David Glover Archive
Note! You are looking at an archive of my old blog. Nothing new is posted here. For new posts, visit blog.davidglover.org.
Wii would like to play
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Amazon UK "...sold out of reserve orders for Nintendo's new games console ... in just seven minutes. Amazon.co.uk said a rush of buyers for the Wii made it the site's fastest selling pre-order item."
Update 9:52 PM: This has really made the news!
I knew this would happen.They were supposed to start selling them at 9am - the plan was that I would get up, order one at 9, and then go to work.
So at 9:30am they're still not on sale. Disaster - I have to go to work! So, a very geeky solution. While Ed drives, I sit with my laptop living up to its name, connected to the internet through my mobile phone.
At 9:40, half way to work, the "Add to basket" button finally lights up! And after frantic clicking... I got one! Despite my internet connection not exactly being terribly fast or reliable, I obviously managed it in less than seven minutes. Sometimes being a geek pays off.
That's probably the first time I've ever bought something while actually in a moving car.
I am slightly concerned that I never received the promised e-mail from Amazon telling me that they were finally on sale - I wonder how many people missed out because they were waiting for the e-mail?
Update 9:52 PM: This has really made the news!
I knew this would happen.They were supposed to start selling them at 9am - the plan was that I would get up, order one at 9, and then go to work.
So at 9:30am they're still not on sale. Disaster - I have to go to work! So, a very geeky solution. While Ed drives, I sit with my laptop living up to its name, connected to the internet through my mobile phone.
At 9:40, half way to work, the "Add to basket" button finally lights up! And after frantic clicking... I got one! Despite my internet connection not exactly being terribly fast or reliable, I obviously managed it in less than seven minutes. Sometimes being a geek pays off.
That's probably the first time I've ever bought something while actually in a moving car.
I am slightly concerned that I never received the promised e-mail from Amazon telling me that they were finally on sale - I wonder how many people missed out because they were waiting for the e-mail?
Spam! Spam! Spam!
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Down under... and left a bit
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
As a kid, I was always told that if I dug straight down far enough, I would emerge in Australia.
Well, this is almost true - but not quite. It turns out that the exact other side of the world from my home is here:
It turns out that Australia is only exactly opposite you if you happen to live in the middle of the Atlantic - right on the ridge, as it happens.
If you live in the USA, the Indian Ocean is on the other side of the world to you. Not very exciting, huh? Don't bother digging.
Well, this is almost true - but not quite. It turns out that the exact other side of the world from my home is here:
It turns out that Australia is only exactly opposite you if you happen to live in the middle of the Atlantic - right on the ridge, as it happens.
If you live in the USA, the Indian Ocean is on the other side of the world to you. Not very exciting, huh? Don't bother digging.
Zune
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
So Microsoft has released it's Zune player. As an Apple fanboy, I am of course bound by law to criticize it and explain why it's so crap.
Perhaps surprisingly, this is going to be really easy.
Things the Zune doesn't have:
* Games
* Clock or stopwatch
* Password-protection
* Volume limiter
* Equalizer
* Calendar
* Address book
* Notes
OK, so, fair enough - it's a music player and not a PDA, but the iPod gets a lot of flak for lacking in features - and it does all of the above!
The "music sharing" feature that has been so heavily promoted turns out to completely suck. Music beamed to another Zune can only be played three times (even playing a tiny bit of a track counts as one "play"), and even then it will get wiped after three days even if you don't play it. This applies to all music, even that which might be freely distributable. No distinction is made.
The PC-side software seems to be pretty awful. You can't subscribe to podcasts, you can't use Windows Media Player, you can't play "PlaysForSure" music (haha, ironic), you have to have a "Live ID" and some kind of Zune account, and you may not even be able to get the damn thing installed! Oh, and it's not Mac compatible. It's not even world-compatible, for now, it's only available in the USA.
This is actually all quite annoying, even for me. All competition is good, I don't want Apple to get lazy.
And finally, the Zune's "slogan" (plastered all over the packaging and the web site) is: "Welcome to the social."
The social... what?! Someone tell Microsoft that "social" is an adjective, not a noun.
Update: I just learned that they're not compatible with Vista, either. Brilliant.
Update 2: The bad news just keeps coming. You can't use it as an external hard disk, and despite the long list of supported video formats on the box, all video is transcoded to WMV when copied to the Zune, which is in fact the only format video it supports. Blegh.
Perhaps surprisingly, this is going to be really easy.
Things the Zune doesn't have:
* Games
* Clock or stopwatch
* Password-protection
* Volume limiter
* Equalizer
* Calendar
* Address book
* Notes
OK, so, fair enough - it's a music player and not a PDA, but the iPod gets a lot of flak for lacking in features - and it does all of the above!
The "music sharing" feature that has been so heavily promoted turns out to completely suck. Music beamed to another Zune can only be played three times (even playing a tiny bit of a track counts as one "play"), and even then it will get wiped after three days even if you don't play it. This applies to all music, even that which might be freely distributable. No distinction is made.
The PC-side software seems to be pretty awful. You can't subscribe to podcasts, you can't use Windows Media Player, you can't play "PlaysForSure" music (haha, ironic), you have to have a "Live ID" and some kind of Zune account, and you may not even be able to get the damn thing installed! Oh, and it's not Mac compatible. It's not even world-compatible, for now, it's only available in the USA.
This is actually all quite annoying, even for me. All competition is good, I don't want Apple to get lazy.
And finally, the Zune's "slogan" (plastered all over the packaging and the web site) is: "Welcome to the social."
The social... what?! Someone tell Microsoft that "social" is an adjective, not a noun.
Update: I just learned that they're not compatible with Vista, either. Brilliant.
Update 2: The bad news just keeps coming. You can't use it as an external hard disk, and despite the long list of supported video formats on the box, all video is transcoded to WMV when copied to the Zune, which is in fact the only format video it supports. Blegh.
Labels: commentary, news, tech
No Commentary Needed
Monday, November 13, 2006
.Planet Oxford
Sunday, November 12, 2006
I made this in Photoshop - an interesting way of displaying a 360 degree panorama.
View the original panorama
View the original panorama
Labels: photos
Photos
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Over the past few weeks I've taken a bunch of photos. Here are some of them all glued together.
Labels: photos
Even though I'm not American, I took the test at dontvote.org. (The idea is that if you don't know who you're voting for, you shouldn't vote. I would perhaps change the "don't vote" to "find out!", but meh.) I scored 49.71%, getting an "F". (I should apparently consider moving to France. ;)
So consider this a baseline. If you take this test and are American, if you get less than 50% then you're dumber than a stupid Brit who doesn't even live there. ;)
So consider this a baseline. If you take this test and are American, if you get less than 50% then you're dumber than a stupid Brit who doesn't even live there. ;)
Ed and me went to Tesco and found some very cheap fireworks, which we promptly bought.
And, risking melting my lovely cameraphone, we discovered that when it comes to fireworks, cheap does indeed mean bad.
And, risking melting my lovely cameraphone, we discovered that when it comes to fireworks, cheap does indeed mean bad.
Labels: videos
