• No sense of humour at all – “Personally, I’d love to see the Pope in a debate on abortion, where he would actually have to address difficult questions and defend his own ideas. Best idea yet would be a debate on various controversial topics, like birth control, abortion, the role of women in the church, and homosexuality…with the Pope on one side, and Stephen Fry on the other. It could be perfectly respectful, and it would be hilarious.”
• Audio slideshow: Hubble’s first 20 years – Amazing. Beautiful.
• Do liberals read only liberal blogs? – The dangers of the “long tail…” I deliberately go read Daily Mail headlines on a regular basis just to check that I’m sane. The moment I start to agree, please shoot me.

I don’t mean to single out a single business here. The flaw I’m pointing out is shared by many sites but this post was inspired by a recent visit to TripIt. In general it’s a great service. It’s well thought out, allowing you to enter all your details with a minimum of effort; just forwarding your email confirmation to them is a masterstroke.

However. (You knew that was coming.) However, many links on the main page are non-functional, by which I mean they push you straight through to their paid-for service sign-up form.

• Palm Pre smartphone – “So you’re after a smartphone, you’ve got money to burn and an obvious decision to make: this or the iPhone. No other touchscreen smartphone is even in the running. The Pre has some obvious advantages. It’s a bit smaller than the iPhone and ‘Synergy’ works well, which could prove useful if you’re more familiar with Facebook than the concept of Gmail or an Exchange server. But weigh it against the iPhone and it’s hard to recommend.”
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide Turns 30 – Still one of my favourite books.
• Cat registered as hypnotherapist – To be fair, cats do seem to convince people to pet them and feed them without any apparent pay-back. Maybe they do hypnotise them?

• Why Creativity Needs Shorter Copyright Terms – The subject line says it all. The “creative” industries have done a good job of convincing politicians that longer copyrights are better, but they’re only better for those middle-men…
• Giant ring detected around Saturn – “The scale of the new ring feature is astonishing. Nothing like it has been seen elsewhere in the Solar System.”
• I don’t go to restaurants to tell the truth – “Tips are embarrassing and stupid – they’re vestigial haggling in a society that has otherwise moved on. If you’re going to a restaurant to be served and eat a meal, why is the price of the delivery open to negotiation but not that of the food itself, the ambience, music, heating or use of the furniture? All of these things can disappoint or delight. It’s illogical to fix the price of one element but not the others.”

This is probably the meanest article title I’ve ever written, as the “W” refers to a person, someone that I used to work with¹. The critical phrase went something like this:

“How hard can it be? It’s only a button!”

Those two, tiny sentences hide a lot. Let me explain.

I’m mainly technical. I have been in the industry for over ten years now, did a computer science degree and spent many hours when I should have been revising for my German GCSE programming my Sinclair Spectrum. This means that when someone says “It’s only a button” I instinctively cringe. I may not know the details but I’ve seen enough “simple” buttons with days worth of work behind them that I’ve learned to be cautious.

Here’s an exchange that occurred just the other day: colleague A asked colleague B for some help in PowerPoint. B says, “It’s easy, I’ll show you how to do it.” A immediately objects: “I don’t want to know how to do it, can you just do it for me?”

The dialogue continued for a while, with A not happy to have to learn something new and B not happy to become A‘s lackey.

Introduction

I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot again, but I’m afraid I might have to. If you read my discussion of the C programming language you may imagine that I’d like C++. After all, C++ fixes some of C’s idiosyncrasies, adds object orientation and a whole host of new features.

You’d be wrong though. In many ways I consider C++ to be a step backwards from its parent and this piece will hopefully explain why.

It’s been over five years since I last told you about my favourite computer and programming related books (don’t believe the date on that article. It’s been edited lightly a couple of times since I first posted it).

Having said that, some things have not changed. The vast majority of books on the shelves of your local retailer are very specific. Publishers seem to eschew broad, generally useful texts in preference for yet another beginners guide to Microsoft Word or C++ (or, more likely, Visual C++ 2005 Special Easter Edition SP2). I do not understand this. Sure, there’s a genuine need for “how to” books for specific technologies but is it not more useful to learn how to solve problems in general rather than how to solve a particular problem with a particular product?

When they first announced the App Store and the iPhone SDK I thought that a blogging tool might be something worth downloading. On the first day TypePad had their application but we had to wait until this week for the WordPress equivalent. On the plus side, WordPress for iPhone is both free and Open Source.

First impressions: it’s nice. Setting up a new blog is simple. Writing a new post is straightforward too, just press the “new” button, fill in the fields much as you would in the web interface and get typing. You can also add photos — either directly from the camera or from your photo library — but only to the end of your post.

• Ars Book Review: “Patent Failure” – Interesting book review about the effect of patents on an industry. Apparently cost more money than they make in anything but chemical and pharmaceuticals.
• Lucky to be a Programmer – I don’t program as much as I used to but this explains why I love to when I get the chance.
• WordPress 2.6 – Usual drill. I’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, the underlying software of ZX81.org.uk. If you see anything wrong please let me know!
• 20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA – Still in any doubt that computerised voting machines are a bad idea for free and fair elections?