Nick's Blog
iBlog
20/11/2007 @ 10:12
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I'm convinced that DVDs are a retrograde step from the video recorder.
DVDs: Switch on, push eject, load disk, wait for menu whilst you watch endless "This is your DVD player and this is a DVD which is copyrighted to Intercontinental Ballistic enterprises" footage, then select the damn movie from a menu that gives me 2 disks and endless features, then push play, then sit through unwanted adverts and an anti-DVD pirating infomercial, then if I have to stop the movie at mid point the whole thing resets and I have to spend 5-10 minutes going through the whole process again but this time using the chapter selection that will put me back into the movie at a point a good 15 minutes before I had to switch off.
VHS: I put the tape in, I fast forward the first two minutes of copyright disclaimers, I play the movie, if I have to stop at any point I push stop and when I resume the tape is at the exact point where I left off. Simple.
A friend of mine on his blog is extolling the virtues of some system that integrates his Google mail chat with his iphone. Why? What's wrong with either MSN or Yahoo chat or else using a phone to call them? This new function arranges his friends and contacts into different groups and shows pop up boxes of handy info about them. I know who I'm talking to and what relation they are to me just by using my mind, not a Google function! Maybe it's for people with dementia, although if that's the case, they made the system for getting started with this inordinately complicated.
I think I need to remind software engineers that man got to the moon with less computing power than a pocket calculator! Can you imagine a scene where a software engineer is telling Neil Armstrong
"And if you click on this button, this will allow you to sort out all the Mission Controllers by name, age and what their favourite foods are. And you can send instant pictures and text messages with this function to anyone who has a similar iLunarModule."
"Yeah, but where's the control for the descent engine? You know, the thing I need to control to land the Lunar Module?"
"Well, if you go to the start menu, click on "engine" then look at the drop down menu, it will say "controls". Click on that, then you'll get the message "do you wish to control the rate of descent, yes or no?", click 'yes', then it will load your previous saved descent thrust setting which you can change if you go to 'edit' and 'set rate of thrust' after entering your password, then you can set background music whilst flying the Lunar Module. And if you click on this box, you can have your avatar showing you how you're going with the flight: When you're doing well, he'll do a little dance, when you're doing badly, he'll do a little panic. You can select your avatar by going to 'file', 'applications' then 'select avatar'...."
THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is why we're not going back to the Moon any time soon.
The Blog of It
16/11/2007 @ 13:58
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It's a hard life being a government minister. Not only do you have to come up with ideas and policies to make your government department work, then you have the press and all the interest groups on your back but to cap it all off, you have an opposition shadow minister who's there to constantly criticise you. If your average government minister is like me, then they just want to get on with their jobs without all the bickering and nya nya nya in their ears.
My solution is to abolish ministers altogther. It's a thankless job and the civil servants, who have been in their jobs for years and years, could take over. Now the ministers would still be MPs so they're not losing a job, just a lot of the crap they have to put up with. If they still want to be ministers, then create new portfolios that no shadow could disagree with. Such as Minister In Charge Of Stopping Children Being Killed By Giant Mechanical Hammers. In Parliament the minister would say:
"This government is committed to preventing children being killed by giant mechanical hammers and today I'm announcing a new law to prevent giant mechanical hammer plants being built next to playgrounds and schools."
Now what shadow minister could then say without looking like a complete bastard?...
"Erm, we see this new law as....erm...counter-productive and erm...a...a potential threat to the...erm, to the...giant mechanical hammer industry. There's no proof that giant mechanical hammer factories will cause the deaths of children and erm...erm...sod it, you win!"
I shared this idea with Wifey and she says it's the worst idea she's ever heard.
Blog Factor
12/11/2007 @ 18:34
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I was trawling through You Tube the other day and saw some great music clips from old, classic bands such as Colosseum, Emerson Lake and Palmer and Family. The Colosseum clips had some of the best playing I've ever seen.
And then I saw a bit of X Factor. I don't know why, but it seems that everyone is trying to be like Mariah Carey or Marty Pello. "I believe I can fly-ai-aiiiiii-aiiiiiiaaaaaiiiiiiiiaaaaaahhhh". Oh brother, why do they insist on caterwauling and stringing out every syllable. Some of them have OK voices, but it's all so bland and anodyne. Where is someone like Rod Stewart, or Robert Plant or Janis Joplin? Someone who can really belt out a song at volume, hold a note and sound different.
Mention Rod Stewart and people think of an old, spiky haired lothario with a penchent for pneumatic blondes but there was a time when he was considered one of the finest rock singers the UK ever produced. He'd been in bands such as the legendary Steampacket with Long John Baldry, the Jeff Beck Group and The Faces before he started crooning We Are Sailing.
My knowledge and collection of late 60s and early 70s rock and pop has crossed over into Geek territory, and that is indicitive of how little people know about Britain's rich musical heritage. Colosseum might have been forgotten about today, but when they were around: 1968-1971, they were huge with a series of top 10 albums. People today know Yes probably from Rick Wakeman and THAT story about how he ordered a curry whilst on stage, and there are those who would have you think they were one big joke, but the statistics of their career make them one of the biggest UK bands of all time. Platinum discs, more than 20 studio albums and the record number of sell out concerts at Madison Square Gardens should tell you they weren't just a minor footnote in music history.
But that's forgotten about now. And it surprises me how music journalists today want to airbrush that era out of the history books. Officially British music went The Beatles, David Bowie, Take That and X Factor in that order. People talk about the glam rock years but the combined selling power of T-Rex, Mud and The Sweet couldn't even begin to match that of Emerson Lake and Palmer. Where Status Quo floundered on American shores, Genesis and Pink Floyd cruised around in massive limos.
I'm going to offer you, humble reader, a red pill and a blue pill. In the red pill is a rich seam of music from the UK that you won't have heard of, won't have known existed and probably never even thought was possible. Just like Morbius in "The Matrix", I'll offer you the blue pill and you can be content in the knowledge that all there is to music is X Factor, The Arctic Monkeys and a few cheesy Stock Aitken and Waterman songs from a few years back. Take the red pill and you'll be whisked to an exciting era of musical brilliance.
Now you do realise that I'm not ACTUALLY offering you real pills or telling you to that it would be good to do so. This is all one big metaphor you know!
Death Blog 2000
05/11/2007 @ 15:50
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Living in London, I see more than my fair share of idiot drivers. Those who jump the lights, those who double lane change without indicating and those who double lane change without indicating and at 60mph. This is the main reason why I don't drive. Not a car journey goes by when I and Wifey have to clench our teeth and buttocks and pray for salvation all because some numpty thinks the Highway Code is for the lesser peons. Wifey is now a past mistress of defensive driving.
So when someone suddenly lurches out from a side street and narrowly misses the front of our car by the thickness of a sheet of toilet paper (2 ply), or they cut right across the front of our car without indicating, then after the short tirade of abuse I really get pumped up for some kind of revenge.
I want to say to Wifey, "OK hit the gas, Wifey" and she screeches off towards the miscreant, pulling along side of the idiot whilst I wind down the window, scream "ABUSE!" and do a loser sign at them. What actually happens is that I say "OK Wifey, let's catch up with them and I'll give them what for" and she proceeds to drive normally and reasonably, thus letting the dickwad escape a rebuke from me.
Talk about a let down! I have manly vigilante urges and they keep getting stifled! Who's going to stop under takers, people who drive way too slowly on the motorways and those who weave in and out of traffic at an avergage speed of 10mph over the recommended limit? The police? City Hall? No way, man! Those bureaucratic pencil pushers have lost control of the city and only mavericks like myself can strike fear into the hearts of those who display Baby on Board signs when they clearly don't have an infant in the car!
So watch out, all those who would flout the Highway Code, there's a new sherrif in town and he's gunning for you...as soon as he can convince his wife to speed up a bit and get alongside you at the traffic lights.
