The Jackson one

ENG-LUND; and traveling in the future

2006-06-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

OK, so I know I'm a crap blogger (actually make that dire - last post Feb 10th!) BUT just had to pull a post together.

Just 'watched' the England Vs Trinidad & Tobago game on Yahoo MatchCast -- rubbish for around 80 mins then 13 minutes of quite good football..could actually get used to this whole football thing.

What make this experience slightly more surreal was that I 'watched' this game on my PC with in-flight wifi while over China on a Lufthansa flight back from Singapore (I Know, I know...bad planning on my part!) - think I scared the crap out of the chap sitting next to me when we finally got a goal. So now there really is no chance of escaping from office work, even on flights!

Looking forward to going to the England v Sweden match in Koln even more now! Though I presume some of the pressure is now off of England so I suspect they will be rubbish (well, more rubbish anyway)

Wifi - why does it suck so bad?

2006-01-17T01:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I like to think of myself as more technically literate than most – I have a degree in computer science, used to build Unix systems and Oracle databases for a living and can switch easily between Windows and Mac OS X seemingly easier than most people...There are other key giveaways like being hooked on the new Battlstar Galactica, large black t-shirt collection, and randomly shouting "Han shoots first!" at passersby in the street...but I'll save this for another post.

Technology holds no fears for me…or so you would think: in the good old days it was fax machines and copiers that vexed me – paper out, faxing 16 blank pages because you put the document in the wrong way up etc. But over the last couple of years Wifi has usurped these as the worlds most annoying, yet fairly-useful-when-working technology. Why? Where to start:

Random functionality. ‘no wifi connection’, ‘no wifi connection’, ‘54Mbs wifi connection – good signal’, ‘no wifi connection’ – now this would be fine (though annoying) if I was on a train or in a car, but why does it happen when I’m sat on the sofa. Sun spots? Alien transmissions? Someone using the microwave? Or could it just be indicative of ropey technology

Standards. Confucius said “The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from”…ok, maybe it was someone else – but it’s a valid point. Now while I understand what 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n and MIMO are, I don’t see why I should have to care. This can only get worse with UWB and wireless USB cluttering up the ether.

New gadgets == 3 hours of reconfiguration. Great, so you’ve got your two PCs hooked up to wifi with full WEP encryption and MAC address filtering (just to be doubly secure) and then…you go and by a random accessory, lets say an Airport Express or a Sony PSP. Welcome to a whole new world of hurt! Its easy to get these to connect for test purposes (provided you consider going back into the wifi router web interface – assuming you remembered the password – and disabling all security features easy). The next day and a half will be spent trying new, random configurations of security features, downloading firmware patches and finally deciding that you no longer CARE if security features are switched on.

Hotspots. Soon to be classified as a new circle in hell, trying to (a) connect to a hotspot, (b) pay and get a receipt – BT insists that you call them to ask for this! and (c) hope that the thing stays up and running has become a full time ‘hobby’ for people that travel a lot.

So, what is the solution – well, actually powerline networking may prove to be a pretty good solution for the home or small office. After initial issues with data ‘leaking’ out of street lamps (true!), the coming year will see fast, easily configurable, easy to install powerline networking systems hit the market

…sorry this last bit isn’t 'funny', I dropped back into analyst mode!

Books: Too linear, too graphic and too many sequels

2006-01-14T05:49:00.000-08:00

One of the latest ways I’ve discovered for winding up my friends and colleagues is to give the above reply when they ask what I’m reading. But underneath my usual urge to be difficult, I do believe there is a grain of truth to this.

Too linear. Books play out the same way every time you read them – unless you’re a fan of the dire “choose your own adventure” books from the early eighties that is. Sure, this means you are getting the full effect of the authors story telling abilities and vision – but what if said author lacks both of these talents. While DVDs and increasingly technologies like Tivo allow you to skip the boring bits, its tricky to do this with books – because there aren’t any visual cues as to when things are getting more interesting (typically signified by explosions, robots or dark basements in TV…but this is probably just a reflection of the type of TV I watch).

Too graphic. Lets setting aside ham-fisted attends at sex scenes, which have authors reaching out for the erotic thesaurus to find new ways of describing a penis (“velvety manhood” etc). Books contain some of the most unsuitable-for-children imaginary I’ve ever come across. Yet, you don’t hear Jack Thompson campaigning for the banning of ‘murder manuals’ like American Psycho – why? Well, first of all this would be against freedom of speech laws, but also because reading books is hard, therefore the theory goes that only intelligent, well-balanced adults will bother to get to grips with them.

Too many sequels. There are rare authors who can get away with multiple books featuring the same characters or worlds – step forward Terry Pratchett or Ian Fleming. Some might add JD Rawling to this list..but they are wrong...satisfying the needs of A.D.D children and adults who only read children’s books doesn’t count (as you can tell, I’m a big fan). Did the world really need sequels to Frank Herbert’s (already long) Dune series? Or how about couple of dozen books set in the Star Wars universe where nothing can really happen to the main characters for continuity purposes, and Lucas not allowing it? No, but they sure do help swell the publishers coffers.

…compare books to videogames (surely you realized this was heading somewhere!) – multilayered, usually different every time you play, with a fairly strict age rating system, and tackling real-world issues like robots, evil scientists, time travel and evil time traveling robot scientists.

OK, bad example – but the real point is that videogames require active engagement from the player and can create as rich and engaging imaginary world as the vast majority of books – just google ‘Final Fantasy VII: Aerith Death’ for an example of how much people get upset and moved by games.

Thoughts?

Leaving Las Vegas (...and not a moment too soon!)

2006-01-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

So after the annual 4 days of hell that is CES, I'm finally heading back to Amsterdam (via Boston). In the quiet 4 hours (!!) that I have in the airport lounge, I've had time to pull together a list of what I love and hate about Las Vegas...cut me a break here its my first blog post...

Like about Las Vegas:
- CSI
- The taxi drivers are pretty nice / good
- Free Wifi at the airport
- Getting to see the Foo Fighters at Motorola's CES party at the House of Blues

...OK, so the last one isn't really about Vegas per se, but I was grasping for something to get me past a list of 3 things!

Hate about Las Vegas:
- A climate which is by turns too hot, too cold, or too windy but always too dry. Despite drinking my own (not inconsiderable) weight in water every day I end up partially mummified by the time I leave.

- No facilities in hotel rooms - OK, I get that the casinos want me to go downstairs and throw away money gambling, but is that really a good enough reason to NOT provide a Mr. Coffee machine, minibar (hey guys, you can make money with this!) and any decent TV channels.

- Inability to avoid walking through casino floors when you get off the monorail, try and check in, leave the hotel, or go (blurry eyed) to buy a morning Starbucks. Wake up guys after walking 2km through a casino I'm not suddenly going to be overcome with a desperate urge to sit down and pump money into video blackjack machine. I'd pay extra for a separate hotel entrance which got me away from this...and when I say I would pay extra, I mean my company of course.

- the ruthless inefficiency of CES. OK so I know that the organizers are trying to shepard 130,000 geeks around for a week, but is the 5 stage, 2 hour registration process, door checking and (octogenarian) security and information staff really as good as this process can get? At least the keynotes required tickets this year, avoiding some of the 2 hour queues you normally have to fight through.

...I'm not even going to get started on the constant price gouging, tackiness, etc -- this is Vegas after all.

Thats about it, just to finish, here is a picture of my spectacular looking outside, crummy inside hotel; The Stratosphere