Monthly Archive for January, 2008

The US army has recently received a fully functional rail gun. RAIL GUN!

Instead of relying on chemical propellants — such as gunpowder — a rail gun uses magnetic “rails” to launch a solid, nonexplosive projectile at incredible speed. Theoretically, rail guns would be able to precisely strike targets at extreme ranges, and would negate the risks associated with carrying around tons of explosive ammo.

For those who find the Maglight doesn’t provide enough bad for your ass, you could try the flashlight that burns things.

The Torch is the world’s brightest and most powerful flashlight.
It is capable of melting plastic, lighting paper on fire within seconds, and if you like, fry an egg or a marshmallow on a stick.

And just cause it tickles my fancy, the Mass Effect saga has come full circle, with Jack Thompson actually supporting the game.

Oh, and Apple stock is dangerous.

Half way through our holiday in NZ my laptop started puking out blue screens of death. It’s never done this before… but it started in earnest until the machine became pretty much unusable (over a period of 48 hours). So I spent some time in thought, regarding the fate of my 6 month old laptop that I love. After some diagnosis, and gentle coaxing, I was able to ascertain that my hard drive has bad sectors and they’re spreading like the plague. I don’t quite understand how that physical happens, but it’s related to a likely disk impact and scratching due to that. I travel this bad boy fairly heavily, so it’s not entirely surprising.

So my drive’s going bust and it’s a matter of time until it’s totally unusable. If I boot up the laptop and do absolutely nothing, it’s OK… I was able to run a full backup thankfully, so data’s fine. It’s when I tried to write anything that it would go all messed. To my great chagrin, that leaves me having to use Maija’s Macbook for the rest of my holiday. Conclusion: Mac’s are still useless for work. ;)

Anyway, we’re home in Finland now and I’m supposed to work later today, and I really don’t feel like using Maija’s computer anymore. Besides, she needs it for school. Enter Ubuntu Linux on a LiveCD. I’m a big fan of Linux, especially Ubuntu, but I felt I really had to take some time here to sing it’s praises.

Linux is a very customizable operating system. It can be re-arranged, rebuilt, and put together however you need it. These packages are called distributions, and Ubuntu is one of the most popular. I’m currently running Ubuntu 7.10, the Gutsy Gibbon. The beauty of a LiveCD is that the entire OS is packaged ready for use on a single CD-ROM. How does this help me? My hard drive is dead remember. I’m now running pretty much everything I need off a CD-ROM, and can continue working. Yes!

The Gutsy Gibbon is superb. Everything works out of the box: networking, wireless, sound, video, battery information, all my Dell keyboard buttons, etc. It comes with Firefox, Open Office, and Evolution. A good terminal server client, and various other media apps. Evolution is really quite a good mail client, and has support for Exchange. I still feel that Outlook is the best client out there, but Evolution is only getting better, while Outlook is only adding glut.
Graphically, the Gutsy Gibbon is lovely, possessing some of Vista’s Aero-Glass style effects. I’ve had a couple of problems with GParted (for partition disks), but aside from that’s it’s totally stable. Remember I’m running off a CD-ROM here, with everything cached into RAM, so it’s nowhere near an ideal setup. And even now it’s fast, it’s responsive.

I’m totally impressed. I’ve been using Linux for a few years, mostly server sided stuff, but this is the nicest thing I’ve seen on the desktop side yet. The only things I’ve run into that are lacking right now, are:
- good compatibility for Reason. It does run under Wine… but not so great
- multiple Exchange connections, in Evolution. In Outlook and Entourage you can open multiple inboxes, Evolution has yet to catch up.

You’ll notice those two things aren’t even Ubuntu core. Honestly, I think the time has come for Linux on the desktop. I encourage you to head over to ubuntu.com and grab a copy for yourself. Remember, it’s free.

(For the record, I’ve got a new hard drive on the way. I’m honestly torn as to whether to install Windows or stick with Linux. I don’t know what I want more. I’ll almost surely dual boot the system, as I need to use Reason and play old school videogames care of Home of the Underdogs… but beyond that? Don’t know.)

One of the parts of holidays that I’m most torn about is losing touch with news. Part of me enjoys being unplugged, and not worrying about anything. But part of me feels like things are happening and I’m not involved. So the first few “normal” days after holidays, especially one this long, involve a lot of news catchup. And since my holidays involve so much reading, it’s time for some writing as well.

MacBook Air Review – Typically well researched and written piece from Engadget. Bottom line for me: battery life and connectivity suck unwashed dishes. I’m not opposed to ordering one for an employee who’d like it though. Beyond that, I’m not a big fan of their boxy keys, though backlight is great. For the record Dell also packs full keyboards into their ultra-portables, and those models are really really nice. But not as nice to look at, of course.

Amazon are opening their store to the world – This is lovely news. I’ve loved the Amazon MP3 store, but not living in the US makes it a pain, as I have to employ some cunning in order to get it to work. I HATE Apple for the regional restrictions on the iTunes music store. If you’re not using the US store, you may as well be using the SUCK store. I’m not fool enough to think this is Apple’s decision perse, I know regionalisation is a record label issue, but if Amazon are able to get past this, surely Apple could.

Smartphone patent issued, everyone sued – I’ve not written at any length on here about the patent problem, but those of you I’ve spoken to will know what I’m talking about. The US patent system is a laughable mess. This is important… read the page after the link. Remember that IBM owns the patent to “online advertising.”

Outdoor activities benefit could from video game tax - The world still doesn’t understand video games, or anything, for that matter. If we are to tax video games and televisions for causing obesity, perhaps we should tax parents for causing murder? The irony is my suggestion may be more logical.

Flying into Helsinki I had a real sense of arriving home. Odd, considering where we’ve come from, and the fact that we don’t even live in Helsinki. Anyway, it’s nice to be back in Finland. There’s snow on the ground, it’s around 2 degrees, and we’re catching the last few hours of sunlight for the afternoon :)

We’ve just had a shower and change of clothes (at our friend’s house) and feel much better for it. We’ll be on the train in 2 hours. Looking forward so our nice big bed.

We’re back in Hong Kong. Not here long enough for a visit outside this time. The flight from Auckland was fine, Cathay Pacific staff are very friendly and attentive, and the Airbus A340 is quite roomy and comfortable. We’ll see how British Airways stacks up for the next flight.

We’ve both loved our holiday in NZ. It’s been incredible really; it was a gift to begin with and it’s just been so much fun the whole time. We totally don’t deserve the generosity everyone has showered on us. Six weeks has been an incredible time to recharge, hang out, catch up and all everything.

That said, we are both eager to get back to some routines. I’m quite excited to get back to work, though I don’t think Maija’s particularly thrilled about school. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty this year with exactly what her work will look like (given the nature of the Master’s thesis, it’s a bit open-ended, and that can give rise to difficulties scheduling and planning your work), and whether we’ll end up in Africa as part of it or not.

So, 13 hours from now we’ll be in London, then a few hours later we’ll be in Helsinki. After we pickup the bag we had to leave there 6 weeks ago we’ll be on a 3 hour train ride home. Add to that the visit to my family in Northland 3 weeks ago, and then the driving we did in the South Island two weeks ago, plus to and from last week’s Gisborne holiday, and we are sick to death of vehicular transport. I can’t wait to get back to my bicycle!

Our time in the lovely beaches of Gisborne is drawing a close. Tomorrow morning will see us driving back to Hamilton, for one final evening before our flight out on Friday. 30 hours or so later we’ll be back in Finland, after an excellent 6 week holiday in New Zealand.

We’re having an absolutely gorgeous time down here. Everything is excellent. Photos will come on Sunday, perhaps… maybe later. Keep an eye on Facebook and flickr.

We’re in Queenstown at the present, will go back to Wanaka tonight. Probably Mt. Cook tomorrow, back in Christchurch on Saturday, back in Auckland/Hamilton on Sunday, then out to Gisborne after that for a week and half of doing absolutely nothing :)

Pray for Jack Read, he’s having a hell of a time keeping TACF working in my absence. Poor lad… :)