This is a candidate for US President

The flying spaghetti monster help us all.

Back to Running

Started running again today on one of those beautiful cold sunny winter days here in Richmond. Despite all the cycling I have been doing over the past year I found it remarkably tough. A short three mile run was quite enough to begin with.

I used the Nokia Sportstracker application on my N95 to log the route. It's a pretty impressive application using the build in GPS sensor to log distance, elevation speed and time. When you have finsihed your run you can click upload and in a couple of seconds it will send the data to Nokia's Sportstracker web site. You can then see your route on a map and look at your hsitorical data. In addition to logging the route using my phone, I also used it to listen to music as I ran. Truly a multifunctional device. What I really need now is a good arm band type holder for it so that i can don't have to hold it in my hand whilst running. One final request would also be to have a bluetooth heart rate monitor that could send data to the N95 so that I could overlay the heart rate data on the track.

Will the right to bear arms be detemined by a comma?

This excellent article in the NY Times discusses the unusual punctuation in the 2nd amendment with regards to the upcoming Supreme Court case.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Adam Freedman makes the point that punctuation was a relatively new phenomenon in the 18th century and was very loosely applied and in fact was inadmissible in legal statues under English law.

Refreshing though it is to see punctuation at the center of a national debate, there could scarcely be a worse place to search for the framers’ original intent than their use of commas. In the 18th century, punctuation marks were as common as medicinal leeches and just about as scientific. Commas and other marks evolved from a variety of symbols meant to denote pauses in speaking. For centuries, punctuation was as chaotic as individual speech patterns.

Ultimately he suggests that the second amendment should be read without the commas. Which would indicate that it refers to an organised militia and not the general populace.

Link

The Superest

A Superhero draw off between illustrators. Each drawing a superhero that can vanquish the previous one. It is probably worth starting from the bottom of the page it makes more sense that way. Link

Hanging out in Singapore

I am in Singapore for a few days between travels. Reacquainting myself with hawker food, the steamy weather and cold Tiger beer. A lot of the food courts have been revamped which means great clean toilets but a lot of the charm of the originals has been lost in the process. They are starting to feel like an outdoor McDonalds with their colourful shiny plastic furniture.

The number of new condos being built is remarkable. Some have surprisingly good architecture and I would not be surprised if some of the most interesting residential high rises are being built here at the moment. I am staying at the very pleasant if unfortunately named, The Legend, on Bukhit Timah Rd courtesy of my old friend Karl.

Singapore & Jet Lag

Lightning stop in Singapore, managed to catch up with most of my friends out here over a couple of cold beers. Congratulations to my friend Norman who not only ran the hellish Singapore Marathon this weekend but also managed to hobble out of his flat for a couple of cold ones later that night, that is admirable determination.

Unfortunately I also managed to get too much sleep on the plane and have spent most of the night listening to public domain audiobooks from Librivox.org.

Off to Koh Samui today, before finally arriving in Koh Phangan tomorrow.

Heathrow take note

I may have my grievances about Singapore but I can not fault Changi Airport. Heathrow take note this is how you do a laptop station. Ethernet for more secure logins to your email/ftp etc. Enough power outlets that actually work, and what's that on the right yes a universal power socket. You would almost believe that someone thought about this for 5 minutes before building it. Oh and it's free.

Can I read that back to you?

No, you cant.

One of my pet hates here in Singapore is the insistence on wait staff at restaurants to read the order back to you. This happens even in fairly good restaurants even with one item orders. I am not sure that ordering food really requires the same confirmation process as say, open heart surgery or launching a nuclear missile. The complexity and consequences are considerably less. It appears to be a lose lose scenario as well. If you read me back the order and it's correct at best the outcome is neutral but its a waste of everybody's time. If you read it back to me and you had it wrong then you look stupid, though certain disaster has narrowly been avoided. Can we not just have wait staff who are competent enough at their jobs that they don't ned to read back my one item order.

Airport power

Posted by mobile phone:
why is heathrow so bad? The t-mobile hot spot area apparently there for you to sit and work has plenty of power pockets cleverly designed in but none of them work. This is not a new issue none of them bloody worked 3 weeks ago when i was here last. To compound the disaster the outlets at the have are taped over! Aghhh feel my rage heathrow.

Travel Again

Jumping on another plane agin this afternoon, which means more security theatre at the airport, lots of general standing around and most annoying of all a vivid reminder of how crap batteries still are.

Apple may make some beautiful products but the battery life in Macbook Pro is just horrible. Two hours twenty is a good result, and now that my spare battery has decided not to accept any charge that is all I am going to get out of it on a 13 hour flight. This may be blasphemous to the mac faithful but when 6 hours into the flight the guy next to me is still happily typing away on his thinkpad ultraportable and my laptop has been relegated to the overhead locker 4 hours previously I get a little envious.

To compound my battery issues my Nokia N95 that has become one of my favourite devices of all time with the latest v20 firmware, is also noticeably deficient in the battery department. I ask a lot of it, but I would love to be able to get a battery that could give me a full days worth of music/camera/internet and phone. May just have to buy one of those hideous booster packs to get though the flight.

My New Year's request to Apple can we please get a laptop that works away from a power supply for a respectable time, please don't make me buy a Thinkpad just to travel with.

mobile test

Posted by mobile phone:
quick test of a post using wordpress mobile.

Want a Nuclear warhead? Look in the sea.

This list of military nuclear accidents is petrifying and doubly interesting for the number of warheads and kg's of Plutonium that were never recovered.

This is one good example but there are dozens more over on Wikipedia.

January 22, 1968 – 7 miles (11 km) south of Thule Air Force Base, Greenland, a fire breaks out in the navigator’s compartment of a B-52 which crashes, scattering three hydrogen bombs on land and dropping one into the sea. During a cleanup complicated by Greenland’s harsh weather, contaminated ice and aircraft debris are buried in the U.S. Bomb fragments were recycled by Pantex, in Amarillo, Texas. Danes were outraged by the event because Greenland is a Danish possession, and Denmark forbids nuclear weapons on its territory. Denmark had massive demonstrations against the U.S. One warhead was recovered by Navy SEALs and Seabees (U.S. naval engineers) in 1979. An August 2000 report suggests that the other bomb remains at the bottom of Baffin Bay.

Link

Business Week in 2001 - Here's why apple stores wont work

One of the things I love about the internet is that you can go back and check predictions facts etc with such ease. Here is a great example; Business Week predicting that Apple Stores will be a failure. They were not exactly on target with this one.

Rather than unveil a Velveeta Mac, Jobs thinks he can do a better job than experienced retailers at moving the beluga. Problem is, the numbers don't add up. Given the decision to set up shop in high-rent districts in Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and Jobs's hometown of Palo Alto, Calif., the leases for Apple's stores could cost $1.2 million a year each, says David A. Goldstein, president of researcher Channel Marketing Corp. Since PC retailing gross margins are normally 10% or less, Apple would have to sell $12 million a year per store to pay for the space. Gateway does about $8 million annually at each of its Country Stores. Then there's the cost of construction, hiring experienced staff. "I give them two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake," says Goldstein.

Link via Daring Fireball

Oregon Sunset

Oregon Sunset
Originally uploaded by jkprime.

Photo from Thanksgiving at the Seaside on the Oregon Coast. I think its probably one of my best photos to date.

There is a set with a few more images from that evening on flickr.

OK Everyone, Here is my Christmas Present

I hadn't realised they had gotten this good.

CES - must try harder

This is a screenshot of the email I just received from CES. The logo looks terrible there are all sorts of design element disasters. In places it looks like a poor scan of a print out. See the strange blue grey lines above the Registration link. The box with the date in extends past the odd paper tear below it. The navigation bar and date banner are very similar but not quite the same colour.

You would have thou

In this case the colour of the text on the banner makes it almost unreadable the indent on the left doesn't align with the text.

The torn paper look throughout is blurry and a bizarre design choice for a technology event and the final irony is that the tag line is UP TO THE MINUTE, unfortunately this mailshot looks like it was designed in 1996.

Back In The UK

Briefly...

SR-71

One of my favourite aircraft, I still vividly remember seeing one take off at the Farnborough air show aged about 14. This story by a former pilot makes me smile.

One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was. ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,’ ATC responded.

The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

Link - SR-71 Now, That Was Some Airplane

Now I know.

Q. How do you use "~ san," "~ kun" and "~ chan"?

A. "~ san （～さん）" is a title of respect added to a name. It can be used with both male and female names, and with either surnames or given names. It can also be attached to the name of occupations and titles.

Thanks About.com

Robo Video Fix

Link