Like many people, I decided to buy an HP TouchPad last weekend. In my case it was mostly nostalgia: my first mobile wireless data device was an HP-200LX with a RAM Data Modem. But I digress. So last Sunday I went to Best Buy, and struck out. Fry’s ditto. So I came home and decided…
Read More When an online store collapses under the load….When Apple started working on 10.7 (Lion), I signed up for a developer account and installed every new developer build on my MacBook Air. (And then used it for production work, in flagrant disregard of Apple’s warnings.) When 10.7 was launched on the world, I was already running the release bits. And since then bunch…
Read More Getting the instant-on performance I expected out of Lion on my MBAHere’s an extract from a piece I wrote in January, 2009 on how Steve affected my career: Why am I a Mac user? During 1996 there were rumours that Sun was trying to buy Apple. While any talk of acquisition soon fizzled, contact continued. For most of that year, I was part of a secret…
Read More Since everyone seems to be blogging about Steve Jobs…Over the last few days I’ve been reading (and occasionally contributing to) a lengthy blog thread entitled A Central “Argument” in Feser’s Final Chapter, “Aristotle’s Revenge” « Choice in Dying. The starting point was a back-and-forth between Erin MacDonald, the thoughtful author of the Choice in Dying blog, and Edward Feser, an intemperate advocate of…
Read More The blogosphere at its most enjoyable: “Aristotle’s Revenge”Every so often, I come across a blog posting that makes my head spin from thinking of the implications. This evening was one of those occasions. I defy you to ignore this after reading the opening paragraph… Last week I read about an Android licensing issue that I wasn’t previously aware of. It’s a pretty…
Read More Imagine if every Android device maker lost their Linux distribution licenseThe old plugins that I was using seem to have become abandonware, so I’ve been doing some housekeeping. You know, blogs and computers are really great ways of procrastinating. There are always updates, patches, tweaking, and other essential but non-productive tasks to be done. And the complexity of smartphones and their apps now means that…
Read More Testing social integration (2)As Tweeted: @geoffarnold: Hallelujah! Amazon reports my copy of Penn Jillette’s “God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist…” is in the mail! http://t.co/L65ediP
Read More Why am I waiting for a book for which Glenn Beck contributed to the back-cover blurb?In an uncharacteristic spasm of organization, I just piled up all of my t-shirts on the bed and sorted out the non-keepers. There were 33 of them. Quite a few passed the first test – “Do I like this shirt?” – but failed the second: “Am I really going to wear this in the future?”…
Read More T-shirtsI’ve developed cataracts. Nothing very surprising there: there’s a family history of cataracts, and 42% of people here in the US between 52 and 64 are affected. So I’ve moved quickly through the various stages of understanding: Shit, what’s happening to my eyesight? Did my optometrist screw up my last prescription? Hmmm, I’m having difficulty…
Read More An unexpected experience connects with my childhood love of science