A piece ‘a Me

Onos

We’ve cracked the midnight glass

And loosed the racketing star-crazed

night into the room

The blind harp sings in late fire-light,

Your hand is decked with white promises.

What wine is this?

There are squirrels chasing in my glass,

Good God! I’m pissed!

- Spike Milligan

via eWeek

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, calls on Linux developers to make the presentation layer of desktop Linux applications even more attractive to users than Apple’s Mac OS.

Yup. In short, this is what they need to do. Screw GNOME, KDE and the rest, we need something that looks stunning (even on relatively modest hardware), works stunning and is stunningly easy to develop beautiful and functional apps on. Like… well… OS X.

BUT… and this is a big but (no, not a big butt, that’d be crass and schoolboy-ish), it’s not going to happen on ‘Linux’ like Shuttleworth says. Why? Because the open source community that controls ‘Linux’ and all things attached to it has aptly demonstrated over the past few years that, try as they might, they are still incapable of producing something as tidy, elegant and good looking as Apple’s Aqua/Quartz model. Yeah we can have flashy rotating 3D crap everywhere, and window transforms that actually bring on nausea. Yes we can had a good development model. But like everything the product is ugly, over-complicated and ultimately unsatisfactory, no matter who does it.

The answer? One Linux distributor/author has to do an Apple, take a good basis from open source and build a world-beating layer above it that makes it the desktop everyone wants. Too many cooks. Shut out the extra cooks and make your own broth and it’ll turn out just like you want it.

Yeah tons of folk will deride me and call me a fan boy. I don’t care. It’s not Apple I like, I used them as an example because Shuttleworth did, and because they are a good example. The key is in the method. Because it works. Harness, control and regulate, while using open source as inspiration, testing stuff and developing new ideas, filtering and channelling that into the non-OSS final product. Works for Apple, Sun, Red Hat et al.

Linux won’t succeed without regulation. Linux isn’t a socialist community, its Anarchy. Anarchy isn’t a system, it’s an anti-system.

Well I had a fun week last week, I built some meaty bash plates for the axles. I know, they’ll catch on stuff all over but they look as mean as hell IMHO
It was a bit of a trial an error job. I pretty much got the plates worked out right the first time, but the 3-screw mounting to the back of the axle was giving me that ‘please don’t put that kind strain on me’ puppy-eyes look, so I had to add a brace at the top.
Dad (bless him, I’d have never gotten anywhere with all this metal working without his tuition!) had the idea of bracing the plate again the top link mount, so impact stress was directed into the triangle of the top links and spread out between the top links, the mount and the chassis. It was a solution, and a good one, so i went with it. The first version used 10mm wide 1/16th plate strips with a bend at each end to screw against the bash plate and the top mount. This seemed to work well when I built it but…
While testing the truck for the first time with the plates on, it took a nose dive off a log and landed on it’s face. The bash plate worked great, nothing but the tyres and the plate hit the ground. The only problem was the bracing strip snapped clean off. after a bit of muttering expletives, I went back to the drawing board. I came up with the idea of using tie-rods anchored to the battery plate at the front and a small lump of 1/8th plate at the back. These weren’t 100% straightforward to do, however as I had to drill the tie-rod holes at a slope through the plates on the axles to get the angle to the bash plate right. I used M3 all-thread and 4mm allu tubing to make the rods and place a nyloc at each end and would em up. They seem to be a lot tougher and have stood up to me carrying the truck about by them. The combination of the rod and the sleeve tightened up against each other makes a very strong tension/compression system that makes them very stiff and resilient.

All-in-all they look nice and work well. I dunno how much use they will be for crawling though, as they could well get hung up easily. Oh well they make for nice eye candy at the very least

I attended my first event at the weekend (only as a spectator, sadly) and where better to start than the UK Nationals! Getting there involved getting up at 5 am and a couple of hours in the car to get to the place (miraculously we DIDN’T get lost either!!).

The Nationals were held at Bracken Rocks in Derbyshire, which is a private competition site usually used for motorcycle and mountain bike trials. It’s a perfect spot, with camping on site and lots of ROCKS.

The event was very well organised, with 2.2 and Super Class competitions taking place over the day on two courses each. Usual rules applied (5 min limit, points accrued for reverses, roll overs and repositions, points take off for each gate passed). We stood at the bottom 2.2 course for the morning session and were hooked from the start. Loads of people I’ve told about it said it sounded a bit dull, but it damned well isn’t! It’s pretty intense watching them crawl, scramble and twist across the rocks. I enjoyed it a ton!

The competition was certainly stiff in the 2.2 class, with many experienced operators with some really sweet rigs.

We also wandered up to one of the Super Class courses to watch the supers tough it out. The course looked nigh-on impossible from where I was standing! It soon proved difficult, but by no means impossible, as we realised why they call it Super class. Insane rigs with everything going to make them crawl rocks. The feats they pulled off were immense, climbing almost vertical faces, twisting in all sorts of mad directions. Great stuff.

I had a great day and so did the guys I was with, and I’d just like to take the opportunity to thank the organisers, competitors and all the people involved for making it a really fantastic even. The sun even shined all day, a total miracle on the UK!! :hehe:

So now I’m going all out to build a comp rig of my own. It’s gonna be a blast, I know it is
Photos from the event are posted here:

http://flickr.com/photos/pixel_mason/sets/72157606149671185/

I finally got off my ass (well, only figuratively!! =0) ) and watched Appleseed Ex Machina (the sequel to the 2004 Appleseed movie) and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. It was just as shallow as the first film but hey, it was a cool action romp and had some very interesting moments.

I liked the CG style, which some have criticised, although it has a feeling of not quite knowing if it wants cell shaded or 3D. It definitely built on the previous movie’s style and excellent visuals.

As a well seasoned fan of all things to do with The Matrix, I have to hold up the board and cry foul at the blatant copy that occurred towards the end. No spoilers, I just felt it was a bit blatant, even if it was appropriate
Overall I’ll give it a 7/10, it was a good film and the addition of Tereus to the mix did add something to what threatened to be, and still was at times, a rewind/repeat of the first film.

Tennis Spoiler Alert!!!!!

Today I spent mostly working on my R/C truck (you can probably see the pictures scrolling by every day in my Flickr widget, don’t panic I’ll write it up soon :))

In between though, I watched 2 sports I usually don’t give a crap about, Formula 1 (I’m a motorbike racing man, F1 is a bit dull to me most of the time) and tennis (which I mostly find dull also). The Firmula 1 went real well as it rained (which makes it a lot more interesting) and Lewis Hamilton won, iat the British GP. Well done Lewis :D. The tennis also went well. Since he put Andy Murray out at Wimbledon so easily, I’ve been rooting for Raphael Nadal. He played Roger Federer in the final today and despite them being very evenly matched, and also Nadal losing a 2 set lead, he won by a hairs breadth in the fifth set. Exciting tennis? Yes it *does* exist
So there you go!

Well this week saw a pitched music battle, I got Coldplay’s new Album, ‘Viva la Vida’ yesterday, and I finally got around to downloading Nine Inch Nail’s new album ‘The Slip’. I;ve listened to them both extensively and determined that they are both very good, but I prefer The Slip. Free, excellent work, and a fine addition to my NiN collection. I’ll definitely be buying the CD when it comes out too.

I just got my paws on Viva La Vida by Coldplay. I’ve always been a huge Coldplay fan (my mum hates them, they are bout the only band I like that she doesn’t!) but this album, from my initial impressions at least, is different. Whereas previous albums had a lot of well defined ‘classics’ on them (think about Clocks, Yellow, Trouble, Speed of Sounds etc.) this one doesn’t have a lot of songs that leap out and grab you as good singles. Are Coldplay finally becoming album artists? Even Violet Hill, which has been out as a single for a month or so doesn’t even hit the mark as real Single material.

It doesn’t stop it being a good album, I’m sure it’ll ingrain itself into my head, like the others did.

Oh and, for the record, I was particularly pissed off that it came in a card sleeve! What’s with that? Did I miss something?

This Article really cracks me up. I know touch screen technology is on the up and it frankly can’t come soon enough for me. I don’t really like mice, even though I’ve been using them for over a decade. There’s not really much alternative (I don’t like pens or trackballs either, for the record). Lets look at his points:

1. Apple’s giant trackpad with multi-touch. Available on MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, this pointing device represents a body blow to the appeal of using a mouse with an Apple mobile computer. The new track pad is superior because in addition to pointing and clicking, you get gestures, which adds a whole new layer of control.

Yes, it’s neat, I won’t deny that. Touch technology *is* taking off and *is* becoming a reality. Apple’s trackpad is NOT the way forward though. Touch surfaces that are not on the screen they are designed to be used on are, essentially, no better than mice IMHO.

Gestures are cool when they work. Fair point.

2. Gaming pointing devices Remember when everyone used to play games on a PC using a mouse and keyboard? Neither do I. Console gaming has re-set the bar for gaming input devices, and now even PC games seem to call for joysticks, yolks, steering wheels and other non-mouse input devices.

WOAH, hold on a moment. I played Mass Effect on a PC not 2 weeks ago with a keyboard and mouse. All major PC MMOGs are mouse & keyboard powered. All PC FPS games are mouse & keyboard powered. Consoles are popular, hell yeah, and they have a plethora of controllers for different games. However, alternative controllers are numerous for the PC, and they have been as long as I’ve been gaming on the PC (15 years, for the record). The mouse is not a dead as a PC games controller AT ALL. You’re WAY off the mark here, sorry.

3. “Brain-reading” devices. Like the mouse between 1963 and 1981, these devices are still in the lab. But one company, Emotiv Systems, plans to place a $300 headset on the market by the end of this year that lets gamers control some aspects of games with thoughts alone (go here for the demo).

It’ll happen one day but I’d give it a decade. The difference between a first generation niche product shipping and a mass market device is vast.

4. Apple iPhone and the “iPhone Killers.” This newest category of cell phone boots physical keyboards and phone pointing devices (like BlackBerry’s “pearl,” toggle switches or the tracking sticks on some handsets) altogether in favor of full-size touch screens. Although people tend to see iPhone-like devices as replacing keyboards, they’re getting millions of people used to the idea of controlling an entire operating system with a touch screen.

For some systems, this is indeed ‘where it’s at’. Touchscreen is pretty much gonna kill off mouse-pointer type applications in the next 5-10 years. Good riddance, too, like I said I hate mice. Where it’s not going to challenge is in hand-eye applications. You can’t play an FPS on a trackpad, or a touch screen. Where the iPhone and iPod touch have put the ‘i’ in ‘interesting’ (oh god I can’t believe I just did that) is with motion sensors. For gaming, the mouse will eventually be replaced by motion sensing hand devices similar to the Wii, I feel.

The mouse isn’t dead. It’s not close to being dead. I mean the keyboard has been going for more than a century. Old habits die hard. Even when revolutionary input devices come around it’ll take a long time for a lot of people to move over.