Monthly Archives: August 2007

Circling feet

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Back to the gym today after several weeks absence.
60 minutes on the elliptical trainer, 130bpm non-stop music.
It was a breeze. Amazingly easy. So easy I’ll do it again tomorrow.
The problem I’ve had before with returning is always weights. Having to drop a couple of blocks, building back up and trying not to hurt in the process. I’m thinking it’ll take a couple of weeks of going every other day at least.

I’ve said it before but it is worth repeating every time: Podrunner is what you need at a gym.

Reinstalling

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I was going to reinstall XP today having assembled what I believe are all the parts – key, drivers (missing the AMD64 one right now but haven’t really looked for that yet), backed up files but I thought a day or two delay would be good. I just know that as soon as I agree to the reinstall that I will have that lightbulb moment and recall something I should have kept. So slow could be good.
I recommend running the Belarc Advisor first too.

And once that’s done it’s games. music and images only.

As for why install, I want to tune it up from a fresh start. Use one of BV’s guides and go to a minimal setting for services. I could install Ubuntu – but as games don’t run as well and as the image management I want is not there – I won’t.

WordPress Meetup. Matt. London. October.

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There is a conference in London called The Future of Web Apps. It takes place October 3rd – 5th. There are lots of speakers and Matt is one. So, seeing as he’s here, want to meet up?

The venue will be Excel London. They have bars we can use, their site lists travel links and if there are others at the conference they would be close by. Date will be October 4th, maybe October 5th too.

Interested?

And if you will be there, or are pretty sure, leave a comment so I know if to organise tshirts and if so how many.

(In response to an email, the cost is just getting there. And any drinks. Entry to the conference isn’t included or required. We’ll meet at a bar outside the conference but in the same building).

More google nonsense.

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Today’s search engines draw the most relevant information to our attention…

No they don’t. They present what they think is relevant not what is the most relevant. That is a significant difference.

and as more data become available online, the importance of search engines will only increase.

Possibly. People may well start to shun them in favour of more local sources and ‘word of mouth’. Bigger is not always better.

In the future, people around the world will likely look for new ways to identify the authenticity of online information sources.

But above you just said search engines will be more more important? Isn’t the job of a search engine to identify authentic sources?

The man who said the above? Vint Cerf. He works for Google. So his answers can’t really be seen as independent can they?

Top quote: That includes the ads that Google are not putting on Youtube? Relevant?

Bottom quote: Google already vets results, already exclude sites and already instantly promote sites. So they would already say their results are as good as they can currently get. Maybe we’ll have http://auth.google.com where we can check a site owner’s web browsing history (so that’s what they do with images from Perfect10), his Checkout record, his newsgroup posting behaviour. Because when he says people will be looking, what he means is Google is working on it right now.. and we all trust Google don’t we? I’m sure people in China trust their results.

That guy may well be important in the history of the internet, but right now he’s Google to the core. Given he’s an employee of the evil-free company should he be? Sure he should chant the mantra but the above is just a bit too far.

And this is amusing:

As an example: it is already a challenge to watch videos posted on the BBC website in 1997.

Imagine trying to watch the same video in 100 years. Or in one thousand years.

Google will be fixing global warming and the widely agreed time that oil will become scarce in 2050 then?

The latest measurements confirm that the world’s oil and natural gas supplies are running out too fast. At some time between 2010 and 2020 the world’s supply of oil and gas will fall below the level required to meet international demand.

The US government is aware that we are about to endure a disastrous international energy shortage. According to Dr James McKenzie, a senior member of the climate change programme at the World Resources Institute in Washington, USA: “That’s why we went to war in Iraq.” The Insider

A thousand years? I don’t think so.

Search engine propaganda.

How to find a game you lost

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You buy another one.

Since we got back I’ve been searching for the Dreamfall game. I searched everywhere but the girl’s rooms, even the garage. I searched more than once. I searched over days. No joy. I asked the girl’s – not seen. So I buy the game again – and D found the original. (This is despite me previously saying “Have you seen it?” “No.” and yet she then says after finding it “That’s where I last saw it” which was mere inches from it’s hiding place.) So I’m due a refund – luckily I hadn’t opened the game cellophane.
So I’ll check metacritic for good reviews before I go. A good PS2 game would be nice …

Losing the Zen

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A couple of months ago I told J that my Zen Micro wouldn’t hold all the music I wanted. So I bought a Zen Vision M.
That same player now has almost 3000 tracks in it, including Now 1-63, Robbie Williams, Sugababes, Kelly Clarkson and other equally wondrous sound creations. It has space for a whole heap more. This means it’s not mine any more….
This morning J asked if there was a way to have a HD but no computer that could play the music. Like a HD stereo system. There probably is a way but I couldn’t find a cheap way. But I did have a spare speaker system for a computer and I did have the Zen. So now she has a device she can use, a device that has good screen contrast and with controls that aren’t too bad for her and a device that can go anywhere she does such as hospital appointments. She’s happy.

And I have an excuse for another gadget :)

Jack Straw – in need of a clue

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The “continuing problem” of gang violence is due to the absence of fathers in black communities, Justice Secretary Jack Straw says. BBC

He was responding to US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson who said inner city violence was an economic problem.

“It’s a cultural problem. It’s the absence of fathers who are actively involved in parenting. [said Jack Straw]

“He said: “The Army is a very good career for many black and Asian people”

So.. Jack Straw says that if the fathers of black boys stayed at home then we’d have no gangs. That alone is – for me – racist.

But it doesn’t cure the BNP, other nasty gangs, thefootball gangs – or would some paternal love make all that go away too?

Jack Straw is a clueless idiot.

Does OS X decay?

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There is this fabled myth that XP needs reinstalling every so often and depending which OS zealot you are talking to you will get a different reason.

Right now OS X is getting slower at everything. Opening apps, running apps, bringing up windows. It’s gone all treacle-like. Yes I have done the permissions stuff, maintenance scripts etc etc. So is it decayed? Do I need to do a fresh install? If so, what genius reason covers this and not Windows?

Edit: And when I have to do this – because all the mac sites declare this is needed but still scoff at Windows – then I’ll need to reinstall Windows in Parallels. Again. At some point that will say a flat No so I’ll have no way of running Windows because OS X needed a reinstall. How’s that then?

A reason to buy/use a PC

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I want to play music and I don’t want to use iTunes.

Windows:
Right-click folder, open in music player. It doesn’t give a damn what’s in it, it doesn’t care if it’s never seen it before, it doesn’t want to tag / sort / organise / move or otherwise screw with it. It just plays.

Mac.
……….

So that’s that then.
Time to move things around.

Update:
The PC is now back where it was. I have the PC for music, for video, for games. The Mac can’t cut it there at all. It needs some sorting out as any ‘family’ machine would, and it needs 3 USB sockets replacing (no need to send it anywhere for that unlike anything Apple make).

Maybe I should have fired up Parallels and Ubuntu …