June 2010
1 post
1 tag
Transitions.
My mum died on June 17th.
She’d been in intensive care for a month. Progress had been slow - too slow for the doctors’ liking. Finally, we got the call that informed us that there was nothing more they could do for her. I was there when it happened, I held her hand, and, thankfully, it was quick and, I was assured, painless. The funeral was just under a week later and, again, it...
May 2010
1 post
2 tags
Sarky.
From an Australian tourist website…
Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia ? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? (UK ). A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die. __________________________________________________ Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA) A: Depends how much you’ve been drinking....
April 2010
1 post
4 tags
Europe.
With the UK election coming up fast, one of the key issues seems to be the whole Europe thing. Should the UK be more integrated into the EU? I say yes. Absolutely. Quite apart from the fact that the UK needs to stop being the “51st State”, the UK would be at the centre of a stronger European Union, transforming the EU into the economic powerhouse it’s always promised to be....
February 2010
1 post
4 tags
Saviour.
Steve Jobs did an interview session after the Apple keynote last week where he covered, amongst other things, his attitude to Google and Adobe Flash. The man didn’t mince with words, branding Adobe as “lazy” and Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra as “bullshit”. I have a lot of respect for him, but I must admit to being disappointed with his comments.
Apple’s enmity with Google is somewhat...
January 2010
2 posts
2 tags
Gamechanger.
So, yesterday was the big day. Mr. Jobs came out, did his “reality distortion field” thing and announced the Apple iPad. On the surface, it’s a typically technolust-worthy Apple device with a ton of cool features. But is that enough? I must admit, I’m somewhat on the fence about it. It’s certainly a beautiful object, as is almost everything designed by Jonathan Ives, but what will be its niche?
...
Software.
The intertubes are awash with speculation regarding Apple’s big product announcement next week. Will it be the fabled tablet? Will it be some other paradigm-shifting innovation of earth-shattering, elephantine proportions? Maybe. But, let’s be honest here, none of us know for sure what it’ll be. But, if it is the tablet, it’s not like it’s something new. So, for the sake of this blog post, let’s...
November 2009
3 posts
Mobile.
It’s been the clarion call for the technology industry for a few years now - “the future is mobile”.
It does indeed seem to be the case, with the stratospheric growth of smartphones, netbooks and mobile broadband, but there are still so many missing links. It seems none of these devices is really the “catch-all” that their makers want them to be. They’re close,...
Essential.
For many businesses, the killer app for introducing computers to the workplace was e-mail. Nowadays, we all take this most ubiquitous of communication methods for granted - it has supplanted telephones, regular mail, fax and even in-person meetings for many applications, and, yet, this technology hasn’t significantly changed since its birth at MIT in 1965.
If you look at almost every other...
Cloud.
In their constant (and winning) battle to be the leading ambassadors and evangelists of cloud computing, Google upped the stakes yesterday with their announcement of Chrome OS.
Chrome OS is a very lightweight operating system designed specifically for netbooks and other such devices, and basically consists of nothing but a browser (a variant on Google’s own Chrome browser), with all...
October 2009
3 posts
3 tags
Competition.
It takes significantly more effort to engage the imagination of a thirty-something than it does of a twelve-year-old, that’s for sure.
That’s probably why I don’t play video games as much as I used to. Combine that with meatspace responsibilities such as work, the time constraints of other hobbies and pastimes and, of course, spending quality time with your significant other,...
Adulthood.
It’s time to join the ranks of the adult population, finally, 37 years on from the womb. I’m going to be a dad next year.
All that real-world stuff about being settled, security, finances, responsibility and stuff is staring me in the face like it never has before. Some people believe this to mean you have to change everything about your life - but I think you can work around it. No...
Accumulation.
It’s amazing the amount of assorted detritus you accumulate over the years. When I first moved out to the US in 2005, I pretty much threw almost everything I owned into a bunch of cardboard boxes, shipped them over here, then promptly forgot all about most of it.
So, today I decided to break open some of those boxes and sort through some of the stuff I’d gathered over the years. Wow....
August 2009
2 posts
3 tags
Demonstration.
Back in the dim and distant past (well, 1987 to be exact), I was a spotty, chubby, geeky teenager, and I got into something somewhat different to most other spotty, geeky teenagers of the time.
While they were all off getting drunk for the first time, desperately trying to lose their virginity and generally being all teenage and obnoxious, I was part of the Amiga demoscene.
This scene contained...
Future.
Back when I was a kid, I used to read a magazine called Insight - it was basically a guide to everything futuristic, all the latest developments, and with an optimistic eye towards what was to come. Basically, everything pointed towards an atomic-powered utopia, cities with gleaming spires where there was no crime, no poverty, a benevolent world government, everyone travelled using jetpacks or in...
July 2009
3 posts
2 tags
Realism.
In the eternal (and occasionally futile) quest to reinvigorate my interest in video games, I do regularly keep my ear to the ground regarding new developments. And, as I read the press releases for the next big new game, they always boast about “ultra-realistic graphics”. That’s all well and good - watching someone play FIFA these days, you could easily think that you were...
Toilet.
I’ve just had a moment of clarity about the UK.
Much as I miss it there, the lifestyle I had, the musical opportunities, the friends… I have come to the realisation that almost everywhere I lived over there since I moved out of my mum’s house was a toilet. I may moan about the US (and, believe me, I restrain myself when I’m online) but the places I’ve lived over here...
May 2009
4 posts
3 tags
Control.
I actually sat down and used my Xbox 360 for its intended purpose the other night - playing games. Most of the time it sits there relaying videos from my computer to the big TV in the living room and streaming movies from Netflix, and nothing else.
Now, I do enjoy video games. When I was younger, I was a bona fide addict. It took 3 years working at a games company to break this addiction, and...
United.
The Holy Grail of web development is a language and development environment that unites client-side and server-side programming into one. There has been progress on this front - ASP.NET (using Visual Studio) is probably the best-known, allowing HTML page elements to be directly accessed from the server-side as server controls. It’s a shame the language has so many development overheads, and...
2 tags
Colour.
Over the years, I’ve had to deal with cultural differences in many ways. Firstly, and most obviously, as a British citizen in the US, there are plenty of cultureshocks to be had - on the surface, there’s a lot of similarity between our two countries and cultures, but there are also many, many differences that I have to navigate on a daily basis (note my spelling of “colour”...
It’s nice to see that a game I worked on 12 years ago is still appreciated today! http://bit.ly/pVf12
April 2009
12 posts
2 tags
Gadget.
The iPhone is pretty much the ultimate gadget. But it’s not just a gadget, it’s a game changer.
The release of the iPhone initiated a paradigm shift in internet connectivity. All of a sudden, there’s this device that is universally useful - it’s a phone, a full-featured internet browser, a GPS, a games console, a book reader, an email and text client, a camera… the list goes on. And, in the short...
Multilingual.
Well, I think the time has come for me to learn a new programming language. We’re having a bit of a slow month at work, so I have my boss’ blessing to use some of this time to learn some new skills.
So, I’ve narrowed the list of things I want to learn down to four things:
Ruby On Rails
JSP
iPhone development
Adobe Flex
I’m leaning towards RoR, as it seems...
3 tags
Hooligans.
So, apparently Britain isn’t a good place for kids.
I can believe it. All it takes is a cursory look around any British town centre to see the state of Britain’s youth. Surly kids in hoodies looking threatening, teenage mothers everywhere, teenage shoplifters being carted away in police vans, all the reports of teenage drug dealers, burglars, muggers, car thieves… not to mention...
4 tags
Ambition.
Sometimes I think I’m ideologically incompatible with the US. Many people here want to be millionaires, have the biggest houses, biggest cars and so on. I don’t. Never have, really.
My ambition is different. It’s about comfort, rather than “bigger, better, faster, more”. And my preferred route to this level of comfort is that I want to get good enough at something...
4 tags
Space.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor Of London, is my favourite politician.
OK, he’s a Tory, which means I should hate him on principle, but he has two redeeming features. Firstly, his scruffy, foppish demeanour and overstated, plummy, upper-crust accent is a parody of a politician, more like a character who should be appearing on “Little Britain”, and I think we need more people like that in...
2 tags
Relics.
We hear all the time about the chaos the music industry is going through in light of downloading. Well, I’ve thought of a way that the record industry can save itself.
Bring back vinyl.
I have come to the conclusion that maybe the CD’s days are numbered. If people want music for their iPod, car stereo, etc, they can download the MP3. If they want it in a physical format, they can buy...
4 tags
Efficiency.
I’ve always been a proponent of the philosophy of “doing more with less”. Not sure why, it’s some kind of deep-seated thing that probably goes back to my earlier days of using computers.
Every time you hear about a new computer game these days, the computer requirements for it have gone through the roof - you need this speed processor, that speed graphics card, and so on....
2 tags
Pastime.
Having had some time away from the music industry, and listening to stories of those who are still involved, I’ve had a chance to see some aspects of it for what they really are.
For me, the phrase, “music business” is an oxymoron. Music isn’t a business, it’s an artform. It’s something special that happens when you let a person, or group of people, with...
3 tags
Clumsy.
Please, Apple. Please release an external keyboard for the iPhone.
For someone like me, with big sausage fingers, the on-screen keypad doesn’t always cut it. I tap away clumsily, having to rely on the built-in predictive text features in order to be intelligible. I believe the iPhone 3.0 software supports a wider range of external devices than the current firmware, so, please, do it. Also,...
3 tags
Simplified.
I have a problem with many of the current web frameworks out there. They obscure the nuts and bolts of web development too much, basically.
For me, this began with all the additional stuff that Microsoft shoved in when they created ASP.NET - sure, things like the DataGrid are powerful and stuff, but they’ve taken a degree of control away from the programmer. If I want to display a table of...
3 tags
Effort.
I need more of it. Or, as they say on the internet, “I no haz it”.
Let’s face it, I work in social media. I’m just a humble backroom programmer, but I need to be involved. If everyone from Barack Obama to Paris Hilton is in on this stuff, I suppose I should be too. It’s the f**king future.
So, here I shall present my new blog. Here you’ll find various musings...