Battery is good. Location is here!

I have been putting the iPhone 2.1 through its paces for a few hours now and I can definitely report much better battery usage. The other thing that is fixed (I suspect it was only broken on non-3G iPhones) is the locate me function. This is great news and now I get to use all those location aware apps such as trip advisor. Happy day(a).

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iPhone Firmware 2.1

After 30 minutes of installation on this version 1 iPhone I am already extremely happy. I am able to type out this blog posting without the recent keystroke stutter and pauses that had turned my previously wonderful machine into a test of my patience. As I have mentioned on a previous post, I suspected that the firmware was responisible for a decrease in battery life, so I am looking forward to getting back to my phone lasting longer than a day. The app store seems a lot more responsive and now apps are updated in a timeframe that doesn't border on glacial.

The original problems with firmware 2 made me think twice about upgrading to a 3G version, but after checking battery life I am hoping to reconsider! Steve, 32Gb would have been the icing. ;-)

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It's the morning test before I start working. Tea - check. Keys - check. Time - oh no!

Location Services On iPhone 1 Firmware 2.0.1

Has anyone lost the ability to 'find me' since upgrading to 2.0 of the firmware. This used to work reasonably well even in fairly remote areas and now it is only good for displaying a rotating wait cursor (admittedly, much nicer than most winmob stuff!)
Oh alright Jobs, I will upgrade. 32Gb anyone?!


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Lightroom 2.0 @ 21% VAT!

I am a big fan of Adobe Lightroom. It does exactly what I need without having to learn too much about masks, layers and all that
Photoshop jazz. So, you can imagine how pleased I was when going to buy my upgrade from the adobe online shop; being in the UK we pay a premium on top of the US dollar rate. Not only do we pay extra for the UK, we also pay VAT at the rate of 21% because we download from Dublin.

Having said all that, the Lightroom upgrade is well worth it... Let's see what Bibble 5.0 does in response.

Posted with LifeCast

Lifecast 1.1 With Multiple Blogger Blogs

Lifecast is a great blogging tool for the iPhone, but I have a couple or small issues with it since its release. The first release did not support multiple blogs against the same blogger account. This meant that the blog posting would always get sent to the first blog in the blog roll for your account.

After a quick note to the support team I received a very quick and sensible response, in which, reading between the lines, they suggested that the functionality was not supported.

Good news less than a week after the initial release; 1.1 was unleashed into the AppStore. This new release supports posting to a selected blog by selecting the target blog from the settings. Unfortunately, the implementation of this doesn't support a large list of blogs as they do not fit on the screen and the user may not be able to select the required blog.

So, hopefully, after another support call we can look forward to LifeCast 1.2 which will fix the latest issue and may be even support blogging photos into a blogger account!

Posted with LifeCast

Lifecast 1.1 Test

Testing lifecast version 1.1. Have they fixed the issue regarding posting to a specific blog when you have a single blogger account that have multiple blogs associated with it.

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The worst Indian Restaurant in Rotarua!

Don't believe any signs or awards... Louisa really fancied a curry after our tour of the Rotarua area, and so we headed into town to "Indian Star".

Louisa ordered chicken jalfrezi and a side of saag aloo. I had chicken saag. When it arrived, Louisa had to ask the waiter which was the saag aloo and which was the chicken saag. Both had been covered in a puree of spinach that really isn't what we're used to. The waiter took a moment, he couldn't tell just by looking, so he dug a fork into the alleged saag aloo looking for a lump. Once he'd fished a lump out of the swamp sludge, he decided that it was a lump of potato. Bingo - that's saag aloo. Therefore, the other stuff was saag chicken.

Don't bother with this place - even if you are on a budget - go to MacDonalds instead!

Thermal explorations in Rotorua

Lake Rotorua and Taco's Tour
We had arranged the obligatory tourist's guide through the thermally active areas of Rotorua and were ready for an 8:30 AM pick up at the front of our pretty dingy Devonwood Manor.

On the dot the vehicle turned up and out bounced "Taco" our guide. A New Zealander with a raggedy moustache (left over from his hippie days I suspect) and an honest smile. Taco is actually an acronym of his first names, the only one of which I managed to catch was Cornelius. Is an acronym of a name a nomacroynm?

Our first stop on the tour round Rotorua was the Waitapu "thermal wonderland", and I can tell you that there are plenty of holes for Alice to chase the rabbit at this place! The area is within a volcanic caldera and susceptible to many shifts in the land. Fumeroles open up to let steam escape all around the scrubland and the plants are well adapted to the heat close by. Gorse bushes and shrubs have evolved (or excrete?) carotene to protect themselves from the heat. It looks like the branches has been sprayed with carrot juice or infested with a copper coloured lichen. As we walked through the park the ground sounds a little hollow. If you stamp your foot it makes a louder thump than you would expect and isn't entirely solid. That's because not far beneath the chalky gravel there are underground caverns of thermal activity. There are craters and holes opening up disgorging boiling mud. Liquid carbon floats on top of the mud slops like the oil slicks on water we all used to create those swirling water-oil paintings in school.

The area is also oil rich, and you see that bubbling up from the cavernous holes around the area (there's even a place called kerosene creek, and you can imagine what that smells like!). Apparently, it would actually be possible, and may be even economical to extract the oil, but I am sure it's not very safe and the area is conserved as it is. To my mind, extracting a flammable fuel from a highly active volcanic area seems a recipe for disaster!

Taco filled us in with facts and figures about the area as we walked around. To me, what was strange was the area, the colour and composition of the soil, the birdlife, the plants were all extremely reminiscent of the gorse and shrubby areas of the New Forest. Reminiscent until you come across another steaming hole and you realise that this is not the same as the solid and ancient ground of back home. But, we were on a schedule (and you'll know why in a moment), so we moved on to the famous "Champagne pools".

Champagne pools
The Champagne pools are named such because of the effervescence. The pools have a constant fizz of small bubbles rising up to the surface. Looking across the pool it looks like a mist is obscuring the view, but this is steam. As a breeze picks up and clears the steam a little you can see a deeper pool that is the source of the mineral rich water being pushed out to the edges of the pond. Imagine a hard boiled egg with the yolk being the deep pool and the white being the shallower parts. The egg analogy only works for the topology and of course, the smell. It was like walking around a chemistry lab after an experiment had gone wrong!

The shallow area of the champagne pool is fringed in a bright orange crust. I am not sure what mineral that causes this, but as you move your gaze away from the rusty edge into the pool there's an incredible contrast. The shallow water of the pool is a deep green colour, with the effevescence giving that "champagne" quality. On the limits of the shallow area there are seagulls nesting. It seems insane with the temperatures and incredibly toxic fumes, but the birds seem well adjusted. They've built their stick nests up out of the pool and incubate their eggs there. The heat is good for incubation, but any further toward the heat and the eggs would become hard boiled!

The champagne pools overflow slowly down a hill, depositing sillica. The beige, shiny silica slowly dries as it gets further away from the pool. This creates shallow steps down the gentle slope of the hill and, in colour and texture reminded me of stalagtites. The flow down the hill is glacial in pace and looks very much like a glacier. This was the same process that created the famous pink steps (which were destroyed by a massive volcanic erruption in 1876).

Devil's pool
Towards the end of our wander around the thermal area we watched pure, crystal clear water flow into a large pool called "Devil's pool". The minerals in this pool turn the colour of the water luminscent yellow. It's as if someone had poured bright die into the pool; it stinks too!

Don't get me wrong, the thermal park isn't the only thermal area in Rotorua district. In fact, at any point you can stop along the road and see steam being forced out through holes in the ground. Disconcernting if one of those fumeroles open up in your house!

Lady Knox Geyser
If you've been to Rotorua, you will have certainly seen Lady Knox geyser. This geyser was the reason for our tight schedule. At 10:15am, every day, the geyser will erupt (is that the correct terminology for geysers?!). Naturally, geyers have a periodicity; obviously, a reservoir of water will fill and be heated up, generating pressure. At some point the pressure needs to be released, and the super hot water gushes up through the hole at the base of the geyser. However, Lady Knox geyser gets a bit of a helping hand by department of conservation (or is it the department of tourism). They put soap flakes down the hole into the geyser. This breaks the surface tension of the water holding the presurised, hot water in place, and the geyser blows! 10:15am we watched the hot water spew 10 metres into the sky. It sounds exactly as you would imagine, hot water spewing through a small hole.

Trip on the Lake ... forgotten the name
---more in here---

Green and Blue lakes
---more in here---

The Landing on lake Tarawera
Our last stop of the day was at the beautiful lake Tarawera. Taco had arranged for lunch at "The Landing" where the food was pretty good and the mussels were the largest I have ever seen (seafood mussels that is). Taco assured me that the mussels were reasonably small, but the shells were almost the size of a hand and the flesh of one mussel looked to be as much as that of three or four measly morsels from back home.

It was during dinner that we learned of Taco's past. His parents were Dutch and journeyed to New Zealand (the father first, later followed by his mother). Taco himself, up until a couple of years ago, was a self-confessed "New Zealand hippie" making jewelery and taking up extras roles in films. When they were looking for a dishevelled skinny guy - Taco was the man. You can see him with David Bowie in "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence"!

A long, late lunch, a couple of glasses of New Zealand Savvy, and we headed home. Back to the delights of Devonwood Manor!

Bistro1284

Bistro 1284

Amongst the rotten egg stench of the Rotarua area there are plenty of eateries. Some of these obviously cater for the mass tourism that Rotarua attracts, but there doesn't seem to be too many really "nice" places.

Luckily, in the New Zealand guide, there was a recommendation for a bistro called "Bistro 1284" - I'll share the details on my travel map when I get home or when I get chance.

If you go to Rotarua for a couple of days, then you should treat yourself to a meal at the bistro. Their menu is pretty simple, and that's good news for those of us who know that complicated can go wrong!

Both Louisa and myself had a the fillet steak with a béarnaise sauce served with chunky chips. The chips were presented in a greaseproof paper cone, which sounds a little strange, but made sense as it meant that the presentation of the beautiful fillet steak wasn't ruined by a scattering of fried spud chunks! The fillet steak was probably the best I have ever had. Medium-rare and it was like butter melting in my mouth. Delicious!

Mount Maunganui - the road to Rotarua

It seemed to be too short a stay at Tairua, but as those who have seen our itinerary know, we needed to push down South so that we could spend more time in the less populated South Island. The drive today was down to Rotarua, but Richard suggested that we visit Mount Maunganui (I'll correct the spelling when I get back home! - Corrected!)

We drove for a couple of hours along the Pacific Coast Highway (obviously not the one in the US!). This part of the highway doesn't really provide much view of the coast, but still takes you through wonderful countryside. Green grassland fields that look like a gigantic rumpled rug of beize. Hills made by giant hands pulling the land skyward. The New Zealand hawks patrol along the hills looking for their next target amongst the profusion of cattle. There are deer farms, sheep farms and diary farms all along the route.

As we actually got towards the coast we could see Mount Maunganui looming. I don't know anything about the mountain itself, but because it's on the North Island you can bet your geologist's gear that it an extinct volcano with the top blown off!

Louisa and I climbed to the summit to see fantastic views in all directions. Again, the birdlife is prolific and very tame. Near the summit I spied some playful birds in the bushes. As I approached one of them (with my sad, twitcher's zoom lens!) it pointed it's head towards the ground and fanned open it's long tail. I have later come to know these birds as, surprisingly, Fantails!

Although the weather on the way to Rotarua was cloudy and at times rainy, it cleared up as we walked up the mountain (we chose the moderate route rather than the difficult, rocks falling on your head route!). One thing that we both learned was that although there are clouds around, ultra-violet light can penetrate them and you can get burned very quickly. New Zealand has the highest incidence of skin melanoma in the world, and it's easy to see why. The advice actually is not to go out in the sun between the hours of 11am and 3pm! Whoops...

The descent down the mountain was a lot easier but, hot from our labours we went for a cold drink in one of the many cafes along the seafront. Louisa, generous as always, decided to pay with a $10 note that Phil had given her; (he had some spare change from when he last visited New Zealand. We thought it a little strange when the waitress had to phone someone to see if she could accept the money. Little did we know that Phil last visited New Zealand over twenty years ago and the note was no longer legal tender (and is probably worth more than its face value now)! The waitress came back and said that they couldn't accept it and that she'd never even seen one like it. She said it was older than she was!

Thanks Phil!

Road to Rotarua
We hit the road again for another couple of hours, and I remember very clearly the moment we approached Rotarua. 20kms away from our destination I smelled the famous hydrogen sulphide; rotten eggs! 20kms away... that is some bad egg, I can tell you, and with the requisite number of, "ugh! Was that you?" jokes (that Louisa didn't seem to find funny) we arrived in the town.

We had 2 nights in Rotarua, and from the photos and alleged 4 star rating, we were quite looking forward to a comfortable stay in the Devonwood manor. Needless to say, we were very disappointed at the accommodation (don't worry, there are plenty of brilliant, good value places to stay in NZ - but this isn't one of them!). The 4 stars seems to indicate the number of facilities available. Our room, on the face of it sounded nice. Spa bath, tea and coffee making facilities, electric blanket (electric blankets seem to be common in New Zealand!). So, tired, and sunburned we decided to find somewhere decent to eat... and that we did...

Tairua

Drive to Tairua

Our first "proper" holiday day after the exhausting flights!


I was very keen to leave Aukland, and after taking the obligitory snaps of the Skyline tower and watching a couple of kids get thrown a couple of hundred feet into the air by large elastic bands, we hit the road.


The first drive was on the M25! As I mentioned the motorways are a lot less populated than back in the UK, but they are very well maintained. Our first drive was for a couple of hours across to the Coromandel peninsula and over to the east coast. We drove through arable farmland, and I was being my usual, "look at that bird!", "look at that squashed possum". Minah birds are pretty common. They are brown and black but with yellow spectacles.


As we approached the town of Tairua we could see the sea. I would have to look at the map to explain the topology, but it was the first taste of the landscape shaped by volcanic activity. Tairua itself is a beautiful coastal town with natural bays full of wading birds.

We stayed at the Pacific Harbour Lodge which is an array of small bungalows situated next to the esturary and to the other side there are views of an extinct volcano. The driveways are paved with crushed pink and white scallop shells and gives a great atmosphere. The whole town is relaxed at this time of year, although I suspect that it's a favourite holiday spot for the Christmas period.

In hot-water at the hot water beach!
One of the attractions in the area is the "hot water" beach. It's a 20 minute drive over the hills to the beach from Tairua and worth going to see for the beautiful vistas alone. However, the attraction itself is on the beach where volcanic springs seep heated water into the sea. When the tide is low you can walk to where the springs are and dig in the sand to feel the hot water on your feet. We were told that low tide was between 3 and 4pm, which was just the right time for us to go there.

As you all know, I am pretty clumsy and common sense doesn't apply to me. I can't help it! There we were, walking to the springs not really looking at the waves. Every so often large waves were crashing against the rocks. Louisa and I rushed around the rocks quite quickly, but I remember Louisa, wide-eyed, looking out at the oncoming wave which I had my back to. "It's all right" I said as the wave crashed around me and my waterproof camera bag. Suffice to say, that water wasn't hot and I was soaked above my knees!

I did manage to feel hot water rushing through my toes on the way round the yellowed sulphurous rocks. It's the first time I have been that close to volcanic activity, and as we travel down through the North Island, definitely not the last!

Extinct volcanos, tame tui and curious quails

--- More to do in here ---

The Cyprus Tree
At the base of the volcano there's a lovely restaurant called the Cyprus Tree. I thoroughly enjoyed this modern New Zealand dinner (an Italian twist), and my first taste of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand was every bit what I had hoped. I thoroughly recommend the Saint Clair 2007 Sauvignon Blanc if you can get it. Louisa was surprised at how fruity it smelt. "It smells like Um Bongo" she said, which is totally true because you are hit with a wonderful perfume of passion fruit just as it says on the label!

---more to come----

Longest Day, Shortest Day

Never-ending flights
After a year of waiting the trip to New Zealand was a reality. Because it was Louisa's "special" birthday, I booked a slot in the airport lounge (just in case Louisa's ploy of wearing her "30 Today" birthday badge didn't warrant an upgrade on the flight. Louisa's badge didn't warrant an upgrade on the flight, so we headed off to the lounge. For anyone having a 3 hour check-in time and not wanting to wander through the madding crowd, I would recommend spending the twenty pounds it costs to get a spot in the lounge. It's functional and decorated by a colourblind person from the 80's rave generation. Orange and turquoise vinyl chairs overlooked the gates where the 747's wait. Drinks are available and nibbles too, but it's not a patch on the proper British Airways lounge.

The flight was called and suddenly we were off to the gate. Little did we know the sheer marathon that the 30 hour journey was going to be; a short journey across the planet via Bangkok, Sydney and finally arriving in Aukland 2 days later.

Qantus flights are reliable and functional. The cabin crew very much the same with an air of "professional friendliness"). The first hop - the phrase "hop" actually comes from the original Qantus London to Sydney flight that started 50 years ago this year took 55 hours of flying and 5 stop-overs . I think "hop" may be a reference to kangaroos but I have never seen one that can fly! Hop 1: 3 films, no sleep.

After stretching our legs in Bangkok for just over an hour we were all too soon back on the flight heading over Indonesia and across Australia to Sydney. We landed at 6:30 in the morning and I had watched another 3 films and had 30 minutes sleep. Louisa, who's not great with flying actually managed to grab more than 40 winks; I am sure that it was due to her having a fleece, a blanket, ear-plugs and a blindfold!

In Sydney we had a 4 hour wait watching the rest of the world arrive or transit through to other destinations. The Air Singapore A380 recently started flying from Sydney and we saw a couple of those take off against all common sense. It's amazing that something that big can get off the ground and be much quieter than a 747.

Finally, we were ready to fly to Aukland. I won't bore you with the details of the two and a half hour flight, but suffice it to say it was a smaller plane and a little bumpy.

As we approached New Zealand the cloud thickened up considerably it was like descending through thick cotton wool, so we knew that the UK weather had followed us! The approach to Aukland is from over the sea and as we left the cloud higher and higher above us we could see the lush green of the land and kelp floating in the sea.

It was raining!

Welcome to New Zealand
The long queue through immigration was processed quickly and efficiently by friendly officials. It was my first experience of the soft-spoken polite "kiwis". I am used to immigration officials being unsmiling, mechanical and functional. Not in New Zealand! The officer processing us asked about our trip as expected and addressed me by my first name; it's quite disconcerting! It's also nice to hear people say "please" and "thank you". It seems that New Zealand is twenty years behind the UK in many respects, and better for it too.

Bio-security
The country in the clouds has a unique ecology which needs protecting. The New Zealanders say that when New Zealand separated from the Australian land-mass, all of the dangerous, poisonous creatures stayed in Australia and all the good stuff stayed on New Zealand. Obviously, with the arrival of humans on several occasions, the New Zealans flora and fauna has been squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces as well as being put under threat by non-native species such as the possum (the possum is protected in Australia, but in New Zealand, the only good possum is a dead one). It's with all of that in mind that you can understand why the bio-security section of entering the country is so strict. At the baggage collection a young, keen sniffer dog was checking all the bags. You can imagine I was a little perturbed whilst waiting for our bags to feel the tap of a couple of paws on my backside. I am assuming that, after 30 hours of travelling, the bigger shock was for the sensitive nose of the sniffer dog. I am sure he won't be working in that business for much longer!

After the sniffer dog, we were coralled through the next bio-security section where questions were asked about whether we'd been out in the countrside, whether we had brought walking shoes and whether we were bringing food into the country. Obviously, I omitted to tell them that we came from a foot-and-mouth area of the UK.


Driving in Aukland

more to come in here... I lost it due to the poor Internet connection...

Best Western, Worst Southern
Don't stay in the New President hotel unless you have no choice. The New President hotel is part of the Best Western chain, and is very grey. The building seems to be a 60's or 70's concrete tower block with the smell of 30 years of deep fat frying food infusued into brick work. The staff were had that "professional friendliness" and it wasn't long before we got into the room.

It's a well known fact that the olfactory memory is the strongest. This fact was proven to me as we opened the door to our room. I was instantly transported back to Butlins Bognor Regis 25 years ago. The smell was the same!

--- there's a bit to go in here about the "restaurant" --- oh my goodness... that wasn't a restaurant!

The room was 30 past a refit and the windows pretty thin opening on to the main road next to the Skyline tower and the "reverse bungee". Just as well that the bed was comfortable and we hadn't slept for 2 days!

The bathroom has a shower that in a fixed position for Hobbits. As we travel around New Zealand, this is a common feature.

I couldn't wait for the next day to come and for us to leave Aukland. A wise decision to spend a single night there...

Badgers join James' trip to New Zealand

I woke up this morning to see that my local badgers have decided to come to New Zealand with me. They are clever beasts; they realised that they wouldn't get through the airport security checks without significant camouflage, so they will be bypassing that by digging their way to the antipodes. They have also realised that it's going to take a year, so they got started last night...

Djibouti Whale Shark

Vista is delayed until 2007

According to the Microsoft press release...

Not a large surprise, but I think this is a good thing; personally knowing the pain caused by having to release things before they are ready! ;-)

MS Origami

Here's a link to the Microsoft Origami Project advert that the Digital Kitchen accidentally (or may be purposefully) released...MS Origami.  By all speculation, the OrigamiProject device that Microsoft may be announcing at CEBit on 15th March (Origami Project link) looks to be a type of tablet pc.  The video clearly shows the pen driven interface but an optional plug-in keyboard.  Interestingly though, if you are quick on the pause button, the video also shows someone accessing their Media Centre (which appears to be running an old build of Longhorn - now Vista) from the device.  They access it using a Media Centre like interface; is the Origami Project device a media centre extender too?  It appears to be wireless capable.  In another section of the video the device is being used to play a 3D game.  It's unclear whether this is a PC game or not.  

Is this an overgrown PocketPC?

Last lunch in Tokyo

Last lunch in Tokyo

Today is my last day in Tokyo.  I am very sad about it.  I have met some wonderful people who are polite, extremely thoughtful and care about each other as well as what they do.  

Yanagi-san and I went for a sushi lunch.  Those who know me well know that fish is not my favourite thing.  In fact, only over the last year or so, I have started eating fish and the odd prawn.  If I hadn’t, I would have lost some weight whilst diving in the Maldives!  So, sushi is a very difficult thing for me… but I was determined to, especially seeing as Yanagi-san has taken great care for a month to take me for lunch at places where I can eat something other than fish.

So, lunch today…

We entered the restaurant, at the door there is an ornamental bucket filled with small, live crabs.  On going through you can see the Sushi chefs preparing the fish.  It’s very skilled job and takes many years to accomplish.  Yanagi-san informs me that many kinds of rice and preparations are used, the way the fish is cut, the salt, sugar used in the rice.

Lunch consisted of, raw squid leg, raw octopus leg, a prawn, several different cuts of raw tuna, raw salmon, raw yellow-fin and a seaweed basket of some sort of raw tuna mash.  I tried my best and ate most of it ;-)

I’ll post a photo of the crabs when Yanagi-san sends it to me.

Web suicide pacts surge in Japan

Web suicide pacts surge in Japan

I can understand this. Japan, so I am informed, has a word for "dying through hard work".

There is not much surprise at people throwing themselves in front of trains or jumping from high buildings (of which there are many in Tokyo).

Monday is the worst day for suicides and in a place where the train company apologises for a 2 minute delay you can see how pressure builds.

An apology

An apology
I am sorry that I haven’t written much in the last week.  I have been extraordinarily busy with work and I prefer to use the 5 hours of my time to sleep.

That said, I thought I would share a list of the things that I have got used to whilst in Tokyo for a month.  Please don’t take offence…

Things I have got used to in Tokyo

1. Working 14 hours a day 6 days a week.


2. Heated toilet seats… it’s going to be a wake-up call on my return to the chilly British bowls!


3. Seaweed-based snacks.


4. Being considered quite tall.


5. Cans of hot coffee.


6. Eating with chopsticks – I actually prefer it to a knife and fork.  Especially with noodles.


7. Lunch in a café that takes 10 people max.


8. Living on the 22nd floor.


9. Forming an orderly queue at a pedestrian crossing or waiting for a train.


10. Musical fanfares at train stations when the train arrives.

Things I haven’t got used to in Tokyo

1. Being barged out of the way when the train arrives by a person who was helping form the orderly queue 2 seconds prior to the train’s arrival.


2. Heated toilet seats starting up some kind of motorised de-odouriser as soon as you take a pew.


3. Cost of eating dinner is four or five times more than eating lunch… may be the difference is the pint of Kirin at dinner?


4. Everything is wrapped up perfectly three times; including my underwear returned from the laundry.


5. Face masks juxtaposed with coughing up phlegm.


6. Tremors.  I have got to the point where I think we are actually standing on something that is in constant flux… it’s making me dizzy (however, that may be related to point 1 in the first list or point 3 in the second list.


7. The general perception that sea urchin is a delicacy.


8. Old people listening to their iPods… and by old I mean well over 60.


9. Wet handshakes.


10. Missing my friends and family.

The coconut temple courier service

BBC NEWS | South Asia | The coconut temple courier service

This is fascinating. I know it's not Tokyou related but interesting none-the-less.

Japan tries to save giant radish

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japan tries to save giant radish

It's all happening whilst I am here!

Quake 4 Shifting sands

Quake 4:  Shifting sands….

Another happened.  Now I am getting a bit worried – and it doesn’t seem to have registered on the web-site.  The previous one had 5.9 on the Richter scale at the epicentre.  The epicentre was a considerable distance off-shore.

Quake 3: Building Shuffle

Just after lunch I felt like I was moving from side-to-side in a slow and rhythmic manner. I asked Yanagi-san whether it was an earthquake again. He said that it was and we could see the TV aerials outside wobbling. I think we were moving 10 cm (4 inches) in either direction. It is very disconcerting… very. Yanagi-san said that they get a tremor once a month but sometimes more frequently (i.e. this week!)  He also said that it’s not a good sign if they happen frequently. All I can say is, check out the Japan quake monitoring site and have a look.

I have had my tremor experiences now.

I don’t want any more!

Quake 2 Tokyo Tremor

Quake 2: Tokyo Tremor

It’s my third week in Tokyo and I was wondering when I might feel the Earth move.  Well, in the office last night (twelfth floor) it happened.  This is the second tremor I have experienced in my life; the first one was in Los Angeles and it shook me awake.  The Tokyo tremor was quite different.  It was a slow movement – I perceived it as a lump moving up through the floor for about a second.  The whole building rose up a bit and then shook from side to side.  The whole experience lasted no more than 4 seconds.  

The IT infrastructure (discounting the banks) in Japan seems to be excellent.  As soon as the quake had occurred, my colleague showed me the live data on a quake web-site.  It’s in Japanese, but there was a map of the country and a colour coding scheme for the size of the tremor – green through to red.  We hit a yellow (level 3 – not Richter scale).  A level 4 means that a building is likely to fall down and things fall off!

Another first for me.

Mother's wise-words

Things a Japanese mother wouldn't say

“Stop dragging you feet”
It seems that the Japanese have a definite approach to mooching around the office.  It’s a kind of lazy shuffle; of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s very noticeable in a number of cases.  I wondered why it was until I realised that it’s a combination of factors.  Firstly, the shoes that are worn for indoors are typically slipper-like with no-backs.  This means with a shuffle you are less likely to lose a shoe.  The other reason, and I have no evidence of it, is that if you spent 15 hours a day at your desk 6 days a week for 10 years or more, then you lose the ability to stride.  This observation has been strengthened with the apparent age-to-shuffle ratio being constant.  I.e. the older you get the more you shuffle.

“Don’t talk with your mouthful”
There is no problem having a conversation whilst eating food at the same time.  Mastication and communication are not mutually exclusive, and time is of the essence.  I can understand that there’s no real logical reason why eating and talking at the same time as being rude; apart from the expulsion of semi-chewed foodstuffs that is.  However, this rule does appear to be in contravention of the “bodily emissions are bad” (e.g. sneezing – see below, “Don’t sniff, blow your nose”).


“Don’t slurp, it’s rude”
Have you tried eating a bowl of noodles in hot soup without actually falling foul of the “infinite noodle situation”?  What do you do?  Do you bite and hope the discarded noodles don’t make a large splash-back into the soup?  Or do you suck up?  If you suck up without the addition of air (i.e. without slurping) then you are likely to create a whiplash effect.  As the noodle reaches its ultimate destination it decides to flick and spin like a loose garden hose splashing hot soup over your crisp, white shirt and a fair percentage of your colleagues.  

Slurping is the mechanism for controlled noodle intake without mess.  It’s not rude – it’s required.

“Keep your bowl on the table when you are eating from it”
Please refer to noodle pitfalls outlined above.  

In addition to the noodle-exploits, please also note that the likelihood of dropping food over the table whilst using eating implements that cannot actually contain your comestible is directly proportional to the time it takes for that comestible to travel from dish to face.  The likelihood of dropping the food over the table is also proportional to the speed at which the food is transported to your mouth; you can quickly see that the only option is to reduce the distance between plate and mouth.  This can be achieved by leaning closer to the dish, bringing the dish closer to your face, or preferably a combination of the two.

“Don’t sniff.  Blow your nose”
The Japanese that I have met so far are some of the most considerate and kind people I have ever come across.  There seems to be a real sense of a common purpose and community – even if that community is based around the office.  It is therefore, no surprise that this considerate nature extends into many different areas of life.  For example, it is not rude to sniff when you have a blocked nose.  It is better to inhale rather than exhale the cause of the blockage on to a piece of paper which you would then deposit into your colleague’s waste paper basket.  If you consider this, and then become aware of the fact that during the “flu season”, fifty-thousand commuters per day catch the virus (due to their proximity to each other on the trains), you soon understand this approach to cold-containment.  Furthermore, it is even less surprising when you see people in the streets wearing gauze face masks.

Lock up your bikes.

Imagine working late at the office (again).

You pack up your laptop into its bag and say goodbye to your colleague who hasn't slept since yesterday. He's stood in his boss's office watching the man pour over the figures that are the cause for his insomnia; you feel terrible for leaving him there, but there's no point in staying. You drop your empty can of what was once hot, sweet coffee into the recycle bin and place your index finger on the fingerprint reader and wait for the click that signals recognition. You lumber towards the lift and look out across the Tokyo skyline whilst you await your ride. The Tokyo tower is lit up like a slim, amber Eiffel Tower surrounded by the blinking stop lights scattered across the high-rise office-blocks. The lift arrives, you step in, thankfully, and descend. You walk across the polished marble floor, glance at the fish tank in the reception area of the office block, wondering where they got the blue fish from, and then step out into the Tokyo night.

A brisk walk, cutting through the alley ways forged between tall buildings and out on to the main drag. You join the queue to cross the road. The walk sign illuminates and you cross the road toward the railway station. It's then that you realise, that the lines of bicycles awaiting the return of their owners aren't even locked!

Tokyo.

Disposable Blu-ray discs.

It's not even out in non-disposable form yet, but this PCWorld.com article lists a few gadgets that are on their way from Japan, including dispoable blu-ray discs. the article describes the recycle-able Blue-Ray (next generation, high-density format DVD) discs made from paper. My question is; if this is possible with Blu-ray, why aren't there more disposable CD's and DVD's currently available. For example, those given away with newspapers, magazines, MSDN (whoops, sorry M$)?

Its snowing in Tokyo

My colleagues warned me that it would snow today (Saturday) and they weren’t wrong.  Yanagi-san was concerned that I don’t have a decent overcoat for the bracing temperatures so we took a walk to the nearest shopping mall to look for one.  I’ve picked up a none-too stylish coat imported from China at the bargain price of ¥2900.  That’s about £14!

Waiting for a lift to work

This morning I walked along the 36-room corridor to the array of lifts at the end and pressed the elevator down button.  As soon as you press the button, a light above the lift predicted to arrive first activates.  A couple of minutes pass and I see lifts that aren’t going to stop at my floor pass up and pass down.  Five minutes pass before the predicted lift arrives.  The doors open to a jam-packed carriage, a look of unsympathetic apology and the doors close again.  Understanding that this is the rush-hour, I patiently press the down button again, watch several lifts go (up I think), and wait a further five minutes.  It was on the fifth arrival that I eventually struck lucky and the lift had enough space to take me down the requisite 22 floors!  Whilst waiting for 15 minutes to hitch my ride, it struck me that the description of Tokyo lifts as plumb-lines was more accurate than I realised; these elevators are definitely long waits.  

I can see why elevator engineering is becoming more and more sophisticated:    Imagine 45 stories each with an occupancy of 40 people; that’s 1800 people!  If you think that a quarter of those people want to go to work at the same time, then you have 450 people in a short period wanting to share 8 lifts (my four taking the bottom 25 stories).  A lift can take about 10 people.  So that’s around 6 lift journeys per lift to transport all of those people.  Now, the worst case (i.e. rush hour), there are people requesting the lift on every floor.  So the lift goes to the top and works its way earthward, stopping at every floor!  If it takes 10 people to fill a lift, and the average number of people getting on every time it stops is about half a lift-full (i.e. 5), and it takes 10 seconds for embarkation then it takes 20 seconds to fill the lift.  Once the lift is full, it still stops at every floor, which takes 5 seconds for the doors to open, the inhabitants to raise their eyebrows in that apologetic, “I’m sorry that I managed to get a space in here and you didn’t, but I really have to get to work” manner and the doors to close again.  It has to stop a further 23 times – which is a total of about 2 minutes.  It takes 1 second to traverse between floors, so that’s another 45 seconds, and then another 10 seconds for disembarkation.  

Total time for one rush-hour journey:  
Initial lift arrival – 25 seconds
Embarkation 1 – 10 seconds
Embarkation 2 – 10 seconds
Earthward plummet – 2 minutes
Disembarkation – 10 seconds
Call it 3 minutes… 5 journeys – oh, surprise, surprise: 15 minutes!!!!
For everything else, there’s the stairs!

The sad, analytical person in me asks, “Why can’t they detect when the lift is full and not stop at every floor?”  Implementing that would reduce the journey time (and wear on the doors!) dramatically.  Oh well.

I think it’s ironic that watching an array of lifts from the outside with each lift sliding up and down its rail, looks like a giant abacus being used for some simple calculations.

PS.  For the saddos amongst you (you know who you are…) please don’t try to pick holes in my lift-journey-interval model.  It’s Saturday morning and I just wanted to make a point!

Feel the heat

The temperature in Tokyo is dropping, despite it being a "heat island". Tokyo is the, or one of the, largest metropolis on the planet, and it's easy to see why the average temperature in the city is higher than it ought to be. Neon lights kick out a lot of heat... and so do the toilet seats. I don't want to get to base, but taking a pew (forgive the pun) on a heated toilet seat is quite reminiscent of taking a pew very soon after the previous inhabitant. Disconcerting.

Eating out, eating in

One of the biggest surprises to me is the cost of eating lunch. You can get a very reasonable, freshly prepared meal for around 800 Yen. So far, I have eaten at the noodle bar, an Indian restaurant (I really should have gone for spicy level 6 instead of 4...), a typical Japanese restaurant and today I sampled the delights of a Japanese convenience store. Lunch: One sandwich and one coffee croissant. A bit different to yesterday's raw fish and wasabi (if you don't like horse-radish you'd hate wasabi), tofu, rice, Spanish omelette, pork and ginger and a delicious Chinese almond set-youghurt. This seemed to be a Japanese lunch box. The lunch was served in a rectangular tray which was divided into sections. Each section contained a separate dish. Pick and mix.

Today I learned: The two most popular breads are; curry bread and melon bread!

Earthquakes: 0
Social mis-haps:
1 known - took business card with wrong hand, tried to cover up embarassment with comment and presented my card with one hand instead of the polite two-handed transfer.
19 unknown.
Number of days cleaner avoided my bin: 3.

Selling panic closes Tokyo market

Selling panic closes Tokyo market

ALRIGHT WISE GUYS. IT WASN'T ME!

Office culture... part one?

The lobby
My first day in the office was on Monday. I was met in the hotel lobby by one of my colleagues. I think that I am reasonably easy to spot because I am Western and was sporting that "where am I?" look. A quick, light shake of the hand, introduction and we were off into rush hour by foot.

The crossing
From the hotel it is about a 10 minute walk, or less, to the office. The streets remind me, in a strange way, of San Francisco. That said, there are a couple of exceptions; it's flat and very straight. It's very clean, and the people seem calm and non threatening. It's not the height difference that makes everyone seem that much less threatening; although it is a refreshing change to be above average height. It's the manner in which everyone deports themselves. I don't wish to generalise a population, but in some ways you can observe general behaviour and relate it to culture. Is that what culture is? The normal behaviour for a populus?

We patiently wait in quiet fashion to cross the road, patiently cross the road, and then, patiently, walk to the next road crossing. No pushing, no barging, no shouting, and certainly no dog-do-dodging! It sounds sterile and cold, but really it's not. Something about it is calming (just as well considering the pressure I have in the job at the moment!).

On my walk into the office with Yanagi-san (I'm still ignorant on the san bit, but I think it is polite and something similar to Adamson meaning son of Adam) I notice quite a few more people wearing face masks. The white, sterile lint masks that a dentist may wear to avoid swallowing the splash-back as he high-pressure hoses the coffee stains from your teeth. "Strange", I thought, "SARS was eradicated last year." After reading up, I realised that the wearing of the mask is by those who have caught a common cold. I am assuming it's so they can still go to work for 12 hours a day and not infect their colleagues. Strange really, as I suspect that instead of infecting their work mates, they are actually re-infecting themselves and prolonging the illness. I have only seen women wear the masks.

I arrived in the office on the 12th floor (which is a lot lower than my current abode) and was introduced to the interpreters who will be working on my document (which looks like, in 3 days will reach 60 pages... so why am I still typing?!). I get my fingerprint scanned so I can get into the office and then we are straight into software architecture. Now, at this time I still am considerably jet-lagged. My eyes feel like someone emptied an ashtray into them and my insides are somewhere over Russia, desperately clinging, against their will, to Greenwich Mean Time. "I will not let the side down", I promised myself. We had worked until 1pm when I broke. I said as politely as possible, "Is it worth taking a break now? I could do with some water." It's very likely I was being offensive, but I suspect that my colleagues would have been there right with me until they or I dropped. "Yes, we should have some lunch", Yanagi-san replied. It's difficult to know when the culture is so different, whether lunch is taken!

Hot or Cold Noodles?
It is never very long before the question, "What would you like to eat?" is asked. For me, a person who has studiously avoided Sushi all his life, and the first time in Japan this is the question I was dreading. You hear of sea cucumbers being devoured, deadly puffer fish prepared in front of you and other sea-life being presented with the emphasis on "Life" not failing to pass you by! I had decided to save the Sushi experience until the weekend. Practicality paramount.

"We shall go to a noodle bar"

The noodle bar, like a lot of the restaurants in the area, was a quiet, unassuming eatery. The table we were shown to was in the window area behind a partition. The seats were low wooden benches which I had to climb over to reach my place. In order to achieve that, I had to take my shoes off. A new restaurant experience for me. I ordered safely, hot noodles, which means in a kind of hot fish stock and a bowl of fried pork on a bed of rice. I was politely warned, "We Japanese make a lot of noise when eating noodles. It is necessary." And so they did. I made a social faux-pas...I desperately ate my noodles without holding the bowl nearer my mouth. This is considered rude. It's understandable; you make less mess that way. So, I survived, without going hungry, my first Japanese chopstick eating experience, and I wasn't too far behind my colleagues (no mean feat).

Earthquakes: 0
Social mishaps: 1 known, 27 unknown.

That's more than enough for now. Tomorrow I may divulge the secret of the urinal...but then again...

Travelling to Tokyo

I thought I would try to unwind at the end of each day by writing a few sentences; mostly for my own benefit and memory, but you are welcome to read on...

...It was a pretty weird take off from Heathrow. I had checked in on-line and changed my seat to be directly over the wing. "Nice move", I thought until we were taxiing down the runway with a real wobble on. Have you ever ridden a bike with a buckled wheel? It was like that until the undercarriage wobbled its way up into the plane with an unnerving and concerted gerrump.

Eleven and half hours later, a killer headache and an Australian girl four rows back who didn't draw a breath the whole flight, I arrived in Tokyo. First impressions?

Clean.

Not sterile clean, but just pleasantly clean.

Second impression;

Efficient (in a relaxed manner).

I was worried that I wouldn't make my 10:15 bus to the hotel because of the crowds, the baggage collection, illegible signs, customs, immigration, cute labrador sniffer dog puppies and my terrible sense of direction. I was wrong. In one of the most stress-free arrivals I had managed to buy a bus ticket and be early for the bus.

As I posted before, the "Friendly Limosine Bus" company actually bow goodbye to all of the departing coaches. It took just over an hour to reach my hotel (Tokyo Dome website). If you squint at the picture of skyscraper you'll see me on the 22nd floor. Of course, to get to the 22nd floor you have to go up in a lift. Usually, in the UK, the lifts are considered to be a mechanism that resides within the building. The Tokyo Dome Hotel lifts are more an after-thought strapped on to the side of the tower like bizarre plumblines. I am scared of heights, but I was determined to look out as we went up. That was fine because the trip was only a few seconds. However, I wish I hadn't looked down through the crack as I stepped from the lift on to my floor. I saw right down to the ground; not a great thing for vertigo sufferers.

It's late now and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, so I will post a couple more photos and then try to readjust my bodyclock. Take care y'all. J

Spotted Moray yawning 

Giant Barracuda surrounded by trigger fish 

Look at the size of her! 

Whale shark! 

Mal-diving!

That's it - I am packed and ready for the off! Diving in the beautiful Maldives where I am hoping to see schooling Hammerhead sharks and whale sharks and nudibranches in the extreme and, and, and... get a tan, lose some weight! I won't be able to upload anything on to the site (I don't think - but if I can I will).

Speed increases greatly exaggerated

According to a recent post on the Tenuous Link. You can increase the speed of your computer by A LOT... have a read. With that top tip I would recommend another productivity increase to you. Download Firefox 1.5 Beta 2. It is surely the fastest web-browsing experience yet. Get it here and don't look back; you'll break your neck.

Would you tag a great white shark?

Take a look at this...

This image was taken from the BBC News article about the Great White Shark's amazing South Africa to Australia round trip. I find it incredible that researchers still don't know how or where these beasts breed. I suppose that it is not entirely unsurpising - would you want to tag one?! For more info., read the Great White Shark's marathon.

Snake eyes - bigger than its stomach...

BBC NEWS - "Snake bursts after gobbling gator!"

Amazing. Remind me to take considerable care in the Everglades National Park!

Hare, Rat, Guinea Pig? What is it? 

Beautiful snow leopard. Shame about the bars. 

A rare red panda, about 5 metres up in a tree against bright sunlight... real tricky 

"50 paces then we both turn and charge" 

Os-stretch 

Meerkat 

Cat got your...? 

Leopards don't keep still! 

"Don't move mum!" 

"Are we there yet?" 

"I've had a funny turn" 

"Is this quicksand?" said the warthog 

Cheetah cubs recently born at Marwell zoo. 

House of ill repute? 

Say, "Cheese" 

Trevi fountain 

Piazza Popolo 

The Alps 

21st Centurion 

and you say you've had a hard YEAR? 

Top of the Spanish steps 

"Mate, you've got something on your head." 

Mosaic snake 

Rome. Always perfect weather. 

Gladiator... prepare to meet thy maker! 

The fall of an empire 

The Pantheon 

St. Peter's, Vatican City 

Street, light 

Coloseum at night. That's it. 15 seconds... 

A Coal Tit found in my garden! 

Not a feather in sight! 

Leaves of the forest 

He's behind you! 

Any ideas what flower this is? 

The Living Rainforest - surprisingly good 

Spoons are a bit of a mouthful! 

Claire, Lee and George go for a spin! 

Bubbles! 

"I would never do anything naughty. Honest!! 

George likes leaves! 

Fly me to the moon - again! 

Hold still buddy. 

Shoot a Coot! 

Wood-antics 

Fleet pond swan 

It's the fatboy ice-cream! 

Bark at the moon - image stabilisation at 12x Zoom doesn't rock! 

Honeysuckle sillouhette 

Another macro-shot of in my garden 

Daisy, daisy... Canon S2 IS - my first macro-shot 

View from the Red Fort at Agra and some bloke who seems to be in all the photos... 

India gate a memorial for the war dead. 

Upon reflection... 

To keep out of the heat stay in the shade! 

The Taj Mahal again... and no, I don't know who the girl is. 

The Taj, Anil Sharma and Cheesy James 

Brit's are complacent about malaria... but so are the locals!

According to the BBC news report.. "Britons 'complacent' over malaria". So, why did my Indian colleagues laugh at me when I told them that I have to take tablets a week before, during my visit and four weeks beyond my visit?! They reckon if I got malaria a 3 day dose of quinine should kick it! Am I missing something?!

11/05/2005 – Markets and mayhem

After sleeping for 14 hours the previous night, I finally felt well enough to try some food. I wasn’t going to be very adventurous, so I went for the continental breakfast (which continent they are talking about I am not sure). It seemed the safest choice on the menu and I definitely didn’t fancy ‘Aloo Paratha with Yoghurt and Pickles’. It’s a good job that I wasn’t too hungry because when the breakfast arrived there was more presentation than substance: a large silver tray with a large bowl covered in white cloth, a coffee pot the size of a coffee cup covered with a tea cosy the size of small pillow and a glass of grape juice. With trepidation I opened up my feast and learned a couple more new things about India. Lesson one: Unless you like camp coffee (you know, the chicory ‘enhanced’ sweet coffee syrup your mum used to make ‘iced coffee’), really don’t bother… have tea! A good old cup of chai is the obvious choice in India. Second lesson: if you want something to eat that is larger than a button mushroom, then don’t choose muffins! I didn’t know you could actually make a muffin that small!

On the way in to work I spotted my first dead dog on the road. Not too bad considering the traffic. Along the sides of the roads, where there is government owned space, there are many travelling folk. Lots of people in makeshift tents right next to piles of rubbish that the cows seem to have taken a liking (I am glad they have stronger stomachs than myself!). Scattered amongst the tents are a few constructions that look like slightly pointed loaves of malt bread. These are also huts, built around a structure of sticks and made entirely from mud. Apparently, many of these people come in from Rajasthan and live there for a while until the government moves them along. A few days later they will reappear in the same place.

This evening, Anurag kindly took me sightseeing again. We did not have much planned, just a quick trip to the Lotus temple and then on to a market. However, it did entail a trip with Anurag’s famous driving! He is the only man I know who managed to get 3 speeding tickets in one day when he was in the UK.

The Lotus temple is a large building in the shape of a lotus flower. It is very striking with sharp angled petals almost converging at the apex. The building is made from white marble blocks and looks very much like a re-arranged version of the Sydney opera house; the small segments on the outside with larger segments toward the middle. In order to enter the temple it is required that you remove your shoes, your socks and all leatherwear. That counted me out because I was wearing my leather boxer shorts. The temple grounds really are peaceful place and well maintained with quadrants of grass interspersed by well groomed trees, and people quietly wandering around (yes, more wandering) and small green parrots flying in groups of three or four between the trees.

Back to the car, 10 rupees parking charge (8 pence), and we were off again. Delhi is a place of paradoxes. You can be driving along a very modern, well maintained road of three lanes (actually, it is two lanes but most ‘Delhites’ like to squeeze out a third) and pass a couple of large elephants carrying wood. It’s like driving down the M25 and seeing someone with a pair of shire horses coming in the opposite direction! You can see an advert for the latest technology mobile phone right next to a collection of bicycles that look to be over 50 years old. The police are relatively scarce due to the constant traffic. Where they are present they will be attempting to conduct the traffic with hand signals and whistles. If you get stopped for a misdemeanour (goodness knows what that might be) then 20 rupees may get you going again. The few police cars I have seen look like something out of Dick Tracy; 1950’s style cars with the rotating ‘police squad’ flashing light. Blue lights for police, red lights, it seems, for dignitaries or politicians. If you do visit, please try not to require an ambulance. The ambulances I have seen are very basic micro-vans. There is barely enough room to contain a stretcher, let alone a defibrillator! Another paradox from the land that is renowned for medical research.

The craft market we visited seemed to cater for tourists or people from out of town. It is a permanent market, so all of the stalls are built with bricks and are laid out very nicely. The array of goods is what you would expect, ranging from exquisitely painted, lacquered pots, elephants and boxes, to large pieces of solid wooden furniture. One of the specialities is pashmina. The material is extremely fine, very light but very warm (and costs a fortune in the UK, so girls, if you fancy one, just drop me a mail but be quick because I leave on Friday!). The array of silks and cloth is also amazing; it is no wonder that the women are always dressed so well and so brightly. As I passed each stall, a very polite person would ask of my interest in their goods. I felt like a walking stack of rupees, which made me feel a little uncomfortable. The main difference here and markets elsewhere is that the vendors always seem to remain impeccably polite; even when bargaining! There really isn’t too much pressure. Anurag queried the price of some nice wooden coasters to be told, “250 rupees”. He laughed and said to the smoking market-stall holder, “No, I meant for me, not for him” pointing at me. The vendor replied, “I was giving the price for you. If it had been for him on his own, then it would be 300 rupees!” 50 rupees is just over 60 pence, or to put it in percentage terms, he just upped his price by 20% - imagine buying a car that goes up in price by 20% just because you look like you can afford it!

We left the sandalwood smelling market behind us and headed back to the hotel with the waning moon looking like a smile in the sky. Now I have to get some sleep because tomorrow I am being taken to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and surrounding sights. We leave at 6am because it is a 4 hour drive each way.

Number of power cuts: 1 in the office, 2 elsewhere
Number of near-misses: 13

10/05/2005 – Delhi belly

Ok, it’s not nice. Trust me. That is all I have to say on the matter!

08/05/05 – Sunday, a day of REST... the REST of my presentation to prepare!

My first day in Delhi. Actually, I am staying in Noida (the IT hub of India apparently - techie. word deliberately chosen, I am sure).

The room in the Radisson is deceptively like any other room in a hotel across the world. However, the décor has been chosen to provide an Asian feel, with straight lines and dark wood for the fittings and marble flooring.

I only woke up at 2pm this afternoon, a consequence of a change in time-zone, several late nights before flying out and the journey to Delhi. I shouldn’t feel too bad, I received a call from Sam at 4:30pm to tell me that he had just awoken and that he was coming over to take me to see the ‘sights’ of Delhi. At least I had a good excuse for sleeping 12 hours!

I got up and got down to work... I needed to get it out of the way because Sam and Ashish were going to show me the sights of Delhi (or at least some). After finishing my presentation (which I have to deliver to the senior CSC India management tomorrow morning) I decided to actually pull back the net curtains and look at the view from my room… and find out what all the whistle-blowing is all about! I pulled the curtains from the 3 meter wide window and was presented with just some wasteland: dusty, dry grass stretching for a few hundred metres. Off to the left is a small temple and beyond that is a large, squat building escorted by an entourage of large satellite dishes… I am sure it’s so that I can get the BBC piped into my room.

Looking out to the right, I can see a road leading to some modern buildings… I have no idea what they are other than a sign of the phenomenal growth that India is experiencing in some areas. May be I will find out later.

So, I wondered how hot it was outside, and I placed my hand on the glass. It is so hot out there that the window is almost too hot to touch. If it was a plate you couldn't hold it for too long and you could definitely fry an onion bahji on it!

Delhi Sights Part 1

Sam and Ashish came to collect me. They had arranged a ‘car’ to take us to see some of the sights. Sam brought his camera because he is new to Delhi, but Ashish looked positively un-enthralled with the chore! They had hired an air-conditioned (had to be) Toyota transport which seems to be a universal form of transportation, even down to the off-white colour and clapped out A/C. It was driven by a guy with a blue turban and long beard, I am sure his name would have been Gupta Singh. There are a lot of Sikh jokes, apparently it’s akin to joking about the Welsh (sorry Lew)! First stop was a very tall tower. More interesting than it sounds.

Indian driving leaves a lot to be desired. In fact there is nothing desirable about Indian driving. First rule of Drive Club is there are no rules. Second rule of Drive Club is there are no rules. It’s manic in a relaxed kind of way; a typical Indian paradox. Lanes are mere guidelines that give you a sense of formality, but are often completely ignored. The car horn is almost exclusively replaces any special awareness on the driver’s behalf. “Oh look, another 400 people on bikes swerving across the road into the path of an oncoming bus which is about to squash me… I know, I will sound my horn, that’ll do the trick”. So the traffic noise is constantly interspersed with horn blowing! Talking of horns, there are the cows. Cows are a sacred beast and so people let them wander and get on with whatever cows do in the city (Sam says that it’s a sign of true democracy, but refused to admit that cows can’t vote). They may just sit down in the middle of the road and have a kip. There are people everywhere. They aren’t rushing, but they are constantly on the move. It’s almost fluid… people just flowing from here to there.

So, we reached the tower; just. A bus nearly hit us but luckily it missed – must have heard it coming what with all that horn blowing. We only missed the bus shunting us up the rear because we swerved into a group of meandering people. We were so close to hitting one of the women that I am amazed she wasn’t completely squashed – in fact, I actually was convinced we had hit her.

In India, it seems that people go out together as a family to wander in the evenings. Obviously it’s ridiculously hot during the day, and so the late afternoon on a Sunday is the perfect time to promenade.

We visited a tower… what can I say. A great feat of engineering which was apparently built using Lego. Not exactly Lego, but the guide told us (about 15 times) how the ‘interlocking system’ was an Indian invention and that it was better than the Persian approach of mortar to hold structures together. I won’t go into all the facts and figures, but suffice it to say, the tower’s accompanying temple had carvings of the Karma Sutra all over the place… taught me a thing or two I can tell you!

I spotted a small chipmunk like creature crawling up the walls. I asked Sam what it was. He looked at me as if I had become even more stupid and said, “That’s a squirrel”… could have fooled me. According to Sam, the squirrels in the UK grow bigger because of the climate… I reckon it’s because they keep an eye on their nuts.

Next stop was a temple; not particularly interesting in itself, but the first time in India I have been pointed at by kids as I wandered through the throng. I am assuming they were pointing out my ridiculous hair-cut or dress sense in the same way the lads at work do and that it had nothing to do with the fact they have never seen a real European Caucasian before! The temple staff was handing out food for free. That sounds great, and a good part of the throng was queuing up to receive this food. Let me tell you though, it didn’t look that appealing. They were spooning a green mushy substance (sort of like a chip-pea equivalent to mushy peas) into small containers that looked like a single segment from an egg-box which had been flattened. The people would eat this mush with their fingers, just scooping it out of the recycled cardboard bowl. It made me wonder which hand I should use for eating with my hands… being left-handed I feel a little bit anxious as to whether I am eating with the hand that is supposed to be responsible for the after-effects of eating!

Back into the car and off to the parliament area. A very grand area obviously built during colonial times, which is obviously a rip-off from Roman times, who blatantly nicked architectural inspiration from the Greeks… anyway, the government buildings are very well spaced and provide a wide esplanade (which is used for processions and the like). The esplanade stretches down to India gate. India gate is another Roman rip-off in the form of the victory arches spread out across Rome (very similar to l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris). The view created is exactly the same as if you were looking from the senate of Rome down towards the Coliseum… deliberate? I think so. However, there is one very important difference. The Roman arches were built to signify a victory in battle. The gate of India was built as a memorial to those who lost their lives in the 1st (and I think, the 2nd) World War. Each tile fascia on the arch is inscribed with several of the 10,000 names that the memorial commemorates. We got out of the car, took some mandatory snaps and avoided the thousands of people out for the evening. Literally, thousands of people wandering around with their families, because it was Sunday evening and it seems the sensible thing to do… that is, sensible, until you realise that you have 7 children, 2 adults and a cousin who all need to get home in a 3-wheeler powered by a lawnmower engine. Sardines have got nothing on Indians when it comes to packing into a tin! Have you ever seen a family of 5 on one motorbike… it’s quite an act of balance!

Number of power cuts: 3

09-05-05 - First day in the Noida office

I'll update this later to give you a feel of the office environment. After a long day in the office and my presentation to the top brass, I was taken out to dinner by one of the vice-presidents. We went to a 5* hotel... I must get the name because it was fantastic. Traditional turbaned (is that a verb?) officers salute you as you enter!

What a fantastic meal… and how guilty do I feel? I have been to “the best Thai restaurant in Delhi” – which I suspect, translated, is the best Thai restaurant in India. After 3 courses; starters, a soup and a main course, a fantastic bottle of Indian wine (yes, it’s true, they have even outsourced that and it’s really getting there) and several hours of good conversation, we returned to our car. I suspect that the driver had been waiting for us to finish our dinner; at least 3 hours waiting. The roads, for once, after midnight were almost clear. The middle of the road is separated by enough of an area for a cow to stand. On the way home I noticed bunches of discarded material, rags, or bits of cardboard strewn on this dividing area; not unlike a blown-out tyre left on the division between a northbound and southbound carriageway in the UK. Upon closer inspection I realised that these seemingly random bundles had feet and were actually people sleeping rough. I have just filled myself on food and wine, got transported back to my luxury hotel where I will sleep in a bed that almost completely subsumes me and is about 3 times wider and 4000 times softer than a concrete divider in the middle of a motorway.

Number of power cuts: 2

PS. The meal got its own back... water tomorrow.

Grab a Google Cab!

They are at it again!

Google Ride Finder

Another demonstration from the Google labs

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Thai resort manager starts rebuilding

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Thai resort manager starts rebuilding

BBC NEWS | Health | Scan 'shows if people trust you'

BBC NEWS | Health | Scan 'shows if people trust you'

Centipede bite or toaster fright

Apparently, Odd accidents affect one million. The BBC create a news story like this every year - but it always makes good reading. Statistics operating in the real world. Coconut deaths in Mozambique are quite high too...

The hydrogen economy is gaining momentum with revolutionary bike

The BBC have reported the release of a British designed, hydrogen powered motor-bike. As the news article shows, the Hydrogen cell that powers the bike is incredibly small and easily refilled. This is another important step for reducing our dependence upon fossil fuels and we should all try to encourage its success.

STOP PRESS! Cow's aren't stupid...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Farm animals 'need emotional TLC'

This is no surprise to me at all, and I am sure that it is not a surprise to all of you who have pets. Instead of being ridiculed for ascribing anthropomorphic qualities to their favourite pet - I think that it is probably justified. It makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perpsective too. If cow's show delight in solving problems, and assuming that delight is an emotion or feeling that they wish to repest, then this immediately gives them a reason for solving problems. This in turn may help them survive in the natural world. I suspect that this may be the case for many emotions - do Ablatross experience love? They certainly experience strong bonds with their partner.

The question is: Can you still eat meat?

Google desktop search goes live! Hurrah!!!

Google Desktop Search Download... Let's hope they have added those "essentials" like network drive, searching...

UK doubles the world's number of digital projectors

UK pioneers digital film network: the BBC reports that the UK film industry is going to effectively double the number of digital projectors around the world be installing several hundred around the UK. This is great news for film buffs... apparently 1 film is compressed in a virtually lossless fashion from 1Tb to 100Gb. 100Gb - a portable hard disk today, a smart-card tomorrow... "Has anyone seen Leicester Square Odeon's copy of Spiderman 7? Damn, I must have left it MacDonalds"!

Here's a Google Suggest: Integrate the desktop search with the Google Deskbar

It's pretty obvious really, but the Google desktop search easily integrates with the Google Deskbar. When looking at the different desktop search tools one of the features that I think MSN Desktop Search got almost right is the search box on your taskbar. In fact, that feature (along with searching network drives) made me switch away from the Google desktop search. However, I have just remembered that there is a Google equivalent - it's called the Google Deskbar. The desk bar provides quick access to Google searches and even allows customised searches (such as for dictionary look ups, yellow pages look ups, etc.) So... do yourself a favour... download it and create a custom search for your Google Desktop Search. Here's the URL you need to add into the custom search field...

http://127.0.0.1:4664/search&s=xxxx?q={1}&ie=UTF-8&btnG=Search+Desktop - where xxxx is a number that (presumably) uniquely identifies your search set... you can find it by running a desktop search and replacing the search criterion with the {1} parameter indicator.

It's fast (MSN search is quite a fast search but a slow startup... another annoyance).

Just network drives now Google and you are there in my eyes!

I would keep your eyes open on the Google Labs - they are being very innovative at the moment.

Cheers
James

The Road to Windows Longhorn 2005: Thurrott provides updates

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: The Road to Windows Longhorn 2005 shows the different versions of Longhorn on the table and the fact that MS are going to go with 2 betas...

I am confused these days ... CTP, Beta, RC1 - I can't keep up!

Carrots may help ward off cancer

BBC NEWS | Health | Carrots may help ward off cancer

Bring it on... a carrot a day, an apple a day, some spinach a day and you already have the 3 out of 5 portions.

It's final been proven: Testosterone affects your driving!

'Bad' women drivers: hormone link: "

Studies looking at finger length ratio have suggested that, in men a long ring finger and symmetrical hands are an indication of fertility, and that women are more likely to be fertile if they have a longer index finger.

My ring finger is approximately 10 cm longer than my index finger and my hands are perfectly symmetrical... only ladies with short ring fingers need apply!

Stop making your bed. It's damaging to your health!

Untidy beds may keep us healthy: "The average bed could be home to up to 1.5 million house dust mites." according to the BBC News article.

Thank goodness for that - I have been acting healthily for years!

Arthur C Clarke goes to Titan.

Actually, in pictures: Saturn's moon Titan...

Another historical event - I am sure that this will fade into obscurity until they actually find bacteria amongst the data sent back (which apparently could fit on to a floppy disk... now that's what I call compression)

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Saturn's moon Titan

Remember, they have found life in volcanoes, they have found life in the permafrost and they have found life 3000m beneath the sea where there is no light...

2010 - Arthur C Clarke... read it and then look at the pictures again!

1st hand account of the Khao Lak devastation

This is particularly poignant for me. To see the shop where we bought our �1 sunglasses (every day!) and our water. To see the scope of the devastation is very saddening. When you watch this set of slides (and associated commentary from a local) you will see the beach that has turned into what looks like your local municipal rubbish heap. That rubbish heap was not only the beach that was strewn with debris caused by the immense forces rushing past; that beach actually was the set of luxury bungalows where people stayed. When you look at the ground floor of the hotels completely washed away, down to the reinforced steel frame you can imagine how powerful the Tsunami actually was... but then, if I tell you that the hotel was several hundred metres away from the sea, then may be you can get some inkling of scale.

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Audio gallery: Khao Lak devastation: "Audio gallery: Khao Lak devastation"

We are unsure of the state of the Wanaburee, where we stayed last year (photo links in the gallery section of my site). It may have survived the full brunt of the wave due to it being in the shadow of a headland.

Try the Microsoft Anti-SpyWare Beta NOW!

Last month Microsoft bought an Anti-Spyware software company. The company, although not very well know have a very mature and extensive set of anti-spyware software. This IS the new VIRUS protection. BBC NEWS has reported it Microsoft debuts security tools: "The virus-fighting program will be updated monthly and is a precursor to Microsoft releasing dedicated anti-virus software."

You can get the BETA directly from via this Microsoft.

Paul Thurrott has already previewed this technology in an excellent article.

I would recommend all broadband users to start thinking about protecting themselves.

Age of Empires III HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED!!!

Official Age of Empires III website has been launched by Ensemble Studios after a long countdown. The screenshots look awesome - but will it match Generals for longevity?

When's it due? Who knows... I am sure they do.

Indian Ocean Tsunami Imagery - Khaolak, Thailand

Indian Ocean Tsunami Imagery - Khaolak, Thailand: "

"The worst-hit area was Khao Lak in Phang-nga province, where it was estimated that more than 1,000 people had died and 80 percent of the area suffered damage. The second worst-hit area was Phi Phi Island east of Phuket, with up to 70 percent of the island severely damaged."

ABC News: Tsunami Toll Soars at Thailand's Khao Lak Beach

ABC News: Tsunami Toll Soars at Thailand's Khao Lak Beach: "'We have to carry the bodies out by hand. There are many
people trapped inside.'"

Some more news from Khao Lak

"Corpses were lined up along roads and laid out on debris-strewn beaches in the resort of Ban Khao Lak in Phang Nga as rescue workers cleared the area a day after the killer tsunami crashed onto it on Sunday. The bodies of dead Westerners, Asians and Thais - many with broken necks, arms and legs - were discovered under the debris of three collapsed buildings. Rescue teams had to use heavy construction drills to extract some of the corpses from under the rubble. Felled trees, smashed vehicles and toppled buildings littered the ground everywhere. A three-kilometre stretch of beachside road lay buried under mud. Houses and bungalows had been swept out to sea.

After inspecting the area, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said some 700 people were feared dead here alone. The death toll across the six southern provinces ravaged by the tidal waves may mount to more than 1,000, he added.

A large number of people died in Khao Lak as the waves demolished several crowded hotels. The search for the missing and the removal of corpses remained fraught with difficulty as telecommunication links and transportation routes had suffered considerable damage. The nationalities of numerous dead people remain unknown because officials have found no identification documents on them."

"The resort is gone, all washed away except the concrete building that is now an empty shell. At that date they had about 300 people in the hotel, tourists and staff. When I called them this morning, they were at 60 registered as survivors. 240 still missing, with limited chances now to find them alive. 20% survivors. If it was the same everywhere in Khao Lak, the toll will rise."

Natural disasters touch everyone... here are some real stories

It's almost impossible to imagine the devastation caused by the Asian Tsunami and how it can touch so many people in so many different ways. I just want to express my sympathy to all of the families that have been deeply affected by this tragedy. My friend and lodger, Bright-Sam, comes from the Tamil Nadu region and many of his friends and family are there. Go to his blog to find a link to some "real" stories from local people helping the relief & rescue efforts.

I can't believe that I was diving in the Andaman sea less than 10 months ago. I was staying in an area called Khao Lak. Not many people in the UK, until this week, knew of Khao Lak. We stayed in bungalows on the beach and I am sure that these would have been devastated. I can only hope that the loss is not total, but fear that many of the beautiful people I met whilst on holiday may have been killed.

Reuters has reported that 800 bodies have been recovered from the beach

Channel News Asia has similar reports. I can't find any more specific news...






My thoughts are with them all right now.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope your stockings are as full as your stomachs... and the New Year holds good things ahead!
Take care
James

James sends NO Christmas cards... here's why

Calls to recycle Christmas waste: "Further waste is created by the traditional Christmas meal, with around
125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging and 4,200 tonnes of foil expected
to be thrown out."

This is criminal

Are you an average UK boozer at Christmas?

Apparently, UK tops G7 Christmas booze chart... I think we are the winners... but "you'd better watch, you'd better take care..." because;

"While people are less inclined to take their own lives in the festive season, they are more likely to kill others."

I wonder what the total weekly consumption is in December per capita.

Mobiles create mutations!

According to the BBC news website, Mobile phones 'alter human DNA'... I knew it. I told you all. I wonder how it compares to mutations received because you drank coffee (it's pretty radioactive you know), went in an aircraft or even visited trap #2 after Oly?

Microsoft Blogger : How can I trust Firefox?

A Microsoft blogger has written some comments about Firefox and the fact that it may not be that secure after all...Neowin.net read it here...

Go on... you know you want a Pentium M desktop! But what are you sacrificing?

This excellent article on the Pentium-M processor on the desktop gives an extensive write-up on Intel's possibly only hit this year (oh, all right, Centrino was quite a good marketing ploy). I am glad to see that smaller, less power (read: less heat, less fans, less noise) is starting to hit the desktops. I wonder when the graphics card makers will achieve this level of maturity... at the moment they are still going up the MHz / heat curve!

It's lunch-time... Australian surfer eaten by sharks!

Australian surfer eaten by sharks: "Officials said they had been unable to find any sign of the surfer or the sharks since the attack." I am sure something will turn up eventually. This doesn't stop my love for diving... after all a scuba-diver isn't that easily confused with a sea-lion. Having said that, I could quite easily be confused with a drowning, wounded lard-fish!

Where are UK house prices heading in 2005?

"Where are house prices heading in 2005?" - You can see that the Nationwide are particularly focussed in their regional assessment...

uter South East: 2%
UK: 2%
South West: 2%
West Midlands: 2%
East Midlands: 2%
East Anglia: 2%
Wales: 2%
North: 2%
Yorks & Humber: 2%
North West: 2%

That's gonna be 2% then is it boys?

Desktop search engine feature fight-out

If, like me you are completely disorganised with your files on your machine (and possibly even at work where you can account for your approach to filing, but can't exactly figure why everyone else isn't as methodical or disciplined as your fine self!) then you really would benefit from a desktop search engine. I have tried a few of these (and I dread to think how much space is currently being used up on my machine for index catalogs!) and thought that it was about time I put together a bit of a features/function checklist for these tools and share it with everyone.

	Browser-Based Results	Desktop Toolbar	Custom Locations	Network	Web	E-Mail	Advanced Queries	Release
Google								BETA
MSN Search								BETA
X1								RELEASE
Yahoo								Not available
Copernic								RELEASE
Blinkx								RELEASE
AskJeeves								Can't find yet!

This list is still in progress and I will hope to add to it with more detail and ratings soon... keep 'em peeled!

Use GMail as Internet storage - surely this is against their usage policy?

This is a little utlility which I am sure won't work for long - but have a look GMail Drive 1.04 Download - TechSpot: "N/A (0 Votes)". Allegedly, Google keep breaking this - don't expect it to last!

XBox Extender is a "dog"

According to Paul Thurrott in his Media Center Extender for Xbox Review the extender is a dog. Now, I have often thought that Paul comes over as a bit of a MSoftophile, so I stand corrected in that view. Worth a read if you were thinking of purchasing one.

Left-handers 'better in fights'... bring it on suckers.

Apparently, according to the BBC NEWS - Health article on "Left-handers" are better in fights. Of course, we always knew that we had the upper hand. Quick tip for all those looking to have a scrap with me...

1. I am left handed.
2. I go berserk if you tap me on the head!

Not a good combination. Steer clear.

Look how sexy all your programming heroes are...

Aspect and Subject Oriented programming: Why Microsoft can Blow-Off with C#?: "Name:Tamir Khason"

GM cocaine grown in Colombia.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | 'GM cocaine grown in Colombia': "The coca 'trees' can stand over 2m tall (6ft 6in) and produce four
times as much of the alkaloid active in cocaine, according to a dossier
seen by Britain's Financial Times newspaper."

Progress always seems to be made due to things like war, drugs & pornography... is it because these activities go against simple ethical frameworks anyway and therefore do not feel constrained?

Battle for Middle-Earth Reivewed on Gamespot

Battle for Middle-Earthhas been reviewed on Gamespot - and it's got a respectable, if not disappointing 8.4. I am not sure I understand the Gamespot ratings as the game scored 9 on 3 out of the 5 categories and 8 on the remaining 2 which by my arithmetic gives it 8.6... still going to get it anyway - will let you know what it's like!

Command & Conquer Team release one thing and then tease us with the next!

Gamespot have reported that EA LA division have lifted the skirt for a tantalising glimpse at the next Command & Conquer game. Timed to perfection - today is the release date of their Lord of the Rings RTS...The Battle for Middle Earth.

How long will I be entertained by this team? Keep 'em coming - I can take it.

Office 12 and Longhorn internal dates leaked!

As usual, Paul Thurrott is doing a good job at keeping us all up to date about what's going on at Microsoft HQ. He is close to the beast and has updated his Longhorn and Office 12 release schedule with some dates which reportedly come from an internal source. Paul's usually spot-on with these things...

Update...LiveMessage alerts DO work correctly on MSN Messenger 7.0 Beta

I have been testing the live alerts so that when I post a message to my blog people get notified. I had thought that hasn't been working correctly with MSN Messenger 7.0 Beta. I was wrong. The alerts seem to come through correctly (as you will see if you subscribe). I will be working on this to make it a little smoother - if it works well you won't have to visit my site very often, just when I post something of interest to you! I will endeavour to make the titles informative... honest.

Alert subscription goes up by 100% in under 10 minutes

This is the world's fastest alert uptake. I can't believe it... I have gone from 1 user to 2 users in a matter of minutes!

Messenger Alerts! You can always know when Jim is in the house...

I had started to see people publishing alerts from their blogs and wondered how. Well, here's what I did... I went to MessageCast Inc. and saw that they are offering free message alerts for bloggers. This is great. I think alerts and subscription to alerts for blogs is one of the best ways to know when something has been updated without having to proactively vist the blog or use an RSS Reader.

To subscribe to this blog simply click on the orange "Live Message" link on the right of the James in BITS homepage

Good Blog Job.

Sam's Insomnia

They call me the dealer... It's true. I have introduced Sam to Command & Conquer: Generals... and he's not slept since! Truly international appeal - I hope he doesn't work out how to build a nuke too soon. The team responsible for Sam's insomnia has been busy working on another RTS title called Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth, and it's due out next week!

XPlanner is now fully operational at home (I hear you ask... "Why?!"). The answer to that may be along soon and it will be SOAPy. Fact of the matter is that I have started to use XPlanner as a convenient work tracking / organisation tool for my own activities at work. My current role has a number of departmental responsiblities and projects, not least the "upward management" activities which seem to consume rather too much of my day. Tracking it for a week now I can see already that about a 3rd of my time is spent on this "upward management". Thanks to XPlanner, I now have some objective metrics to help me manage this situation and actually convince people that my time would be better spent focussed on completing things that actually work for the greater good of the department.

On a final note, before I actually turn in... I have tried out the CTP edition of Avalon (WinFx for WinXp) under my installation of Whidbey. I have tried it briefly, had trouble (not sure why; probably didn't read the readme) and I have uninstalled it. I have been forced to re-install Visual Studio .net 2003. Hopefully I will be able to try it out again some other time. I wondered why they said don't try it out on a machine you need! It's fairly early days, but they are starting to run to a tight schedule if they are to meet the 2006 deadline they have set themselves...

What's happening James?

I can answer that...

All in all it has been a hectic few months. Firstly, at work we are sort of experimenting with XP techniques... although, you know me - I won't let go completely and let the boys run riot. To support this we have found a great tool - XPlanner (a misnomer methinks as the planning aspect is not really a plan-ahead kind of thing... thereby hangs a tale of two cities). XPlanner suports a SOAP interface which I will be looking into so that I can integrate it to Whidbey and possibly write a stand-alone application task management... more on that another time.

Other mini-projects include "TidyYourStuff" and "ReallyUSefulStuff" - again - more on those another time.

Talking of Whidbey - yes indeed, it's shaping up... I am looking forward to trying out the Avalon CTP release soon. I will let you know my thoughts.

Half-Life 2 is consuming time and Rome: Total War is also satisfying my desire to take over the known world.

When do I sleep?

Online cartoon strips...

Check out SmileVille for a weird chuckle... and if you like something a little deeper then speak to GODfrey...

Cheers

Jim is back in...

OK - I apologise for the delay in posting (I wonder how many blog posts are apologies?). I have now fixed up the site for syndicating blogs into it and things are now stable. I promise to get back to the blog...

"I didn't mean to hurt you - it was only a wink!" MSN Messenger Beta 7 pulled again.

Important... read Paul's news item regarding MSN Messenger 7 Beta. Microsoft Abruptly Pulls MSN Messenger 7.0 Beta

I knew winking would lead to no good.

PS. My match.com winks is up to eight now... wooo hoo!

Proud to be English

How can we have pride in our nation when we cause Trouble after the England game.

1. It's a game.
2. England don't have a default right to vicory.
3. It's A GAME
4. Take a leaf out of the Rugby & cricket fans' books

Come on England - be sportsmanlike.

I know - we threw it away... but life goes on.

It's election time... now inform yourself!

This is a BRILLIANT web-site that syndicates and consolidates information about your local MP. I would say that it is essential reading. Now all they need is something similar for candidates and you start to be informed about the people reporesenting YOU in the cradle of democracy (yeah, all right, not exactly the cradle, but a reasonably good stab at it).

IT'S DOWN TO YOU

Women despair at 'do it all' life

Women despair at 'do it all' life... why only women? Surely this applies to men too - all the blokes I know suffer the same anxieties. I do blame Brad Pitt. Does he and others like Beckham give women an unreasonable expectation for their men?

"confronted with an image of a buffed celebrity like Troy star Brad Pitt, most men would admit they weren't happy with their bodies, he said."

Google moves toward clash with Microsoft

Told you so... more from the Blog of the bleedin' (edge) obvious another day.

Nano-bacter need to be fought by nanbots

This remarkable claim for new form of life has interesting implications. I suspect the scientists will investigate cause and effect which will probably lead to more innovative preventions and cures to heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, etc, etc.

Do you ever get the feeling that we are living in the most innovative yet ignorant age of mankind's history? Will it ever stop?

Bad Newsflash - there's still loads of oil

Listening to Radio 4 this morning, someone (during the business section) was being interviewed about the current high price of oil. I assume that the interviewee was a representative of an oil company. When queried about the finite state of the resource said that there is an "abundance" of oil and then went on to explain that there still exists a lot of untapped reserves before having to tap sand oils and other very heavy oils. To put in perspective, they estimate that there a 7 trillion tonnes of untapped oil and that in total so far we have used less than 1 trillion tonnes (it was tonnes not barrels!) - he inferred that this was good news and that we should all relax.

HOW CAN THIS BE GOOD NEWS?

Every barrel of oil burnt is an incredble burden to the planet's environment. If you look at what we are doing to the environment on a geological timecale instead of a human timescale then it is clear we are simply exploding all the oil we find as quickly as we can.

Availability of more oil just moves us into lazy mode - it's easier for us to think of ways to find more oil than develop alternatives.

Bring on the hydrogen economy.... QUICK

We live in the future

The thing is that technology can be used for good - it's about time we started putting more effort into not causing problems in the first place, and secondly, clearing up the problems we have created...

Have a look at these projects; they are fascinating.
Propulsion & Power Project

I am famous - again!

My silly Gmail review has been read and summarised...

Google revamps blogging service

Google revamps blogging service... and here it comes... "Mr Williams said they would be looking at incorporating Google's search technology into Blogger, offering subscribers the ability to search their blog.".

My question is... "Is this a step towards dominating the semantic web?"

Sasser worm caught!

The person that wrote the Sasser worm has confessed to being the author. It was a thoroughly irresponsible thing to have done, but I am still in two minds whether virus writers are actually helping the operating system manufacturers tighten up their systems. After all, Sasser has shown that exploitation of vulnerabilities in operating systems can wreak havok in this age of the connected systems.

Should Microsoft recruit these weasily-worm-writers?

Top 10 global issues to solve

Carter Maslan blogged this (The 10 major challenges in the world.) the other day... it's an interesting categorisation of global issues. My question is, how are these linked? Is it possible to take a simplistic stance and work out the priority amongst these issues and working towards the resolution of one of these may affect (in a positive manner) the others.

Words of wisdom from our beloved Rob...

From the creator of Your Mum

Pleasure is short-term happiness. Happiness is long-term pleasure.

Discuss...

It's worth posting up that Longhorn 4074 is available on MSDN

Download and try it if you like living on the edge! I have posted quite a lot of useful/interesting info on Longhorn on my Longhorn Blog.

James fell to bits - rookie mistake

Ok - I know... there wasn't a site and it was taken away. The reason was, embarrassingly, that there was a bug in my rendering code. The renderer didn't check a return code for something whilst in a big loop and in a specific circumstance puts the server-side code into a big spin. Apparently we chewed up 100% CPU for over an hour so DiscountASP.net disconnected me.

I have fixed the problem area but will be re-factoring that rubbish piece of code anyway.

Sorry if you missed the site for a day... (I wonder if anyone did?!)

It's my life...

... and that's all I have to say! Obviously all rights reserved by Scott Adams etc. etc.

Windows XP Service Pack 2, the Sasser Virus and unnecessary effort.

I should have known better. Long gone are the days when I will try out software that hasn't been released (well, not on my main machine and not without the belt and braces of virtual PC!). But today, I thought that I would install Windows XP Service Pack 2 RC1. It's a release candidate (or at least it was when it was made available for public download - but consequently, the release date has slipped a month), so it should have been OK.

Story of how it didn't work inserted in here!

Story of the Sasser virus and what an impact it has had on work, and the odd coincidence that some of the symptoms are similar to those experienced with Microsoft's April security patch.

Why won't people stop writing viruses and focus on something more productive instead? Having said that, I suppose they are providing the IT industry with an important network and infrastructure hardening service.

All's well that ends well.

The Google founders

Well, they have done it! They made the Internet a far more useful place. Before Google (don't argue Yahoo, Lycos, MSN search, Alta Vista and all those other search has-beens) the Internet was a mess of information and rubbish... of course, it still is, but Google is your your very own content editor. I find it remarkable how a simple ideas are the most powerful... we owe it to the founders of Google.

G Mail Beta: my first thoughts... is it secure?!

Have Google gone mad?
Being a member of Blogger.com meant that I was one of the first million or so in the world to be offered access to the G-Mail service provided by Google. You may have read previous posts regarding it. I thought I would sign up and see if there was anything different to their offering. Let's face it, this is a competitive space and they need a differentiator. I think that Google believe the offer of 1Gb of space on their e-mail servers would be sufficient to bring the crowds flocking... I think there's a lot of work to do if they are going to catch up with free providers like Yahoo (who offer a calendar, briefcase, task list & address book as well as e-mail facilities).

Clarity, clarity, clarity
On further inspection, I can tell you that the user interface is pretty interesting, and they have given clutter a lot of thought. As you may well expect (or have even experienced), whether you have 100Mb of e-mail or even 100 e-mails life can get pretty cluttered. It's difficult to find things and web-based e-mail facilities don't often provide good searching or even filing capability. Google attempts to tackle this in several ways:

1. Conversation presentation style

E-mails are not e-mails, they are conversations. The idea is simple, but from a user interface perspective, very useful. All related e-mails on a thread are consolidated into a single conversation thread title (with the number of e-mails... sorry, snippets of conversation, listed by the side). If you are looking at a conversation then you are not far away from all the other contributions to that conversation. The snippets that you are not currently reading are collapsed to their briefest summary form.

2. Easy archiving; in-box clarity

E-mails can be placed into the archive. i.e. out of sight, out of mind, and most importantly, out of your inbox. If you are anything like me at work, and have to deal with tools as terrible as Lotus Notes, then you'll appreciate the ease at which you can remove the clutter. Of course, removing the clutter and "disappearing" your mail (sorry, conversations) means that you will need a really good way of retrieving those conversations later on. The best way to do this on such a filing system is to search for them, and for that you need a good, extremely fast search engine. It is a happy co-incidence that Google are providing this service!

3. Labelling

Another useful way to organise yourself with regards to mail is by labelling them... I am sure that all of this meta-data that is simple to apply enhances the way in which you can work with G-Mail. A label is simply a text field that you may wish to apply to an e-mail. G-Mail provides a nice list of your labels down on the left-hand side which shows you how many unread mails have been labelled. Clicking on a specific label takes you straight to the list of conversations that have been tagged with the moniker you just clicked. I think adding a single category (label) to an e-mail and making it simple to apply is extremely powerful. The current alternative offerings make it too difficult to apply this kind of meta-data, but it really is this meta-data the helps us keep organised. If it is too hard to add the meta-data then we don't do it and we stay in a pickle!

4. Filters

Filters are simply saved searches. This is similar to the nice feature in Outlook 2003 (not Outlook Express) where you create a search pattern and save it. This search pattern can then be used to provide a nice view on to all of your e-mail. For example, I want to find all of the e-mails about Longhorn that weren't sent to me by Microsoft and contain items about the WinFS functionality.

5. Stars in their E's

The final usability feature is the simple facility of marking something important. It purely is a mechanism for flagging something - whether it be because you want to read it later or it will remain important. This feature is not as good as that implemented by Outlook 2003 (for obvious reasons), but it is useful nonetheless. I just wish IBM would pull their fingers out and implement some of these usability featureson Lotus Notes! I am desperate for a follow-up function!

What about the adverts?
I understand that there's been a lot of press about privacy invasion and the use of Google tools to automatically generate targeted advertising on the mail service. I can fully understand the issue here, but I don't think I have much to hide from Google and I would be more concerned about hackers breaking into the service and getting at my data. The adversts are extremely unobtrusive and are displayed on the right-hand side of the screen when you are viewing your mails. They don't pop up, they don' flash and you don't really notice them unless you make a conscious effort to look at them.

Overall, I think that they have produced a very nice web-based e-mail client. I am sure that some of the features will be copied in future client software, and I love the ease at which I can "disappear" e-mails out of the way. Inbox management has never been so easy. I do recommend the package, but I suspect they are still working quite hard at the offering. For example, I noticed that only the logon page was secured via HTTPS. I notified Google, who got back to me and said they would look into applying HTTPS across the rest of the site (I don't want hackers, spammers, etc. sniffing my mail!). Later on that day (today in fact) I noticed that the HTTPS had been applied across the whole site. "Hooray!", I thought, " I am the man who helped make GMail more secure"... by the time I logged in again a few hours later, it had gone back to being HTTP only.

Obviously creating a service that will probably be used by millions takes a lot of testing - especially in the areas of security and scalability. I hope Google do well because they may have a chance to challenge Microsoft's dominance in some key technical areas. It's just a little odd that they are so late to the e-mail market with essentially a good offering that probably won't gain critical mass unless they continue down the path of innovation and address people's real needs.

Cable broadband just got faster for free

Telewest is to offer the UK's first 3Mbps cable broadband service, as rival NTL doubles the speed of its services.
Faster broadband means the greater rate of adoption of richer services. That means more home working, more DVD quality downloads, broadband TV, music, etc. etc.

What is the betting that the broadband cable companies add a new entry level package at an even lower cost? The provision of service has a standard fixed cost. Would you see BT do this with their broadband offerings? They are hardly competitive but do have a large market share.

Google watch...

Google and Akamai: Cult of Secrecy vs. Kingdom of Openness is an extremely interesting (and short) essay about what actually makes Google tick. As an operation, Google is extremely secretive - and why shouldn't they be when they have companies such as Microsoft eyeing a share of their lucrative business. The essay concludes in an interesting point about why Google is so secretive about it's ability to deliver blistering fast searches against a gigantic web of documents and conjectures about where Google may see itself playing in the future.

Just when I had the answer, I forgot what the question was.

Remember that poster? It's long been assumed that 'working' memory is the thing that helps define intelligence. The ability to hold things in a wokring store and create links, connections and find patterns amongst them is useful when thinking about problems. I find this fascinating, and wonder if there are actually exercises that could enhance the size of your working storage (imagine the spam - "improve your intelligence by up to 3 inches... all natural remedy!). Apparently, scientists have located an area in the brain attributed with the responsiblity of working storage - which is amazing seeing as previous theories speculated that this was not localised. I wonder if this penny sized area of the brain shrinks when exposed to mind-numbing reality TV programs and popular culture where the 'blip' is the norm and concentration levels have plummetted from almost an hour to probably 30 seconds?!
The question is, how can I prevent people from using my local storage?

Go read a book!

GMail hits privacy hurdle

As I mentioned in a recent post, GMail is about to be launched (they are in beta at the moment) with a massive e-mail service. The idea is that you can store all of your e-mails (up to a gig's worth) and you'll be able to search and trawl them as efficiently as Google trawls and searches it's massive web-index. Lovely idea, and I reckon it will be quite handy when you consider that I use Google to search for articles on Microsoft's own web-site because it's better than the Microsoft search! The crux of the matter is that it turns out that the point of GMail is so Google can actually trawl your e-mail to target you with advertising. Privacy conerns have been raised. I am sure GMail will respond by saying that the whole process is automated and there is no human intervention; not a great argument. Anyway, privacy isn't about who is collecting and using your information it is about whether you allowed that in the first place! Let's see how Google implement this.

Next version of Windows coming in 2006... isn't it?

The Longhorn train gets a time-table... let's hope it's more punctual than the UK's real train timetables. Paul Thurrott describes the planned schedule for Longhorn. The firmed up schedule obviously begs the question, "What's been cut from the release?". Longhorn is an extremely ambitious, and Microsoft have been working on the fundamentals for a very long time (remember project Cairo?!). Listening to Mike Deem et al on the .netShow (talking about WinFS) I got the impression that scope hasn't been cut and that the plan has been (in traditional manner) 'phased' accordingly. So, will WinFS the functionality delivered with the final Longhorn release actually include the bits that will make it really useful (distributed stores, etc.)? Of course, people are impatient (wanting the release earlier than 2007) and they are critical about what they think microsoft is going to cut from the release.

The best place to keep in touch with all the things going on with Longhorn development is probably the MSDN Developer Centre, blogs by the microsoft team (this includes access to key people such as Brad Abrams) and the excellent LonghornBlogs.com.

If you are interested in what Longhorn may have to offer to us as end users, then check out Carter Maslan's excellent concept video of Longhorn being used in the manufacturing industry. I think that this is the best of Carter's concept videos to date... working in the Financial Services sector of IT, I was left fairly uninspired by his demonstration for that vertical - the Powerpoint presentation demonstrating how Egg (bank) is looking to implement a Longhorn smart client is a little more interesting.

One click subscription, Life Blogs and the battle for world-domination

Dare Obasanjo (aka Carnage4Life) discusses the lack of adoption to one click subscription for RSS feeds. Dare is the author of the ever improving RSSBandit. I feel that the one-click subscription is vital to wider acceptance of news-aggregators and the general broader consumption of RSS feeds. Where's it all going to end up? Nokia's Life Blog allows people using a 6620 phone to capture events and blog them. Microsoft are setting their sites a little higher with 'MyLifeBits' and Google is attempting to exercise it's search engine technology by introducing 'GMail'. You can see where the battle-ground lays ahead -it's the catalog, storage and most importantly, easy retrieval of vast quantities of diverse information. If you ask me (which you haven't!), Google are going to take some beating. Couple all of this with the 'semantic web' (more simply explained in the BBC's article, 'Net guru peers into web's future')and Longhorn's WinFS and you can see that the battlefield is starting to be created.

Discovery of the century - life on Mars... not as we know it.

BBC Science Nasa Stunned by latest discovery on Mars

This is unreal, just when you think the Mars expeditions couldn't get any cooler!

[Via Magic Bullet]

OPML, XSLT & all things markup.

All right, not ALL things markup, but this link provides a good look at OPML and XSLT.

My friends' blogicator (which is at about version 0.0000001) could do with a way of using OPML to store the list of blogs that are to be syndicated (OPML is commonly used for blogrolls). Once I do this, then I#ll be able to let my friends choose which blogs are syndicated on to my homepage.

There's an interesting point about making modifications using CSS... if you looked at this blog's atom XML through a browser you will see what is being talked about.

XP SP2 takes a back seat to Microsoft's stealth recruitment campaign!

According to Windows watch, Microsoft are recruiting an 'elite' set of Technology adopters for beta testing. What with June 23 as being a date bandied around for Windows XP SP2, the next Tablet PC operating system and a new 64-bit Windows XP flavor, people are inevitably going to look beyond June. Apparently, Microsoft quietly is implementing its new Technology Adoption Program across its product lines. My guess is that this is the start of putting together the Longhorn train...slated for departure in 2006 - but the analogy probably holds true when you compare it with trains in the UK... but when it leaves you'll want to be on it!
[Via Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]

Dexter opens up new lab.

"James in BITS" has gained a Dexter's laboratory!

This is an area where I will be trying out various pieces of functionality. In the true sprit of the inventor, things are liable to be broken or not doing what they ought to. The first entrant to the laboratory is a simple syndicator for my friends' blogs. Have a look, but don't blame me if there are LOADS of stylesheet problems and it being very slow!

What's my motivation for blogging?

It's quite frustrating that my friends don't read my blog!

I blog things because I think they are worth recording for myself. I try to add a little content based upon what I think or felt about the blog entry. In the back of my mind I am thinking that other people (friends!) would like to keep up with some of the things I am looking at and thinking of. This is probably extremely vain and is based upon the assumption that I might actually have something to contribute to friends and family!

Out of curiosity I did a couple of things:

1. Installed on the Blog a blog counter. It confirmed that I am the only person reading my blog!

2. I have installed a commenting mechanism. That way, if anyone actually does read my blog and I actually raise something that generates a reaction I would know about it.

3. Started to read up on "why don't people read my blog"? This has led me to a number of other blogs (crafty eh?) and useful information. I'll update this entry as I come across useful advice (or even just dogma) and post the links.

4. Tried to find out how to make my blog more visible in the information overloaded soup that is the internet.

Ultimately, the question is How can I write a better blog? It doesn't really matter where it's hosted or what it looks like, but as they said in the nineties - "content is king". I guess a theme would be good, but that's not me. Rob's blog has a definite feel to it, and is an interesting read eventhough it is only quotations from things that he is currently reading.

Here's waiting for the deluge of readers!

Emergency! The laws of robotics need to be put into legislation before it's too late.

Asimov's laws of robotics were fictional rules governing the behaviour of autonomous robots. Now, Sony have created robots that can dance in such a convincing manner that I thought this was either an April fools joke or little men dressed in robot costumes.

I wonder if they recognise the phrase, "Can you get me another beer please?"

Paper-based disposable computer

Paper based computing is on the way, but iIf you look at one of the driving factors behind this technology then you may despair.

RFID is a way of creating 'smart' packaging. The idea is that producers will be able to monitor and track items a lot easier and accurately by including an RFID implementation into the packaging. This means exact tracking of every single packaged product will be possible. The green party would have a field day on this one (excuse the pun)... first of all, there's a lot of energy wasted by creating unnecessary household packaging - and the more you put into it (manufacturing-wise) the less likely it is that you can reuse or recycle. I assume that, by definition, RFID packaging can only be used once.

The upside is that development of the technology may lead to general computing devices made from materials that are easier to recycle. This obviously is probably a good thing, and almost certainly required as much of today's computing equipment consumes about 10 tmes it's weight in fossil fuels to produce. There's a need to create more environmentally friendly computing devices.

With some good uses for paper computers, e-paper books and the Earth getting greener there actually looks like there could be an exciting and better future ahead of us... but only if we focus on those things. Also, my flippant remarks about RFID packaging being bad because it is even less re-useable, more resource-consuming than today's packaging may be not looking at the holistic picture - what if RFID packaging meant a 5% efficiency gain in the distribution of goods and therefore a 5% reduction in the consumption of resources used to transport the goods but only contributed to a 1% increase in the overall resource consumption due to packaging.

It's a complex business, but we should always look at the whole picture.

Nuclear Fusion Real Soon Now

Sustainable nuclear fusion at only 500 trillion watts! My question is; who pays the electric bill for all those "lasers"?

Stop press! Cows flew past the moon.

Did cows land on Mars? I know this is a silly note, but is the fact that a certain amount of methane is sustained within the Martian atomosphere an amazing thing? They'll probably find that bacteria from one of the old Russian mars probes have colonised the place!

Seriously though... if there is methane produced somehow, doesn't that mean that there is oxygen and carbon being released from something? That's either caused by:

1. Volcanic activity (none found)
2. Some active form of life (is it too hard to find the source - if there's enough to be detected in the Martian atmosphere - a very big volume - then there must be a lot being released from somewhere.)
3. Some other, hitherto, unknown process...
4. Beagle done a poop and it's decaying.

Earliest quantum mechanics experiment?

I have just watched a BBC programme investigates the latest hypotheses on the meaning of Stonehenge. Was it a beaker temple for the winter solstice? Very interesting how technology and science are used to provide seemingly convincing explanations to these things. The programme was interesting, but for me, triggered a number of thoughts which lead to, I think, some unanswered questions...

Firstly; if Stonehenge was a monument designed and built to be aligned with the sunrise on the exact day of the Winter solstice - how did they know the exact day? They didn't have a calendar to go by in the year 2500 BC did they? Was it someone's responsibility to measure the time between sunrise and sunset (when they knew they were getting close to the solstice) so they could put the stones in exactly the right place? If this was the case, what was used for accurate timing? Or did they use another approach - for example, the maximum height in the sky that the sun rose to? That would give you the answer but you would still need some measuring device. I assume that neither sextants nor clocks were available. The only other way that I think they could possibly have measured when the solstice occurs was by using the length of the shadows when the sun was at its highest in the sky, or more simply, where the sun rises from. This seems the most likely explanation to me of why Stonehenge was built in several phases. The markers were the first thing that was built (creating a circle). These markers are the 56 holes. If these were placed where the sun rose (easiest to measure) throughout the year then coupled with a record of the length of shadow (best way to measure the maximum height of the sun in the sky) they had (inadvertently?) created a calendar. If the importance to them was to know when the days would start lengthening again, then they are on their way to finding out exactly where to place the large stones where the sun shines through on the winter solstice - slap bang between the two markers that indicate the shortest shadows. So, imagine, placing a stone every, say, "week", within a year you have something that can allow you to predict where the sun rises.

So, I know - 56 doesn't go exactly into 365, but interestingly it does go about 6.5 times - does this mean they had a similar concept of a week as us? Even stranger, and I don't know where I am heading with this, but 56 isn't really that far away from 60. 60 is a nice fraction of 360, which is the number of degrees in a circle. This still doesn't explain how they managed to get it exactly right (and I am not even considering leap-years 'coz they probably weren't invented 4500 years ago).

OK, that's rubbish... Purely because I have skipped over the fact they don't have anything to measure the length of shadows with... That is, unless in each hole they place a pole. Each pole was cut to be the same length... Then they would have something.

I'll come back to thinking about this later. Finally though, if the largest stones created a slit by which the sun would appear on the summer and winter solstice, is this the earliest example of Young's slit experiments?! Were they creating wonderful patterns of light on walls?

It's an interesting subject.

RSSBandit gets ATOM support!

I have taken a snapshot of the RSSBandit news aggregator and looked at providing ATOM support within it. It hasn't taken long to complete the first go at it and I now can read my blogger.com posts with it.

I will continue to improve the code as I go along and look at what I can do to contribute to the SourceForge project that RSSBandit now constitutes.

Idiot's guide to programming

I have been performing the annual round of appraisals and thinking about my contributions as well as those of the other members of our department.

In the current climate of off-shore, rapid implementation times (Internet time), resource pools and benchware the management seem to forget that we don't just learn our trade from an "Idiots guide to computing". Becoming proficient at a computer language (let alone experienced designer of distributed applications) takes time and effort. It is simple to learn the syntax and concepts of a language, but it takes years to become proficient and experienced. I will spare you the programming horror stories that seem to haunt me on a daily basis, just let me say, "How to teach yourself programming in ten years"

RSSReader beta supports ATOM

Blogger.com seem to have gone against the grain for syndicating content by using the ATOM XML specification (the designers currently don't recognise ATOM as even in draft let alone submitted!). Anyway, I have been struggling to find a reasonable reader that supports ATOM as well as the various flavours of RSS. RSSReader seems to be the best of a bad bunch. See what you think... (although I can't wait for the excellent Bradbury software's FeedDemon to come up with the goods. If you haven't checked out Bradbury soft-wares then you should - TopStyle is an excellent example of quality software development.

What made a fish fly, a turtle dive, or even a sea horse?!

The world in which we live is the most remarkable place.

After returning from a diving expedition in the Andaman sea off the coast of Thailand I can safely safe that evolution is a wonderful thing. I have never seen so many variations of creatures in all my life. There are numerous varieties of clown-fish who have been 'copied' by fake clown-fish. Shrimps of all kinds, each specialised in their field. The ecosystem is a complex web of interdependency which has to be the most stunning thing that this planet has to offer. Every time I have an encounter with a new culture, a new ecosystem or even a single new animal then I am stunned by the sheer diversity and the time it must have taken for all of this to occur.

Evolution is a widely accepted paradigm for how this occured in the natural world and when you make your way across the ocean, hopping from remote island to remote island it is put clearly into focus. But even with my childish understanding of evolution coming from a high-school statement, "survival of the fittest" coupled with my equally crude understanding of genetic inheritance I have some problems with evolution as an idea. I studied Physics at university - I wasn't very good (lack of focus, lack of maturity) - and I am quite familiar with modes of stability. Surely the evolutionary process is more than the success and survival of the 'most suitable' candidate from all the variations appearing from all the combinations provided by generations of a particular species? When or how is a new species defined? How does a new genus occur? If random mutations are filtered out by a level of 'fitness' (natural selection), then there is a direction to evolutionary processes. If there is a direction is there also a size - a evolutionary vector or, more naturally, a tensor? If this is the case, how do we model this? How do we identify the filters being applied? If we can identify the filters then we ought to be able to extrapolate the evolution of a particular organism (I would expect this to be extremely complex, and not an exact science). Flipping this on it's head, presumably, looking back into the past from an evolutionary perspective must also be an extremely important tool - another way to identify the 'evolutionary vector' and therefore gain some understanding of the 'fitness filters'.

Googling this a little has informed me that strains of cold virus proteins look to mutatue a million times more quickly than human proteins... does that help answer my questions? Of course, my next obvious question was, "can the cold virus evolve into something more complex than a virus?" i.e. could it form the basis of a new life-form... whether a virus is a life-form is yet another debate - but suffuce it to say that viruses are symbiots (therefore, instead of "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" the question could be "which came first, the virus or the bacteria?").

Here's an interesting link on the subject about whether there's more to mutuation. "Bacteria take the chance out of evolution"
Round and round I go...

I guess where I am heading is - has the mathmetical modelling of an evolutionary vector produced results that have actually been matched in a laboratory environment or are some modes more stable than others for reasons other than just environment? Does some 'selection' occur even before the new strains start to exist? Looking at it this way helps me understand that the evolutionary process is probably more 'weighted' than my high-school education led me to believe. However, it doesn't give me an answer to "how do new genotypes get created?". Am I even asking a meaningful question? After all, a genus is a categorisation that us humans have placed upon a living organism in order for us to help identify it - probably a mere result of how our minds work than anything else.
Bio-diversity is a hot-topic... here's another interesting link about bio-diveristy and species classification
So, genetic engineering is a new form of evolution - a crude tool, but nonetheless a form of evolution. I don't know about you, but I want to continue to see lots of variety and similarity in our oceans, our rainforests, our deserts... I don't want species to disappear because they aren't 'useful' to humanity or because their environment is being 'evolved' more rapidly than they can.
Our environment is not a resource, it's our shared home.

Plans to junk spam e-mail

Microsoft and many others are proposing new ways to stop the spread of spam.

Of course, the cynical amongst us may take this to be an attempt to create a whole new market for Microsoft... having said that, the death of spam does appeal!

Would you Adam and Eve it?

blogger.com have introduced syndication for their free service. This is based upon the ATOM specification as opposed to any of the other flavours of RSS - but is pretty darn handy. If you couple this with things like Newsgator or (when it starts to work with ATOM specification 0.3) the brilliant FeedDemon then you'll be keeping up-to-date with blogs and news before you can say "what just happened in cyberspace?". I also highly recommend w.bloggar as a good blog posting tool. Cheerios.

Is your boss a 'corporate psycho'?

Interesting article - you know who you are

New! Learn memory loss skills!

Brain 'can be trained to forget'... ah, but can it be trained to remember more clearly?! It's nice to know that they have actually proved something that we have all known for a long time. Surely giving birth is an example of this?

Great British Blogs...

The best of British blogging There are some great blogs here. Makes me feel that my blog is insubstantial... which it is. Do I feel a New Year's Resolution coming on? Do they really reflect life in the UK?

A positive health story on the Atkins diet.

Atkins diet 'may help epilepsy' It is interesting that the Atkins diet is creating such a large amount of media coverage. Most of the world struggle to eat enough, and yet the richest spend loads of money and effort trying to actually lose the wieght that they gain by not having to eecrise that struggle. It's a topsy turvy world.

Is this a stick of rock?

Ancient fossil penis discovered

Bring on something sensible...

Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of science. The optimist in me believes that this will benefit humankind... the skeptic says that this will be another thing which, although should be of help, will not help equality spread across the planet. This won't redistribute wealth. This won't redistribute food. This may turn energy into a far cheaper commodity - we can hope that the consequences are positive.

Ethics of Abortion

What are ethics of abortion?

"Pro choice? The baby doesn't get much of a choice? If a women is raped she doesn't get much choice (in most situations she will have more choice than the baby)?

At what point does the baby become a living thing that you are then murdering?"

Interesting point "Your Mum" and topical too... as someone who was born with a dodgy foot (you wouldn't notice it, honest) I am happy that my own mother didn't make the decision to terminate me before the world was lucky enough to get a taste of Junket Jim! Seriously though, the debate will forever rage... and knowledge is power. Maybe my mother would have decided to terminate me if she had known what was in store. So, one of points of the debate is, "are we skewing or abetting the evolutionary process by selective termination?" This is something that humankind has always done - is this responsible for our proliferation - accelerated evolution / selective breeding?!

I may add some more here that is actually relevant to the point that Rob was highlighting!

Should marriage be scrapped?

As usual, Rob puts some interesting quotes on the "twentyninethehardway"... but I always want respond... this is the best way I can respond (not entirely satisfactory).

"Most marriages go through dull or wretched patches and some are a cloak for verbal and physical abuse."
Surely, this is actually talking about long-term relationships where the respect between partners has dissolved, where the passion has burned itself out and the day-to-day drudgery of bringing up families, stresses from work or the coma of the commute has taken its toll. This isn't an excuse to stop trying and marriage itself has nothing to do with the dull or wretched patches. There's no argument for marriage to be scrapped here surely?


"Children brought up in two parent families live longer, happier, more law-abiding lives."
I find this easy to believe, but again, I don't particularly believe it is related to marriage. I was the result of a seemingly happy marriage. I am not saying that my parents went round kicking leaves together every autumn and picking flowers in the spring, but I have lived as a part of a normal marriage which fell apart and I have lived with a single parent (although I wasn't always around and they weren't my formative years). I can say, that from my experience that although I can't say that my father has not had a large number of positive influences on my life, I can fully understand that the longer, happier lives is probably something to do with security. Financial security, emotional security and a moral security. It extremely difficult for a single person to provide all of this 100% of the time and therefore redundancy is the name of the game. Extrapolating this wouldn't make sense. For example, a four parent family (i.e. two two-parent families) would actually impact upon the security of the children by actually presenting two family units, which despite all best efforts, would provide a source of insecurity / instability and conflict.

Conflict begets conflict. (put that one on your site Rob!)


"Co-habiting couples on average break up much more than married couples. Why do couples break up?"

I find this the most interesting of facts. I can't explain it any other way than it possibly suggesting that the actual commitment of marriage does actually provide some impetus to keeping the marriage together. Putting this together with the previous quotes - it would appear that marriage is a good thing, not a bad one!

My personal view is that when I am in the lucky position to have a family, then I would like it to be within a marriage (doesn't matter whose marriage! Only joking). This is not because I am religious, and it is not because that I think without it I will be unable to hold together a family unit. Actually, it would appear that this may be social conditioning... which shows what a strong force that is in the light of me being a cast-off from a failed marriage!

Link to "Your Mum"

Rob has loads of interesting quotes and thought provoking statements that frustratingly, he does not folow up... I have decided, seeing as he does not provide a "shout out" facility or any area for debtae and commentary that I would provide that by linking to his articles (obviously judiciously chosen by me!)

Here's the first - but it's just a test one...

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Something I questioned Rob about today. Do you place an emotional egg into the nicest looking basket, the safest basket or do you dilute it into smaller egglets and disperse those into several baskets hoping that one may be nurtured and actually hatch?!

Keys to happiness?

So, what are the keys to happiness? As someone who on a frequent basis takes downturns I have thought long and hard about why depression and unhappiness can consume. Turning it on its head, I then wondered what drives people and gives them satisfaction a feeling of happiness.

If you are reading this on your personal computer at home or at work, then you are probably someon who is fortunate... I am not assuming that your life is perfect or that you were gifted with perfect health, but I am assuming that you have time to relax, enjoy yourself and importantly do not have to spend the whole of your life trying to feed yourself and family - concerned with where the next meal may come from. In short, you are someone who probably has time to contemplate things.

So, what's this got to do with happiness? Who knows? When thinking about this, I thought I would try and look at other aspects of people's lives and try to understand what drives them... or may be what drives me. I thought about things that people get addicted to, and I wondered why they get addicted and whether this is linked to the pursuit of satisfaction or happiness. Take an addictive computer game - in fact, take nearly all addictive computer games - what is the common factor in these games? I believe that the common factor is effort resulting in achievement and reward. Whether this is Tetris where the playing is rewarded for skillfully placing blocks by a satisifying removal of a complete line of blocks (thus moving away from disaster and the Tetris screen being completely filled up with them) or even something like Doom or Quake where the player is gets a sense of satisfaction (happiness?) from actually managing to hit a target with the appropriate weapon. These are small, repeatable achievements where the player had to apply some dexterity and therefore expend effort. Is there a clue to constant happiness here? Does this apply to everything in life - where effort and reward (achievement) produce satisfaction? Is this what drives us? I believe it is. We try to do things that give us satisfaction, but very often forget that the things which will give us most satisfaction require the expense of something personal - whether it is physical, emotional or mental. Conquering fears require enormous emotional expense, but the relief and satisfaction once the fear has been faced can be enormous.

Hence, key to happiness #1 is:

Set yourself small, maybe repeatable, targets every day that require some personal expense. Whether this means exercising for half-an-hour or playing a game of solitaire to conclusion (careful with that one because you may not succeed!). Make sure that you do something you know gives you a sense of achievement - for me today, it is catching up on the blogging and writing that I want to pursue - and when I have finished this tonight I'll feel better than if I hadn't bothered.

A linked key to happiness (#2) - almost the antipathy of #1 - is the avoidance of instant gratification. You haven't committed anything personally to this (even if it is chocolate) - these will only lead to a temporary uplift which I find is usually compensated for with a down side later on. It is easy to see how people become addicted to instant gratification. This could be in the form of gambling, the lead in to chemical dependence (coffee, nicotine, alcohol, cocaine!) or simply getting a take-away! I understand that this may be a debatable point and possibly confused with key #1 ("what's the difference between getting enjoyment from watching a TV program to getting enjoyment from taking an hour out of your day to draw something, or write a poem?"). The key difference is achievement. Both will give a sense of satisfaction - but one is more permenant than the other, and the achievement is less likely to be followed by downside or, even worse, the thought that it is easy to obtain 'free gratification' on a regular basis with no personal skin in the game.

Santimonious? Probably, but it is something that I have started to feel myself - not that I have put into practice to a large extent yet.

So, small, regular efforts and rewards help happiness. Is that all? Surely, life isn't lived on a day to day set of goals? Humankind wouldn't have achieved much if every goal it pursued was truncated at a 12 or 24 boundary! Taking the presumption that I have made about achievement, and noticing how emotional a sportsman can become when facced with victory or defeat after months or even years of training it is fairly clear to me that long-term achievements can also provide a sense of happiness - although I am unclear as to their lasting value. However, it feels correct to me that we should provide ourselves with longer term objectives, but definitely take regular, achievable steps towards those objectives.

Start and end each day positively. At the start of the day, you have no idea what is going to happen, but you can think about some of the things that you want to do and want to achieve. If washing the car fills you with a sense of lethargy (it does me) then think positively and imagine what it feels like to stand back and see the transformation that took place - the mud splattered embarassment becomes a shining object of pride (if that's your bag!). If you can't face weeding the garden, then think about how nice it'll look after you have weeded it. Surely that would provide sufficient motivation to get to that point - and when you do, it'll be worth it.

The same goes for the end of the day. We all have as many bad days as good ones, but there is always something good comes out of a day. It may take a little while to find it, but believe me, it is there - even if it is the simple thought that you survived! Take some time before going to sleep to think about something good from the day. Go to sleep satisfied and relaxed and I believe that you are more likely to wake up that way in the morning.

That's it for now. So, come on, shout out and argue the toss with me! Am I being to simplistic? Have I contradicted myself? What about friends, family, helping others, the greater good. What else makes people happy? What about the things that make you unhappy but are beyond your control - like long-term illness, stress at work or a sense of loneliness - where do they fit in?

Google Deskbar

Google Deskbar is possibly the best desktop enhancement I have seen in a long time. It adds searches (and allows you to extend via custom search types) the web. This is the application I wanted to deliver... I personally have extended it to search our bug database at work, dictionary.com and even Multi-map. Brilliant.

Scientists find mystery particle

Scientists find mystery particle... think of the consequences if this is responsible for an unknown force... Star Wars?

Self-medication

Now hear an interesting thing about how animals 'self-medicate'. This means dogs eat grass so that they vomit, parrots eat clay to settle their stomachs, chimpanzees rub themselves with fruit to cleanse themselves... do we self-medicate as an instinctual act? Is smoking a self-medication for schizophrenia? Interesting questions

Change in approach to blogging

OK, Rob, you win... it's time I put some of my thoughts down as well as just stupid links.

In true Rob style... TO DO: The key to happiness...

The Most Complete and Most Useless Collection of Pick-Up Lines

Male sex hormone easily triggered Gee, I am surprised...

Gun lobbying plan backfires in US. Thought provoking?

Turn your home into a mini power station

Cerebration - the Chinese New Year?

Student sued over CD piracy study... long live simple thinking.

Brain scan shows rejection pain. It explains why I am feeling so bad and my foot hurts... in fact, my whole life my bad foot (I was born with a equinovarus talipise) - do you think that it has contributed to my sense of rejection throughout my life? In turn that has probably contributed to the person I have become! Thought provoking...

Are you atrabilious? - if not then possibly you are uxorious. I love dictionary.com's word of the day - always keeps me amused - especially if I have behaved egregiously and need to assuage that feeling of guilt. Anyway, atrabilious sums me up to a tee at the moment!

Jurassic pot plants on sale soon This is absolutely amazing - I can't believe that I missed this when they first discovered it. I wonder how many other things there are out there that we are unwittingly destroying - Loch Ness monster?!

Electronic paper prepares for video. The future is coming... again. I thought that electronic paper was not responsive enough to perform video function. I can't wait...

Human fossils set European record. This is very interesting... the implications surrounding sharing the European continent with the Neanderthals is especially interesting. Do you know anyone who exhibits the traditional Neanderthal qualities such as a heavy-set brow, short and stocky, little creativity? It's dangerous ground to start associating what we consider to be relatively negative attributes to people on the basis that they may have some Neanderthal lineage (remember the Aryans - in the Nazi meaning of the word?). Ironically, if we associate negative attributes with Neanderthal qualities it is interesting to remember that they have found elements of Neanderthal DNA in our own (Europeans) and I am unsure whether that is the case of the people who originate from Africa - if that is the case, surely people from Africa are the 'pure' homo-erectus... which is completely the opposite to what Hitler was trying to prove (if you make the assumption that a 'pure' human is the 'master-race').

Jabberwacky - live chat bot - AI Artificial Intelligence. Turing devised a test that, if passed, the program / artificial intelligence couldn't be distinguished from a human sentient... mind you, could you tell whether all the people that you converse with are actually naturally intelligent? Harsh? I think so. I challenge you to have a conversation with this engine and see if it makes any more sense than a person after 8 pints of Stella... is that what Turing had in mind?

Viagra 'could prevent strokes' Fantastic... first they invent something which alleviates male impotence - and now it's being used for all sorts of stuff. I like the fact that a sex-pill has an association with strokes. Something kind of twisted about that.

Sleep position gives personality clue.
This is very interesting, but generally I don't know what this says about me because I toss and turn all night long. Is there a difference between being unconscious due to sleep and unconscious due to alcohol? Enough alcohol will reduce a person's brain functioning to the only primitive brain, so when you sleep then is this the same case? Would a drunken sleeper sleep in the same position as a sober sleeper? If not, does this suggest that there is some form of consciousness still accessible during deep sleep?

Best and Worst - thousands of polls at BESTANDWORST.com This has to be one of the best sites on the net... a pool of creativity, malice, prejudice, and comedy. Highly recommended!

Get Writing! I have always wanted to write a novel of some sort - but I have no story ideas... let's hope "DeadMan" goes somewhere.

New scope for dope... I would have sent this link to Rob's blog if there was a way of doing it... people would only abuse the facility I suppose.

The dullest blog in the world
This has to be the funniest blog I have come across. Obviously, I can top it because I walked from the car to the front door.

The Brains Trust - Topical humour, news parody and political satire - funny jokes. This has to be one of the more creatvie sights on the web - check out the article on late abortions in Florida. Very clever!

Technorati: Link Cosmos. This is IT - a way of finding which blogs are linked to which blogs. Of course, it would be better if blogs were associated by similar and then may be people with similar interests may find a way of ranting together!

English is expanding...
The beauty of the English language is that it is always evolving. The downside of the language (or any language) surely must be that it puts a constraint on what we think. Mathematics was developed as a mechanism for expressing abstract thought, meta-physics attempts a similar feat, and languages other than English are more emotionally expressive. Does the language we use mould the kind of people we are? Italians have the language of love and are known for their romance (see, even the word romance is from Italy!). Is the American English the evolving language of the Internet? Today I coined the terms; "naval glazing" - a despicable, Viz-like description for male masturbation and novellog - a novella published entirely as a web-log. Chris Pirillo has more... check his blog out and then, if you are a psuedo-techie, look at LockerGnome.

Industrial Disease... and we are all suffering from it at the moment. I guess this should be updated to something like "knowledge worker's disease"... industry has been moved to another continent.

Smoking vaccine 'a step closer'. Smokers always say, "you haven't smoked? That's fantastic; don't do it". I think that I understand. Something gives you pleasure at the start soon turns into a habit or a dependency - and before you know it, you are telling people that don't smoke that they shouldn't! So what will happen when all of these smokers get immunised? They do say that there's nothing worse than a reformed smoker, and if there 13 million in the UK are suddenly "cured" then what will be the topic in our fresh smelling pubs? It's funny how they have invented something that "cures" smokers, when the smokers are doing a good job of curing themselves!

Dictionary.com/defenestrate Excellent - a word that actually means to throw out of a window... don't you love the english language.

The Register report: Linksys connects PC to Hi-Fi, wirelessly... is this what I have been waiting for? I have just installed a wireless network into the house (802.11g @ 54Mbs) which is great and was part 1 of my attempt to share all digital media across the home - from a TiVo to my complete photos and music collection. I was waiting for the UK edition of the Windows XP Media Centre Edition to b