Category: toreview

The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project plan to release the machine on general sale next year.
This is great news, the idea was to create a laptop that could be given en masse to children in developing countries to help them with their education. The idea now is that the public at large will be able to purchase them, but only if they buy 2, one of which goes to the charity arm for a child. Everyone wins, $200 is a crazy price for a laptop, and these have been beautifully designed. I could potentially myself see them becoming iconic pieces of equipment. I certainly hope so.

Presentation Zen is a great little site discussing, well, presentations. They had a good article a few days back comparing the recent speeches by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, praising in particular Jobs’ ability to express complicated concepts simply. In the above article, they point to a fantastic example of where more complex language can still communicate complex issues in a straightforwards manner, Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream speech. Follow the link for more and also a link to a youtube video of King’s speech.

The PM says he will not give up holiday flights, saying a green agenda should not stop people having a "good time".

When I got riled about Global Warming the other day, this was exactly the sort of attitude I had in mind. Shameful.

From MAKE Magazine, a pong game on your wrist. This is truly the future, sod the hovercar and meals in a pill!

-I now have one of those new iPod Nanos, courtesy of Mrsfb for Christmas. It is a lovely bit of kit, and until you see one you really can’t imagine quite how small and slim they are. Yet they are really solid as well, nice combination. Just feels less likely to break than the older large iPod I had *crosses fingers*

-Was thinking about global warming and the future today. Science says we could be in serious trouble in the next 30 years, government says not to worry, effectively, due to its inaction. All I can think therefore is that they lack the will to do anything due to the likelyhood they will be dead when it is a problem. Perhaps the answer is to not worry about it, don’t save for the future, don’t have a pension, as it will all be washed away regardless. I may have been queuing in Barclays whilst considering this.

-I’m a huge fan of John Irving, but was sorely disappointed by The Fourth Hand, which I gave up reading two-thirds of the way through, which is an almost unthinkable act for me normally. However I read his latest Until I find you over Christmas, and really couldn’t put it down, it was a fantastic read. I’d suggest reading some of his older books first if you haven’t come across him before, as they are wonderful, but do get round to reading it.

Well, not a lot really, trying to get myself together and organised again for the new year. I haven’t really got any projects going at the moment, other that starting to use the autoblogger I set up that is adding some other posts to the site, as well as my insightful little pieces.

I have been playing a lot of Xbox 360, mainly Burnout Revenge and Tony Hawk’s Project 8 at the moment, as well as some Phantasy Star Universe. Burnout is just as annoying in terms of voice communications as the Xbox version, although overall it seems more stable. Offline it is a great game, and the addition of achievements is a wonderful thing, gets me playing it where normally I’d have got fed up by now. Same with Tony Hawk, my desire to smash through the 2000 barrier is driving me in both games at present.

Outside of that, I have a decent stack of geek books to work through, and a trip to London next week for a course in Java, which I’m really looking forwards to. Whole week in a hotel, hope my money lasts out! Does also mean that I’ll effectively miss a week of Celebrity Big Brother, which may be no bad thing.