Your Most Personal Book. CERANDOR

Your Most Personal Book.

CERANDOR 2 Contents

1 2010 5 1.1 January ...... 5 1.1.1 The Dawn of a New Shiny (2010-01-27 08:41) ...... 5 1.1.2 I Know What I Like When I See It (2010-01-28 11:01) ...... 5 1.2 February ...... 8 1.2.1 Assisted Death (2010-02-02 10:02) ...... 8 1.3 March ...... 8 1.3.1 Tagline Twittery (2010-03-01 14:48) ...... 8 1.3.2 Getting Your Digs in Early (2010-03-04 11:24) ...... 9 1.3.3 Biblical in Scope (2010-03-08 12:28) ...... 10 1.3.4 Just Following Orders (2010-03-15 09:39) ...... 12 1.4 April ...... 13 1.4.1 iPad Arrival (2010-04-01 10:50) ...... 13 1.4.2 Reboots and Catchphrases (2010-04-07 23:22) ...... 14 1.4.3 Apple Wows Internet With New Reasons to Complain (2010-04-09 12:36) 15 1.4.4 Immortal Thoughts (2010-04-16 11:07) ...... 16 1.4.5 Get a Grip (2010-04-19 10:18) ...... 17 1.4.6 Bill Hicks Was Right* (2010-04-26 17:54) ...... 17 1.4.7 Rant Update (2010-04-27 23:26) ...... 19 1.4.8 The Underdogs Done Good (2010-04-30 08:56) ...... 20 1.5 May ...... 20 1.5.1 All the Fun of the Election (2010-05-07 10:20) ...... 20 1.5.2 Daggers at the Ready (2010-05-10 21:36) ...... 21 1.6 June ...... 22 1.6.1 Face to Face With the Shiny (2010-06-07 22:45) ...... 22 1.6.2 Especially Irish (2010-06-12 17:51) ...... 22 1.6.3 A Metaphor for our (Political) Times (2010-06-15 20:40) ...... 23 1.6.4 Shiny 2010 (2010-06-18 10:39) ...... 24 1.7 July ...... 24 1.7.1 So Much For The South American World Cup (2010-07-05 14:19) . . . 24 3 1.7.2 Farewell to the Snack Box (2010-07-08 11:13) ...... 25 1.7.3 Unsurprising/Amusing/Depressing? (2010-07-12 09:36) ...... 26 1.7.4 iBan (2010-07-18 20:38) ...... 26 1.7.5 Apparitions (2010-07-20 10:39) ...... 28 1.7.6 A Creative Playground (2010-07-21 10:44) ...... 28 1.7.7 Spider Spam (2010-07-26 11:13) ...... 29 1.7.8 The Ideal Shape (2010-07-27 15:21) ...... 29 1.7.9 Truth in Advertising (2010-07-31 21:17) ...... 30 1.8 August ...... 30 1.8.1 iPhone 4 Thoughts (2010-08-18 12:39) ...... 30 1.9 September ...... 31 1.9.1 Songs to Make You Walk Faster (2010-09-03 10:05) ...... 31 1.9.2 Apple’s Latest Offerings (2010-09-06 14:31) ...... 32 1.9.3 A Headache for the Taoiseach (2010-09-15 15:15) ...... 33 1.10October ...... 34 1.10.1 Back to the Mac (2010-10-22 14:34) ...... 34 1.10.2 Delayed Gratiﬁcation (2010-10-27 10:22) ...... 35 1.10.3 Movember (2010-10-31 13:55) ...... 35 1.11November ...... 36 1.11.1 Making the Best of a Bad Situation (2010-11-02 11:43) ...... 36 1.11.2 More Fun for November (2010-11-03 16:53) ...... 37 1.11.3 NaNoWriMo Update (2010-11-08 09:29) ...... 37 1.11.4 (M/N)ovember Update (2010-11-15 10:06) ...... 37 1.11.5 Wasting No Time (2010-11-22 12:50) ...... 38 1.11.6 Winter Warmth (2010-11-29 11:42) ...... 38 1.11.7 The Matrix Redux (2010-11-30 11:32) ...... 39 1.12December ...... 40 1.12.1 Last Minutes (2010-12-13 06:00) ...... 40

4 Chapter 1

2010

1.1 January

1.1.1 The Dawn of a New Shiny (2010-01-27 08:41)

The greatest mark of Apple’s success in manipulating public interest in it’s products? The fact that you’d struggle to ﬁnd any media outlet that hasn’t offered an opinion on the upcoming iPad/iTablet/iSlate/iJesus. This despite the fact said product hasn’t even been announced and exists only as a void at the centre of a boiling cloud of rumour and speculation, expertly stirred by Apple’s hidden team of media provocateurs.

Now some of this interest derives from the fact that Apple makes products that people (such as myself) like. However, the majority must come from the combination of secrecy and carefully leaked noninformation. Even the announcements of the company’s financial results get dragged in, with Steve Jobs and others practically bubbling with excitement as they "let slip" their unofficial confirmations of what’s coming. I’d love to believe that the bright new thing will be all that the speculation promises, but I’m not going to buy into the hype - yet.

I’ll take a look this evening then, and watch the latest Jobs unveiling. Maybe I’ll have something to add to my shopping list. Maybe I’ll be disappointed. Either which way, plenty of people have already been entertained by the speculation.

1.1.2 I Know What I Like When I See It (2010-01-28 11:01)

So the name was "iPad" after all, and jokes about feminine sanitary products aside, it was probably the best of a bad lot, if also one of the more bland options. (I quite liked "iSlate" myself.) The product itself is a thing of beauty, and a shoo-in for any number of industrial design awards. Yes, it’s the same as an iPhone, but tweaked and massaged to suit the larger form factor.

Obviously I want one, but the response isn’t as clear cut as that. There’s much to love but a few questions to be asked as well.

The Good

Books: The iPad is ﬁrst and foremost a media consumption device, and at the size of a hardback book (if not the depth), book reading will be a major draw. The screen is as high quality as could have been expected (OLED was always going to be too expensive, and e-paper too limited), which will help. That it uses ePub books is even better - if the Stanza app on my 5 iPhone scales to the new screen, I won’t need much more.

Other Media: Movies and music are present and correct, as on the iPhone/iPod Touch, with that screen definitely benefiting the former. The only blemish is the need to go through iTunes to get them onto it - not too bad with music, but a bit of a pain with films and TV.

Battery Life: Ten hours sounds good, assuming that claim holds up to real-life experience. The lengthy standby time sounds even better - without constantly churning 3G or Wi-Fi, the iPad can last a lot longer than its smaller cousins.

Size: Much as I love my 13" MacBook, I preferred the smaller size of my older iBook. This is smaller still, a lot thinner and much lighter. Even wrapped in a protective slipcase, it’ll ﬁt neatly in a shoulder bag or in the hand. I want to get my hands on one to try it out, but it seems like it’s just right for its many uses.

Apps: The iPhone was a success even though the App Store didn’t open until a year later. The iPad is launching with 100,000+ apps that will work from day one, and many of those will be optimised for it by launch day. When was the last time a brand new product had such an advantage? iWorks: This is a big deal for me. With the addition of a word processor, I can do 90 % or more of what I do on my laptop on the iPad, all the more so when you consider the keyboard dock. Spreadsheet and presentation apps are just as important to other people. And where these go, others will follow. What odds a cut-down version of Microsoft Ofﬁce appearing on the iPad within the year?

Price: Sure, it could have been cheaper. But the base model has as much memory as my iPhone 3G, and the top end one would likely hold all of my photos and music. For the quality of the machine, I can’t really complain.

The Bad

Lock-In: This is Apple, and a certain degree of buy-in to Apple’s online ecosystem is required, especially if you want to watch videos. Still, the payoff for that is a reduction in hassle - you get what you want with minimal fuss - and that will matter to a lot of people. Plus, the App Store and the absence of a contract for 3G service help to loosen the shackles somewhat.

No Camera: Of course, the iPad is too big to be used to take photos, but a front-mounted camera for video chat was widely hoped-for. It’s not a major failing, but it is a disappointment.

No Expansion: The iPhone, engineered to within an inch of its life, can be excused not having an SD card slot. The iPad’s lack is less forgiveable. An Sd card slot would have been a boon for photographers, even amateur ones like myself, and reduced the need for tethering to a laptop or computer.

Not Standalone: The iPad, like the iPhone, doesn’t stand on its own - it needs to be hooked up to a computer at regular intervals. In a way, this is understandable. It’s not meant to be a laptop replacement. But a little more effort could have made it a more genuine replacement for the netbooks that were disparaged at the start of its introduction.

No Flash: One suspects that Apple is waiting for something to supplant Adobe’s grasp on the Internet. In the meantime, we have to suffer a slightly crippled online experience.

6 Price: Yeah, it could have been cheaper, but the cheeky bit was Phil Schiller (I think) having a go at companies who introduce products with high prices and high margins, only to drop the prices later. One wonders if he was aware of the shards of glass falling all around him.

Thoughts

It’s all about the Apps: During one of the live keynote feeds I was following was one particularly insightful quote: the iPad is designed to disappear. Which is true: it’s just a screen with one button, nothing unnecessary between you and the software. More than anything Apple has made, the hardware is purely a vehicle for the software experience. I’m fascinated to see what developers will come up with as they come to grips with the iPad’s Apple-developed innards and leverage two years of experience developing for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Comics: Slightly related to the books situation above. I’ve read comics for years, and in the iPad I see a new future for the industry. I’d gladly read a lot more monthly comics if I could subscribe to them online for a reduced fee. The collected editions could then be bought in nice hardback or paperback editions for my bookshelf. Sadly, the only reaction thus far from a major publisher has been from Marvel, complaining that the iPad wouldn’t work with its somewhat wonky, Flash-based online store. Adapt or die, my friend. (And remember that you’re part of Steve’s empire now.)

Laptop Replacement: The iPad comes very close to making me want to trade in my MacBook. The combination of iWorks, a better battery life and the keyboard dock would allow me to do as much writing as I want, where I want. There’s little else that I need my laptop for, though the lack of an optical drive or an SD-card slot is a real pain. Which leads onto my last issue.

1st-Gen Blues: It’s an old law that you’d be wise to heed - hold off on buying the ﬁrst iteration of a new device. Wait until all the kinks and bugs are worked out. Presumably, Apple will have made the iPad as solid as they can, but there will inevitably be improvements, and those may well include the expansion slots that are the big missing feature that I can see. Perhaps even a camera too. The only question is, can I wait a year for iPad v.2.0?

Edit* A quick look at the Apple site reveals that my concerns over the lack of an SD-card slot were foreseen. There’s a photo-connection accessory that connects SD cards and USB-equipped cameras. Still, the fact that this isn’t in the box is a bit of a pain. If/when I get one, I’ll likely be picking up numerous accessories (keyboard dock, camera connector, iPad case, mains adaptor) that will ratchet up the price a bit.

kaleandwine (2010-01-28 17:35:48) You and my hubby would get along so swimmingly... He wants. Bad. And seems to be alone in that around here (if I hear any more "Itampon" and "iunderwhelmed" comments, I¼m going to start throw- ing thumbdrives, ninja style, grr!). At this point I think people won¼t be happy until Apple delivers Air Computing a la Minority Report... I think it¼s lovely, and just a hint of what¼s to come. I am curious, though – I didn¼t see much of a demo of actual typing? Perhaps it¼s awkward. We can¼t afford it, of course, but I¼m sure our house will have an ipad three months from now. SOmehow. Miraculously. But as long as I get to play with Brushes every so often, I¼m happy. :)

7 cerandor (2010-01-29 09:02:09) Reading the comments on a number of sites, there are plenty of Apple bashers. I¼m not sure that they¼re misled by the hype so much as they¼re annoyed by it and taking the opportunity to vent. I suspect typing will take a bit of practice, which is one of the reasons why I want to test one out in an Apple Store before I take the plunge. Also, I expect that iPhone OS 4.0 will bring a lot of improvements. Still, the iPad as is offers a whole heap of beneﬁts for me, and I¼m deﬁnitely excited. That said, I¼m also looking towards an upgrade for my iPhone this summer. So I may have to hold off on the iPad for a while, much though I don¼t want to...

waider (2010-01-29 13:51:11)

What odds a cut-down version of Microsoft Ofﬁce appearing on the iPad within the year?

I¼d say "slim " to "none " - there¼s no obvious market for it, since the iPad is pitched pretty squarely at non-tech users, and it¼d be a huge development effort, since it¼d have to work on a completely different platform to any of their existing Ofﬁce products. And it¼d eat into whatever they¼re proposing as their iPad killer. Also: this. Full Disclosure: Bill is an acquain- tance who works for a certain fruit-named company.

cerandor (2010-02-01 09:30:56) I agree with his point of view and would like to subscribe to his newsletter. :) Also, you¼re right on the MS Office thing - that was my brain running away with itself. What I should have said was that you¼d have an array of apps covering MS Office functionality and able to open all the documents (like a dismembered Open Office). If that happens and Apple opens up multitasking (a little) and the Drop Box/shared folder functionality of iWorks in the next iPhone OS update, there¼s really nothing to stop me getting an iPad.

1.2 February

1.2.1 Assisted Death (2010-02-02 10:02)

The notion of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is one of the few real fears I have about growing old. The idea that everything that makes me me can be stripped away, leaving a shell that others must care for until it ﬁnally collapses elicits a cold horror. There’s no history of it in my family that I’m aware of, but the fear remains.

I hope that there’s a cure, or a treatment of some kind, long before I grow old(er). One person for whom that’s not an option is one of my favourite writers, Terry Pratchett. Recently, [1]he spoke, or rather, had someone speak for him, on the topic of dealing with Alzheimer’s and seeking dignity in death. It’s worth reading.

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/02/terry-pratchett-assisted-suicide-tribunal

1.3 March

1.3.1 Tagline Twittery (2010-03-01 14:48)

Just who is it who comes up with taglines for movies? And how much do they get paid? Because I bet I could do a better job for half the money.

The prime example of this is the upcoming Clash of the Titans, for which the tagline is, 8 wait for it: "Titans Will Clash".

Really? Never would have guessed that myself. This is so pointless, it almost backs into genius by mistake. Not quite though.

The other one to have come to my attention is From Paris With Love, currently on release and starring John Travolta as a slapheaded secret agent, prone to wanton destruction. The tagline here actually manages the trick of requiring some thought to realise how dumb it is: "Two Agents. One City. No Merci."

Or, to translate, "Two Agents. One City. No Thanks."

Which was more or less my reaction to the ﬁlm, so I suppose we can add honesty to its virtues.

kaleandwine (2010-03-02 02:29:23) No Merci? Ahahaha. Hollywood is so out of ideas right now! Honestly, I¼m bummed about Clash of the Titans. I don¼t know if you¼re seeing the same trailer we¼re seeing, but: heavy metal? Really?

cerandor (2010-03-02 08:48:20) I sus;ect we have the same trailers. Not entirely sure why heavy metal is infecting fantasy lately. The Dragon Age game for the PC, which was excellent, had equally dodgy trailers. Still, my yen for mythology in my movies is probably going to lead me to watch Clash of the the Titans anyhow. Mind you, I avoided watching "Percy Jackson," which I¼d been looking forward to until it got savaged by every reviewer going.

1.3.2 Getting Your Digs in Early (2010-03-04 11:24)

What with Ian Paisley having decided to step down as a member of parliament at the next election, more than a few retrospectives have been appearing in newspapers and online. [1]This is a fairly evenhanded overview, though plenty of commentators argue that it’s a little too forgiving.

What amused me most though, wasn’t the commentary on Paisley himself, but the fact that several commentators took the opportunity to have a go at Paisley’s charmless son, Ian Pais- ley Jr., who looks set to pick up (or at least contest) his old man’s seat. Two in particular, I’m going to have to remember for future use.

"What doesn’t come across in TV footage is how incredibly charismatic he is in person. I’ve never heard a better and wittier speaker than the Big Man, and the fact that he gushed hateful bile at every opportunity doesn’t alter that. By contrast, Paisley Jnr is a drab little weasel who has none of the appeal of his father even in the religious heartlands." and

"I agree. Baby Doc inherited all of his father’s bad qualities (and then some) but none of his better ones. Didn’t someone once say that Junior is the ’poster boy for legalised abortion’?"

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/04/ian-paisley-religion 9 1.3.3 Biblical in Scope (2010-03-08 12:28)

When I bought an iPhone, I didn’t intend to use it for reading purposes. However, the Stanza app, with its connections to thousands of free books, has been more than a little useful, especially when reading out-of-copyright pieces. So far, I’ve managed "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", "Carmilla", "Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories", and "War and Peace". Recently though, I took up an even bigger book, and one which I’ve been meaning to read, but never buy - The Bible.

My conclusions? First off, you can mostly do without the Old Testament. It’s massively repetitive, self-contradictory and irrelevant. Where it is relevant, it’s mostly gainsaid by the gospels. That’s not to say that there aren’t bits of it worth reading though. 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings take Israel out of myth and into history, the ﬁrst two thirds of Job are unusually thoughtful, Judith and Esther are pleasant stories with a bloodthirsty edge, Proverbs and Sirach are packed with aphorisms of varying usefulness, Jonah is a short and snappy story of a cantankerous prophet, the ﬁrst chunk of Daniel is enjoyable, and Ezekiel is just plain weird. However, beyond historical and cultural interest, there’s not much reason to plod through all of it.

The New Testament is about a third the length of the old and inﬁnitely easier to read. Mark’s Gospel is a collection of anecdotes about Jesus shaped into a narrative, Matthew’s moulds Mark to ﬁt Jewish prophecy, and Luke’s polishes the earlier two and adds in some extra stories of its own. John’s stands alone, telling the story of a very different Christ, even if it does talk down to the reader a lot. Overall, I prefer John, but if you were to read Mark and ignore the rest, you wouldn’t miss much. (You’d also avoid the fact that the four gospels contradict one another on various points, such as what happened after the resurrection.)

As for the rest of the New Testament, it’s a collection of letters that offer an explanation of why Christianity splintered into churches that are still at each others throats over matters of interpretation, in which each can point to a different part of the book for their authority. St. Paul’s theology dominates, albeit with showings from some other saints, though the fact that the authenticity of so many of these epsitles is dispute, either in whole or in part, doesn’t help. The entire thing wraps up with the Book of Revelations, which is surprisingly dull, if completely in keeping with the anticipation for the Second Coming that threads all the way through the NT.

For those of you who don’t fancy a slog through the entire thing (I read the King James version on the iPhone and used Wikimedia for the books that are in the Catholic Bible but not the Protestant), I present below a condensed version of the Old and New Testaments. All whimsy is blamed on the psychological trauma of spending several weeks reading it all on a small screen. Roll on the iPad.

Genesis: Origin myth and getting with the begatting. Exodus: A hero story and DIY manual. Leviticus: Priestly handbook and facial topiary regulations. Numbers: Preparing for war and making census of it all. Deuteronomy: Just because you’re at the Promised Land doesn’t mean you can slack off. Joshua: A little bit of conquest, a lot of electoral redistribution. Judges: You can’t take your eyes off those Israelites for a minute... Ruth: A nice little story, with no blood. What’s it doing in here? Samuel I: This whole "Judges" thing isn’t working out. Let’s try monarchy. Oops. Samuel II: Monarchy v2.0. Better with the conquering but definite horniness issues. 10 Kings 1: Monarchy v3.0. Laying the foundations for Templars, Masons and Dan Brown novels. Kings 2: It’s all gone wrong for Israel and Judah. Time for another Exodus or two. Chronicles 1: Places and people, plus a recap of that whole Samuel thing. Chronicles 2: Solomon and his successors. Haven’t we been here before? Ezra: Back from Babylon to bureaucracy and building permits. Oh, and divorce. Nehemiah: Judah and Jerusalem get rebuilt over planning permission objections. Tobit: A virtuous Hebrew exile gets some angelic advice and assistance. Judith: A crafty Jewish widow inspires a great painting by Caravaggio. Esther: A fable of standing up in the face of genocide, spoiled by savagery. Maccabees 1: Classical history gets a look in as the "Hammer" and his brothers build a Jewish kingdom. Maccabees 2: Another viewpoint on the early section of Maccabees 1. Job: A philosophy of suffering and submission, which devolves into browbeating. Psalms: David’s greatest hits. More bloodthirsty than you might think. Proverbs: Solomon’s wisdom in bite-size nuggets. An early self-help book, with child beating. Ecclesiastes: An Epicurean spirit provides titles galore for literary novels. Song of Songs: A love poem in the bible? God seems to have nothing to do with it. Wisdom: Old-time religious submission gets sophisticated with an infusion of philosophy. Sirach: A plethora of everyday proverbs to live by. Well, some of them. Isaiah: Israel will get what it deserves, but the Messiah will make it all good again. Jeremiah: Isaiah without the sunny disposition. Lamentations: Jeremiah’s postscript. God, it’s awful here. Baruch: How to deal with exile: Apologise to God, for starters. Ezekiel: The prophets discover Class-A substances. Or have Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Daniel: Daniel’s adventures in Babylon. Eschatalogical and exciting, early on at least. Hosea: God’s a matchmaker, but it’s all a metaphor. Misogyny? In the Bible? Joel: Agriculture and apocalypse. Sin, then forgiveness, then judgement. Amos: Bad times are coming for everyone. Even the chosen people don’t get a free pass. Obadiah: Short and bittersweet. Pure prophecy, all about the bad times coming to Edom. Jonah: Minor prophet, major fish. The most cantankerous prophet versus an unusually com- passionate God. Micah: Imminent smiting due to sin, glorious future, which involves everyone else being smit- ten. Nahum: And God will smite (spins wheel of fortune) Nineveh! Poor old Assyrians. Habbakuk: You can question God. Just make sure you submit in the end. Zephaniah: More diatribes aimed at the tribes. Carrot and stick time. Haggai: There’s going to be more smiting. Building a temple might help. Zacharias: Repent! Good times are coming, but there’ll be some smiting first. Malachi: I think we should break up, says God. You’re just not the same Chosen People I first met.

Matthew: The straightforward gospel, with a focus on fulﬁlling messianic prophecy. Mark: Even quicker to get to the point and not so much prophecy box-ticking. Luke: The sophisticated gospel. A more coherent story with some unique elements. John: The mystic gospel. Poetic, idiosyncratic and difﬁcult.

Acts: What the apostles did next. Mostly, start a church and argue with one another. Romans: Paul’s major epistle. An inquiring mind bound up in knots of sin and faith. Corinthians 1: Stop arguing and fornicating. Don’t you know you’re superior? Corinthians 2: I’m telling you this for your own good. I’m an apostle, after all. Galatians: I can’t believe you’re backsliding already. Look, this is how you do it.

11 Ephesians: An explanation of Christ and why Christians need to hang together. Philippians: I love you guys. That Jesus, he pretty cool, isn’t he? Colossians: Just because Jesus wiped your slate clean doesn’t mean you get to start sinning again. Thessalonians 1: Behave. Jesus could be back at any minute. Thessalonians 2: No, seriously. Any minute now. Timothy 1: Instructions for young Tim. Mostly to do with watching out for uppity women. Timothy 2: Chin up kid. This stuff is going to be happening to Christians for centuries. Titus: Be pure, be vigilant, behave. Philemon: Can you put my son up for a while? Not my son son, you know. Hebrews: Forget the Old Testament. We’ve got a bright shiny new one. James: Works, plus faith, is necessary. Welcome to schism land. Peter 1: Peter gets in on the letter-writing game. Not bad for a ﬁsherman. Peter 2: The Apocalypse has been delayed. Please be patient. John 1: Apocalypse on the way. Luckily, love is all you need. John 2: P.S. Quick note. Watch out for Antichrists. John 3: P.P.S. Good = God. Not good = Not God. See you soon. Jude: It’s all about the lusts and ﬂesh at this stage. Looks like a habit forming. Revelation: As Terry Pratchett said, "Mushrooms."

1.3.4 Just Following Orders (2010-03-15 09:39)

[1]This story tells you all you need to know about what it takes to become a high-ranking ofﬁcial in the Catholic Church these days. Speciﬁcally, it demonstrates that there are two principles to which you must adhere if you wish for advancement.

1. The good of the Church (the organisation and the hierarchy, not the people who make up the bulk of its members) is of paramount importance.

2. The Church is not beholden to secular authorities or laws.

To recap, Cardinal Brady, while secretary to the Bishop of Kilmore, investigated the activities of the infamous Fr Brendan Smyth in the 1970s and witnessed two teenagers signing vows of silence about the abuse they suffered. Smyth was shufﬂed away, only to be ﬁnally jailed in the 1990s.

In December 2009, Brady stated that if his actions or failure to act had led to the abuse of children, he would resign. However, now that this has come to light, he claims it is not a resigning matter. Why? Well, because it wasn’t his place to do so and there weren’t any guidelines for dealing with this kind of thing. Morals and sympathy for the victims of such crimes are not required of holders of high ofﬁcer in the Church, it seems.

The fact is that Brady assisted in the cover up because not to do so might have harmed the church. Whatever sympathy he may have felt for the victims was overridden by the need to follow orders, an excuse that has always tripped easily off the tongues of those whose personal morals are too-easily put aside in the face of the imperatives of power, wealth or prestige.

One last quote from the article I found grimly amusing:

"He said children’s welfare was now a priority for the Church."

12 Well, thank God for that. A pity it comes two thousand years too late.

Edit: In the Irish Times, [2]Mary Raftery makes the same point much more cogently: Brady’s vow of obedience and his abdication of personality responsibility is at the heart of this. His statement that he will resign if ordered to by the Pope conﬁrms it - "Not my fault, just obeying orders."

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8567144.stm 2. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0315/1224266293755.html

1.4 April

1.4.1 iPad Arrival (2010-04-01 10:50)

Well, the ﬁrst iPads are arriving and the ﬁrst reviews are coming in. They’re pretty damn positive, which isn’t entirely surprising given that Apple picks the journalists who get to play with the new toy ahead of time. All the same, the details suggest that the device does live up to the hype, and my desire to get one has climbed a couple of notches.

My favourite of the reviews is [1]David Pogue’s, which, despite being a little prosaic, nails the reason for the online furore that has surrounded the iPad ever since Steve Jobs unveiled it. In essence, the many voices decrying the device and its lack of Flash/USB/multitasking tend to be techies, whereas those who see more promise in it tend to be the rest of us.

It’s worth remembering that when Mac’s ﬁrst appeared, they were promoted as computers "for the rest of us." At the time, they lived up to that promise, even if they were restricted to those of "the rest of us" who had enough money to buy them. Still, over the years, the gap between Windows and Mac has narrowed enough that the selling point isn’t as strong as it was. With the iPad, Apple might just have a device for "the rest of us" in terms of both usability and price.

As much as I might want the iPad for myself, I really want one for my Mum. My mum, who can use computers but prefers not to, and for whom the mouse is a strange and clunky way method of control. The touch control of the iPhone and iPad is simple and intuitive, and I suspect would be much more to her liking. Add to that the simple and elegant design, the excellent battery life and the many apps that she would ﬁnd genuinely useful, and I think this is something that would suit her down to the ground. That said, I’d also have to buy her a cloth so she could keep the screen clean of ﬁngerprints.

As for myself, I’m interested to see what designers can do with the iPad’s larger screen and faster processor. (One of my current gripes with my iPhone 3G is that it sometimes seems a little slow to respond - perhaps a reformat is in order.) One of my predictions has already come true - clever, clever Marvel Comics has quietly developed [2]an app that might just give it a head start in the digital comics arena. I also love the idea of playing boardgames on the iPad, both translations of existing ones and new designs.

For a device that depends so much on software, the iPad seems to have arrived as an ex- tremely strong hardware platform. When was the last time you heard of a laptop or phone manufacturer lowballing battery life estimates? Certainly, there are things missing, but some of those will surely be ﬁxed in the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0, and the rest in a future hardware revision, presumably a year or so down the line. Even Apple’s opposition to Flash in favour of HTML5, which can sometimes appear ideological, may pay off in the long term. If you build it, they will come? 13 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/technology/personaltech/01pogue.html 2. http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2134294,marvel-ipad-comixology-ihnatko-033110. article

kaleandwine (2010-04-09 22:55:02) Rob¼s trying to be quiet about it, but he bought one last week. It¼s really beautiful, intuitive, everything – perfect for your mum, I bet (and mine, too). If you read a lot of online or electronic content, it¼s fantastic. The memory seems to last forever, the keyboard is easy to use, the graphics are stunning... and we got a simple drawing application (Sketchbook, I think?) that had me entranced for hours. I¼m sure I¼m saying things everyone else has said a million times over. But it¼s really impressive. It¼s not a mindblowing, "WOW!!!" type of experience - it¼s more simple, understated, and elegant. I¼m a books-must-be-on-paper(!) sort of person, but I was amazed by how quickly the ipad changed my mind. I can¼t imagine it won¼t be a gamechanger. Just... slowly.

cerandor (2010-04-10 07:57:20) I¼m really trying to resist. I am. But I¼ve just got a new ﬂatmate, solving my immediate money problems and . . . it¼s getting harder not to want to get one.

1.4.2 Reboots and Catchphrases (2010-04-07 23:22)

When you’re rebooting a property, it’s important to get the essence of it right. Not merely the surface appearance, but the spark of genius in it - the idea that grabbed an audience ﬁrst time out and brought them back again and again. If you really want to make the most of nostalgic affection, it has to be genuine.

A couple of reboots seem to have succeeded, at least if their catchphrases are any indica- tion. The first one is the A-Team movie. Given that the show’s original audience have, like me, probably moved on to other things, the film made the right move in ensuring that it at least had a quality cast. However, the first trailer was appalling. Obviously intended as a teaser, it was a sludgy, cliched mess that suggested the movie would have no particular character of its own.

Thankfully, the [1]second one is much better. Offering up some context, humour and action, it went a long way to repairing the damage that the ﬁrst trailer did. However, the killer moment came with Liam Neeson as Hannibal, wreathed in cigar smoke and shot in close up, saying "Give me a minute and I’m good. Give my team an hour and we’re unbeatable." Of course it helps to have an actor of Neeson’s calibre delivering a line like that, but as writing itself goes, that does manage to nail the spirit of the original pretty well.

The other reboot is the new series of Doctor Who, which is more or less the ﬁrst refresh since it was brought back a few years ago. The show is now in the hands of Steven Moffat, who’s written some of the best episodes since its return, and he [2]didn’t disappoint, reintro- ducing the show with action, emotion and an all-new cast.

Now, I’m a Doctor Who nut who loves the notion of a madcap genius exploring space and time for the pure joy of seeing what’s out there and doing the right thing wherever he goes. So it was very satisfying to hear the following line amid the previews for the rest of the coming season: "Any place you want. Any time you want. Just one condition: It has to be amazing." That’s how you nail the spirit of a show like this. The Doctor appears to be in very good hands indeed. 14 1. http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox/theateam/ 2. http://io9.com/5509048/david-who-matt-smith-is-the-doctor

1.4.3 Apple Wows Internet With New Reasons to Complain (2010-04-09 12:36)

At an event in Cupertino yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs once again demonstrated his company’s ability to stay ahead of the crowd with an array of new reasons for people on the Internet to complain about it.

With the rumoured unveiling of Apple’s iPhone OS 4.0, fears had arisen that Apple would offer such features as multitasking, an improved Mail app and new organisational capabilities for apps, neutering many of the most popular complaints leveled against the company and its mobile offerings. However, although Apple did indeed unveil these features and more in the new OS, it sidestepped any potential problems by working in numerous other sources of online dissent.

"We understand that a large part of the Apple experience is the hordes of people who turn out online to criticise our products," Jobs stated at the event. "As a result, we’ve worked hard to ensure that while we provide new capabilities for our users, we also continue to provide numerous reasons for people who don’t use them to go on Internet forums and complain."

As an example, Jobs pointed to the fact that the new iPhone OS will not work on the three- year-old ﬁrst-generation iPhone. "The 1st-gen iPhone is a small part of the overall market, and we thought that we could leverage it best by providing a goad to people who don’t use one and have in fact sworn never to buy an Apple product again. Now they can act as though it had suddenly become worthless instead of a very usable smartphone with continuing access to a broad range of App Store offerings."

Two of the iPhone OS’s new features demonstrate Apple’s commitment to serving both cus- tomers and noncustomers alike. The new Games Center provides developers with a voluntary way to make their games more addictive and appealing for users, while also allowing com- plainants to gripe about Apple’s efforts to control every aspect of the iPhone experience. Sim- ilarly, the new iAd offering provides developers with the option of a new revenue stream that negates the need to link to an external Web site while offering online commenters the chance to depict the company as a Google-like amorphous mass devouring the Internet whole.

"Plus," adds Jobs, "advertising is one of those topics that allows people to really ramp up the righteous anger. This is a win-win offering for everyone."

After the event, Jobs privately expressed satisfaction with his company’s latest launch. "At Apple, we know that the harder we work to improve our products, the harder it becomes to give our detractors the reasons they need to get online and spend hours of their time working themselves into a spittle-ﬂecked fury. It wouldn’t be fair of us to leave them to make up complaints from nothing. These guys are the unsung heroes who help keep Apple top-of-mind among brands on the Internet, and we couldn’t do what we do without them."

(2010-04-09 11:57:22) Heh - like the Onion style. Think you fairly nailed it.

cerandor (2010-04-10 07:55:48) Why thank you. That was what I was going for. Satire can be very satisfying.

15 kaleandwine (2010-04-09 22:45:18) Ha! I love this.

(2010-04-11 21:56:06) Thumbs up!

1.4.4 Immortal Thoughts (2010-04-16 11:07)

There’s a fun [1]debate going on over on the Guardian web site at the moment on the topic of immortality. I’ve been involved in one of these debates before, when I learned, to my surprise, that I was in the minority on this subject. (I shouldn’t really be so surprised - my views on many things put me in a minority.) Still, reading the Guardian debate did spur me into the not entirely helpful act of posting my opinions up here.

1. Human immortality is inevitable. If it can be done, we will do it, sooner or later. And even if they oppose the idea, there aren’t that many people who claim it’s a ﬂat-out impossi- bility.

2. Immortality entails eternal youth. I remember reading the tale of [2]Tithonus as a child and being chilled by it. However, that’s a myth. Halting death requires us to halt the aging process, and if our biological science is capable of doing that, it can deliver us active bodies - brains will be trickier, but they’ll be conquered eventually.

3. It will initially only be for the rich. This isn’t a good thing, just an inevitable thing. Short of the disappearance of capitalism in favour of globalised anarcho-communism, the people at the top of the pile will be the ﬁrst to beneﬁt from what will initially be a very expensive procedure. At that stage, the real danger is of a [3]gerontocracy developing.

4. It will change our view of death. When death becomes a choice, or an accident, rather than a sentence, how will we approach it? Will we feel that we have much more to lose by it (centuries unnumbered rather than threescore-years-and-ten) or will it lose all its sting? I can see religions opposing immortality ﬁrst, euthanasia second, then bending to a new reality. Perhaps.

5. It will make us or break us. To take the utopian view, we - as a species - might start taking the long view of things. We might be more careful in how we treat the environment we live in. We might ﬁnd that the vast distances of space are not so unconquerable after all. To take the dystopian view, the squabble over immortality could shatter the structures of society that have been so painstakingly built up. We might just lose it all. Take away one of the bedrock principles of the human experience and there isn’t much that won’t be affected.

Although there’s a part of me that’s curious enough to want to live to see "what comes next," there’s also a part of me that hopes we don’t develop the technology for immortality in my lifetime. We haven’t exactly learned how to live in balance with the environment as we are. While it’s true that necessity can be the mother of invention, I’d rather see us learn how to deal with life as we are before we have to cope with a change of that magnitude.

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/15/transhumanism-biological-immortality 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerontocracy 16 1.4.5 Get a Grip (2010-04-19 10:18)

The Dublin "Metro Herald" free newspaper has a big screaming headline this morning: "When Will This Nightmare End"! This refers, of course, not to the continuing poor form of the Ulster rugby team but to the Icelandic Death Cloud (TM) that has kept the skies over Europe mostly free of aircraft for the last week and which shows no signs of abating.

Except - as far as I’m aware, no one has died, not even in Iceland. No aircraft have plummetted from the skies, their engines clogged by volcanic ash turned to glass. All that has happened is that people and goods have been stuck in various places as their scheduled ﬂights got can- celled one after another.

It’s an inconvenience, certainly. A widespread and expensive one, even. And there’s no guarantee that it will end any time soon (despite the efforts of the airlines to persuade gov- ernments to lift ﬂight restrictions before the cloud dissipates). But a nightmare? Really?

At a time when the newspapers have more or less forgotten about Haiti and have certainly forgotten about the Democratic Republic of Congo, this is a little sickening. Perhaps I’m taking this too seriously, but when the primary role of newspapers becomes turning dramas into crises, is it any surprise that free is the only price we’re interested in paying for them?

mopti (2010-04-20 22:25:25) Next to death A colleague is stuck on the mainland (doing EU-related business). He had gone to his meeting directly from a holiday elsewhere on Europia, so he had packed for six days. He was on the phone yesterday and said that being stuck on the other side of the EU meant he needed to get some of his clothes cleaned. He went on to mention that this is the ﬁrst time in his life he has ever had to arrange to get his laundry done. In all 57 years of his life.

1.4.6 Bill Hicks Was Right* (2010-04-26 17:54)

Warning: Rant Approaching

There’s a new advertising campaign appearing on billboards across Dublin today. It’s for Hunky Dorys, the crinkle-cut crisp brand which has advertising that is "edgier and less conservative" according to its Web site. Well, they certainly hit the mark there this time.

I saw two of their ads on the way home today. Both featured, down in the corner, a pic- ture of the crisps with the tagline "Proud sponsors of the Irish Rugby Team." And to be fair to them, the ads are rugby related.

That’s the last bit of fairness we’ll be having here.

The ﬁrst one features a young woman kneeling with a rugby ball at her feet, wearing what amounts to some spandex panties and a bra in the colours of the Leinster team. Not that you can tell, really. Her pose is designed to ensure that all attention is directed towards her ample cleavage, and the tag line is "Are you looking at my crisps?"

The second one features an array of women running towards the camera, all dressed in the same gear, this time in the colours of both Leinster and Munster. The nearest one to the camera is holding a ball, and just in case the acres of ﬂesh on display weren’t enough, the player behind her is teasingly pulling at her inadequate underwear. Seeing as they’re skin-tight, 17 I’m not quite sure how she got hold of them. The tag-line for this one is, with near-moronic straightforwardness, "Tackle these."

Now, I’m obviously growing old and cranky. And I’m not the target audience for all of this. (The targets, of course, are teenage boys who may be vaguely aware of rugby but are deﬁnitely aware of semi-naked women.) Even so, this is just cheap. The rugby link is purely there to generate goodwill and provide an excuse to dress up women in clothes that no one in their right mind would play sports in. (No, not even beach volleyball.)

Advertising can employ art, humour and genuine emotional connections in the search for a sale. Crap like this though, has none of the above. It’s a gratuitous grab for the gonads, presumably because someone, somewhere has identiﬁed in a study the effects of titillation on sales. It’s a reminder that, in the end, companies will do whatever they have to in order to get their hands on your money.

And that’s just a depressing thing to be reminded of on a Monday evening.

The first thing the ads brought to mind was a quote from the wonderful Bill Hicks on advertising - not his better-known one on artists who sell out, but another one on the fact that marketers would use porn to sell Coke if they could get away with it. If I can find a link, I’ll post it. Edit: Found it. Listen from about 8.00 on this [1]video. (NSFW, of course, though definitely safe for life.)

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-YIPhLWt8U&NR=1

(2010-04-26 20:47:50) Another one There¼s another one out there - a girl looking over her shoulder coquettishly, holding a rugby ball. The tag-line is "They haka. We hunky." Which makes very little, oh wait, no real sense..

waider (2010-04-27 18:21:39) Apparently the actual link to rugby is that HD/Largo foods sponsor the Navan Rugby Club.

cerandor (2010-04-27 22:18:19) Excellent. It seems the IRFU are none too pleased at having rugby linked to this campaign. Also, I had no real luck in looking for images of the campaign either.

waider (2010-04-27 18:29:18) Also I am deeply disappointed that I cannot trivially ﬁnd the images online (found the Crisps one on a media blog; the strapline (hah) is "Proud Supports of Irish Rugby" as opposed to "...the Irish Rugby Team")

goblin_insane (2010-04-27 23:25:57) "The rugby link is purely there to generate goodwill and provide an excuse to dress up women in clothes that no one in their right mind would play sports in. (No, not even beach volleyball.)" http://www.lﬂus.com/

cerandor (2010-04-28 08:52:39) Why am I not surprised that you had that link to hand? :)

goblin_insane (2010-04-28 16:03:17) meh :)

18 rustynails9 (2010-04-29 15:07:28) He said "in their right mind" :)

goblin_insane (2010-04-30 00:19:51) How sexist of you rusty :P Also a number of the girls in the LFL play/ played rugby in college!

rustynails9 (2010-04-30 14:56:08) How is that sexist of me?

kaleandwine (2010-04-29 15:54:17) Wow. Just... wow! LFL is a new one. You know, a part of me wants to be outraged, I guess? But mostly I¼m impressed. By their, uh, muscles.

goblin_insane (2010-04-30 00:32:51) Those girls actually don¼t play at half throttle either so apparently "pretty" girls can play sports too despite what so many women say about what "real" female players look like. Okay I admit there is a certain amount of cherry picking in this where bueaty is obviously a primary stat on the scouting radar but still there tends to be a high chance that a full time athlete will have a better body than your average amateur player, this applies to men too see the Stade Calaendar :)

kaleandwine (2010-04-30 02:38:25) Oh, I agree wholeheartedly1 I think athletic women (and men) are gorgeous. My only skepticism comes with the, um, boobies thing. It¼s a very, very rare woman who can exercise intensely, main- tain the kind of low body fat that makes muscles visible, and also retain a voluptuous chest. It deﬁnitely happens (damn lucky ladies), but I¼d say it¼s the exception and not the rule.

1.4.7 Rant Update (2010-04-27 23:26)

So, it seems that I wasn’t the only person pissed off by the Hunky Dorys [1]soft-porn ad campaign, which sneaked onto billboards by a spurious link to Irish rugby. The IRFU has [2]expressed its displeasure with the campaign and demanded that it be taken down.

Will they succeed? It hardly matters. The marketers have gained the attention they sought, positioned themselves as "cheeky and irreverent" and will move on. That they’ve been sleazy and cheap in doing so will matter not a whit. Even my rants have probably been factored in as an anticipated reaction. Hopefully they might see some backlash from all of this, but I doubt it. Someone would have to care enough for that, and there’s not enough substance here to hate.

1. http://hunkydorys.rubylithcms.com/ 2. http://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2010/0427/irishrugby.html goblin_insane (2010-04-27 23:15:29) but I love those ads they cheer up my day no end :) kaleandwine (2010-04-29 16:05:49) Okay, forgive me for just rambling here. But the ad campaign (now having seen it) is interesting. I have no problem with actual female athletes wearing very little, if that¼s their thing and they can still play (etc etc etc). My sister is a beach volleyball player, and I¼d never have the guts to run around in her tiny bikinis - but I feel like she¼s earned that right. You know? But with these ads you¼re so right. Those photos/models (and words, ugh) are different. It¼s not remotely about sport, it¼s about titillation and booooobies. And not even tasteful non-silicone boobies! Or women who remotely look 19 like their diets would allow anything beyond dry lettuce! Probably a successful campaign, but... meh.

cerandor (2010-04-29 23:15:47) I bow to no man in my appreciation for the female form. Also, having watched a bit of beach volleyball (purely in the interests of science), those women are seriously athletic. And would also probably kick my ass were I to make the mistake of leering in their direction. Anyhow, the ad campaign just got on my nerves due to being shamelessly gratuitous. Pity - if they¼d actually dressed up the women in rugby tops and shorts, they¼d still have been attractive, and the advertiser would have had a lot more credit.

kaleandwine (2010-04-30 02:41:02) Ah. See? I applaud your taste. And... just last week we were discussing the fact that my little sis could dead-lift my (not-so-little) dad. Or his equivalent weight, at least. So yes: tread lightly with them V-ball girls! ;-)

1.4.8 The Underdogs Done Good (2010-04-30 08:56)

In a season in which West Brom roared, faltered and ﬁnally coasted their way to promotion back to the Premiership, my interest in club football has been relatively limited. I’m thankful, then, for Fulham, who have [1]provided massive entertainment as they battled their way to the Europa League Final. Last night, they went an away goal down but never gave up, scoring the two they needed to take themselves to the ﬁnal. The fact that the winning goal was scored by former West Brom hero Zoltan Gera was just the icing on the cake.

(Okay, the actual icing on the cake was Liverpool losing in the other semiﬁnal. I’m a bad person, but at least I’m consistent.)

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/8649420.stm

1.5 May

1.5.1 All the Fun of the Election (2010-05-07 10:20)

I’m not so much a fan of election campaigns as I am a fan of the fallout that ensues after the votes are cast. Yesterday’s [1]elections in the U.K. promised a lot and delivered, well, not as much as they could have. In delivering up the ﬁrst hung parliament in decades, the Conserva- tive party failed to deliver a decisive blow against a genuinely unpopular Labour government, the Labour party managed to keep its shape in the face of widespread dislike of the party and its leader, and the Liberal Democrats once again ﬂattered to deceive but may yet hold the balance of power.

The most disappointed of the lot will be LibDem leader Nick Clegg, who pushed his party to prominence in the ﬁrst televised debate and maintained a presence thereafter but watched his party falter as the electorate reverted to its standard fear of doing anything too unusual. David Cameron can’t be too far behind in the disappointment stakes though - for all that he was hailed as the Conservatives’ Tony Blair, he never convinced anyone that he was anything more than just another Tory and now sits some distance from an overall majority. Gordon Brown, if not grinning, has to take a certain amount of satisfaction from Cameron’s situation - either he’ll get into bed with the LibDems in a coalition that’s unlikely to endure, or he relies on smaller parties in a situation even less likely to work out over the long term.

20 Which brings us to [2]Northern Ireland. As always, local knowledge offers me some more amusement here. Cameron nailed his colours to the faltering Ulster Unionist Party, ignoring the larger DUP, only to see the combined UCUNF (which, I think, stands for United Conser- vative and Unionist National Force - make of that what you will*) end up with no seats at all. Not only that, but party leader Reg Empey failed to win against the DUP’s Willie McCrea and now has to be on his way out. The DUP fared better, fending off the even more extreme TUV in most areas, but lost their biggest scalp - their scandal-plagued leader Peter Robinson (of Swish Family Robinson gibes) was taken out by Naomi Long of the middle-of-the-road Alliance Party, taking that group’s ﬁrst Westminster seat. Robinson probably has better chances than Empey of surviving as party leader, but the jackals will be circling that bit closer today.

As for the Nationalist side of the equation, both Sinn Fein and the SDLP held their own, the SDLP in particular holding onto my local South Down seat even in the face of the retire- ment of the veteran Eddie McGrady. Well, I say that they held their own - one seat remains undecided. Sinn Fein’s Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP Michelle Gildernew was, at last count, just 2 votes ahead of the Unionist unity candidate Rodney Connor. If that one goes SF’s way, it will cap what has been an unpleasant evening for the Unionist side of the political divide. If it goes the other way, it will go a long way to making them happier.

Edit: It actually stands for Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force, which is less questionable than my interpretation but also less coherent - much like the party’s "spread itself thin" strategy.

1. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0507/breaking1.html 2. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0507/breaking2.html

rustynails9 (2010-05-10 13:13:22) That¼s the ﬁrst post/twitter/fb on the subject that didn¼t make me sad :)

cerandor (2010-05-10 20:19:18) Glad to be of service. You have to live with the results more than I do though. Still, at least Gordon is doing his best to keep the intrigue going.

1.5.2 Daggers at the Ready (2010-05-10 21:36)

The U.K. election soap opera rumbles on. Gordon Brown bides his time, allowing the Lib Dems and the Tories to circle one another and make their opening bids, then surprises just about everyone by going [1]all in without warning. The Tories cry foul and [2]raise their own stake, but all of a sudden, David Cameron’s stroll to 10 Downing Street looks a bit bumpier than once it did. This is all a lot of fun. Brown’s decision to step aside may just be the best bit of timing he’s achieved while in ofﬁce. A Labour-Lib Dem-Minor Parties coalition is unlikely to be particularly stable given that it will only just scrape over the majority line, but a Conservative-Lib Dem alliance was always going to have a short shelf life too. The two parties have too little in common, and the Lib Dems would have to spend most of their time watching out for the inevitable Tory attempts to destroy their junior partners’ credibility in readiness for the next election. As for the Northern Ireland parties, they must be licking their chops at the latest events. The DUP have [3]pledged allegiance to the faltering Peter Robinson, though you could almost hear Jeffrey Donaldson and Ian Jr. sharpening the knives. In the meantime, they’ll gain a certain amount of schadenfreude if they can stab Cameron in the back, given how he spurned them before the election. 21 There’s a long way to go yet, but it’s already fair to say that political turmoil makes a fascinating spectator sport.

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8672859.stm 2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8673807.stm 3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8672698.stm

1.6 June

1.6.1 Face to Face With the Shiny (2010-06-07 22:45)

Apple has to be somewhat annoyed. Were it not for the surprising failure of their Wall of Si- lence over the last month or two, the announcement of the new [1]iPhone 4 would have been something of a triumph (wi-ﬁ hiccups notwithstanding). As it is, nearly everything about the hardware was already known or guessed, apart from a few small bits and pieces (the gyro- scope and the interesting reasons for the case design).

So, the impact of Steve Jobs’ keynote had to come from the software. Sadly, here again, it had been spoiled, this time by Apple itself. The newly named iOS 4.0 was announced some time ago, and there wasn’t much in the speech that was new on that score. One big feature was pushed to the fore - video calling, renamed FaceTime by Apple.

Now, it’s a little annoying to see Apple treat video calling as though no one had ever done it on a phone before. Several years before the ﬁrst iPhone emerged, I had a Nokia that could make video calls. Still, Apple may have a point in that they could be able to make it more than a gimmick. I used my Nokia’s video calling function exactly once, to call someone on the other side of the pub table. FaceTime will be iPhone to iPhone initially, but Apple seems to want to publish it as a standard, and if that works out, video calling could become real in the mobile world.

Regardless of any sense of deja-vu though, this will be my next phone. It’s remarkably attractive, making my old 3G look dowdy by comparison, and the ultra-high resolution screen is a killer feature. The only problem? It won’t be here until July. Sigh.

1. http://www.apple.com/iphone/design/#design-video

(2010-06-08 12:17:49) ah, I remember that video call. Looking forward to a pint in Hogan¼s and doing the same with the iPhone 4 :)

cerandor (2010-06-08 13:42:23) Only if Hogan¼s has wiﬁ. Also, given that the iPhone 4 can do video calling through either camera, calling someone sitting across from you could allow you to send them a video of them video calling you. It would all be terribly recursive.

1.6.2 Especially Irish (2010-06-12 17:51)

Well, [1]that was a strange game.

Let’s not mince words - Ireland were terrible in the ﬁrst half. Clearly nervous from the off, they shipped a penalty and a try courtesy of Rob Kearney’s mistake. However, the damage 22 was done immediately afterwards, as a solid drive upﬁeld raised hopes of maintaining par- ity, only to be spoiled by Jamie Heaslip’s moment of madness. Reduced to 14 men, Ireland couldn’t hold onto the All-Blacks. Ronan O’Gara’s half-hearted, if ultimately successful, bid for a sin-binning hardly mattered as New Zealand ran in four further tries.

Hope came right at the end of the half in the shape of Dan Tuohy’s opportunistic try. What made the game strange was the Ireland team that came out for the second half. Realising that every time New Zealand got the ball, they looked likely to score, Ireland ditched the notion of kicking and instead ran at their hosts. It was a costly tactic, and every mistake was punished, leading to another four tries for the All-Blacks, but what it earned Ireland was pride.

Tommy Bowe grabbed another opportunist’s try, and Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy ﬁnished off well-worked moves. There were some great Irish performances in there, particularly Tony Buckley, and a reminder of the quality of the Ireland team when their backs are against the wall. In the end, a chastening result, but not without merit.

Also, Ireland can take solace in the fact that they’re not [2]England. Against a sub-par Aus- tralia, they were devoid of ideas or imagination in the ﬁrst half and mostly devoid of them in the second half. The only thing that kept them in the game at all was an Aussie scrum that had all the resiliency of wet tissue paper. Ireland may not have the "big lug-ness" of England, but they should have some hope for their match against Australia in a fortnight.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I was interviewed by a camera crew from One News, a New Zealand station, during the worst period of the match for Ireland. I tried not to look too depressed, but I’m not sure how well I succeeded.

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/8736679.stm 2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/8734071.stm

1.6.3 A Metaphor for our (Political) Times (2010-06-15 20:40)

With Fine Gael [1]reverting to type and conspiring to seize another decade or so in the wilder- ness from the clutches of a decent chance of actually gaining power in the next election, the thought crossed my mind that I had seen this all somewhere before.

Just imagine us, the Irish public, as Brian, suffering on the cruciﬁx of a government of chancers and morons, and hoping against all expectation that someone might come along and make his life just a little bit better (and longer). Over the hill appear Fine Gael, long- spoken-of but rarely seen, only to remove all hope in an orgy of self destruction just at the moment when they were in a position to do something useful.

Just one more reason why Life of Brian is the greatest ﬁlm ever.

1. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0615/1224272520984.html?via=rel?via=rel

kaleandwine (2010-06-16 21:27:59) Ha! Love the clip. (just sorry about political inspiration behind it).

cerandor (2010-06-17 07:48:33) When you grow up in Northern Ireland and then move to the Republic, you learn not to expect too much from politicians. :) Though it has to be said that this move was notable in its wilful obtuseness. 23 Still, any excuse to watch a bit of Monty Python is a good one.

1.6.4 Shiny 2010 (2010-06-18 10:39)

It turns out that Apple can still keep a secret. Amid all the hoopla over the leaking of new iPhone and the subsequent record interest in pre-ordering it*, there was very little notion of a [1]new MacMini. Yet only a few days after the latest Steve Jobs keynote, there it was on the Apple site, all shiny and new.

I’ve had my eye on the MacMini for a while, holding off for a variety of reasons: lack of a HDMI port, poor graphics power and a design that made upgrading any component a tricky prospect. Well, the new one answers all of those and then some. Reader, I bought it.

Courtesy of Dublin’s ﬁne ersatz Apple Store, CompuB, I got my hands on one the day after it was announced, though I had to wait another day before I could sit down and set it up. The ﬁrst thing I noticed (after the price, which has gone up substantially over the old model) was its size. Although a little broader and longer than the model it replaces, the new MacMini is about half the height and shipped in a box not much bigger than it is.

This is all down to the new design, which replaces a plastic core inside a metal shell with one of Apple’s aluminium unibody cases. The result is not only pretty, hiding the functionality of this full PC in a minimalist shell, it’s also amazingly solid. As someone whose two-year-old MacBook is fraying at the edges, where plastic is bonded to plastic, that kind of solidity is very reassuring. Moreover, the only bit of plastic in the shell is a cover for a hole in the base, which allows easy access to the RAM and much more tricky access to everything else.

In use, it was everything I expected - plug it into the power and a display and you can have it running within a few minutes. I managed it, even with having to connect a wireless mouse and keyboard, during the halftime break of the France-Mexico game, then left it to update its software (there were a surprising number of updates for a machine only two days old) while I watched the rest of the match.

It’s also beautifully quiet, which ﬁts the purpose it’s going to be put to - a media and games machine attached to my TV. Yes, I paid over the odds, but I wouldn’t have stayed a Mac user for the past twenty-plus years if I wasn’t willing to pay a little more in return for quality, and the MacMini certainly ﬁts the bill on that count. I’m very happy with it, and I’m looking forward to getting it set up just as I want it.

The more people complain about Apple’s i-Products being just hype, the more they raise the hype level. Haven’t they heard that the best way to deal with something you dislike is to ignore it?

1. http://www.apple.com/macmini/

1.7 July

1.7.1 So Much For The South American World Cup (2010-07-05 14:19)

After the round of group matches in the 2010 World Cup, the talk was mostly about the fail- ures and weaknesses of the European teams (France, Italy and England particularly, but to a lesser degree Spain, Portugal and Germany too) and the distance between them and the South 24 American nations, particularly Brazil and Argentina. When the quarter finals were filled up with four South American teams against three from Europe and one from Africa, this trend seemed to be confirmed.

Now though? [1]Not so much.

First to fall were the powerful Brazilians, who looked increasingly solid up until the point where they gifted Holland a fortunate equalizer, whereupon they crumbled. The next South American team to go out were Argentina, who had been potent but fragile all tournament and were disposed of with ruthless efﬁciency by the Germans. Of all the South American teams that went out, Paraguay were perhaps the unluckiest. Despite offering little going forward, they were more or less matching Spain until a crazy exchange of penalties and an attack that hit three posts before the ball found the back of the net.

Which leaves the one match where a South American nation did go through, in perhaps the strangest of results. A very tight game up until the very last moment, it revolved around a moment of self-sacriﬁcial instinct by Uruguayan striker Suarez, who stuck out a hand to save a certain goal, earning himself a red card and his team a glimmer of a chance. To his delight, they took it, the Ghanaian penalty taker ﬁring high before his team were dumped out on the subsequent penalties. A real pity for Ghana, but it would be a little hypocritical of me to sympathise too much, as Uruguay are one of two teams I tend to support in these events.

The other one is Holland, who, of course, Uruguay meet in their semi ﬁnal. There’s real narrative about the tournament now, with both semi ﬁnals featuring one of the best teams never to have won (Holland, Spain) against former winners who haven’t lifted the trophy in quite a while (Germany, Uruguay).

I’m a lot more interested now than I was back at the start of proceedings, which is not a bad thing to be able to say. It might be hard at the moment to look past the Germans for a winner, but as they showed against Serbia, there’s plenty of room left for uncertainty.

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/2010/07/vickery_17.html

laerfan (2010-07-05 22:30:14) Agreed. Particularly that Torres hasn¼t been scoring goals. But David Villa has. For me, the semi- ﬁnal between Germany and Spain is the real ﬁnal

1.7.2 Farewell to the Snack Box (2010-07-08 11:13)

I am ground zero for confectionery marketers. Anyone who knows me knows that I suffer from both a sweet tooth, particularly when it comes to boiled sweets and chocolate, and an inability to pass by "3-for-2" offers without checking them out. As a result, a trip to Tesco usually results in several sugary items being added to the shopping list at short notice.

At least until recently anyway. June was the month when I decided to put in an effort and cut back. Way back.

The plan was simply not to buy myself chocolate or sweets over the course of the month. Which is less easy than it might have been, as my ofﬁce has a convenient snack box to which I’ve been a faithful customer for years. Still, I reckoned if I could stick to my nonpurchasing, I’d not only be saving money, I’d also be weaning myself off what was, occasionally, a 4/5-a- day chocolate bar habit. 25 A week into July, and so far the effort has been a success. The snack box remains untouched, and while I’ve relaxed my overall purchasing restrictions a little, chocolate has become an occasional treat rather than a regular indulgence. I can’t say that I’m more healthy as a result, but clearing away confectionery should make space for exercise and fresh fruit to have more of an impact.

It’s hardly the biggest or most important thing about my lifestyle that needs ﬁxing, but it’s nice to make progress. It gives me hope that, with effort, there’s nothing that isn’t open to improvement.

kaleandwine (2010-07-12 21:17:59) Ooh, valiant effort! How do you feel a few extra days in? Several friends have tried to cut out sugar in the last year... those who survived the two-week withdrawal (??) report that they feel like new people and will never go back. (??!) I¼ve cut out sugar in the mornings, at least. But the thought of life without my afternoon dark chocolate and the occasional evening cookies is just – oh! Unbearable.

cerandor (2010-07-12 22:11:45) Well, the plan was never to do without sugar entirely, just to cut back from my previously indulgent levels. I¼ve managed to remove sweets from the working day, but I still have a few things at home for emergency use in the evening. Plus, fresh fruit makes for a decent replacement as a midmorning snack. So far I don¼t miss the sugar too much - and seeing as I¼ve had a stressful last few weeks, I should be able to stick to it, I imagine.

1.7.3 Unsurprising/Amusing/Depressing? (2010-07-12 09:36)

Occasionally at work, I come across odd tidbits of information, such as the following:

"Sales of pale makeup increased by 200 percent in October 2009, just when New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight series, began to hit theaters."

Though, seeing as the main vampire in the ﬁlms is male, I wonder just who’s buying all the makeup...

kaleandwine (2010-07-12 21:33:17) God. I¼ll bet glittery shimmer face powders are now being marketed to boys. As ways to, you know, get the ladies. :-)

laerfan (2010-07-13 18:54:16) I think that the girls are still the ones buying the make up (for the most part) as there are female vam- pires in those books and movies too and I reckon girls want to look like them themselves. Stephanie Meyer really should be ashamed of herself for all this mess she has made.

1.7.4 iBan (2010-07-18 20:38)

This self-improvement thing can be addictive.

It was recently pointed out to me, by someone in a position to know, that my iPhone isn’t a positive inﬂuence on my social life. Or, rather, that the combination of iPhone and Google 26 Reader can lead me to act in antisocial ways. Being neat and fussy to the point of borderline obsessive-compulsiveness and having a tendency to fade into the background when conversations are going on, I’ve developed a severe habit of pulling out the iPhone every so often when other people are around, just to check whether there are any new posts.*

Clearly, this is not polite behaviour. Thus, in the wake of my success with cutting down drastically on chocolate, I have been ﬁlled with the belief in my potential for change and have decided to tackle this new mountain.**

The Plan: For the next month or so (I’m aiming for the end of August), the iPhone stays in the pocket if there are other people around, unless I get a call, text or email.*** With any luck, this will stick, and I’ll make more of an effort to involve myself when there are others around.

And no, this sudden decision has nothing to do with the fact that the [1]most recent episode of The IT Crowd mercilessly slagged off iPhones and iPhone posers. Really.

I also ﬁnd that I have a bit of trouble picking out conversations in noisy surroundings. This is one reason why I prefer quiet pubs to noisy clubs. To my amusement, thinking about this today revealed to me that one of the reasons I hang around with a particular one of my friends could be because he never lowers his voice enough to be drowned out by the din.

* The chocolate thing has really worked - earlier today, I had a few bites of a Cadburys bar and couldn’t bring myself to ﬁnish it. Mind you, that might have been because it was a big bar that had already melted and resolidiﬁed, and because I’d just had a very large brunch. Still, I’m claiming it as a win.

** It could also come out if the conversation turns round to a point where a topic of debate could be solved through reference to Google or Wikipedia, but seeing as most people I know are now in possession of iPhones or Android handsets, I ﬁgure I can let others take the lead on that one.

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1676560/

kaleandwine (2010-07-19 15:42:21) Okay, I deleted my ﬁrst comment, because it was just too much of my own stuff for here. Apologies! :-) But I want to say here, now: cheers to you for noticing this. I am seeing it everywhere – people sort of disconnecting from the world – and though I understand how and why it happens, it makes me sad. I think there is a great value in being bored, in being uncomfortable, in being forced to converse, in having nothing to do... The phone has taken away our need to endure these things – and made us more productive! But perhaps we collectively lose something along the way? I am phone-less, but even I¼ve noticed that the more time I spend reading and listening to audiobooks (while doing mundane, boring things), the less creative I feel, the less art/writing I actually do. Hmm... Have you noticed any change in output, etc since you¼ve had the phone? Just curious. Rob has actually been talking about a similar reduction in life-screen-time;even without my input he feels that he¼s reached an unsustainable saturation-point with technology etc. I wonder if more people should be trying the same, or just talking about it? It¼s an interesting cultural phenomena.

cerandor (2010-07-19 23:05:14) Any credit for noticing the problem goes to the person who had to put up with it, not the person who was causing it. It took a severe shock to the system and a dose of in vino veritas for me to cop on to something I should have been aware of a long time before. A web-enabled phone can 27 be a good companion on long solo journeys, but it¼ll be a greedy friend if you let it take over. That said, I don¼t want to become a fanatic over this - I just want to rein in a bad habit. You might be right about boredom, though what effect having more free time and space for thinking will have on me, I¼m not sure yet. I¼ll give it some time and let you know.

1.7.5 Apparitions (2010-07-20 10:39)

Last night’s RTE documentary [1]Apparitions, about self-proclaimed visionary Joe Coleman, was an exercise in even-handedness. Giving the three corners of this argument - Coleman, the Catholic Church, and the sceptics - their own say, it managed to depict the events sur- rounding Coleman’s [2]Knock "visions" without taking sides. Unfortunately, in the process, it rendered a fascinating story about the very odd Coleman (who came across as intense to the point of suppressed rage) somewhat uninteresting. It almost certainly failed to convince anyone to change their point of view on the matter, with my own take still being that if you encourage people to stare at the sun, it’s not going to be long before they start seeing things.

One interesting point in the program, which it more or less skimmed over, was the con- junction between the loss of faith in the Catholic Church in Ireland and the rise of ﬁgures like Coleman. Although there have always been people who see visions, the church has long had a process for co-opting them. These days, it seems to be either unwilling or unable to do so, and given its ineptness in admitting guilt for its own failings, it’s hardly surprising that those who have a deep need to believe in something greater might ﬁnd something that appeals in people like Coleman.

Ultimately, Coleman got what he wanted from the show - more publicity (for his book and web site) without a deep investigation of his stranger activities (charging for clairvoyant read- ings and teaching teenage girls how to ﬁnd their "angelic guides"). RTE probably got a decent audience for the show without offending anyone, which is probably exactly what it wanted. I’m not sure there was that much there for the rest of us though.

1. http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/apparitions.html 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock_Shrine#Purported_solar_phenomena

1.7.6 A Creative Playground (2010-07-21 10:44)

It’s been an interesting few days for Apple watchers. The company has just released [1]ﬁnan- cial results that show it to be growing by leaps and bounds, despite some recent bad press. Steve Jobs himself was forced to respond to that bad press with a [2]press [3]conference in which he didn’t seem all that happy at having to set the record straight. (Short version of his take: There is a problem, it’s not big or unique, and for now, we’ll give away free cases to ﬁx it.)

For me though, it was Apple’s decision to donate the code for [4]MacPaint to the Computer History Museum that attracted my attention. I ﬁrst used MacPaint on a Mac Plus more than two decades ago, and its designer, [5]Bill Atkinson came very close to changing the course of my life.

I’d dabbled in a bit of coding on an old BBC B microcomputer, but Atkinson’s Hypercard, which used elements of MacPaint in a multimedia creation package, turned me into an artist, designer, coder and writer all at once. If Apple had known what to do with it, or had managed to keep it up to date, I might have ended up following a very different career path. As it was, 28 it was allowed to fade away and I focused on the writing. Still, cheers to Bill Atkinson for providing a computerised playground for my imagination.

1. http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/20/ apple-reports-profit-of-3-25-billion-in-q3-2010-on-record-15-7-billion-revenue/ 2. http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/16/ apple-posts-video-of-iphone-4-press-conference-antenna-information-pages/ 3. http://daringfireball.net/2010/07/antennagate_bottom_line 4. http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/20/ apple-donates-macpaint-source-code-to-computer-history-museum/ 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Atkinson

1.7.7 Spider Spam (2010-07-26 11:13)

One wonders, sometimes, whether spam emailers have allowed their love of random word gen- erators to go a little too far. Just now, for example, I received a mail offering me a "Pedipalps Enlarger". That would be [1]these things then.

Exactly what the draw is supposed to be, I’m not sure.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedipalps

(2010-07-26 10:32:39) Spiders are suckers for spam mail. Stupid arachnids.

1.7.8 The Ideal Shape (2010-07-27 15:21)

The latest fuss to ruffle the Internet’s feathers (albeit only mildly so far) is U.K. Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone’s avowal that [1]Christina Hendricks of Mad Men and Firefly fame has a figure that women ought to aspire to. In a healthy fashion, that is, as opposed to starving until they’re stick-figure thin.

Now, I’m the ﬁrst to admit that Hendricks looks generally stunning, and all the more so when dressed in all her ’50s/’60s ﬁnery. Still, given that men generally get away with no more than a mild feeling of pressure to keep in shape and avoid the dreaded beer belly, why is it that women are constantly thrown unrealistic ideals to aspire to?

I’m fortunate enough to be acquainted with a fair number of beautiful women, who span a very broad range when it comes to body shapes. Most of them have, at one time or another, complained in my hearing or to me directly about the fact that they feel uncomfortable with one aspect or another of their bodies or the way they look. Which can be a little depressing given that, as stated above, they happen to be beautiful.

There’s nothing original in a rant about the pressures that society and the media put on women to look a particular way. Still, it’s worth reiterating once in a while - the worst way to react to an ongoing problem is to give in and assume it’s not going to become any better.

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10760903

kaleandwine (2010-07-28 08:34:38) Amen. It¼s deﬁnitely worth reiterating once in a while.

29 1.7.9 Truth in Advertising (2010-07-31 21:17)

Lately there’s been an advertisement showing on Irish television that features one of the coun- try’s top sportsmen, Padraig Harrington, acting as a spokesperson for [1]Optical Express, a provider of laser eye surgery. In the ad, Harrington speaks about the beneﬁts of laser eye surgery and the qualities of Optical Express. It’s very carefully worded though, and he doesn’t actually mention being treated by them.

There’s a reason for that.

When I had my laser eye surgery nearly two years ago, it was with the [2]Wellington Eye Clinic, who quite openly mentioned in their promotional material that they’d treated Harring- ton. They still do, on their web site.

It’s not a major thing, and Harrington is welcome to take the money that Optical Express have thrown at him. Still, I had a great experience with the Wellington Eye Clinic and the results have been fantastic. So, on the off chance that anyone might have been led to think that Optical Express had actually treated, as opposed to paid, Harrington, I felt I ought to set the record straight.

1. http://ie.opticalexpress.com/latest-news/padraig-harrington-joins-optical-express.html 2. http://www.wellingtoneyeclinic.com/

1.8 August

1.8.1 iPhone 4 Thoughts (2010-08-18 12:39)

So, I’ve had this new iPhone for around a week now. Time for some thoughts.

First impressions were surprisingly mixed. The new iPhone is a thing of minimalist beauty, a slab of glass and metal that takes phone styling to another level. It also feels ridiculously solid - I don’t know how resilient it actually is, and I’m not about to drop it to find out, but it feels as though you could use it to hammer nails in. Product feel is something that Apple does very well at this stage. However, compared to the graceful curves of previous iPhones, it’s not as welcoming to the hand. I got used to it pretty quickly, but you do find yourself holding it by your fingertips, rather than resting it in the palm of your hand.

In everyday use, it’s a big step up from my old iPhone 3G. The improved display puts my old phone to shame, seeming more like a clear window than a pixelated screen. The speed is very gratifying, particularly when loading up apps. On that point, I should also note the advantages of iOS 4.0, which was built for this phone’s capabilities. Fast app switching is a very nice bonus, adding to the feeling of a phone that responds more quickly to whatever you want it to do. Battery life is also better, even if I do occasionally grow nostalgic for the days of my old Nokia, which would last a week between charges.

As for features, there’s not a huge amount that is new and exciting, but I have to commend Apple on its implementation of Facetime video calling. It just works, and I was able to phone home and get to see, for the ﬁrst time, my baby niece walking. That’s the kind of thing that shows up in Apple’s ads, and I’m not surprised they’re focusing on it.

Overall, I’m happier than I expected to be with it, given all the noise and negative publicity. The antenna issues haven’t been a problem in Dublin at least, though that will get a more 30 thorough testing this weekend, with reception overall being better than my old iPhone. Let’s hope it lasts as long and serves me as well as its predecessor did.

kaleandwine (2010-08-19 17:38:15) Is it awful to say that I spent most of this post looking for the word "shiny" and being increasingly stunned it wasn¼t there? ;) They¼re pretty pieces of equipment. I still can¼t quite get used to the new look of the edges, but agree. To me they¼re very Helvetica (which, semi non-sequitur, is an interesting little movie...). Well-made Helvetica. Can¼t really go wrong with that.

cerandor (2010-08-23 08:25:13) Interesting comparison. I do want to see that "Helvetica" movie too. I suspect I didn¼t use the s-word because it was a serious attempt to relay my thoughts on a week with the new phone. Hopefully I¼m not getting dull and boring in my old age...

1.9 September

1.9.1 Songs to Make You Walk Faster (2010-09-03 10:05)

A while back, I put together a playlist of "inspirational" songs. The kind of song that when it starts playing, you smile, you pick up your pace to match the rhythm and begin to hum or even sing along. The type of music that doesn’t mess around with subtlety and just goes for the hindbrain.

At the risk of revealing the occasional cheesiness of my musical taste, then, here are ﬁve of my favourites from the list.

One Vision - Queen "No wrong, no right, I’m gonna tell you there’s no black and no white." I could have ﬁlled this list quite easily with songs from Queen, a band that were masters of the crowdpleasing tune. Straightforward lyrics, a propulsive rhythm and Freddie Mercury’s fantastic voice - simple, really. Oh, and a typically Queen moment of undercutting any potential seriousness with the ﬁnal line.

I Hear the Bells - Mike Doughty "I can hear those bells, they’re ringing joyful and triumphant." I don’t really know who Mike Doughty is, but this song, from the "Veronica Mars" soundtrack, has stuck in my head ever since I heard it. Joyful and triumphant indeed.

Magniﬁcent - U2 "I was born, I was born to sing for you." Another band I could have ﬁlled the list with, U2 are at their best when they drop the irony and go for pure emotion. This one, from their latest album, starts with a slow intro before the Edge’s guitar sweeps in and Bono sings his heart out.

I Go To Extremes - Billy Joel "Too high or too low, there ain’t no in-betweens." I’m not a huge Billy Joel fan, but this song does it for me. It’s not even cheerful all the time, but he throws every bit of sincerity he’s got at it, and it convinces you to go with it.

All These Things That I’ve Done - The Killers 31 "When there’s no where else to run, is there room for one more song?" A real song for the end of a music festival weekend, it starts out exhausted and beaten, hang- ing on for one more song. By the end, it’s hard to imagine that anyone listening wouldn’t be bouncing up and down euphorically.

What’s that? Encore? Oh, all right then.

99 Red Balloons - Nena "You and I, in a little toy shop, buy a bag of balloons with the money we’ve got." Possibly the sweetest and most uplifting song about accidentally triggering nuclear armaged- don ever written.

1.9.2 Apple’s Latest Offerings (2010-09-06 14:31)

Another Apple special event, another set of new software and hardware to trawl through and judge in the usual manner.

New iOS The announcement of the imminent iOS 4.1 had three noteworthy points. First up was bug ﬁxes - iOS 4.0 has caused a few problems, and with any luck, this release will solve most of them, particularly with regard to the iPhone 3G’s sluggish performance. A pleasant surprise was the addition of high dynamic range photography, which will be fun to play with and might produce some nice photos in conditions where the current camera software struggles. Lastly there was Game Center, Apple’s matchmaking and social networking service for iOS games. I can’t see myself making too much use of it, but this seems to be the era of such services, and it could boost the popularity of games on iOS devices. Strengthening this case was Epic Games’ demo of their upcoming combat RPG, which looks utterly amazing - I downloaded the Epic Citadel tech demo and will probably get the game itself when it emerges

New iPods Speaking of games, the new, thinner, iPod Touch was clearly positioned as a gaming device. Truly pocketable, it’s challenging Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s 3DS, and with its Retina Display and A4 processor, Apple seems to be setting a benchmark for iOS game developers. Plus, its case nicely differentiates it from the iPhone 4, and the addition of front and rear cameras adds to the number of devices that can use Apple’s FaceTime video calling. The iPod Shufﬂe made for an interesting display of mea culpa from Apple, as Steve Jobs admitted that people missed having controls on the device itself. Beyond that, it remains a cheap and cheerful option, with both voice and physical controls. The most interesting new iPod is the new iPod Nano, which has been entirely redesigned to be only a little larger than the Shufﬂe, albeit with a touchscreen and iOS-inspired interface. It’s dropped the camera and video display functions (always a bit iffy on such a small screen) but kept nearly everything else, including one of the main differentiators from the rest of the iPod range - the FM radio.

New iTunes with Ping The new iTunes 10 seems for the most part to be a cosmetic redesign. It’s still a one-stop shop for local and online content ranging from music to video to apps. Hopefully the Windows version will be an improvement from its predecessors, which have a reputation for being slow and kludgy. The main feature with the new iTunes is the "Ping" music-based social network. Apple already has a massive presence in the music business and a huge number of users, so this seems like an obvious step. Once again, it depends on how many people decide to use it, but as someone who likes to get music recommendations from other people, I can see myself dipping a toe in here to see what the experience is like. (Edit: Having used it for a couple of days, iTunes 10 does seem faster and more responsive on the Mac at least.) 32 New AppleTV The original AppleTV was something of a mixed bag. Undoubtedly capable and easy to use, it suffered from being effectively a crippled PC that was too expensive to just try out. With the new, smaller version, Apple has focused on connectivity to the iTunes store and to local content. Purchases and storage are left to local PCs, whereas the AppleTV itself simply streams that content from local libraries onto the screen it’s connected to. By simplifying the process of getting hold of whatever content the consumer wants, and by setting the entry price at $99 (an annoying ¬119 in Ireland), it has a much better chance of succeeding on a wide scale than its predecessors did. The ability to stream content directly from iOS devices is a fascinating extra - I can see the iPad/AppleTV combo being used for truly interactive presentations with only a little tweaking. The big threat to this device is that TV manufacturers will get their act together and bake the same functionality into their sets. Right now they can’t rival Apple’s content ecosystem, but that might not stay the same for ever.

1.9.3 A Headache for the Taoiseach (2010-09-15 15:15)

The latest kerfufﬂe to hit the Irish political scene is the question of whether or not the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, was [1]drunk or hungover on a radio interview yesterday morning. Despite the fact that he was reportedly up until 3.30am the previous night, singing and doing impressions, to my ears* he didn’t sound any more incoherent than he usually does. Not that this is high praise: at his best, Cowen is no more than a competent public speaker, especially in interviews. Still, it’s more what he said than how he said it, as he reeled off the standard evasions and obfuscations in response to any question where a straight answer might have been harmful to Fianna Fail’s electoral standing (there are a lot of those these days).

In the aftermath, Fianna Fail have decried the baseness of claims that Cowen might have been either hungover or "tired and emotional" during the interview, focusing their ire on the opposition politician whose tweet sparked off wider attention. The opposition haven’t been nearly so voluble on the subject, perhaps having ﬁgured out that it’s wisest to wait until after the shouting and screaming has ﬁnished until they stick the knife in. After all, it’s not like they need to [2]publicise it any further than it already has been.

It’s all a little predictable: at this stage, we expect very little from our politicians, and by and large we get it. Faced with a once-in-a-generation crisis, Cowen has often seemed lost, and antics like this don’t help him any. No-one’s begrudging him the opportunity to relax, but at a time when international conﬁdence in Ireland is a major issue, it might have behooved him to look beyond the cosy world of Irish politics and the media and [3]try a little dignity.

It was [4]Enoch Powell who said that every political life ends in failure. It’s just that in some cases, the failure lingers on that little bit longer.

If you want to judge Cowen’s sobriety for yourself, the interview is at the end of the second- hour segment of the Morning Ireland podcast for September 14th.

1. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0915/1224278896701.html 2. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0915/1224278897664.html 3. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0915/1224278896624.html 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell

33 vatumoss

cerandor (2010-09-20 08:47:14) Either this is spam, or you¼re comparing Brian Cowen to Severus Snape. Which isn¼t really fair on old Snape...

1.10 October

1.10.1 Back to the Mac (2010-10-22 14:34)

Okay, so there was yet another special event from Apple earlier this week, this one entitled "Back to the Mac". Seeing as I’ve been using Macs for around a quarter of a century (scary) and this LJ has been a little quiet lately, why not take a look at what was on offer?

First up were new versions of the iLife apps iMovie, iPhoto, and GarageBand. There’s not too much to note here, really, other than that Apple continues to make programs designed to allow consumers to meddle with their media with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of polish. However, the push toward more use of the apps in full-screen mode was a hint at things to come.

The preview of Mac OS X Lion was interesting in that it showed Apple taking what it has learned from iOS and transplanting it back into OS X. Which is promising overall - the new LaunchPad and Mission Control look like they could be impressive advances in organising and navigating apps. The arrival of a Mac version of the App Store is going to rub some people up the wrong way, but it could be a boon for smaller developers if Apple handles it right. It’s unlikely to become the sole means of delivering apps for a long time, much though Apple might like it otherwise - can you imagine Microsoft willingly giving up 30 percent of its Ofﬁce revenues to Apple?

The big reveal was the new, much rumoured, [1]MacBook Airs, which now come in 13.3- and 11.6-inch ﬂavours. Also showing the inﬂuence of the iPad, these are lighter and more capable than their predecessor and are solely based on SSD technology, with not a hard disk in sight. Apple may be a year ahead of the curve here, but as it’s proved in the past, that’s a position it can make work. The capacity of solid-state memory is only going to increase as the price drops, and a year from now, these MacBooks are going to be even more capacious and offer Apple an even better margin.

Which places me in a quandary. My reliable old MacBook is now hitting its third anniver- sary, and while it has some time left to it, the 11.6-inch MacBook Air looks like a promising replacement: much more portable, probably just as quick, almost as capacious (with the 128GB option) and generally a shinier offering on the whole. With my MacMini having taken over my main disk space-heavy needs, the 11.6-inch MacBook Air could be my next machine, pushing the putative iPad off the shopping list. I suspect I’ll wait awhile, until the ﬁrst in- depth reviews roll in, and perhaps even until my own laptop gives up the ghost, but I may just have seen the shape of the future: it’s slim.

1. http://www.reghardware.com/2010/10/22/preview_laptops_apple_macbook_air/

(2010-10-22 13:56:30) If you read Charlie Stross, he advises getting the 4GB RAM and the faster processor before worrying about storage. So - with the pricing options on the Apple store, the best buy seems to the 128 GB 13 34 inch version with 4GB RAM on board for 1,399 Yuanqui dolla. P.

cerandor (2010-10-22 14:13:58) Yep, I read that article. The 4GB of RAM upgrade is a necessity - the processor possibly less so, but I¼m going to wait for the reviews in any case. I do like the 11.6-inch machine though, purely for its portability while still managing to have a full-size keyboard (unlike your average netbook).

1.10.2 Delayed Gratiﬁcation (2010-10-27 10:22)

Strange things are happening at the Hawthorns lately. Last night, West Bromwich Albion [1]brushed aside Leicester 4-1 on their way to the Carling Cup semi ﬁnals. Last Saturday, they beat Fulham 2-1 to move, brieﬂy, up to fourth place in the Premiership. It’s fair to say that at this early stage, this is the team’s best season in a very, very long time.

I’ve always been a lukewarm football fan at best, but I’ve supported West Brom since I knew what the sport was. Blame my dad for that, and for years of teasing from Liverpool fans during school in the 1980s. (Yes adversity builds character, but I’m still amused that at the moment, Liverpool lie in the relegation zone.) The last decade has certainly been interesting for this West Brom fan - promotions and relegations following one another in quick succession; seasons of success followed by seasons of struggling. So where did this season’s success come from?

Part of it, I suspect, comes from the patience that the team has shown, accepting the life of a yo-yo club while slowly building up a quality squad and the club’s facilities. This season, West Brom seem to have a surfeit of solidly talented players for a change, with competition for most places. Allied to a sense of conﬁdence and camaraderie, this has helped to dispel the awful feeling among fans that even when things were going well, the team could blow it at any stage. The manager, Roberto di Matteo, has to get some of the credit for this too - he doesn’t seem the sort to get overexcited, even at this sudden rush to the giddy heights of the Premiership.

Will West Brom stay where they are? Almost certainly not. They don’t have the money to compete with clubs like Chelsea and Man Utd over the long term. Too much success could even hasten a decline, as the larger clubs come in to pick over their personnel. Still, right now I’m enjoying the reward for three decades of following my club, and I know that whatever direction they end up going in, I’ll go there with them.

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/oct/26/leicester-city-west-brom-carling-cup

1.10.3 Movember (2010-10-31 13:55)

The time has come to do something worthwhile with my life. Or, in this case, my face.

That’s right - I’ve signed on with Movember.org and have thus promised to grow some facial topiary for the month of November. I do hereby promise that the moustache I raise will not be a small one.

If you feel like donating (or even just taking a look at how the moustache is coming on as the month passes by) you can check out my [1]Movember page. Any and all donations will be gratefully noted.

1. http://ie.movember.com/mospace/677364/ 35 1.11 November

1.11.1 Making the Best of a Bad Situation (2010-11-02 11:43)

So the IRFU have admitted that they may have made a [1]"strategic error" in bundling together tickets for the forthcoming rugby internationals - thereby forcing people to buy tickets for games they didn’t want in order to get tickets for games they did want - then attempting to foist the losses for this strategy onto the clubs that keep the game running on a local level. Good for them. Of course, they haven’t decided to let the fans off the hook by unbundling the tickets yet - just decided to help out the clubs after the clubs themselves refused to carry the can.

Still, there was one paragraph in the above story that stood out for me:

"The IRFU originally packaged all four of Ireland’s autumn internationals together but later divided it into two-match packages. A combined New Zealand, Argentina ticket costs ¬190 and the South Africa, Samoa package costing ¬150 with individual tickets available for the Argentina and Samoa games."

Ignoring the bundling and the expense, how come there are individual tickets available for the Argentina and Samoa games? That would suggest that unbundled tickets for the New Zealand and South Africa games were made available and have already been snapped up. Am I being overly cynical in suspecting that these choice tickets were prizes for those who knew the right people?

Speaking as someone who’d like to go to one of those games and see the inside of the new Lansdowne Road stadium, I wouldn’t have minded the chance to pick one up. Hopefully, the IRFU will learn from this debacle and make buying tickets less restricted in future. In the meantime, the Samoa game actually looks like it might be close to decently priced...

1. http://www.irishtimes.com/sports/rugby/2010/1101/1224282473940.html

lainey316 (2010-11-02 13:09:56) I¼ve been assured there are individual tickets for S.A. anyway, by someone who bought them locally (he is south african, and has a pile of visitors coming for the game). First I heard of it, but he paid ¬100 per ticket.

cerandor (2010-11-02 14:01:32) Hmm. Still expensive, but nice to know. I¼ll keep my eyes open. Thanks for the tip.

lainey316 (2010-11-02 14:06:32) Someone else said one of the clubs in Limerick was offering bus and all for SA for ¬90, but they may retract that now that their 6N allocation is not affected. Just realised I¼m away for the Kiwi game. Just as well, the temptation to spend literally 10 times as much to be 10 times as far away from Richie as I was in March was starting to get irresistable

cerandor (2010-11-02 14:18:39) They do say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe it¼ll work on him too. :-)

36 1.11.2 More Fun for November (2010-11-03 16:53)

Growing a moustache just isn’t enough to keep me busy this month. Accordingly, I’ve [1]signed up for NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. Because, having written nothing of any length for the last two years or so, it seemed like a good idea to jump straight in and aim to write a full, 50,000-word story in the space of a month, without having much of an idea what it was about or where I’d go with it.

Well, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. The story, "Tales from the Manifold Codex", is one I’ve had in my head for a while, even if the notes I’ve written for it amount to no more than a page and a bit. Still, two days in and I’m on target, and it’s been nice to switch everything off and just write for an hour every evening. 50,000 words remains a long way off, but I’ve taken the ﬁrst couple of steps at least.

1. http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/661428

kaleandwine (2010-11-04 17:29:50) I can¼t believe I¼m going to say this, but: I think Livejournal needs a "like" button. For those times when you want to express approval but are feeling lazy about coming up with words for it. Just sayin¼. { Approve }

1.11.3 NaNoWriMo Update (2010-11-08 09:29)

One week into the NaNoWriMo project. Word total so far: 15,801. Which puts me well on course for hitting the word-count target, though actually ﬁnishing a story in 50,000 words might be trickier. Once again, it seems I work better when I have a deﬁned target to aim at.

Actually writing "The Manifold Codex" hasn’t been tough. Trying to get the story to progress without excess verbiage has been harder. Then again, that’s what the sharp sword of editing is supposed to be for. Make the process of writing as easy as possible - editing is when you have to bleed for every word you keep or throw away. Luckily, I’m in the easier half of the equation at the moment.

1.11.4 (M/N)ovember Update (2010-11-15 10:06)

So, I’m halfway through the month of November, which is proving both chilly and expensive, for a variety of reasons. Still, there were two activities I embarked on 15 days ago, so let’s see how they’re getting on.

My [1]Movember ’tache is proceeding very nicely. By nicely, of course, I mean hirsutely, in a fairly over-the-top fashion. I haven’t had this much facial adornment since I was an extra on The Tudors, and while the shape isn’t going to change much over the next two weeks, it is only going to get bushier. Still, while I’ve had more than a few funny looks on the street and on the bus, I’ve also been grateful for some very generous donations, so it’s all worthwhile.

[2]NaNoWriMo is a bit more of a mixed bag. While I’m at present ahead of my target word rate, and the process of writing The Manifold Codex was getting easier, this morning delivered a bit of a setback, in the form of what looks to be a hard drive failure on my three-year-old laptop. (At least, that’s what I guess it is - clicking noises and a failure to boot were the clues.) Everything’s backed up, but accessing the backup may prove tricky if I need to send the laptop off for repairs. Hopefully I won’t, but in the meantime, I’m going to have to work 37 around the problem. I still want to meet that target, and I suppose that the obstacles in your way just make success all the sweeter in the end.

1. http://ie.movember.com/mospace/677364 2. http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/661428

1.11.5 Wasting No Time (2010-11-22 12:50)

So the Green Party [1]have said that they "believe" that there should be an election in Ireland in January 2011, something they’re in a pretty good position to bring about.

Not that I disagree with the idea, but it does rather bring to mind an image of someone standing on the gangplank of a sinking ship, sawing away in a desperate attempt to get some distance between them and the rest of the crew.

1. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1122/breaking23.html

(2010-11-22 13:37:59) Or organic turkeys voting for Christmas. P.

cerandor (2010-11-22 14:20:29) Irish politicians never saw a bandwagon they didn¼t like the look of: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1122/breaking31.ht ml

waider (2010-11-22 22:02:05) I will give Healy-Rae some credit for saying that he¼s not going to automatically vote against the budget, that he¼ll actually look at what¼s in it ﬁrst. I think that one of the dafter things that has been said in recent days is those who have no idea of the Budget¼s contents saying they¼re not going to support it. What if, miracle of miracles, it presents a sane (if unpleasant) course of action? Do these people then stick with their jerking knees?

cerandor (2010-11-23 09:19:19) I suspect that most politicians really don¼t like saying "wait and see" for fear of being cruciﬁed as indecisive by the media, which doesn¼t like any headline that doesn¼t have an implicit exclamation mark. Or, in the case of the tabloids, an explicit exclamation mark.

waider (2010-11-23 19:24:30) It does bring to mind that aphorism about remaining silent and being considered a fool, rather than opening your mouth and making it a known fact.

1.11.6 Winter Warmth (2010-11-29 11:42)

As Ireland sinks into an [1]economic and [2]climatic deep freeze, I have to admit that I’ve had a pretty good weekend. Amid all the snow and ice, the weekend was particularly good: Saturday evening saw a trip to the [3]Taste of Christmas event, which would have been too expensive were it not for the availability of a free ticket but did give me the chance to nose around Dublin’s new Conference Centre and enjoy the view and some nice wine and good company. Sunday saw my ﬁrst trip to the new Lansdowne Road Aviva Stadium for the [4]Ireland- Argentina game. It wasn’t really a classic, with both teams only showing glimpses of what they were capable of, but the ﬁnal score was well-received, and if it was bitterly cold in the stadium, the company at least was good.

38 I have a few days left of the [5]Movember challenge to go, and as a result, I’m still sport- ing a now particularly bushy moustache. Thanks to the generosity of my friends, family and coworkers, I’ve raised quite a bit more money for prostate cancer research than I expected to when I began all of this, so thanks to everyone who made that possible. (The moustache is still coming off on Friday though.)

Lastly, and perhaps most pleasingly, I completed the [6]NaNoWriMo challenge with a few days to spare. I passed the 50,000-word mark on Saturday and wrapped up writing on Tales from the Manifold Codex on Sunday. (Which I really ought to retitle, as it morphed early on from a stand-alone book into the ﬁrst part of a trilogy.) Getting back to writing regularly (and without berating myself when I missed a day) has been a fun and rewarding experience. With a bit of effort it will continue, if not necessarily at the same pace.

So the last weekend, and November in general have been good. There’s plenty of hope for December too, and 2011 looks like it’s going to be a good year for multiple reasons, even amid the wider madness of the world. Here’s hoping it’s so.

1. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1129/1224284371607.html 2. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/1129/1224284372720.html 3. http://www.tasteofchristmas.com/ 4. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/1129/1224284369360.html 5. http://ie.movember.com/mospace/677364/ 6. http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/661428

1.11.7 The Matrix Redux (2010-11-30 11:32)

Last night, as the snows came down on Dublin, I hung around the city centre in order to watch The Matrix. Such are the perils of booking tickets several weeks in advance. The cin- ema was far from being even half full, which was probably down to the weather, but then few ﬁlms have suffered the way The Matrix has from their sequels. Even the original Star Wars ﬁlms just look better in the light of the underwhelming prequels.

So how does The Matrix stand up, ten-plus years on? Surprisingly well, as it happens, though not without caveats. The ﬁlm’s strongest point remains the same - the design work through- out is superb, from the sterile spaces the agents inhabit to the grimy, abandoned alleys and tenements that Morpheus and his crew haunt, and from the squid/insect-like robots and their gloopy nurseries to the fetish-gear outﬁts of the Nebuchadnezzar’s crew when they ven- ture into the digital world.

All the design work in the world though can’t hide the fact that the opening part of the film is ponderous and humourless. It’s not until Neo’s squicky and genuinely horrifying "rebirth" that the film comes alive. From then on, the film crackles with intelligence and wit in among the gun-fu. It’s a real example of how big ideas are best presented with as little verbiage as possible. Compare, for example the meaninglessness of "No one can tell you what the Matrix is: you have to experience it for yourself," with "Do you think that’s air you’re breathing?"

The cast is generally good too. Keanu Reeves was probably never better than as the spaced- out digital messiah, Hugo Weaving has a wonderful turn as the frustrated and inhuman Agent Smith, and Laurence Fishburne lends plenty of gravitas to the part of Morpheus, though he’s at his best in moments of humour, which were to be few and far between in the ﬁlms to come. Carrie-Anne Moss is convincing too as Trinity, probably the ﬁlm’s most iconic character, though she gets saddled with most of the worst dialogue.

39 Perhaps the reason why the sequels affect The Matrix so badly is that it purports to be a ﬁlm of ideas. There are plenty of those all right, but it convinces best when you don’t pause to think about the implications. Unlike Inception, which plays with many of the same ideas but is as carefully constructed as a Chinese puzzle box, The Matrix has big gaps in its philosophy, which the sequels largely failed to follow up on, in favour of bigger action set pieces.

One of those has pretty much spoiled The Matrix’s most famous set piece for me. During the lobby scene, I can’t help but wonder why no one ever shows the slightest qualm about gunning down the people they’re purportedly trying to save, just because they’re at risk of Agent infection. Seriously, I’d like to hear a little justiﬁcation.

In the end then, The Matrix is what people said it wasn’t: a great action ﬁlm to watch with your brain switched off. By all means, talk afterwards about the ideas it raises. Just don’t think too much about them while you’re watching it.

1.12 December

1.12.1 Last Minutes (2010-12-13 06:00)

No matter how well-planned the holiday preparations, it always comes down to the last ﬁve minutes before the taxi to the airport, when you’re desperately trying to ensure that you haven’t forgotten anything vital. This time out, all I really need is my ticket and passport, both of which I’ve forgotten in the past but have with me now. I’m off to Malta for the week, and this is a very light luggage trip. Malta is about as friendly a destination as anyone from Ireland could hope for - despite the fact that the British ran it for years, it’s actually friendlier for the Irish thanks to the Euro. So I’m off to explore, with no laptop and no Internet for the most part. The aim is exploration, with a side order of relaxation. We’ll see how that goes. Posted via [1]LiveJournal.app.

1. http://community.livejournal.com/cosysoftware_en/

40 Gad’s LJBook v0.8, LATEX 2ε & GNU/Linux. http://www.ljbook.com

Edited: August 9, 2011