Archive for November, 2006
Intelligent Design story evolves. Which is rather ironic
“Let’s test Darwin, teacher says” - says the BBC, echoing the various newspapers. Nick Cowan of Blue Coats school has been urging the Education Secretary to allow Truth In Science packs - which push Intelligent Design (ID) - to be used in schools. The story talks about Cowan’s credentials again and again, and quotes him as saying:
“There’s a sense that if you criticise Darwin you must be some kind of religious nut case.”
But nowhere in the story does it mention that he’s got something of a vested interest, because he is apparently a Young Earth Creationist. According to Wikipedia:
Young Earth creationism is a religious doctrine which teaches that the Earth and life on Earth were created by a direct action of God relatively recently (about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago). It is generally held by those Christians and Jews who believe that the ancient Hebrew text of Genesis is a literal account of historical events, that evidence for a strictly factual interpretation of the text is present in the world today, and that scientific evidence does not support Darwinian evolution or geological uniformitarianism
Which means the headline, “Let us test Darwin, teacher says” is misleading, because the story is missing out a key bit of information. “Let us test Darwin, creationist says” would be more accurate - but then again, that would make the story as newsworthy as “bear shits in woods” or “Pope: Catholic”.
Newsflash! Sony sat-nav “still an absolute piece of shit”
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This little beauty is Sony’s NV-U50 sat-nav system, which you can buy right now. Don’t. After extensive testing, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s still an absolute piece of shit.
Back in May, I posted about the problem with the Sony’s maps: driving around Ireland, I spent most of the time with the sat-nav telling me that I was in the middle of a field because its maps were out of date (some bits of Glasgow are affected too - one-way systems that have been in place for a while that the satnav doesn’t know about). Sony promised to update the maps in August and of course, didn’t.
But that pales into insignificance when you look at the more fundamental problem: the system’s bollocks. It doesn’t let you enter street numbers and only accepts the first half of postcodes, although you can make it more precise by telling it which street junction you’re going for - which is handy if you ALREADY KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING AND THE NAMES OF THE SIDE STREETS. If on the other hand you’re using the system because you’ve no idea where you’re going, it’s about as useful as a roller-skating pig in a tu-tu.
The postcode thing is just crap: for example, Glasgow’s Great Western Road is approximately two and a half million miles long, and narrowing it down by half-postcode means you can get within, ooh, at least seven hundred miles of your destination. The other week I used the Sony to help me find a hotel on the Strathaven Road near East Kilbride, which again is a billion jillion miles long. I ended up hopelessly lost in the middle of nowhere, with the sat-nav telling me I’d reached my destination.
In the bad old days, to get anywhere new and unfamiliar you needed two things: a map, and a telephone to call for directions. Now, thanks to technology, all you need is a £200-plus sat-nav system, and a map, and a telephone.
Sony’s current advertising tagline is “like no other”. Yeah, other manufacturers’ sat-nav systems actually bloody work.
iTrips, other MP3-to-FM transmitters legal in a week or so
Ofcom’s confirmed that, as of 8th December, iTrips and other iPod-FM transmitters will finally be legal in the UK. Which is good news for the thousands of you who’ve bought such things and put them in a drawer, saying “oh, I wish Ofcom would make it legal so I can actually use it”.
Ian McLean’s showing off his photos
Ian McLean, the chap responsible for the rather terrifying picture at the top of this page, is showing off his Glasgow’s Lanes photos in Glasgow on Saturday, 2nd December. He says: “The venue will be Renfield Lane, just around the corner from Central Station. I have no official permission to use this area, so the times [12-4pm] are subject to us being moved on!”
Ian’s site is here, and it’s well worth a look.
We need new words
The late Douglas Adams co-wrote a superb book, The Meaning of Liff, which attempted to find new words to describe universal experiences. In these net-everywhere days, we probably need to update it to describe situations such as these:
* The moment when, one second after sending a superbly bitchy email, you realise you’ve sent it to the person you’re being bitchy about instead of the person you wanted to bitch about them to.
* As above, but when you realise you’ve sent the message to 700 people.
* The combination of horror and morbid curiosity you feel when you’re troubleshooting someone else’s PC and discover their saved porn searches in the browser’s autocomplete.
* The amazing mechanism whereby you take delivery of a shiny new something - gadget, computer, whatever - and the manufacturer immediately doubles the specification and halves the price.
* The pathetic attempts you make to distract the in-laws’ attention during dinner when you realise you haven’t removed “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin Ta Fuck Wit” from your iTunes playlist.
Any more?
Mick Hucknall is talking out of his fat ginger arse
He’s in the Guardian, wibbling about copyright. He says “Copyright is not a monopoly restricting the free flow of ideas”; presumably he’s a different Mick Hucknall to the one who moaned back in 2000 that his major label deal meant the record company, not Simply Red, owned the copyright for the band’s master tapes.
Here’s a few examples for mad Mick:
Recently, a French AIDS awareness advertising campaign withdrew two ads under threat of suit by Walt Disney Inc. One ad featured Snow White in suspenders and fishnet stockings and the other featured Cinderella in a seductive pose. Disney contended that these ads constituted copyright infringement, and the mere threat of litigation caused the AIDS awareness group to pull their ads. This incident is interesting both because it did not require actual litigation (the mere threat of litigation assured compliance) and because the characters Snow White and Cinderella were not created by Disney, and were folklore characters for hundreds of years before the Disney company was even formed.
…In 1996 the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) told the Girl Scouts of the USA that scout camps must start paying a licensing fee to sing any of the 4 million copyrighted songs that ASCAP controlled (Walker and Fagan). This included girl scout staples such as “Happy Birthday”. Many camps went songless for months, until newspaper and talk show attention generated enough outrage that ASCAP was forced to say that they had no intention of prosecuting girl scout camps for violations of singing songs around the campfire. But in backing down, ASCAP still insisted that they still might prosecute camps for playing background music without a license.
I particularly liked this bit by Hucknall:
Copyright promotes artistic creativity and the free circulation of ideas. More than 20 years ago, musicians seized the opportunity for collaboration offered by new technology in the form of digital samples. Far from obstructing this exchange of inspiration, copyright facilitates sampling, and translates the creative debt into income for the creator of the borrowed work. Musical sampling is the perfect example of copyright’s flexibility in fusing the ever-changing worlds of art, commerce and technology.
I’m sure Negativland, 2 Live Crew, the KLF, DJ Danger Mouse, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and the Verve would all agree. When Negativland sampled U2, the band’s label nearly bankrupted them; 2 Live Crew were sued by Roy Orbison’s estate; the KLF had to delete an entire album; Danger Mouse’s Grey Album will never appear in the shops; Beastie Boys had to pull a track because AC/DC refused to let them use a sample; Public Enemy didn’t release a track because the Beatles sample would have cost insane sums to licence; and The Verve never received a penny from Bitter Sweet Symphony because they used a Stones string sample.
In an ideal world, perhaps, copyright would protect creators. In the real world, copyrights are owned by companies - most work is work-for-hire, which means the person who pays you owns the copyright. A real example from my own line of work: I’ve written a number of books which, for various reasons, weren’t widely distributed. The books are now out of print and I very much doubt they’ll ever see the light of day again. I’ve still got the original text and it’d be a doddle to put them online for free as PDFs, but unfortunately I don’t own the copyright so I can’t. Unless the publisher decides to reprint, that text will remain locked away forever. Just like Simply Red’s major label master tapes.
The whole point of copyright was to give creators a limited period during which they and only they could profit from their work, and once that period was up the work passed into the public domain. It really doesn’t work like that today.
The Bigmouth tech awards 2006
Some magazines have done it already and others are waiting for their versions to come back from the printers: yep, it’s the inevitable “best of” stuff that fills pages at this time every year. I thought I’d do my own version, largely ’cause I’m bored. Heh.
Game of the year - Gears of War
It’s taken a year, but next-gen gaming is finally here. It’s impossible to describe how drop-dead gorgeous GoW is or how impressive the on-screen action is; you have to play it to see how good this game is. The single player campaign is pretty short, but if you’re into online multiplayer then it’ll tempt you away from Halo 2.
Console of the year - Nintendo Wii
I love my Xbox 360, but judging by the (many) first-hand accounts I’ve read of using the Wii, Nintendo’s console delivers something much more important than pretty pictures: joy. When reading a review of a console makes you grin, you know Nintendo’s come up with something special.
Turkey of the year - Microsoft Zune
I was tempted to nominate the PS3, but despite its silly price it’s selling anyway - so it’s hardly a turkey. However, I’m pretty sure the Zune is going to bomb, at least in its current incarnation. There’s lots to like, but not enough to make me want one. The absence of any plans to launch it in the UK doesn’t help.
It’s particularly disappointing when Microsoft has been so smart in other areas, such as Xbox - its US download service looks great and is sensibly priced, the 360 plays nice with Media Center, and so on.
Computer of the year - 20″ iMac
It’s big, it’s fast, it’s relatively cheap, it runs OS X and - via boot camp or Parallels Desktop - it runs Windows too.
Laptop of the year - MacBook (white)
A thing of beauty, with more than enough horsepower to get stuff done. Buy a white one with a bigger hard disk instead of the black one, though.
Pain in the arse of the year (gadget) - iPod video
iPod + iTunes? Brilliant. iPod + iTunes Music Store? Brilliant, if you don’t mind DRM. iPod + video? A major, major pain in the arse. Instead of “it just works”, it’s a case of “it might work” - your original video needs converted to make it iPod-friendly, and in my experience that means the end results either don’t work, lose their audio, stutter alarmingly or refuse to sync. Rubbish.
Cable of the year - in-car iPodding
Irrespective of the particular connector, cable or manufacturer, being able to hook your iPod to your car stereo is one of the greatest things in the world, ever. Especially if you can control the iPod from your stereo and hide it away. Mind you, Alpine came perilously close to getting the “pain in the arse” award for its superbly annoying iPod user interface.
MP3 player of the year - iPod Nano 4GB
By all means get a fully-fledged iPod for the car or to hook up to your stereo, but for everyday use the Nano’s got it all: capacity, battery life and a low price.
The “Gary got it wrong again” award - Windows Vista
My first impressions of Vista were “XP in new trousers”. But after spending a lot of time with later builds I’m liking it a lot, especially the improvements to searching and browsing. The beefed-up security helps, too, and if you’ve got kids the parental controls are excellent. I’ve been back on XP for a bit to do software reviews, and I wasn’t happy.
The “dump it now” award - Microsoft Points
Right, so if I buy this song it’s going to be X pence, but I need to pay with Microsoft points, and it’s… oh sod it, I’m off to bittorrent. Just sell pre-pay cards with sterling amounts, like Apple does.
The “didn’t happen, but should have” award - DRM interoperability
Another year passes and there’s still no way to put Microsoft music on an iPod or iTunes music on a PlaysForSure player. Great for firms trying to lock us into their particular platform, but crap for consumers.
The “can’t bring myself to give a shit” award - HDTV and next-gen DVD
1080p, you say? Blu-ray versus HD-DVD? Nope, sorry, still don’t care.
Browser of the year - Firefox 2
IE7 - quite good. Firefox 2 - better. Particularly when you stuff it with extensions. I like the look of Flock, too, but the various builds I’ve tried haven’t been solid enough for everyday use.
The “software you’ll have to pry from my cold dead hands” award - NetNewsWire 3 (beta)
The best newsreader I’ve ever used (and believe me, I’ve used a lot). I’d be utterly lost without it - it’s Mac only, though, so if you’re a Windows feed demon then check out, er, FeedDemon at newsgator.com.
Site of the year: Flickr
I love Flickr, whether it’s browsing friends’ photos, using it to backup my iPhoto albums or getting depressed when I see how talented so many Flickr users are. Fark.com comes a close second, because I still think it’s one of the funniest sites on the Net.
Dodgy downloader of the year: Bittorrent
Yes, it’s illegal, but if you download albums pre-release from Bittorrent and then buy the CD when it comes out - or use torrents because it’s quicker than getting the CDs out of the loft - then who exactly are you hurting?
Acronym of the year: TL;DR
The perfect response to pretty much any lengthy blog post (yes, like this one) or carefully constructed argument, TL;DR stands for “too long; didn’t read”.
And that’s it… any categories I’ve missed or things I’ve cruelly shunned?
Oh shit, not again
Those of you who’ve been hanging around these parts for a while will know of the Big Back Saga, where I slipped two discs, spent months in agony (even though I was off my face on horse tranquilisers) and ended up paying for very expensive surgery in order to get my life back. What a crap time that was, etc etc etc.
I’ve done my back in again.
Gears of War “quite successful”
1 million copies sold in two weeks. Bloody hell.
How Scottish politics works
Labour MSP Karen Whitefield wants the Scottish Executive to pass legislation that would make it illegal for big shops to open on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day in order to “protect workers”. There are a few minor issues with that, though:
* 99.9% of big shops don’t actually open on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, so Whitefield wants to legislate against something that’s rarer than hens’ teeth;
* The Scottish Executive doesn’t have the power to create employment legislation - that’s Westminster’s job.
You’d think these two issues would kill the Bill outright, but you’d be wrong: Whitefield is using the same tactic that worked for the smoking ban - which, it’s important to remember, was brought in to “protect workers”. Unfortunately both Health and Safety legislation and employment legislation are reserved powers, which means they’ve got sod-all to do with MSPs; so the MSPs went looking for any scrap of power that they could use to get their ban anyway. It’s a clever tactic, and it worked.
Whitefield is doing the same thing. Again, she wants to protect workers; again, she’s up against the teeny-weeny little problem that such protection is sod-all to do with the Scottish Executive. So she’s gone looking for a loophole.
Irrespective of your opinion on festive trading, when MSPs’ reaction to the limits of their powers is to say “How can we bend the rules so we can do what we want anyway?”, any sensible person should start to worry.