Now that's what I call redevelopment

There's a lot of speculation doing the rounds at present regarding the intended destination for the huge seizure of ammonium nitrate yesterday - which, incidentally, was found in a warehouse less than half a mile away from the house where I grew up. The current theory seems to suggest that, after its incorporation into a bomb, the stuff might have been detonated in one of the large shopping centres on the M25.

Lets think about this for a moment and consider the possiblity that this centre might have been Lakeside Thurrock. Were it only possible for this to happen without injury or loss of life, which of course is unlikely in the extreme, think what an opportunity to improve the English countryside we could have been given!

He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!

Yet again Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" is in the news, this time for helping the US film industry to its highest ever winter ticket sales. I've now reached the point of being totally fed up hearing about this film - our local church are even offering free tickets to see it, though as recruiting drives go, one wherein your leader is seen betrayed, tortured and then executed seems to be counterproductive!

Personally, I have no wish whatsoever to see the film, although I admire the idea of re-releasing this once more - at least it'll get up the collective noses of the "happy clappy" brigade!

A Desktop to Die For !

A casual trawl of the web has just drawn my attention to Sun's Project Looking Glass, which is intended to provide a 3D graphical user interface to their Java Desktop System.

A quick glance over the project pages makes me think that Sun could be onto something with this idea. At the moment, whether you use a PC with Windows, Linux or Apple Mac, the GUIs are basically the same: a taskbar of some kind and a bunch of sizable windows - little more than the equivalent of several sheets of paper laid upon a desk - strictly two-dimensional. This concept has served us well for many years, but where's the innovation?

What struck me about Looking Glass was how visually appealing the idea is. I don't think it would be too difficult to adjust to and it would certainly work well for those of us who run more than a couple of open programs at a time...

The likelihood is that I'll continue to use MS Windows in its various incarnations in the future and I should imagine that the chances of Sun producing a version of this for Windows, given the litigious history of relationships between the two companies, is remote in the extreme.

However, the next version of Windows (currently known as Longhorn and scheduled for 2006 - which probably means 2007, or later) is known to be intended to have a bunch of user-interface enhancements called Aero. Any chance of something of this nature Mr Gates? Please?

A Remarkable Sight

Last night I happened to be in my back garden and looked up at the right time to watch the International Space Station pass overhead. Much troubled the still uncompleted and budget busting ISS may be, it's still a beautiful sight as it passes serenely by.

The ISS, however, wasn't the most impressive thing I saw last night, though to explain this, I first need to make a little detour...

There was a very moving programme on Channel 4 last night called The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off which concerned a man called Jonny Kennedy. He was born with a horrendous condition called EB which basically means that his skin would come off at a touch, leaving him covered in the most awful sores. Eventually this led to terminal cancer and the pogramme chronicled the last months of this remarkable and hugely brave man.

Now back to the astronomy:

As soon as the programme ended, I took my dog around the block for a short stroll. We'd scarcely left the house when I happened to look up and see a stunningly beautiful shooting star meeting its fiery end as it broke up high above us.

This is the connection:

Jonny arranged in great detail his own funeral, to the point of having the side of his coffin decorated with a tiger. This was a reference to a Queen song "Don't Stop Me Now" which was played at the service.

Here's the lyric in question

"I'm a shooting star leaping through the skies
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity"

In memory of an incredible man

What is the message here?

There's something really bugging me. You often see cars with windows stickers saying "Baby On Board" or variations on this theme such as the infuriatingly twee "Small Person On Board".

Why?

Apart from the annoyance of somebody taking it upon his/herself to instruct the rest of us as to how we should be driving, why does the age of a car's occupants make any difference - whether they're 9 months old or 99 years, you either drive carefully or you don't...there's no middle ground.

Taking Interactive TV Too Far

Last night we settled down to watch the BBC2 drama "Gunpowder, Treason and Plot" and very good it was. However, we really could have done without the moron somewhere near here who, about half way through the programme, added a little "authenticity" by letting off a fusilade of fireworks.

Our poor old dog had a very sudden awakening from his slumbers...

The Web Has Landed !

My "new toys" (the Netgem iPlayer and its associated network adapter) have arrived and I've spent an enjoyable hour or so getting everything set up properly.

I'm very impressed!

The box works very nicely as a Freeview digital TV adapter, but its other role as a TV web browsing terminal and multimedia server is where the device really shines. From my experiences so far, it's able to display most webpages properly on a TV screen - you really can surf the web from the comfort of your own lounge without any need for a PC cluttering up the room.

With its ability to output digital audio and video files from the PCs on my home network, I'm now the owner of a very affordable and capable home media-server - this concept really could be "The Next Big Thing"...

POSTSCRIPT:

This blog entry was written via iPlayer!

Steady As You Go

Having got the details of yesterday's speech, I sat down last night to work out what the budget would actually mean to me and Michele. The answer would appear to be "not very much" and we don't look likely to be either better or worse off to any great degree as a result of Gordon Brown's decisions.

Could have been worse.

Of course, next year's budget will be the interesting one as it'll be the last one before the next general election. Wonder what'll be on offer for my vote?

The Next Big Thing?

The term "Convergence" is oft used in the IT industry and refers to the coming together of the worlds of PCs , TV, HiFi etc. It's generally reckoned, for example, that within just a few years, more people will surf the internet using non-computer devices than the traditional PC/browser model of today.

I plan to try this - but now, rather than in a year or two. To this end, I've just ordered the BT version of Netgem's iPlayer. This is actually a freeview Digital TV set-top box, but it does a great deal more than just providing TV.

It can also be connected to an existing home PC network - which I already have - which will allow me to view websites and read e-mail on our TV, as well as stream MP3 music for playback via our AV system.. all without leaving the comfort of our sofa! If I beef up my existing PC server - currently an old 350MHz Pentium II desktop machine, it should even be possible to play back digital video files such as our home movies.

The total cost of the kit required to do this is just under £80, so I can't lose. Everything's on order and should be delivered by the end of this week. Roll on the weekend!

Pseudo CD - update

Whilst I'm still waiting for an reply from the retailer I bought the dodgy disc from (shame on you PLAY.COM - is this good customer service?) I've managed to resolve the issue of the unplayable disc myself.

There's a superb tool called Exact Audio Copy which enabled me to rip the CD to .wav files and clean them up so that I could burn a new and unencumbered disc which plays in any of our kit, just as it should.

Up yours BMG !!

Pseudo-CDs: continued

A couple of days ago, I e-mailed the retailer from whom I purchased the copy protected CD I ws complaining about last week. As yet, I've had no response, but I'll not let this one go, so watch this space...

Hanging on the telephone

I've just had an annoying wait on the phone to talk to a "Customer Service Representative" of a utility company. There's nothing I like more than spending fifteen minutes with a phone clamped to my ear whilst I make my weary way up the queue, listening to appalling elevator-muzak. This particular organisation also intersperse the "tunes" with an assurance that "my call is really important to us".

Oh yeah? If it was that important, maybe they'd like to employ enough people to answer the phone more quickly....

When's a CD not a Compact Disc?

I've just bought for my wife what purports to be a Compact Disc of a well-known band's latest album. I didn't download the tracks from the web, borrow the disc from a mate or in any other way illicitly acquire the music - I paid money over the counter and bought the CD.

The trouble is that it's not really a CD. The label states that it's playable in any home CD-deck, but not in a PC or other types of playback machine such as our in-car CD player. All of these machines bear the official Compact Disc logo,but significantly the jewel-case and label of the new album - published by the BMG group - do not.

If it's sold as a CD, then all machines capable of CD playback should be able to play it, otherwise it's not a CD at all, but some other copy-controlled format. It's very tempting to return this disc as not fit for the purpose for which it's been sold and if I can't get round the protection, that's what I'm likely to do.