Destroy All Onions!

As it was such a nice day, I went out cycling today. Decided to go through the park I found before, with the great bridges. And here they are:

That’s my bike there on the right for scale. It looks quite small. Obviously enough, you can easily walk under the crossbar.

To get there, I made a left turn on the way into Jordanstown, and it took me into what google maps says is Glen Park. It’s a nice little park, quite forested, with a river running through it (not unlike Cregagh Glen). But suddenly you come on these bridges – the old stone one with that cool ironwork, then the 2 newer ones in white concrete immediately behind with their pleasing modern arches. It’s very striking, and my phone hasn’t captured it terribly well, but it’s a nice spot.

From there, I carried on through the park, and then out of Monkstown. On the spur of the moment, decided to visit Knockagh Monument, a big stone obelisk that looks down from the hills over Jordanstown comemmorating the men of Antrim that died in the wars. There’s a lot of uphill to get there, which ended up a bit of a struggle, but the view is spectacular, and the monument worth a look.

And that’s where I went today!

Today is the 12th of July, the day in which the people of Northern Ireland celebrate and perpetuate religious conflict. Because it was a ncie sunny day, I went out on my bike. And as I cycled, I continued to mull over what to do about a tablet computer.

I really fancy a tablet computer. I think they are very cool. But I am having a really hard time making my mind up on what to buy. Because it’s not just a technical decision. I decided it could be framed as a religious conflict, and that seemed very fitting for today.

Umberto Eco famously wrote that fountain pens were protestant, and ballpoints were catholic, because of the universality of ballpoints versus the maintenance and finickiness of fountain pens. That got extended to PCs versus Macs. And now I guess it applies as well to IOS vs Android.

The Apple Ipad could be thought of as Catholic. Catholicism brought us the beauty of cathedrals, and I suppose thereby invented aethetic design. The ipad is the triumph of design, with its minimalist approach. However, it also has a pope, who rules over his flock. Steve decides what you can and can’t do with your ipad, and what he says goes. His triumph is that in his role as priest, he has mediated between the complexity of the technology and ordinary people, and has created a universal device – everyone is welcome, and it works for all without a lot of tedious theology. And that of course is what attracts me to it – it just works, and it works beautifully.

But then the reformation comes, and the people stand up and say no to what they see as an authoritarian regime that has gone astray. At first, they’re not sure what to believe, what to take from the old church, and what to reinvent. But they do know that they believe in making their own decisions, and that they don’t need Steve to tell them what they can and can’t do. Of course, being essentially Protestant, it is a completely fragmented approach. There are lots and lots of different ways to do everything. So there’s no standard way of doing it – to get the best from it, you go and find your favourite email client, video player, keyboard. And so it’s hard work, an uphill struggle to get it the way you want it.

My head says that I should get an ipad. It’s very clever, and it just works. Every reviewer says that despite it’s faults, it is the best machine. But it does have faults. The lack of flash is irritating, right from not being able to go straight to the BBC News Page, and having to use an app instead. It is also not expandable. My 16Gb iphone is almost full, so I would need to move up to a 32Gb ipad, which increases the price. I have at least determined that by grabbing some other video players, it should be able to handle some of the other video formats though, which is good.

But my heart says that I should get an android machine. I don’t like Apple, and I don’t like Steve Jobs. I want the android machines to be better than the ipad, but they’re not. But they are not far off. And crucially, they have a much better chance to improve, because of the flexibility of that ecosystem. They are expandable with cheap mini-sd cards. They play flash, avi, and anything else that can be thrown at them. They are a little cheaper. But it is an act of faith. If people don’t buy into android tabs, the marketplace will not grow, and it won’t happen. But if people do buy them, I think it’s better for everyone, as Apple need the competition to keep them honest. And of course there are disadvantages – you’re on your own for content for an android pad, since there’s no itunes store, so you have to get your own content from CD, DVD or out there on the net.

So there we are. A battle between head and heart. In years to come, wars shall be fought over it I’m sure. But for now, the fight goes on inside my head.

And just to be clear, I’m not an expert on the differences between protestantism and catholicism; this isn’t meant to be a comment on religion, and the framework is largely based on the half-remembered Umberto Eco essay, which I couldn’t find on google.

PS: But Alan did find the original, and it’s here.

Hello internet! How’ve you been?

I was off work today, so I decided to go for a nice walk. I managed to be outside for an hour and a half without getting rained on!

I walked to my local forest, Cregagh Glen, which I discovered today is run by the National Trust.

As usual, it’s pretty rough – trees have fallen, and fences have broken; some of the bridges still don’t have guardrails, and there’s quite a bit of litter from the local drinkers. Well, a little less now, since once of the items I saw was a plastic bag, so I lifted it up, and filled it with bits of rubbish that I found on the way down).

But despite the bad parts, it’s nature, and it’s lovely.

Walked right to the top, and enjoyed the view over Belfast from the top of the hill, but had to use some of my football special to put out a fire that some moron had lit in the bushes. But I hadn’t walked there in ages, and I enjoyed being out and about.

According to runkeeper, around 4 and a half miles in and hour and a half. But who cares – today, it was just about a nice walk.

Just trying out the roaming internet access on my kindle in Donegal. Looks like it works!
Cool 🙂

Yesterday was my birthday. I don’t suppose there’s any point trying to hide the fact that I turned 38. I’m never very keen on moving further away from my childhood, so if possible I like to take the day off work and do something a bit childish on my birthday.

So yesterday I went to the zoo. It was cool. And I was cool too, because I was wearing a new shirt and my cool hat. And I got a cool badge, because it was my birthday and it’s traditional to wear a badge on your birthday.

Needless to say, it was much admired.

I also have to acknowledge the best birthday card of the year. I hope no-one else who gave me a card is offended, but this one just rocks so completey, I had to share it:

Isn’t that just so cool!

So the first day of being 38 was great!

I came across this in the regular advert email from Expansys.

Doesn’t it look cool!

The specification is frankly wierd, including:

I’m just not sure what that’s trying to tell me. Twenty simultaneous calls is a lot to deal with, so I don’t think it’s that, but only being able to make and receive twenty phone calls before you have to throw it out sucks.

You can see it in its natural environment at Expansys here.

And no, I don’t plan to buy one, but it is cool.

A wasp flew through the window into my bathroom on Friday. It seemed very early in the year to see a wasp, and it didn’t seem agitated or anything,so I just watched it for a while. It was a pretty big one, and it was really beautiful.

I guess we so often just worry about wasps, and spend all our time running away from them, or splatting them. But it was really nice to just watch.

I found it dead on Saturday, cause unknown.

But here it is – the first wasp of 2011.

Today I made my television debut, though not under the circumstances I would have wanted. Ideally, I would have been asked to be in Doctor Who, as a scheming villain with an evil laugh. But that didn’t happen. Instead, I contributed to Channel 4’s 4thought series, after the news at 7:55. You can catch up with it at 4thought.tv, and also read what other viewers thought of what I said. I’m mainly relieved that I didn’t make an eejit of myself, and the producers didn’t make an eejit of me either. It says pretty much what I wanted it to say, so that’s good, and I’m enormously relieved.

But alongside the continuing tragedy in Japan, there was another tragedy closer to home, as I attended the funeral today of my 19 year old next door neighbour. He died in a motorbike accident on Saturday night, and needless to say, the family are devastated. I guess the same thoughts apply to that situation as to the tsunami victims.

But on a brighter note, I finally saw an episode of Jamie’s Dream School tonight (also on Channel 4, and no I don’t have a sponsorship deal). It was on in the gym when I started on the running machine. I ended up running over 4 miles just to keep watching it! I’ve had arguments about this one, where my friend makes the reasonable point that they aren’t actual teachers, and they’re not actually teaching them very much, and that real life is complicated and quick fixes seldom work. But watching it tonight, there are some kids who are starting to make decisions about who and what they want to be, and I hope it works out for them.

I caught up on some tv tonight.

The highlight of the 10 o’clock show from last week (warning – as usual it’s a bit sweary, but also contains some really good analysis of the week’s news) must be Charlie Brookers statement that “Nuclear Physics is being explained to me by people who struggled to describe the colour of Kate Middleton’s dress last week”.

Yes, I know, I’m still focusing on Japanese stuff. But it’s perfectly normal; it’s still kind of on my mind a bit.

I can’t resist drawing attention to another article in the Register which is not so much about the actual problems at Fukushima, but more about the media reporting of it. Having sat in Tokyo for a week and seen some of the hysterical scaremongering that terrified my family, while governmental and other experts told us that we would be fine, I like this. The media has an agenda these days, and it is seldom to provide comfort or reassurance. Of course, the Register has an agenda too (they seldom say anything nice about my company), but I think they are more right than wrong on this.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, my slot on 4thought on Channel 4 will be on Wednesday evening, at 7:55.