Archive for February, 2008
Pleasing…
Friday, February 29th, 2008Putting you out of your misery
Thursday, February 28th, 2008So the teaser campaign lasted all of one day :). Here is the real poster…
Ping me if you want an invite to the Facebook group.
A Pro-Thought Manifesto
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008From simont:
But there’s another reason for disliking geeks which I find a lot harder to forgive: as closely as I can tell, some people dislike geeks (of all stripes) not because of any specific attitude to their field, but essentially because they dislike the fact that geeks think about things for fun. You hear words like ‘sad’ bandied about with great abandon; you hear a veiled, and sometimes not so veiled, disapproval of anyone spending time sitting at a computer – or whatever – which they ‘ought’ to be spending drinking beer and watching TV.
And it really makes me cross when people do this, or when they demonise the use of thought and reasoning in any other context. We have more than enough trouble in the world already due to people not thinking, so encouraging further failure or refusal to think seems to me to be at least misguided, and at worst culpable.
+1 to the post.
Teaser
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008Coming soon…
Obligatory earthquake post
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008Yes, in bed with Saf. The earth moved. Ha!
More interestingly, even if you didn’t feel it, the BGS has an online questionnaire that you should fill in to help map the extent of the quake.
Finally snapped…
Monday, February 25th, 2008To: customer.services@3mail.com On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:30 AM, From 3 <3@bounce.threemails.co.uk> wrote: > > Hello RICHARD Hello FROM 3. > How are you getting on? Fine thanks. I was wondering why 3 cares about how I'm doing personally? You're only my phone provider after all. Anyhow, how are *you* getting on? All these chummy emails you keep sending... I guess you kinda want to get to know me! Well, either that or it is some sort of cynical advertising campaign to try and convince me that 3 are actually some gestalt entity with the personality of a rather annoying hairdresser! > Found you've been staring lovingly at your new phone quite a lot? Sorry? Is this the sort of professional communication that I should expect from your company? How does it affect your company if I've been gazing lustfully at a particular consumer electronics item? Should I start doing so then I suspect a doctor would be the first port of call! > Don't worry this is perfectly normal. But soon you're going to want to > start exploring. And when you do you'll find your phone can do things you > never thought possible. Visit Planet 3 and have a play. Or watch one of our > little videos to give you a flavour. Well, I think it is possible for data to reach my phone via one of your base stations (or maybe, those belonging to others). How does what you're offering go beyond this expectation? Oh, well that *was* my expectation. Of course this proves to be false whenever I'm indoors, in a car or within 100 metres of someone holding up a sheet of tin foil. > So many questions. So many answers. No need to wait until you get back to > your PC. Find out what you want to know on your phone with Internet, My3 and > more. Hang on... what do you think I'm reading this mail on? Either a) on a computer or b) on my phone, in which case I've probably already discovered this Intertron thing which provides them words 'n' pictures things what you're talking about. > Stuck on a bus? In bed with flu? Brilliant! More time to do all this. Enjoy > TV, music, games, magazines and more. TV, music, games and magazines are all within reach of my sick bed! Honestly, 3. Please, in the name of all those who just want to call people on their phones, If you want to send advertising then at least make it clear and professional. False 'chumminess' just annoys everyone. I know you don't care two jots about my personal life and I certainly don't care about watching crummy quality pay-for-video on my phone when I can just rip and re-encode from YouTube. Please distribute a clue to whichever advertising guru thought up this intensely annoying corporate persona! -- Dr Rich Wareham
BBC video production pipeline
Friday, February 15th, 2008Recently I was reminded of an interesting bit of stuff hanging off the BBC R&D website. It covers the BBC’s new automated tapeless production system. For an overview there is, as one might expect from the BBC, quite a nice 8 minute video available.
The production system is interesting not only because of the way it allows almost immediate access to logged and tagged takes from a filming but also because of the heavy use of Free and Open Source software in the pipeline. For example, from the site:
Our file server, MediaHarmony, is also based on commodity hardware and open source software. It uses a SAMBA file server with virtual file system extensions to provide the additional features needed to support multiple editing clients.
Even better, from the point of view of a video geek such as myself, is that the guts of this pipeline has been released by the BBC on SourceForge.net. Props to the BBC R&D guys for that!
Impressed
Thursday, February 14th, 2008I’m impressed with the ease of getting a mobile phone these days. At 2pm yesterday afternoon I decided to change my mobile, 3:15pm I ordered a new one and 1pm today it was sitting in my hand. All for the princely initial outlay of £1.95.
Even getting the required magic codes to change number went smoothly. I’m bracing myself for some un-godly Bad Thing that will happen. At the moment, however, I’m squee-ing about being able to check my mail on my phone and browse actual real websites without having to worry about per-Mb fees.
On the down side I feel like poo. My legs hurt and I’m tired. I suspect the workload has been too high this week. It will only get worse though, on Saturday I have the day of death in which I have to direct 2 hours of CULES rehearsal, drive to Oxford, perform in a charity comedy show and then stay vertical until the wee hours. The latter staying vertical should be at a fun gathering of friends though.
A sad bunny…
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008The new draft University style guidelines recommend letters be sent out typeset in Ariel—not a typeface known for its readability as a body text. This makes me a sad bunny.
At the moment, the University recommended typeface is Sabon which is truly beautiful and ideally suited to body text. I can’t help but wonder if this taste for sans-serif body text has teleported itself over from on-screen typography where, due to limitations in display technology, sans serif fonts are easier to behold. Certainly a tear will be shed from my eye when I have to start sending out letters that look like they have been written in Word.
Update: If you want to protest, or make your views known, there are a set of roadshows which may be related. Other than that, it is immensely unclear as to who one should moan at :(.
Update 2: Aha! There is an email address: communicationsservices@admin.cam.ac.uk.