Category: toreview

The last in the present series of Doctor Who really seems to have divided fans into two camps, those who thought it was exceptionally sad and moving, and those that thought it was fucking stupid. I actually agree with both sides.

Thought I would do a quick update on what is floating my boat at the moment, have made a push to find some new things to occupy me.

Podcasts

I used to love the Adam and Joe show on Channel 4. A pair of chaps who talk rubbish about things they love. What more do you need to know? It sounds an awful lot like 99% of all podcasts. Well they have been doing it for years and years on the telly, so they are very good at it. This podcast is actually highlights of their XFM show, and is incredibly funny. I would strongly recommend starting with the show where they discuss the astonishing R Kelly HipHopera, Trapped in the Closet.Try it yourself here.

I’ve listened to my first Hospital Records Podcast today, and it is some wonderful Drum and Bass to get you woken properly on a morning.

Books
After enjoying Douglas Copeland’s latest book JPod, it has been down to the grindstone with my geek reading. So I have read Head First HTML & CSS, which is a starter book on writing web pages, but with a very standards-based approach. It is a very good read as a refresher for anyone who has done HTML in the past, but has fallen behind a little. Mine is pretty good, but I had never had any good training on CSS, and it was very helpful to be taught that properly in a current manner. I think the way I would put it is that if you still lay out elements on a page using tables, other than data that should go in a table, you really need to read this book.

I’ve moved onto reading a book about design theories called Domain Driven Design. Very heavy going, but some of the concepts have been very helpful, one of them is a very sensible approach to design called Ubiquitous Language. This is, namely, that in order for you to design a product for a customer, you all have to know and understand the terms you are talking about to a high standard. I suppose the classic explanation of this is an old story about a Brit asking a German to build him something out of bricks, and being very angry when instead of using the small british housebrick, he used the standard large German brieze block. The problem being that both sides had a different idea of what a brick was. These sort of definition issues can crop up a lot in software design, and the theory is that before you get going, you hammer them out. Makes good sense.

TV

Actually slowing down a little on the telly front, not masses around. Have been watching the World Cup and Big Brother, and then Lost, Desperate Housewives and 24. 24 came to what was almost a wonderful conclusion, they tied up the series 5 storyline perfectly, but then totally spoilt it all with the last twist, that basically made the man whom is always saving the planet, Jack Bauer, look like an utter plank.

The main thing I am looking forwards to is a repeat of 80s drama/comedy GBH, which detailed in effect the rise and fall of someone suspiciously like Derek Hatton in Liverpool. It stars Robert Lyndsey, but I had forgotten that it also has a fair bit of Michael Palin in. Cannot wait.

Gaming
It is all about the Nintendo DS these days. I have been mainly playing New Super Mario Bros, which is a wonderful old skool style scrolling platformer. Simple, but effective. Lots of planning and thought and twitch gaming in the sort of style that causes RSI in a good way. Also have Brain Training, which is interesting but slightly shallow, could do with more variations to keep the player coming back. I think it is more a statement of intent from Nintendo that they are really determined to break the age barrier on gaming, and open it up to a far broader audience. They have been very successful with this approach for Brain Training in Japan, and got a lot of mainstream press coverage over here because of it.

I have also played a little Nintendogs and Project Rub, as I picked both up very cheap.

Doing
Few projects at the moment, mainly to do with websites. I think my main is to try for a redesign of this place. I may do that as part of a move to WordPress. I also have a couple of other web projects to get on with, that I will reveal as we go along (wooooooo).

And much better for it. Did some clothes shopping, a much-needed update to my wardrobe. Small meal out at the Red Star Noodle Bar, which just does great food. I have to be careful not to go there too much, or I’ll start finding it boring.

Anyways, more shopping on the Sunday, then watched England’s glorious progression towards World Cup glory, and Portugal & Holland’s descent into World Cup hell, with one of the finest comedy performances by a referee in football history. 4 red cards, 16 yellow cards, in a game that only had 25 fouls.

Trying to do a lot of geek book reading this week, bring my brain up to date a little.

and not touch the sides. Haven’t felt like writing much this week really. Nothing bad, just not in the mood at the moment. Probably need to sit down and make myself write a little this weekend, get my head back into it. That is what I shall do. That and take loads of photos of random things for no good reason. A plan. I think I shall do that, and also start to tidy up and tie together a few of my sites. Have a few domains now, could do with a couple of sessions of setting up proper email addresses for them, getting basic sites or blogs in place, and then actually get round to writing a few things. I will explain each one as I get them going properly, different names for different ideas. One I can do quite easily is flotsky.org, which I got to just point here. Wanted to learn how to set up a non-uk domain. Which I have now done.

And you just won’t find me using it, other than for a bit of testing. It is a shame, I can remember a couple of years ago when Opera was the best thing since bread. Not just sliced bread, bread. A wonderful thing. It genuinely did change the way I browsed, introduced me to keeping masses of tabs open all the time, all sorts of things.

However, it just didn’t move on. I hadn’t used it in ages, and so I came back to it to try out the beta. It runs like a dog, in terms of loading pages. I keep hearing how it is fast, well, it just isn’t firefox. It just doesn’t load a page as fast for me. I do use Fasterfox and Adblock, which may be a part of it, but I got really bored waiting.

It is utterly true that many of Firefox’s best features have come from or borrowed from Opera, however they are in my browser of choice now, and work better. That is the advantage that the development work done en masse on Firefox has brought. Opera stuck to its old business model for far too long, and fell far far behind. It is, on the desktop, a dying browser. I’ve seen usage drop from almost 10% to well below 1%, whilst Firefox has gone exactly the other way. It is the best on mobiles at the moment (and I use it there), but Mozilla has a mobile browser on the way, and their brand alone could cause Opera big problems in that market as well.

So much as I would like to like Opera, it isn’t going to happen.

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Right, have been listening to some new things on my iPod today, and can definitely recommend the mashup album by the Kleptones Yoshimi Battles The Hip-Hop Robots. Basically the album by the Flaming Lips with much added rap. Probably a year or two old, but still absolutely wonderful for this weather.

I have just finished reading JPod by Douglas Copeland. Good read, is definitely about geeks from a somewhat geek perspective, but is more accessible I reckon than Microserfs. Mrsfb complained heavily about that being just a world she could not access, nor wished to. I think JPod is somewhat different.

For one, there are of stylist tricks and riffs I haven’t seen him use before, especially the heavy use of himself as a character. Definitely reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut, the extent to which he gets involved. I think also it maybe seems more accessible as this is now a world that has geeked out more in the time since Microserfs. People’s Grandparents are using ebay and dating online now. These are still ubergeeks of which he talks, but they are far less removed from most people’s world now. Or maybe that is just me…

Anyway, very enjoyable, apart from where he lists circular breads of the world, and misses out one of the finest, the Stottie Cake.

And whilst I am in a photo mood, here is my work from Saturday afternoon: