Research into climate change seems to be a shoo-in for funding these days. However that all studying and analysis sounds to be a bit too much like hard work for my liking. I propose to just circumvent this by liberal use of the word “quantum” which nobody really understands but nobody likes to admit to as they are afraid of appearing stupid. I could also introduce the occasional reference to string theory to cement my funding for next year.
Now that it’s finally getting cold in Edinburgh I propose to study the effects of sudden relocation to warmers climes on the human body (specifically mine).
In the early 80s pre-announcing details and price points of your new product could prove to be disastrous. Especially so when there was a delay in releasing said new product. Everybody knows that this is what happened to Adam Osborne (and as usual, everybody appears to be wrong) but at least the saying has stuck around.
In the world of software — in particular operating systems — the effect seems to be harder to gauge. Apple’s announcement and iPhone induced delay of Leopard (OS X 10.5) didn’t appear to dent their financial results. On the flip side, developers of third-party software are likely to have suffered. I know that I have personally held off purchasing several applications while waiting to see how Leopard addresses the situations in which they have proven to be valuable while using Tiger (OS X 10.4). In particular, the brilliantly useful utility Hazel and Power Manager.
I noticed earlier on that this October is one year since I started sporadically blogging. I thought I’d try and mess around with the monthly archive code to try and tidy the navigation up a little. I’d also have a peek under the hood to try and see if I could work it into my first WordPress plugin.
While browsing around investigating the finer details of plugin and theme development, I came across the pimping K2 theme which is now in place. Pretty much an upgrade to the classic Kubrick theme with styling abilities, nicer code and the Fam Fam Silk icon set.
My personal tweaks to the scheme will be coming along in the not so distant future along with a WordPress 2.3 upgrade and probably with a new style to boot.
“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.”
Kenny Rogers, The Gambler
This is the song that is being played by the England Rugby team before their World Cup games for inspiration. Appropriate really seeing as though they were quoted at 150-1 to retain their title before the tournament kicked off and after a 36-0 mauling at the hands of South Africa those odds looked to be about right.
I don’t bet often, usually limiting myself to a “flutter on the Grand National” once a year and it has to be said that I don’t do too bad. The only time that I’ve not walked away with at least £150 from the bookies was the year that I actually went to the race.
Now I’d like to think that a bit of patriotism would have won over my head if I saw the odds against England becoming the first team to defend the Rugby World Cup trophy. I may have stuck a couple of pounds at most on them each way. I certainly wouldn’t stick more than that on a horse at those odds. Still, hindsight is always 20-20 and I guess that’s why it’s called gambling.
Besides, I’ve had this feeling throughout the tournament that South Africa were going to be World champions. I hope I’m wrong. If not and I have predicted the score correctly then at least I’ll get free hair cuts for a year from my South African hair dresser!
Last night I went along to a tutored whisky tasting with Alex and Jane from the Spencerfield Spirit Company. The products we sampled were the Pig’s Nose and Sheep Dip whiskies with chocolate, Christmas cake and some hot and cold smoked salmon and mussels provided by Loch Fyne. Alex gave a talk about the history of the brands and the processes involved in the production. We also received an insight about wood finishing aspects which was something new for me.
Things have changed somewhat from the in the early 80’s when Sheep Dip was the biggest selling whisky in Harrods, through a succession of takeovers to become an orphaned brand until it was bought by the Spencerfield Spirit Company a few years ago. Unable to compete with the advertising spend of multi-national drinks companies like Diageo they are experimenting with the power of Web 2.0 and social networks.
And I still made it to the Edinburgh Coffee Morning in Centotre for the first time in months this morning.
I recently found out a few things about the local PFI hospital and quite frankly couldn’t believe what I being told. Now the entire private finance initiative hasn’t been without controvesy. A quick Google search currently demonstrates this quite well as there are very few positive results listed.
What I have most trouble in getting my head around is the whole contracting culture involved. Volunteers couldn’t redecorate family rooms for free and ease the strain on the budget. No, they’d cost £400 each for a coat of paint. To change a light bulb? That would be £75. You need a patient taking for X-rays? A porter will set you back £15 — and the same again to bring the patient back to you.
The word that was used in the conversation to describe what has happened to the NHS over the past ten years was “decimated”. Too many managers and not enough nurses.
We use remote .ics files in the office for our calendering with Apple iCal and Thunderbird with the Lightning extension. The files have got to be pretty unwieldy as some of them date back to late 2004. Thunderbird in particular was becoming so slow and non-responsive as to be bordering on being barely usable.
I knocked together this Perl script which is run via cron at the start of each month to archive old calendar files and remove events older than one month to try and keep file sizes more manageable.
There’s only a few weeks to the release of the iPhone to the UK market but after several months of availability in the USA there’s still no sign of a proper SDK for third party developers to build applications for the iPhone. Yes there’s Safari and web-based apps but can these access the whole system — like camera or address book for example?
Apple may have their public reasons for not allowing native apps and others have their view but I’m starting to wonder if it may be not a little bit of snobbery on Apple’s part. Think back a couple of months to Facebook’s announcement of third party applications. Despite the initial excitement no application has blown anyone away. Pirates, Zombies, Vampires. Well whoop-de-doo. I can’t help but think that the Steve would go bat-shit crazy if anything like this was to pollute the iPhone.
What does the iPhone really lack on the software front? Obviously different people would like different things but I’m sure not going to miss the extraneous crap that vendors like Sony Ericsson insist on giving you. Kind of analgous to the pre-loaded software on a new Dell.
I can see an official Apple iPhone SDK being released at some point in the future — but not quite yet. Let the initial giddiness subside and then announce some kind of approval process for third party applications, somewhere along the lines of how it works for the Sidekick.
I spent the afternoon watching the Hearts vs. Falkirk match on Saturday (while nervously keeping an eye on the Australia vs. England Rugby World Cup quarter-final — third victory from three matches I think, which means we get to keep them or something).
After a couple of pints debating the offside decisions which led to the late surge from Falkirk, I made my way down to the Grassmarket to meet some friends and catch the Edinburgh urban downhill night finals which were a part of the 2007 Fat Face Night Series. Judging by the turnout I wouldn’t be surprised if this was repeated again next year.
I was amazed by just how quickly the top guys were flying down the course. It was very exciting to watch but I think only because of the great view we had. We were so close you could feel the breeze from the riders passing by you. It could have been a bit tricky to catch anything than the occasional blur if you were elsewhere. Head on over to Flickr or check out my friend’s shots for some photos.
So David Cameron (the leader of the opposition) spoke for an hour without autocue and just “some notes” and I’m supposed to be impressed? I’m sorry, but BFD. Thousands of people do exactly the same every day as part of their job. If this is all that it takes to be considered for the post of Prime Minister then I’m sure the Conservatives could do a lot better.