I've been annoyed this week. Annoyed by stupid decisions. Not mine, but companies selling technology.
Firstly, vodafone. They do a pay and go dongle that to my mind was the best package on the market if you wanted to have some broadband on the go. £15 bought you 1Gb of data and that stayed on the account until you had used 1Gb of data, regardless of whether you used that in a week or 6 months. For someone who uses the mobile broadband on an infrequent basis this is brilliant. Unfortunately they've now stopped this and, like all the other providers, that £15 now expires after 30 days. To compensate, they've upped the amount of data that you get, so £15 now gets you 3Gb. Which is obviously helpful to the person who uses it now and again so 1Gb would last them a couple of months. I should point out that if the dongle was bought and activated before last christmas it'll still be on the previous plan. So ultimately this new plan doesn't affect me directly. Except for the little issue that I currently have on dongle shared with my fiancee. It is not being topped up often as we don't make a lot of use of it. But it's great to know it's there and we can use it, whether it's weekly or monthly, which frankly depends on the week or month. However, what if it starts to become common that we both need it on the same day? What then? Because I can now no longer go buy a spare dongle without needing to top it up every 30 days!
I understand from a business perspective that Vodafone would naturally be more inclined to have people topping up more often. It's a shame though, because they were the only providers for those of us who want to occasionally use the interweb out on the road. I certainly wouldn't want to have to top up every month only to see half my credit disappear unused because I didn't need to log on that often this month.
What's more aggravating is hearing of a case where someone still on the old plan of non-evaporating credit was told by Vodafone that the new terms meant she had lost her remaining balance. Which muddies the waters a bit. Are old plans being altered to the new one? If so why haven't Vodafone informed customers. It took a lot of searching to confirm the new plan, I'd have thought that if they were changing existing customers to this new situation that there'd have been some outrage. (Possibly no-ones been able to express their outrage as their credit's gone?!) If they haven't automatically changed people over then why would their customer services say they had? It's a frustrating mixed message. I've been trying to contact Vodafone myself to clarify, but not had a response as yet.
Now, silly tech decision number 2 this week. My brother recently got a Blu-ray player. He already has a surround system, so was looking forward to getting this wired up for some hi-def, awesome sounding viewing of Die Hard. But couldn't seem to find the digital in socket on his surround. So this week I popped round to his to have a look.
Yep, there's no digital in socket.
Who makes a surround system but doesn't let you plug in other sound sources? Who?? Phillips do.
Yes he can plug in stereo phono's but that's kind of missing the full range available. The system is capable of Digital DTS 5.1 as it has it's own inbuilt DVD player with this capability. And it's a recent system. I've had a Blu-Ray player longer than this system's been built. They really thought that no-one would want to plug a blu-ray in? Seriously? It has an HDMI out and upscales. So clearly they thought this system should appeal to people with a desire for better than DVD quality. But adding one extra optical in socket was too much?
I mean I understand if you go and buy one of those £15 DVD players in the supermarket that you shouldn't expect a digital out socket. But if you're buying a surround sound system, do they really think that you'll never want to plug in another source??
I suppose you could say that careful inspection of the specs before purchase then buy a system that does have it, etc. It just seems like such an obvious inclusion on a surround system though.
Anyway, that's my rant over. I actually feel a bit silly about the surround one, as it's more about my own assumptions than a real fault on Phillips part. I have a Phillips surround system myself and love it.
Saturday 27 February 2010
Sunday 14 February 2010
I want to be a superfast blue hedgehog. No, I'n not on drugs, I'm from the 90's...
Last week I had a serious nerdgasm over the news that Sonic 4 was coming out this summer! Sonic 4!?!? True, I'd not really played any Sonic game since 3+Knuckles, but I knew they'd existed. I did a little research and discovered that generally, all the games since then were considered to be rubbish and that the addition of other characters beyond Tails and Knuckles was universally blamed. (In some cases also Tails and Knuckles, but hey if you want to stay on the one game forever that's fine, but I loved 2, 3 and 3+Knuckles.) This short but awesome trailer certainly awoke my 90's nostalgia.
Now anyone who knows me well would say that I'm not that big a gamer. (It's probably not the first thing they'd say, comments about stupid jokes, inappropriate comments and questionable personal hygiene would come first) I have a PS3, but it's more of a Blu Ray player in my hands. Some guitar hero, the occaisional demo of somthing and a little lego star wars. Oh and that Batman Arkham Asylum game, that kicked ass. But I'm not that big into the gaming. However, back in the 90's me and my brother had a megadrive and we frakking loved Sonic the Hedgehog. 1 through 3+ Knuckles, those games got the most time on our system. And when I had a Gamecube, I got the Sonic Mega Collection to relive those wonderous days. And that game, that port of 10 year old games from another console was my most played disc on the gamecube, eschewing all the new latest advancement in games.
And now I'm doing it again! Cos after I heard about the impending Sonic 4, I had to dig out the GC disc and controller and popped it into the Wii. Had a mammoth session playing through and lotsa fund having a Sonic 3+Knuckles runthrough as Tails. I always preferred to play Tails. I also followed Robin in the Batman mythos. It's probably a deep seated psychological thing that I identify with the sidekick. I imagine it's a self image/confidence thing. Shit! Shit, I think I'm the sidekick! Great! Frakking great! I've doomed myself to be Watson! Robin! Tails! Speedy! Bucky! Kid Devil! Wait, definitely not that last one...
Moving on from my traumas, I notice that Sonic 4 is Episode 1. Awesome! So we can download it in chunks and play through them ending up with the full game later? Works for me, I tend to be busy so time to actually play this will be limited. I did laugh at the comments on various blogs expressing rage at this episodic format. Apparently this is an epic fail and Sega are practically peodophile war criminals for doing this. Man, I thought I had a crazy excitment for a new Sonic game! Well, hopefully things won't be quite as bad as they seem, I am remaining excited.
Of course, back in the 90's young lad as I was, there was also a comic book of Sonic's adventures to read. When I say 'young as I was', I still read comics now. After all, Geoff Johns is writing them, it would be stupid not to read them. But back to the Sonic Comics, (actually called Sonic the Comic! Brilliant!) these were reasonably entertaining comics, written largely for kids, but with a sufficiently complex storyline (time travel, planetary takeover and resistance movements) to keep me mildly interestd. While surfing the net on my renewed Sonic Buzz, I discovered the comic had gone on for a while after I'd stopped reading but ultimately folded. However there was an online continuation! Yep, right here, and it's not too bad. I've only read the one story, but it was kinda fun. I think it'll amuse me here and there on work lunches at least, largely on the nostalgia side of it. Makes me wish there could be more classic comics continued on like this if suitable talent could be found. I'm thinking Eagle mainly.
Now anyone who knows me well would say that I'm not that big a gamer. (It's probably not the first thing they'd say, comments about stupid jokes, inappropriate comments and questionable personal hygiene would come first) I have a PS3, but it's more of a Blu Ray player in my hands. Some guitar hero, the occaisional demo of somthing and a little lego star wars. Oh and that Batman Arkham Asylum game, that kicked ass. But I'm not that big into the gaming. However, back in the 90's me and my brother had a megadrive and we frakking loved Sonic the Hedgehog. 1 through 3+ Knuckles, those games got the most time on our system. And when I had a Gamecube, I got the Sonic Mega Collection to relive those wonderous days. And that game, that port of 10 year old games from another console was my most played disc on the gamecube, eschewing all the new latest advancement in games.
And now I'm doing it again! Cos after I heard about the impending Sonic 4, I had to dig out the GC disc and controller and popped it into the Wii. Had a mammoth session playing through and lotsa fund having a Sonic 3+Knuckles runthrough as Tails. I always preferred to play Tails. I also followed Robin in the Batman mythos. It's probably a deep seated psychological thing that I identify with the sidekick. I imagine it's a self image/confidence thing. Shit! Shit, I think I'm the sidekick! Great! Frakking great! I've doomed myself to be Watson! Robin! Tails! Speedy! Bucky! Kid Devil! Wait, definitely not that last one...
Moving on from my traumas, I notice that Sonic 4 is Episode 1. Awesome! So we can download it in chunks and play through them ending up with the full game later? Works for me, I tend to be busy so time to actually play this will be limited. I did laugh at the comments on various blogs expressing rage at this episodic format. Apparently this is an epic fail and Sega are practically peodophile war criminals for doing this. Man, I thought I had a crazy excitment for a new Sonic game! Well, hopefully things won't be quite as bad as they seem, I am remaining excited.
Of course, back in the 90's young lad as I was, there was also a comic book of Sonic's adventures to read. When I say 'young as I was', I still read comics now. After all, Geoff Johns is writing them, it would be stupid not to read them. But back to the Sonic Comics, (actually called Sonic the Comic! Brilliant!) these were reasonably entertaining comics, written largely for kids, but with a sufficiently complex storyline (time travel, planetary takeover and resistance movements) to keep me mildly interestd. While surfing the net on my renewed Sonic Buzz, I discovered the comic had gone on for a while after I'd stopped reading but ultimately folded. However there was an online continuation! Yep, right here, and it's not too bad. I've only read the one story, but it was kinda fun. I think it'll amuse me here and there on work lunches at least, largely on the nostalgia side of it. Makes me wish there could be more classic comics continued on like this if suitable talent could be found. I'm thinking Eagle mainly.
Thursday 4 February 2010
Moon
Recently I was talking about the return to the moon being cancelled. Staying loosely on the moon subject, I recently watched Moon, the film.
Wow! Seriously, wow! It is major awesometimes. I don’t want to go into too much detail, because quite honestly you should go an watch it, I’m don’t want to spoil any of the amazing experience of this film.
A few things I can say about it though.
Sam Rockwell. I’ve only seen him in too other films, Galaxy Quest and Hitchhikers Guide and in both those films he’s struck me as generally amusing. In this film, he’s fricking amazing. His character has to spend some years as the sole human manning an outpost on the moon and the difference in his portrayal from the freshly arrived on the moon point to the man his characters become after 3 years there is incredible.
Effects. In a world that’s increasingly CGI, it was nice to see some model effects for a change. And flip, they are awesome model effects. They looked absolutely awesome. There’s a lot been said about the 70’s sci fi look of the film, and it does have that sort of feel, but hey it looks awesome. It doesn’t feel like a film that’s been made to echo the 70’s look at all, it all looks brilliant and happens to evoke some of the design of films like 2001. For the record, I watched a DVD copy, I imagine the High Definition looks incredible.
The Robot. There’s a robot on the moon base. Instant 100 points! And it’s voiced by Kevin Spacey, which adds yet more points. It’s a brilliantly well done robot, it looks like a realistic possibility as they’re not trying to do a robot on legs or tracks that’s free roaming. It’s also got a brilliant ‘face’ with a little screen displaying ‘smiley’s’ depending on how the conversation is going which are brilliant. And it’s motivations are suitably ambiguous for much of the movie.
So hopefully I’ve not spoilt anything there, and if you get the opportunity you should totally watch this film. And do it soon, there’s follow up on the way!
Wow! Seriously, wow! It is major awesometimes. I don’t want to go into too much detail, because quite honestly you should go an watch it, I’m don’t want to spoil any of the amazing experience of this film.
A few things I can say about it though.
Sam Rockwell. I’ve only seen him in too other films, Galaxy Quest and Hitchhikers Guide and in both those films he’s struck me as generally amusing. In this film, he’s fricking amazing. His character has to spend some years as the sole human manning an outpost on the moon and the difference in his portrayal from the freshly arrived on the moon point to the man his characters become after 3 years there is incredible.
Effects. In a world that’s increasingly CGI, it was nice to see some model effects for a change. And flip, they are awesome model effects. They looked absolutely awesome. There’s a lot been said about the 70’s sci fi look of the film, and it does have that sort of feel, but hey it looks awesome. It doesn’t feel like a film that’s been made to echo the 70’s look at all, it all looks brilliant and happens to evoke some of the design of films like 2001. For the record, I watched a DVD copy, I imagine the High Definition looks incredible.
The Robot. There’s a robot on the moon base. Instant 100 points! And it’s voiced by Kevin Spacey, which adds yet more points. It’s a brilliantly well done robot, it looks like a realistic possibility as they’re not trying to do a robot on legs or tracks that’s free roaming. It’s also got a brilliant ‘face’ with a little screen displaying ‘smiley’s’ depending on how the conversation is going which are brilliant. And it’s motivations are suitably ambiguous for much of the movie.
So hopefully I’ve not spoilt anything there, and if you get the opportunity you should totally watch this film. And do it soon, there’s follow up on the way!
Wednesday 3 February 2010
If Wallace and Gromit could get there...
I was a little disappointed to read this yesterday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8489097.stm
While I was no big fan of the Bush administration, I am a big fan of the space program and the idea of a new round of visits to the moon,had got me quite excited. So I was keeping an eye on the latest news of the Constellation program and the Ares rocket and Orion craft.
While there's a general feeling that the program is flawed in trying to re-create past glories of moon landings, I'm a bit disappointed that we aren't doing a bit more on the moon.
For a start, could there not be another moon landing to try and silence those who still insist on saying the original landings were faked? (Why? Why are you so determined to see a great achievement of humanity's ingenuity and spirit pissed on?) Admittedly it's a large and costly venture to prove a point to a small group, but hey, what about going there to lead onto bigger things? We all want a moonbase! Dude, we so do! Tell me you wouldn't consider taking a holiday in a bio-dome on the moon? It'd be like CenterParcs! But on the fricking moon! Well if we want to see that as an affordable option in our lifetimes, NASA have to get up there more!
Now I also see from the story, that this will lead to a longer life for the International Space Station. Which is a good thing, to my mind it seemed a bit odd that for all the time, money and effort it took to build, why would it then have such a limited lifespan? There's a lot of stuff that could be done there, just in the field of scientific experiments for a start. Then there must be many practical applications for future projects. For instance, a orbital re-fueling facility is on the cards? ISS must be a good starting point to develop something around that. Even if it becomes the little shop, so an astronaut can pick up a paper and a pasty when he re-fuels.
The general upshot of the story is that NASA is going to be given a lot of money, not to continue it's own projects, but to incentivise private groups to develop technologies. This interests me. In the current economic climate (crap! I was so sure I wasn't going to ever say that in a blog about being a nerd!) many companies are going to be somewhat reluctant to invest too heavily in something like this. I mean, it's difficult to sell them on the idea of exactly when and how they'll ultimately profit from it? Space tourism? I realise that with the Space Shuttles retirement due and no replacement craft in development, NASA is going to need some lifts up to the ISS, so without private sector involvement, they'll be reliant on the Russian space program.
What concerns me about the idea of private companies being asked to get involved and develop their own space program is that in films, it's a bad thing. Weyland Yutani? Yep, 'The Company' from the Alien films! Those dudes would casually endanger innocent lives to get themselves crazed killing machine aliens!
In fact sci-fi is littered with examples of corporate interests in space travel leading to evil. Hey, who are those guys helping Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels? The Trade Federation? The Banking Clan? What about the Slitheen family in Doctor Who? Casually disregarding all life on a planet so they can sell it for raw materials.
Ironically, it's Star Trek that has a rce most obsessed with business and material wealth that don't make them evil! The Ferengi were I guess, supposed to be the big villian of The Next Generation, but ultimately turned into almost a comedy race. Deep Space Nine made more of them and did very well in depicting them as a society based on wealth and acquisition without making them evil. Though ulitmately they had to show the Ferengi as a race, start to show the signs of obtaining a new direction that would probably lead them more towards the Federation.
It's partly a reflection of the times I guess. The late 70's and early 80's was the same time Lex Luthor stopped being a mad scientist and became a businessman, that's when the first couple of Alien films came out and it went on from there. The Ferengi came from a very 80's idea (like most of the early Next Generation stuff) too.
Hey, look, I went off on a tangent! I was just musing on the Constellation project's cancellation and managed to end up talking about the attitudes toward 'businessmen' in sci-fi!
So in summary, sci-fi has told us that businesses are bad and I think we should go to the moon!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8489097.stm
While I was no big fan of the Bush administration, I am a big fan of the space program and the idea of a new round of visits to the moon,had got me quite excited. So I was keeping an eye on the latest news of the Constellation program and the Ares rocket and Orion craft.
While there's a general feeling that the program is flawed in trying to re-create past glories of moon landings, I'm a bit disappointed that we aren't doing a bit more on the moon.
For a start, could there not be another moon landing to try and silence those who still insist on saying the original landings were faked? (Why? Why are you so determined to see a great achievement of humanity's ingenuity and spirit pissed on?) Admittedly it's a large and costly venture to prove a point to a small group, but hey, what about going there to lead onto bigger things? We all want a moonbase! Dude, we so do! Tell me you wouldn't consider taking a holiday in a bio-dome on the moon? It'd be like CenterParcs! But on the fricking moon! Well if we want to see that as an affordable option in our lifetimes, NASA have to get up there more!
Now I also see from the story, that this will lead to a longer life for the International Space Station. Which is a good thing, to my mind it seemed a bit odd that for all the time, money and effort it took to build, why would it then have such a limited lifespan? There's a lot of stuff that could be done there, just in the field of scientific experiments for a start. Then there must be many practical applications for future projects. For instance, a orbital re-fueling facility is on the cards? ISS must be a good starting point to develop something around that. Even if it becomes the little shop, so an astronaut can pick up a paper and a pasty when he re-fuels.
The general upshot of the story is that NASA is going to be given a lot of money, not to continue it's own projects, but to incentivise private groups to develop technologies. This interests me. In the current economic climate (crap! I was so sure I wasn't going to ever say that in a blog about being a nerd!) many companies are going to be somewhat reluctant to invest too heavily in something like this. I mean, it's difficult to sell them on the idea of exactly when and how they'll ultimately profit from it? Space tourism? I realise that with the Space Shuttles retirement due and no replacement craft in development, NASA is going to need some lifts up to the ISS, so without private sector involvement, they'll be reliant on the Russian space program.
What concerns me about the idea of private companies being asked to get involved and develop their own space program is that in films, it's a bad thing. Weyland Yutani? Yep, 'The Company' from the Alien films! Those dudes would casually endanger innocent lives to get themselves crazed killing machine aliens!
In fact sci-fi is littered with examples of corporate interests in space travel leading to evil. Hey, who are those guys helping Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels? The Trade Federation? The Banking Clan? What about the Slitheen family in Doctor Who? Casually disregarding all life on a planet so they can sell it for raw materials.
Ironically, it's Star Trek that has a rce most obsessed with business and material wealth that don't make them evil! The Ferengi were I guess, supposed to be the big villian of The Next Generation, but ultimately turned into almost a comedy race. Deep Space Nine made more of them and did very well in depicting them as a society based on wealth and acquisition without making them evil. Though ulitmately they had to show the Ferengi as a race, start to show the signs of obtaining a new direction that would probably lead them more towards the Federation.
It's partly a reflection of the times I guess. The late 70's and early 80's was the same time Lex Luthor stopped being a mad scientist and became a businessman, that's when the first couple of Alien films came out and it went on from there. The Ferengi came from a very 80's idea (like most of the early Next Generation stuff) too.
Hey, look, I went off on a tangent! I was just musing on the Constellation project's cancellation and managed to end up talking about the attitudes toward 'businessmen' in sci-fi!
So in summary, sci-fi has told us that businesses are bad and I think we should go to the moon!
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