PixelJunk Monsters
I bought PixelJunk Monsters from the Playstation Network Store last night. It’s fabulous 🙂 Really addictive and lots of good fun. Reviews here and here. Time to build some towers…
February 2008
Obnoxious little weed!
Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden is being sanctioned by the Australian Cricket Board for calling India’s Harbhajan Singh an obnoxious little weed in a radio interview. He also said he would like to meet the Indian pace bowler Ishant Sharma in the boxing ring 🙂
I think this is class. It’s all part of the civilised war that is cricket. Underneath that nice facade it’s vicious. As it should be. I hope Hayden doesn’t get a ban. He’s a marvellous cricketer who is passionate about the game, as are Singh and Sharma. Just let them get on with it!
Inspiration matters
Garr Reynolds over at Presentation Zen has some excellent points to make on why inspiration matters.
(1) Never apologize for your enthusiasm, passion, or vision.
(2) Never apologize for being inspired by another human being.
(3) Seek out inspiration (don’t wait for it).
(4) Inspire others by sharing your talents and time.
(5) And no matter what: Don’t let the bozos grind you down, ever.
There are a few projects I’m working on that involve me trying to get people to change the way they do things. I’m treading a fine line between evangelising new technologies, solutions and products and trying not to come over as a zealot, at which point people turn off. The 5 points above provide a good framework for this process. Number 1 is certainly true. I believe passionately in the solutions I’m advocating and won’t apologise for that. I’ve found inspiration on many (too many?) fronts, so Number 3 is covered. Hopefully I’m progressing with number 4. Number 5 is for the times when you don’t think you are making progress. Well worth reading the whole post over at Presentation Zen. Check out Garr’s book as well.
Song of the Day: The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke) – Hawkwind
Marvellous! Listen to a snippet on iTMS.
New version of Motorstorm due by Christmas!!
I love Motorstorm. The Dot.Life BBC blog is reporting that there will be a new version by Christmas –
Motorstorm 2 is due out in time for Christmas and moves the action away from the desert locale of the original. Gamers will be able to race around a lush island environment, full of interactive vegetation.The game will feature four-player split-screen action, righting one of the obvious failings of the first game.The title is some months away from completion but the game’s engine looked rock solid and the graphics were as impressive as one would expect from one of the best-looking racing franchises.
Yeah!
Tip of the hat to PS3Blog.
What are the things you learned in school that you still use now?
I was watching the weather on BBC yesterday and it struck me that the one thing that I learned in secondary school (K12 for Americans) that I have used the most over the intervening 29 years is the ability to read pressure charts. I’ve probably used this weekly (at least) since learning it in geography class aged 15. Along with the names of the chemical elements, reading weather charts is the only thing that I still use. And I only use the former for naming servers and volumes!
Star Trek original series being remastered
Cool city. The original series of Star Trek is being cleaned up, and some modern ship CGI added, for a new syndication to TV channels. They are using the original prints from the cameras and converting to digital HD. The CGI will be for shots of the Enterprise orbiting planets etc. They are also recording a new digital version of the theme music. Looking forward to seeing the new versions. Star Trek TOS is excellent. Hopefully we’ll get a Blu-ray release in the future. More details and videos over at the Star Trek site. Pictures below of the new CGI Enterprise.
Song of the Day: Open Field – Taken By Trees
A marvellous instrumental track with a Japanese feel to it. From the wonderful album of the same name by Taken by Trees (aka Victoria Bergsman of Young Folks fame). Preview on iTMS.
Microsoft to embrace open standards
Announced today. Microsoft is saying it’ll play nice in the standards area and will provide open access to the API’s for several of it’s core product lines.
Assuming they mean it and follow through on what they are announcing, then this will be a good thing. Time will tell. Microsoft have a history of embrace and extend when it comes to industry standards. The extend part made them non-standard.
Ars Technica has more.
Blu-ray player
Now that the HD format war is over people might be looking for a HD player. I’d recommend the Sony PS3. I bought mine last April primarily to be a Blu-ray player, with a games console for free. The PS3 is priced very nicely at present, there are plenty of Blu-ray movies and some stunning games.
Song of the Day: Great King Rat – Queen
Pure genius. Listen to a snippet on iTMS. Then spend the 79p to get the full thing. You won’t regret it! A guitar extravaganza.
Two forthcoming books
These 2 books from Martin Rowson look like they’ll be good when they are published over the next few months:
1) The Dog Allusion: Pets, Gods and How to be Human
From the Amazon page:
As with dogs, so with gods – by and large, you should blame the owners.’ A particular trait, common to all human civilisations, is the worship of non-human entities with followings of devotees who claim that their reverence can transport them to transcendental heights of complete and unfettered love. Do I mean God? No – I mean Dog. Dogs and other pets we’ve been keeping and loving since we began walking on two feet. But why do we love God – and pets – so much when their capriciousness sometimes suggests that they don’t love us back? In this wise, witty and highly topical book, celebrated cartoonist and novelist Martin Rowson argues that rationally, the whole enterprise of religion is a monumental and faintly ridiculous waste of time and money. But then again, so is pet-keeping. What both do, however, is tell us a lot about who we are, which is perhaps a more important question than whether God exists and if so, if he is indeed great.
From the Amazon page:
Award-winning cartoonist Martin Rowson tells the story of Earth, from the Big Bang, the emergence of life, the death of the dinosaurs, the dawn of civilization, the invention of the wheel, the Trojan War, the Crucifixion, the Fall of Rome, the Black Death, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, World War One, Nazism, consumerism, the Cold War, 9/11 and beyond to the End of the World, in sixty-seven beautiful, savage, splendidly satirical images, all with only one word in the captions.
Thanks to the Richard Dawkins site for The Dog Allusion pointer.
MacBook Air
I got a MacBook Air. I had said I wouldn’t get one as it didn’t offer anything that my MacBook Pro didn’t have. However, several times over the last year when traipsing through an airport with the 17 inch MacBook Pro, in its Brenthaven case, pulling the shoulders out off me, I’ve thought about getting a lighter Mac. I’ve tried roller cases but didn’t like them. So I’ve been resigned to carrying the weight.
Last week I was away from home in Manchester. After the journey there, and the next day, carrying the MacBook Pro I had pains in my right shoulder. On Tuesday night I was in the Arndale Centre Apple Store and they had the MacBook Air’s on the table near the entrance. I’d seen them at MacWorld and knew they were thin and light. They felt really light when examining them in the store. Temptingly light. I dithered for a while, but in the end I bought one. I got the cheapest model with the 80GB hard drive, 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo and 2GB Ram. I’m going to use it as my travel computer when away from home. It’s going to be perfect for that. It is very light. I’ll be able to load it up with my Open University course books in PDF format and read those on it when away. That’ll also reduce the weight of the stuff I need to carry when travelling. The screen is very nice and reading PDFs on it will be good. I had been thinking about getting an iRex Iliad for reading PDFs. I’ll use the MacBook Air instead. As a bonus it’s colour which is better for the books in question, plus my subscription copies of Scientific American Digital are far better viewed on a colour screen.
I bought a small leather Tumi case for it in the duty free shop in Manchester airport on the way home.
Click pictures for larger view
Lost legs quest
A man in a wheelchair came hurtling round a corner.
“I was in surgery yesterday”, he said to a man looking in a shop window, “just trying to find my legs after the operation”.
“You don’t have any legs!” the window shopper observed.
“I know that. Aren’t you listening. They cut them off during the operation.” the man retorted testily. “Have you seen them?” he continued.
“No.”
The man looked disappointed. “Well if you do let me know”.
He hurried on down the corridor leaving an electric hum from the chair in his wake.
Vacuuming the cat…
“Where’s Bill?” he asked.
“Vacuuming the cat” she replied.
“What do you mean vacuuming the cat?”
“Like I said. He’s vaccuming the cat.
“What, with a hoover?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The cat came back covered in dust. Bill is using the hoover to clean it off.”
“Weird.”
“It happens a lot. We think the cat likes the feeling of being hoovered so he gets dusty on purpose.”
The Archbishop
The furore over the radio interview and speech given by the Archbishop of Canterbury last week are well documented in all media channels. I won’t reiterate them here. For what its worth I don’t think that the Archbishop’s use of Sharia as his example to illustrate his point was all that controversial. Rather it was the bigger point he was making that I take issue with. I haven’t read his speech, but reporting of it and synopses from trusted sources, seems to indicate that the Archbishop was saying that individuals religious beliefs or world view based on religious teaching should be a valid principle that is taken into account when Parliament is defining the scope of legislation and law. A recent example of what he seems to have been alluding to are the Roman Catholic adoption agencies who wanted to have the right not to place children with same sex couples.
It seems to me that the Archbishop is making a bigger play to get more influence for religion, of all types, back into the public policy arena. As such his speech is much more insidious than simply saying some part of Sharia is inevitable in the UK. He wants to roll back the gains we have made towards an enlightened, secular society in which everyone is the same under the law and is free from the tyranny of religious leaders.
He, and his fellow travellers, should be resisted with all the vigour we can muster. Joining the National Secular Society would be a good start. If you are reading this and are not a member then please consider joining. The more numbers the Society has the stronger its voice will be to resist the people who want to move our society backwards in time.
For the record: Anyone else can believe in whatever religion they like. As long as it doesn’t effect the choices I, or anyone else who doesn’t share their belief, want to make. Giving favour under law to any interest group, whether religious or not, is not the way to go. The argument that some groups have such favour now isn’t an argument for extending it to other groups, rather I’d say it highlights that it needs to be taken away from the ones that currently have such privilege.
Song of the Day: The Assumption – George Hrab
This is good. Nice use of QuickTime Player.
Tip of the hat to Bad Astronomy.
Don’t double dip!
The Seinfeld TV show had a bit about not double dipping. Here it is from YouTube:
Giggle. One of the best shows ever. It seems that this has inspired a study to see if double dipping is unhygienic. Read about it over at the Nature Journal blogs.
Mathematics
I’m not very good at mathematics. I don’t mean standard stuff such as adding, subtracting etc. No, I mean the more abstract stuff like trigonometry, algebra and, especially, calculus. In order to really understand the science behind the current models of the Universe (General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, String Theory) you need to be able to understand the math. I don’t and I need to rectify that. So I’m going to start taking a series of Open University mathematics courses later this year. The initial courses will be:
- Open mathematics
- Using mathematics
- Exploring mathematics
- Mathematical methods and models
- Mathematical modelling
After doing those I’ll decide whether to continue with pure mathematics courses or go down the physical sciences route.