Month: August 2006

I’m guessing here, but it seems reasonable to suppose that Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative is no longer naming its initial product ‘CM1’ because there’s an existing computing trademark with that name: the original Connection Machine. Ironically, the two systems are about as diverse in approach as one could imagine. Just imagine the faces if the shipping company screwed up.

Mind you, I do rather like the idea of a tiny village in deepest Africa accidentally developing strong AI, on the grounds that (a.) they didn’t know such efforts were doomed to failure, and (b.) what the hell else are you going to do with a 1980s-vintage massively parallel supercomputer?

Oh, and the new name for the OLPC? ‘2B1.’ Which… umm… wasn’t that used in Star Wars?

As car nuts go, I’m a bit unusual. I deliberately bought a slow sports car, and like it mostly for its relatively clean emissions and surprisingly large boot space. Well… and that it goes round corners like stink.

But ‘relatively clean emissions’ is just a nice way of saying ‘screws the planet a bit less.’ It’s like calling a Toyota Prius ‘good for the environment’ – er, no. Not unless pickled herring is good with rhubarb crumble. A few random Romans might disagree, but we have an otherwise clear consensus on that one.

I basically hate cars. I think they’re a nonsense indulgence and I kind of resent myself for owning one, since I could pretty much do without. But at the same time, I find automotive design absolutely fascinating, and there’s more than enough engineering geek in me to adore the sound of a well-tuned internal combustion engine. Such are the emotional dilemmas of our crazy modern world. Oh, the angst and hypocrisy.

So, I only sometimes watch Top Gear (will you stop banging on about speed cameras, you idiots? Oh, and I also think it’s going to disappear up its own contrivance soon, though the last series did a decent job of recognising that and reigning it in a little). I can’t really be bothered with F1 any more… mostly. But I enjoy Sniff Petrol with the best of them.

So, I might not listen to the related podcast ‘Gareth Jones on Speed‘ if it wasn’t (a.) done by a mate, and (b.) hosted on my server. But that would be a shame, because, twelve months in, it’s really rather good. The current episode includes Gareth and co-host Zog (no, really) talking about the London motor show, and how to tell one Aston Martin from another (almost as difficult as remembering the current line-up from TVR, in any given week); gags from Sniff Petrol; and a bizarre mix of Formula 1 driver karaoke impressions.

As you’d expect from media professionals, it’s extremely well put together. I could have used a little less of the karaoke – I’ve a hunch that 20 minutes is something like a sweet spot for podcasts – but in a field of self-indulgent ego-pamper-fests, it’s remarkably well-judged. This month’s video is, incidentally, brilliant too. Beautifully shot and cut.

Have a listen, either at Gareth’s site, or via the iTunes Podcast Directory (that’s an iTunes link).

The Volvo C30 gag is priceless, anyway. That one went all pear-shaped when they did away with the trellised A-pillars, in my book…

Another genius image on Maopost, celebrating communist whaling techniques. Remember – for all your daily vintage Chinese propaganda poster needs, Maopost has you covered, including via a stylish Dashboard widget for OS X. You can even have your own portrait painted into a wide choice of socialist posters. Even better than a cuddly trout.

Genius, on a level I wish I’d thought of myself: Interfauna, soft toy animals by post. In the absence of a cuddly mackerel, I may have to order myself a huggable trout.

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, I was in Plymouth last week – not entirely at random, since I was there over the two nights of the British Fireworks Championships. I’d never heard of such a thing, but it’s easy enough to imagine; four displays a night, for two nights, with strict rules about budget, duration, the poundage of ordnance that can be fired, and requirements for both low- and high-level aerial kaboomitude.

Ten years on since they started doing this, the result is a quarter of a million people (or so…) standing on the Hoe, and hours of percussive fun, followed by said people exclaiming ‘ooooh! ahhhh!’ in unison. It’s rather good fun, and awfully pretty – fireworks being, of course, the one thing that blokes can say are ‘pretty’ without losing their macho street cred.

This year, the second night featured an additional curtain-raiser, with an attempt on the world record for simultaneous rocket launches. Which consisted of blowing the hell out of the headland launching more than 55,000 little rockets in less than five seconds. Which is less spectacular than it sounds, since it was essentially over before we’d all managed to turn and look. On the other hand, while the endeavour sounds barking mad, the true depth of lunacy required to do such a thing only really comes home once the smoke has cleared. Gloriously batty.

Photos here at the BBC (the first picture is of the headland exploding rocket launch), and on Flickr here.

In a move surely intended to spread word-of-mouth via blog postings, online ‘boys’ stuff’ retailers Firebox have this morning sent out a marketing email gushing about the Evel Knievel stunt cycle, back in stock after… oooh… about twenty-five years.

That worked, then.

It’s worth watching the video, if only to see just how high the thing doesn’t jump. This is in stark contrast to one’s memory of how it behaved – which is clearly filtered through a layer of childhood excitement and imagination. I’ve a certain sense of ennui about that.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been away. Plymouth, South Wales, Leeds and Edinburgh, taking in along the way fireworks, an exploding hillside, a lighthouse, innumerable thunderstorms, and a 75% hit rate for a day traipsing around the Fringe.

I believe the technical term for this sort of thing is ‘a holiday,’ but that’s not a word with which I’m familiar. So don’t quote me.

There was, just, time in the middle there to give Gavin some pies for his birthday, and if you’re all very good indeed I might just let you know when a new side-project of his/ours is ready to breathe a little joy into your miserable lives. Maybe next weekend, if you’re lucky.

Meanwhile, I have lunch booked with a charming chappie on Wednesday, hopefully a meeting about a little unexpected work for the BBC, and a day in Dublin on Thursday to discuss a project there (thank you Patrick, Charlie and Adrian for the references, which I’m assuming were either excellent or sufficiently entertaining, since they’re still talking to me).

In short, it’s been a wonderful week. All sorts of stuff I’ll doubtless rattle on about in due course, and a few things you don’t get to know because… well, really, you could be anybody. I mean, I know you’re all friends and all – every single one of you – but pffff! We might be overheard.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has, somewhat improbably, started a weblog. It’s rather hard to get into – oddly enough, the server falls over when you request the english translation – but according to the BBC the first post consists not of the traditional ‘First post!’ or ‘is this thing on?’, but a 2000-word autobiography.

The post apparently concludes with an apology for verbosity, thus:

With hope in God, I intend to wholeheartedly complete my talk in future with allotted 15 minutes

Now, those of you who’ve been favoured with personal correspondence from myself will have seen my sign-off line:

‘If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.’ (Pascal)

…which is something of a mis-attribution, since that particular version is a significant rewording of Pascal’s original. Significant enough that I once had a complaint from the Sorbonne, which at the time I rather mocked, but on reflection they may have had a point; ‘my’ version is now showing up in Google, which it certainly didn’t when I started using it. Ironically, it’s being attributed to Cicero and Wilde in addition to Pascal, but that’s by the by.

Anyway, it’s clear to me that President Ahmadinejad has heard this phrase – most likely via a couple of additional layers of translation – and realised it fits his prose style at least as well as it fits mine.

But hey, I’m not precious. Welcome to the world of blogging, Mr. President. Remember – you build an audience in the blogosphere by writing stuff people find interesting, but what really works is being transparently open and honest. Good luck.

Reports today that the Confederation of British Industry is worried about the numbers of students taking science and engineering degrees: BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, nothing at The Times or Independent, Financial Times, Scotsman; the CBI’s press release on which all these are based.

Let me remind you, dear reader: SciCast is a project intended to make science fun, to engage students in practical science and engineering, and to provide resources for teachers to enliven lessons through practical demonstrations and experiments. We need match funding to get the thing properly underway.

At the moment, one of the project partners is running the funding hunt. Which makes me nervous. If it turns out to be hard to raise the cash, I’m going to be ruddy furious – with the CBI, amongst others.

Since I’m quick to criticise the sometimes-dodgy explanations on Mythbusters, I guess I should be equally quick to say: their explanation of the Diet Coke/Mentos thing looks pretty good to me.

I’d be interested to know how much of that survives the transition to television.