Status-Q

Few events have demonstrated the power of modern media more than those on Tuesday. We’re used to receiving entertainment, sport and even news events from the far side of the world, but on Tuesday a tidal wave of shock and grief was transmitted around the globe. In the past, one would read about such events in the newspapers, several days after they happened, possibly accompanied by a black and white photograph or two. Now, we sit mesmerised by multiple repetitions of high-quality colour footage from all angles only minutes after the tragedy. We’ve even actually heard people’s final phone calls. Many of us walked around in an unbelieving half-dazed state for several days.

Is the world better as a result of this huge multiplication of grief? Of course, it also generates a huge multiplication of sympathy and support – I’m very proud of the way my country and others have stood side by side with America in so many symbolic ways – but since there’s very little practical action that even people right on the doorstep in NY can take, there’s nothing but a multiplication of frustration for the rest of us. Yes, we can donate money, but, frankly, that’s not what they need.

Perhaps the greatest good that can come from the media coverage is this: What was probably intended as an attack on America is being interpreted as an attack on the whole civilised world. That might just be more than the perpetrators, and others of their kind, had bargained for.

Lauren Sandler – “This rain is proof that there is no God”.
These are tough times for any religion to justify itself. My upbringing tells me that it is only the belief in heaven, in the fact that this life is just a temporary waiting room for better things to come, that can provide any real comfort for those involved.

Still, can we pick and choose like that? There have been a large number of church services over the last few days, and many sermons preached. I haven’t heard much reference to loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, and especially not turning the other cheek.

There’s nothing I can really say that hasn’t been said about yesterday, the most infamously historic day of my lifetime. ‘Infamous’ is an appalling description. There aren’t even any suitable adjectives left. But I love the defiance of this amazing photo from the NY Daily News.

Nicholas Petreley always writes pretty good stuff, and his recent articles about the dangers of .NET (part1,
part2) are particularly good.
He’s started a web site at www.varlinux.org which should be worth watching for anyone interested in Linux.

Remember how hands-free kits for mobile phones were meant to reduce the radiation going into your brain, but were then discovered to be just as dangerous as holding the phone to your ear, if not more so?

Drs James Luck and Ata Khalid have come up with a solution which is definitely from the “Now why didn’t I think of that?” department. For some reason I have more admiration for inventions which are rather obvious, but which nobody else considered. They show greater lateral thinking on the part of the inventors. Perhaps I find Edison’s famous statement about genius being 1% inpiration and 99% perspiration a little depressing, so I feel cheerier when an invention appears which helps to redress the balance!

There are some benefits to having an unusual name. If I type ‘quentin’ into
Google, I’m on the first page! I come a little below Quentin Tarantino and
Quentin Crisp, though. I know my place.

Embeddded Linux goes from strength to strength. An article pointing out that one thing giving it the edge over some other operating systems is its support for IPv6, soon to be very important in devices like phones and home appliances.

It’s always interesting to think back on the feudal economies of the past and wonder what sort of a wealthy landowner one would have been. Would my tenants have cursed me each year when the hard winters set in, or would they have loved and respected their master, and cheerily doffed their caps in recognition as I rode by?

Sadly, there’s a new feudal system now, and Nick Tredennick’s article, An Engineer’s View of Venture Capitalists, makes me feel that I’m really much closer to being one of the peasants.

Today’s interesting trivia: Where does the phrase ‘hat-trick’ come from? Apparently, it was an old cricketing tradition that a bowler who took three wickets in three successive balls was entitled to a new hat, to be purchased by his club.

So now you know.

I’ve just downloaded the latest build of OpenOffice.org, the Open Source package that used to be StarOffice, and I’m thoroughly impressed. The quality of the software was always pretty good, but they’ve made important changes in the way users interact with it.

First, they’ve got rid of the most-hated feature in StarOffice: its attempt to provide a whole new desktop, including a Start menu, within a window on your regular desktop. Each document is now a separate window, as it should be. I knew they’d have to drop the Start menu when they started porting it to MacOS X. It would have been too ridiculous.

Secondly, they’ve removed two big features, which makes a wonderful change in this world of ever-increasing feature bloat. The web browser and email reader weren’t bad at all, but they were never going to be my browser and emailer of choice. There are good alternatives available, and abandoning these components concentrates effort on the more important parts. I certainly won’t mourn their departure.

The third very good decision was to switch to XML as the file format. Each document is actually a ZIPped set of files and directories – the contents are in contents.xml, the styles in styles.xml etc. If your document has embedded images, they will be in a Pictures subdirectory within the ZIP archive. This has to be the Right Way to do it. If something is broken, you can open the document with WinZip and fix things yourself with a text editor. I’ve done it. I changed the style of some text. I tweaked some colours, sizes, and positioning of items in a drawing. I then saved the files and closed WinZip, and reopened them in the word-processor and carried on. Try doing that with Word. Manipulation by other software, and conversion to and from other formats, should be very straightforward.

So, for the big question. Would I actually use it myself in preference to Microsoft Office? Well, I’m very tempted. There are still a few rough edges, and there is no ‘Help’ documentation yet, but the conversion filters are good, and the underlying philosphies are so sound that there aren’t many reasons not to switch. I can also run it on all the operating systems I use.

But if you are interchanging data frequently with Microsoft users, then however good the alternative, it won’t be as convenient as if you used Microsoft. If you’re to switch, you need incentives which make it worth the inconvenience. And the problem is that most users of Office don’t pay for it. It is provided by their employer. Otherwise, I think, the £350 price of Office would now be sufficient incentive for most people.

Have just returned from a long weekend in the Lake District, my favourite place on the entire globe.

As my brother, my 6-year-old nephew and I skimmed stones on the surface of Derwent Water, I wondered about this curiously male pastime. I don’t think I’ve known any women, young or old, who were enthusiastic stone-skimmers. Why is that? Is there something in it that harks back to our primitive male hunting role, when the best stone-throwers would probably bring home the best food, attract the best wives, etc? Or is it just that women have more sense than to partake in such a pointless activity?

At 10.54 this morning, Dan Gordon, Martyn Johnson and I finally switched off the Trojan Room Coffee Pot camera, seven years and nine months to the day after it was first connected to the web.

The official website will be updated in due course, but since the Computer Lab is in mid-move, it might take a little while. Until then, you can read more about the life and times of the Pot.