- 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.
- Mobile Multitasking – “The new way is to rethink the fundamental deal for processes. In the old model, processes that have already been launched get priority — once running, they stay running. In the new model, the user’s intentions get priority. You press the home button, you’re going to see the home screen in a moment, whether the app that was running was ready to be closed or not. If you want to open another app, it’s going to open immediately, even if the system has to pull the plug on an app in the background to free enough RAM.”
- Please Make the iPhone Weather Application Location Aware – As per subject line…
- iPhone OS 4 and Multitasking – What multitasking on the iPhone really means. It’s all kind of moot for me anyway since I can’t run OS4 on my first generation iPhone!
I’ve not been to Oxford for… um… since I was seventeen and applying to various universities around the UK. I remember having a fun trip last time but I have zero recollection of where we went and have no photos.
At first I thought that might happen again. Not because I’m suffering from amnesia but because when I arrived it was raining pretty heavily and, for a while, it seemed that the hotel might be a better option than trudging around in the rain.
- Rejoice this day! – My sentiments exactly!
- Lost labels for your DHARMA Initiative needs – This is great. I think I’m going to have to re-label everything in the cupboard at home!
- It must have been a slow news day at ZDNet – These arguments against iPhone development come up all the time on places like StackOverflow. This is a great explanation of why they mostly make no sense.
The first few years of my November Plan were all business trips, but the truth is that I rarely get to see much more than the airport, an office and a hotel room when I go away. Oh, and maybe a restaurant if I get the chance.
That made last weeks trip to Paris and Frankfurt the exception. Meetings finished early in France and I couldn’t change my train reservation so I took the Metro a few stops south a hung around Notre Dame for a couple of hours.
- March 30, 1848: Niagara Falls Runs Dry – Bizarre.
- Twitter fixes oAuth for desktop and mobile with xAuth – Just as I add Twitter support to Yummy, they change something. Typical.
- Famous Movie Quotes – Movie quotes visualised. (via @kottke)
- On Apple suing HTC – Like many people, I just don’t see Apple’s actions here being very constructive. Seems like a waste of money and good will.
- Curiosity – “Curiosity is one of the most underrated phenomena in the world. It’s ironic that people aren’t more curious about curiosity. It’s a powerful thing.”
People are impressed by the Academy Awards ceremony, all the glitz and glamour, the celebrities and the recognition for their work. However there are much easier ways to pick up your own Oscar statue.
- Tits and Apps – About most of the ‘sexy’ iPhone apps being pulled last weekend: “What developers see is that the App Store is a shaky foundation upon which to build a business. One day you’re prospering, the next day your app is gone. There are awesome iPhone OS apps that aren’t being built because developers don’t trust Apple not to yank the carpet out from underneath them.”
- Infer.NET – Seen at the BCS/IET Turing Lecture by Chris Bishop. Looks interesting.
- Sources offer peek at Adobe Creative Suite 5 for Mac – PhotoShop CS5: what do you do to the app that has everything? Not a lot, visually at least…
I’ve missed the New Year celebrations on the 31st December for about fifteen years now so it’s getting beyond the point where you could consider it an accident. Indeed, the cold and the crowds both in Trafalgar Square and afterwards on the Tube don’t exactly encourage me to make an effort. Luckily Chinese New Year is at a more civilised time, is less busy and slightly warmer.
Still, it’s the first time I’ve ever made it!