literally the Shining Sea. Cool, eh? It's a time of renewal, driving cattle to new pasture, spring agricultural stuff, the works, a festival of fertility, the opposite of Samhain (Hallowe'en), the festival of the dead.

Anyhow ... enough of that.

It's just enough to wish all and sundry a Happy Beltane ... there's probably a Hallmark card or something somewhere that says the same.

Cthia

2006-09-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

In my rather misspent youth, I dallied for a while with Star Trek and attended a convention once (and have memories of a guy dressed up in full Klingon regalia pounding on my hotel room door at God-Knows-What-O'Clock in the morning when I was severely hung over and demanding Klingon-style that I attended "Klingon Keep Fit" by the pool immediately - naturally I declined ...).

One of the plus points of Star Trek though, was the pseudo-religion / life style choice of cthia - Vulcan Logic.

Ok, ok, this will sound nutty and probably comes straight out of the "you should get out more" closet, but nonetheless, cthia works.

Next time you are in an emotive situation, dump the emotion, do the Spock thing, apply a little logic and it will be so much easier to deal with. Honestly.

Well, I think so.

Lie long, and prostrate.