Did you know about the concerted energy saving challenge put to the British public that took place between 6pm yesterday and 6pm today? You’re not alone apparently. There are a lot of big names supporting E-day but it would seem that it has been an epic fail. Energy consumption was actually up. Admittedly by only 0.1% but up all the same. Not the result that was hoped for I expect.
Monthly Archive for February, 2008
This year has already started to see the blurring of the edges between online Web 2.0 and traditional desktop applications. The traditional downside to this software as a service (SaaS) has been what to do when there is no connection to the Internet. There are various technologies now available from the big players (Adobe AIR, Google Gears, Microsoft Silverlight, Mozilla Prism and Sun with JavaFX). These all allow developers to keep your data in sync when you don’t have Internet access to their applications.
Another obstacle is changing attitudes to software. You will no longer own the software that you use but instead be charged either on a pay-as-you-go tariff or, more likely, on a monthly subscription basis.
There is also a gathering trend toward smaller, more portable computing devices with limited hard drive capacity like the Asus Eee PC. New solid state Flash drives offering a reasonable amount of storage are still expensive but these drives offer better battery performance and allow for smaller footprints.
Couple these new machines with a wireless connection, offline synchronisation and advancing online applications and you’re not a million miles away from the thin client model of computing in the 1970s. The major difference I can see between the aged dumb terminals and the new emerging way is a matter of the public perception of security and trust online. Throw in reliability (or lack thereof) issues, encryption bottlenecks and the economics of dealing with a serious amount of bandwidth into the mix and it’s clear than there is still a lot of progress to be made.
Earlier this week our electricity meter was replaced as it had reached the “maximum permitted age by law”. Out of curiosity I inquired as to just how old that was. 30 years was the answer. The new meter looks just like the old one and doesn’t seem to do anything more advanced like submitting automatic readings to the power company.
For the first time that I can remember I was mildly upset by the fact that I am older than something that is legally decrepit.
Giving blood is one of the few things that is totally altruistic these days and is it’s own reward (apart from a chocolate biscuit and cup of tea afterwards that is). Most people don’t do it and this annoys me. Fair enough if you have a genuine phobia of needles but if you try and tell me that you’re simply “just too busy” and you really can’t spare a maximum of two hours a year to maybe help save somebody’s life then I’m sorry, I don’t believe you.
This evening I wasn’t allowed to donate blood for the first time in the eight years that I’ve been giving blood regularly (at least three times a year since 2000). My iron level was 12.4 apparently, which is borderline acceptable but still too low to donate and a sample has now been sent off for further testing. The level is rightly set quite high for donors own safety. I’m now not allowed to donate for six months which I think is somewhat excessive.
I was given a leaflet on what foods I should be eating in order to raise my iron level and it basically just listed my diet: oily fish, eggs, pulses, brown rice, wholewheat pasta, wholegrain rice and green leafy vegetables. I also easily get my five portions of fruit and vegetables in each day too. I guess I’m just tired.
It was also recommended that I drink more red wine and Guinness which I plan to adhere to rigorously!
Yesterday Toshiba all but threw in the towel on the ultimately redundant next generation movie format battle between their own HD-DVD offering and rival Blu-ray from Sony. Shares in Toshiba went up by five per cent after these rumours. Sony shares rose by only one per cent.
Sure enough, Toshiba today confirmed that they will stop production of HD-DVDs.
Maybe I’m missing something again, but since when did losing become something that inspires confidence in a company? I don’t seem to remember the failing of any number of the bespoke formats (UMD for example) that Sony are so keen on having the same effect on their market value.
I’ve just this moment realised that Sony appear to have actually garnered widespread industry support for their own technology.
For me the winner has always been clear-cut: it may be more expensive but “Blu-ray” just sounds so much cooler. Well, that and the fact that the porn industry decided the winner a couple of years ago.
I was looking at a Flickr pool of geek tattoos last week when I saw the following equation:
I thought it was beautiful. Maths interests me greatly but I don’t ponder dyadic rationals over breakfast like some of my friends. I studied mathematics for GCSE, A-level and a further two years at university but none of it sufficiently equipped me to understand this. Four seemingly unrelated constants adding up to zero. Coincidence?
Apparently not. It was explained to me in the pub over the weekend by another friend who is far more mathematically adept than myself. I just about followed what was going on. It did however set me thinking about how things like this came to be.
Biblical creationism? I think we can safely discount that. I don’t mean to belittle any religion that many people hold dear but organised worship just isn’t for me. Buddhism has an appeal as a set of teachings with the exception of refraining from alcohol and not eating after midday. If I was pressed as to my religious position I would have to say that I was an agnostic with a very slight leaning to Deism.
Constants don’t evolve. They’re inherent to the World in which we live. I’m starting to think that saying that they “just are” and applying the weak anthropic principle seems like a bit of a dodge.
I’m going to have to try and stop thinking about this now otherwise I’m certain that I won’t get any sleep tonight.
I read about the secrets of a slim wallet on Lifehacker a while ago and realised that I could go a little further and stop carrying around several things when just one would suffice1. I’ll freely admit that the camera on the iPhone isn’t fantastic so it hasn’t totally replaced my Pentax.
Now, apart from my keys, I only have one thing to remember to take with me but at the same time, only one thing to lose.
Before: Sony Ericsson k800i, 2nd generation iPod behemoth with headphones and wired remote, wallet, Pentax Optio S4.
Now: iPhone, headphones with inline remote and Krussell case.
The Krussell case has a few slots for cards, in which I keep a business card, my gym card and debit card as these are the ones that I use the most often.
I haven’t included the various docks, cables and chargers in the comparison but taking these into consideration makes using just the single device even more of an appealing option. I do have a way to go before I reach the levels of Australia’s geekiest man.
1 Okay, so strictly speaking I still carry more than one item but everything is kept inside a single thing. Stop splitting hairs.
I was reminiscing with colleagues last week about how things have changed. I first made my foray onto the Internet in the early 1990s and had actually forgotten how things used to be. Like how you could tell that the East coast of the USA had woken up and gone online as website response times slowed over here in the UK. Actually, the act of messing around with your modem and going online itself is something that almost seems archaic now.
Ah, the halcyon times of the World Wide Web. Back in the good old days before eternal September. Before Flash, frames, <blink>, JavaScript and even centered text. Heck, you were happy if your browser stayed open for any length of time. Of course this is still an issue for some. Internet Explorer, I’m looking at you.
Kids today with their newfangled broadband, development frameworks, standards and CSS. They don’t know they’re born.
As an Englishman living in Scotland for the past 12 or so years I am starting to realise that we, as a nation, are not universally liked. In a sporting sense I put this down to a couple of things. Firstly is the English media and it’s inflated opinions of our national teams. Then there’s the history repeated ad nauseum. John Motson somehow managed to mention 1966 before a ball had even been kicked this evening and that has even started to annoy me.
The press also serves to goad the populous. While the hooligan element is thankfully mainly keeping away from the stadia these days, the English fans as a whole are still obnoxious, impatient and disrespectful. Contrast the booing of the Swiss national anthem by the fans with new England manager Fabio Capello applauding the Swiss team when they scored their goal to level the game at 1-1.
As for the game itself, it was always going to be off to a tentative start. The first half hour was especially poor and England struggled to pass the ball to each other which always makes the game more difficult. Wes Brown in particular was having a tough time of it. After the half-time team talk things settled down at 2-1 and England actually looked like a good side going into the last 20 minutes. Admittedly the game had opened up somewhat with the Swiss trying to chase an equaliser for the second time.
David Bentley was chosen ahead of David Beckham and just edged the man of the match for me ahead of actual winner Steven Gerrard who swapped flanks with Joe Cole to great effect. David “Calamity” James almost stayed true-to-form by gifting the opposition a goal by getting stuck so far out of position that even Bruce Grobbelaar would have questioned his judgement.
All-in-all, a promising start considering the team had only been together for a few days. Maybe it was down to the welcome new edict banning of wives and girlfriends, agents and mobile phones.
“For my birthday I got a humidifier and a dehumidifier. I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.”
- Steven Wright
I was out and about in Edinburgh this afternoon to blow away the cobwebs after an epic weekend. It’s fair to say that I wasn’t really paying attention and I just about walked into the huge guys of the French rugby team leaving their hotel on Princes Street on the way to Murrayfield for the 6 Nations match against Scotland. I then saw this item for sale in a shop window and thought I was still not thinking straight.