Downloaded an app to the iPhone that controls my tv via the home network. All very well and good but there is also a screen capture button! Why? Who would need to screen capture a tv? Apart from writing this communication that is?
GT5:
Breather
I’m slightly paranoid about electronic gear overheating. This might be down to a fear of setting my house (and street) on fire and relying on Jase to put it out but is also to do with breaking electronic kit.
Everything has an optimum operating temperature. Whether that’s me at about 36 or so Celsius or the sun running at a few million Celsius. Electronics are no different. Why do you think that stuff has fans and air circulation grates?
My amplifier has loads of grating over the top of the housing. This indicates that the contents are likely to get quite warm. The Blu-Ray player I bought has tiny feet and a solid base. Now, the only sensible arrangement for the kit is amp at the bottom, then the disc player and finally the Sky box.
All of these items have a fan or large vents. Why then do they stack so to leave very little room for air circulation? Granted, you don’t need a great deal of space to move air but you would think these things would be designed to fit with other electronic kit? No. They are designed to look good and functionality comes a close second! (See the original PS3 for cooling issues)l
So, rather than pay loads for spacers for my kit I used Duplo and Lego. It looks rubbish but adds a little colour and a certain something!
A New Fallacy
I would like to introduce a new logical fallacy into the world.
The argument from “PROFESSIONALISM”.
This argument is provided by those who wish to change organisations and structures. The conversation might go something like:
“We want to make you work 20 hours more in a week. As a professional you must agree that this would increase the time you have to work.”
Essentially it seems rather a hard argument to try and battle. If you are a professional then you want to do your job to the best that you can. You also think that you are open to change and improving outcomes. So, this “you should agree with me” approach seems rather hard to argue against.
My problem with this argument backing up changes in an organisation is that pretty much anything can be justified using the “you’re a professional and so would want the best for your sector”. This is why the argument shouldn’t be used. If your argument can be extended (a bit like the slippery slope) to back up anything then it invalidates the points you are trying to put across.
“You can’t disagree with these new standards as they surely improve what it is that is expected of you as a professional.”
Again this seems hard to argue against. But there is a counter argument to be made. As a professional I should be expected to do all that I reasonalby can to ensure that I work my best. There is a limit to what can physically be done and the expectation on professionals should stop before that limit is reached.
Time for the world to use arguments that really back up what they want to do. Some evidence wouldn’t go amiss either [not just anecdote].
Simulview and Dual Play
Simulview is Sony’s buzzword for displaying two player images on a 3D television so that each player sees only their screen. Essentially the shutters on the active glasses activate at the same time rather than alternately and so P1 sees only his/her image and P2 sees their image only. This is quite cool and displays (I assume) a 1080p picture to each player.
Downside: This only works on the Playstation Monitor.
DualPlay is the technology that LG have introduced to try and allow two players to see their own picture full screen. It has taken me four days to figure out how to get this to work (which is slightly embarrassing). DualPlay uses passive glasses with P1 having a left/left combination and P2 having a right/right combination. The standard two player screen (up/down or left/right split) is then stretched over the whole screen. This will work with most games with that picture split.
Downside: Aspect ratio issues.
I haven’t yet tried this on my TV but will soon. I am quite excited about it but also worried about the aspect ratio change. Nice of LG to think of gamers though.
Stunning
I’ve Seen The Future
Ok, now these are impressive. I was at the Kiddicare store in Thurrock, Essex and I noticed that the shelf tags looked quite a bit different to the card barcode things you normally get in a superstore or shop.
I looked a bit closer at these tags and was pretty sure they were LCD displays with some sort of stock count thing going on. While closely inspecting a shelf tag a store worker came along with a bar-code reader device and so I asked if the tags were LCD.
YES!
I also asked if they were radio controlled with real time stock updates.
YES! The stock tags update every five minutes.
I was so impressed with this use of tech that I nearly forgot what I went into the shop to buy. I have seen the future, and it will be.
Bring The Noise
The latest fashion for drinking water from a bottle with a “sports top” has caused an epidemic of slurp sounds as people release the bottle from thier lips and air rushes into the bottle.
As an aside, I would have to say that the bottled water industry is an utter con. In the UK practically all tap water is potable. It is such a waste of resources and CO2 that water is put into plastic or glass bottles and then moved around the country by truck to be sold in shops as an alternative to the (often purer) water that is supplied into every home by the kitchen tap. Bottled water should be taxed greatly to compensate for the waste. The marketers of bottled water have done a marvellous job and the environment is going to suffer. I can’t think of a single argument for selling bottled water in the UK.
So, the prefered delivery recepticle for bottles of water at the moment is the sports top. A bottle top that doesn’t have to be turned to open the bottle, just pulled with the hands and teeth. This, in itself, is not a problem. The problem is the small aperture for the movement of water into the mouth. When squeezing the bottle to force liquid refreshment into the mouth the bottle compresses and sometimes crackles as it does so, this is reasonably noisy. But the most annoying part is when the lips are removed from the bottle and the air rushing back into the bottle causes an awful slurping sound. The gust of wind pushing past the lips and teeth and through the aperture can make a sound that just grates.
When bottle tops were screw tops there was plenty of space for air to enter the bottle IF you chose to have a small gap for air at the top of your lips, just under your nose. Now, apparently, this is an incovenient method of bottle top. Everyone should be using the sports top but not everyone is doing sport. I think it should be renamed the common top for lazy people. Let’s have a new design top for proper sports people.
To stop the slurp you just need to blow air into the bottle and allow the water to flow out into your mouth without creating the negative pressure in the bottle. Simple.
Meme
One of the standard explanations and examples I use when teaching the mechanics module of A Level is to consider driving a car around town. Most pupils have experienced, or are aware, of people thier age who drive circuits around the local town trying to get noticed. I used to just talk about this practice but a few months back a friend was talking about his teenage experience of this form of behaviour and he used the term:
Barry Laps
This term didn’t really need any explaination as I already knew what it meant. I’ve never really partaken in the the Barry Lap experience. I think the closest I got was riding around Bishop’s Stortford on my Honda NTV 650 with Daryl on his Silverwing just after we had set up radio communication between us. We went around town a few times chatting to each other on the way. Being able to easily communicate between different bikes was far more of a novalty than trying to get attention from onlookers. This was in 1999 and quite before either of us owned mobile phones.
Anyway, I hope that with my continued use that the term Barry Lap might one day make it into the OED!
Vindication
The BBC News website carried a story yesterday about a high speed yacht that broke the world record. I was instantly interested as my final year project at university was the conceptual design of a high speed yacht.
The major design innovations of my yacht were:
- outrigger
- hydrofoils
- aerofoil shaped sail
Here’s a picture of my concept:
Here’s a technical drawing of the main body of the yacht:
And so, to compare, here’s some pictures taken from the Vestas Sailrocket website.
So, the sail is in a different place and at an angle but I think my original choices for my final year project have been vindicated. I feel quite pleased that I managed to conceptualise a design that, in general, has worked.
Well done to the Vestas Sail Rocket Team.
Cleared For Landing
In the field at the back of our house there rests a large number of geese. They come at this time of year and chill out over night before going on their way somewhere. The can be hundreds possibly thousands. Tonight I caught some on final approach but you might have to squint to see them.
Also, here’s the moon. It looks bigger in real life but then that’s just an optical illusion.
