Whatever happened to…
David Lee Roth? Spotted doing a bluegrass version of the Van Halen song Jump. It’s actually pretty good stuff!
Van Halen are reforming for a tour as well.
January 2007
Smokin’ Aces
Went to see Smokin’ Aces last night. Weird. Bizarre. Strange. Drivel. Funny. Violent. About 2 hours of mindless mishmash. Good for escapism. Some parts try to be profound but fail. Quote from the girl I was with about 10 minutes into the film:
Like watching a train wreck
:-)I didn’t care though as I was in very contented mode after an truly excellent dry roasted chicken with korma sauce and rice at the Indian Ocean Restaurant in Belfast’s Odyssey Complex.
And off we go again…
The first mailing for one of the OU science courses I’m taking this year was delivered yesterday. S343 – Inorganic Chemistry. It covers the chemistry of the transition elements. Started reading it today. Happy days. I love chemistry 🙂
WWDC 2007 – June 10th to 15th??
UPDATE: AAUC have removed the entry referenced below from their June 2007 calendar.
Apple WWDC was very late in the year in 2006. August in fact. Hopefully this years will be earlier. Just seen that the Australian Apple University Consortium have an event calendar that has WWDC 2007 as running from Sunday June 10th to Friday June 15th 2007. They even have a deadline for their members to take advantage of a special rate for the San Francisco Courtyard Marriott hotel.
Nothing in the Moscone Center event calendar for those dates yet. But that’s not unusual. I hope the AUC are right as June would suit me. Hopefully Apple will confirm the dates soon so I can get flights and hotel booked. Yeah. Summer in San Francisco.
Bacon butties, chicken and chips…
Still recovering from gum work. So eating a lot of Weetabix and Soup. I am so looking forward to a bacon butty or a big plate of chicken and chips when my mouth heals. Lightly toasted bread, buttered hot, very crispy streaky bacon, thinly sliced tomatoes, a big mug of piping hot tea…
Bliss city 🙂
New build of YAPT posted
Be a while since I’ve done anything on YAPT. Just posted a new build. See the YAPT page. Here is a screen shot from the latest version:
Click Picture for larger view
Titanic quarter redevelopment
There is an ongoing programme to redevelop the docks area of Belfast. A plan has just been submitted to redevelop the Titanic Area where the infamous Titanic was built. I’ve always wanted a house by the sea. But I also like city living. Getting an apartment in the Titanic area with a view over Belfast Lough and Belfast City might be nice. I’ll have to keep and eye on this new development.
To be Plutoed…
The American Dialect Society have chosen plutoed as the word of the year. It means to devalue or demote someone or something. Heh! I still agree Pluto is not a planet!
‘Twas the night before Macworld…
. . .when all through the house not a creature was stirring!
I’m really looking forward to the new toys and software that will be released over the next few days. I hope there is a iPod phone. I hope it works with the Nike+ shoe thingy. I really hope said iPod phone isn’t a lemon!
The ModBook should be interesting. If it can do screen rotation and doesn’t add too much to the price of a basic MacBook it might be a runner for me. The battery will need to be readily accessible to allow an easy sleep->battery change->wake from hibernation cycle.
Just a pity we’re not all in SF to see the stuff in the flesh. Still WWDC to come later in the year. Hopefully earlier this year than last. Anyone else planning to go? I’m making it my summer holiday like a sad git!
Ouch!
I recently (2005 to 2006) had some orthodontic work done to straighten my upper Social Six teeth. The social six are the visible incisors and canines in the upper jaw. I got the straightening done via lingual orthodontics where the braces are placed on the back of the teeth and can’t be seen. This worked perfectly and the teeth are now okay. I did have to get my normal dentist to remove some discoloured enamel and do some reconstruction. That was all done.
In the last year I’ve noticed some gum line recession on my upper teeth. This can happen after orthodontics. My dentist remarked about it at my last check-up and referred me to a periodontist. He recommended a gingival gum graft. In this small sections of tissue are removed from the roof of the mouth and palette and are sewn into the gingival tissue to reconstruct the gum tissue. I had it done this morning. It took about 2 hours. Ouch! It’s as gruesome as it sounds. They cut your gums and then harvest tissue from your palette and sew it into the gums. A tad sore 🙂 Much swelling and some blood! On antibiotics and pain killers.
it’ll be worth it as it’ll mean the teeth are protected from root infection. No pain no gain as they say. I was meant to be going to London on Wednesday for a work related session at BETT in relation to the new job I’m starting in a few weeks. I’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow but I can’t see that I’ll be okay to go. Not a pretty sight when somebody smiles at you and the teeth are all bloody.
BTW: If you are in Ireland and want contact details for an excellent orthodontist who treats adults with lingual (invisible) braces drop me an email or post a comment.
New year fitness
I’m not one for new year resolutions. The fact that the Earth has made another orbit of the Sun doesn’t seem like a reason to make promises that’ll get broken. If you want to do something then just do it irrespective of the date! Having said that it is time for me to get back to doing some exercise. So I’ve zeroed the exercise totals in the sidebar on the right and will start from scratch and record the totals for 2007. I want to get fit and play cricket again this year. For the record the totals before I reset them were:
The total number of miles covered in the fitness drive since 20th July 2006 is:
Miles walked: 23.95
Miles cycled: 107.02
Calories used: 6887
Update: Just did 2.79 miles around the grounds of Stormont.
Private space flights
There are several private organisations working towards the development of non-governmental space vehicles. See this video of a TEDtalk by Burt Rutan on his efforts with SpaceShipOne. Rutan is now working with Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson to offer private sub-orbital flights. They are also going to build a space port called Spaceport America in New Mexico. Initial flights will go (maybe in 2008) from the Rutan site in the Mojave Desert in California.
Another private venture that had a test flight recently is the Blue Origin group that is funded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon. There are videos of the test flight of their Goddard VTOL craft at the Blue Origin site. This is a prototype of a design called New Shepard thay want to fly sub-orbitally. Whilst it only takes off and rises a few hundred feet then lands safely, it’s a good initial flight.
I’ve been quite sceptical in the past about private space ventures. I’ve argued that it takes the resources of organisations like NASA, RFSA, ESA, JAXA, CNSA or ISRO to fund space programmes. Indeed I’ve argued that it might be better if they joined up and pooled resources.
I think I’ve changed my mind. For the big projects like Mars missions the big agencies are best placed to do them at present. But the smaller private ventures into sub-orbital space could be the start of a bootstrap process that leads to a commercialisation of space flight. This could lead to orbital and extra-orbital flights in time. If there is profit to be made then it’ll get done. It’s only a matter of time. So I now think there is room for both governmental space flight and private space flight.
I find this very exciting. Maybe one day we’ll get to a situation like that depicted in Elite where people can buy their own space craft and make a living wheeling and dealing amongst the asteroids, planets and, ultimately, the stars. For a modern port of this game get Oolite.
The Edge question 2007 – What are you Optimistic About? Why?
Each year The Edge asks prominent thinkers a simple question. This years question was What are you Optimistic about? Why? The responses are up.
I’ll have to have a think and decide what I’m optimistic about. I’ll post it in the comments.
Update: I’ve posted my optimistic predictions for 2007 in the comments.
Imagine – Queen & Paul Rodgers
There is an excellent version of John Lennon’s Imagine performed by Queen and Paul Rodgers at their Hyde Park gig. Why is this entry filed in the Music and the Atheism categories? Roger Taylor’s reaction to the no religion too… line. Apparently in the USA that line is often changed to read as one religion or even taken out altogether.
Roger has form on dislike of religion. His song called The Key (which could be one of my Desert Island Discs) contains the lyric:
Well you can search the whole wide planet
Down to viruses and germs
A sensible religion
Is just a contradiction in terms