Ian Robinson’s Soapbox

Sony have added a short stories category to the eBook Store. They have over 1000 stories in Sci-Fi, Horror, Mystery, Thriller and others. Cheap as well, from $0.50 up to a few dollars.

Just watched Match Point on BBC 2. This really is a wonderful film. I’ve written about it before. One of my favourite films of all time I think. I have it on DVD but one of my mates has it on loan at present. I’ll have to get it back. Hey MB, if you’re reading [...]

All the news outlets are full of stuff about the French bank trader, Jerome Kerviel. The French police are looking for him in relation to fraud. What I don’t understand is how he is supposed to have been fraudulent? The reports say he didn’t get any of the £3.5 Billion he lost on the markets [...]

I’ve been using a Sony Reader since last June. It’s an excellent device for reading fiction. I got the latest model (PRS-505) when in San Francisco recently. This has a slightly modified form factor that improves on the PRS-500. Plus it has a slightly better screen. One nice thing the the PRS-505 does that the [...]

i got the new car this morning. I like it. Very shiny. love the IMA hybrid engine, and cream leather interior. Only 44 miles on it so far (I’m on holiday). Pictures below. Click them for larger views.   Click pictures for larger view  

I collect my new Honda Civic Hybrid today. At 11:00. Can’t wait

I got back from San Francisco on Monday afternoon after Macworld last week. The weather was a bit of a shock! I saw lots of flooded fields and rivers on the approach into Heathrow. The weather in San Francisco was very good. It was sunny for the whole time myself and 2 others were there. [...]

New Kate Bush song! Lyra from the The Golden Compass soundtrack. UPDATE: I listened to a lot of Kate Bush songs on the flight back from San Francisco last week. 79 tracks in total

A previous post contained some pictures of frozen northern Canada. These were taken in the northern hemispheres summer. I flew the same route this weekend in winter time. The GPS system in the flight entertainment system is wonderful for tracking the flights progress. I had a look out the windows at the back of the [...]

I picked up a set of Sennheiser PXC 450 NoiseGard headphones a few months ago in East Midlands airport. I’d been looking for a set of comfortable external headphones that I could use on longer flights. I finally got to try them out in anger on a flight to San Francisco on Friday. They are [...]

Warner have announced that they will go Blu-ray exclusive for High Definition DVD from May 2008. This is good and significant news. Warner have been releasing HD content on both of the rival formats, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, up to now. As such they are one of the main content vendors releasing movies on HD-DVD. Now [...]

There is a new audiobook version of Frank Herbert’s fabulous Dune available. I’ve listened to the first 3 hours of the whole 21 hour epic. It’s truly wonderful. Narrated by Simon Vance with a supporting cast providing some of the characters spoken parts. As such it sits somewhere between a narration and a full dramatisation. [...]

So there goes another year So what does that actually mean? The Bad Astronomer tells all. Happy 2008 to everyone!