Month: May 2007

Categories
technology

Where’s the “Hasta la Vista” ?

R has got a new machine running Vista Pro. The machine is a big improvement on her venerable old laptop and she’s delighted that for once she’s the one with the fancy new toy as I seem to get one every other week. I’m a geek (see earlier post) so I can’t help it.
Now you’ll have heard a lot about Vista if you’re in any way techie but here’s my first impressions.
It looks a lot slicker. The transparent windows do make everything look a lot cooler. For once my PC can favourably compare with a Mac in terms of 80% of the UI. However, I can’t help but wonder if this is because 80% of the UI looks so damn Mac-like? It’s a thought but I’m not alone here.
It’s not all fun & games. The first problem I notice is that having run it on two machines now I’ve found that it really really needs 2GB of RAM to provide speedy performance. Otherwise you spend too much time looking around at the pretty performance bar (which actually isn’t, more on this later). The second is that the UI is genuinely confusing for XP and Win2k users. It’s not just R, I got to observe a whole bunch of users trying to come to grips with the new layout. I’d argue it’s better but it’s certainly different. PC users have essentially gotten a lot of “same” from microsoft in terms of start menu, file menu’s, explorer etc. They were all thrown by “different”. Now back to the performance bar which is actually a glorified strobing hourglass. A feature I hated on the Mac as I really want a performance bar to tell me how long more I’m going to have to wait for whatever OS trickery is going on to finish.
The third problem is poor UI design in places. Many have written about the shutdown menu including Joel Spolsky & one of it’s original authors Moishe Lettvin. It’s woeful. Absolutely staggering that a company with Microsoft’s resources could produce something so bad and incredible it took 24 people to do it. I don’t hold with Joel’s opinion that it’s due to the ability of new Microsofties. I think it’s more to do with a management structure of dense inscrutability. I witnessed R & chums spend at least 15 minutes trying to figure out how to turn the thing off. That was with prompting. It’s not the only weakness with UI consistency being a major failing across the board. I reckon this is down to the difficulties in porting OfficeOS to any new version of Windows. Office has become so big, bloated and unwieldy to maintain that updating it’s UI to match the new Aero UI engine must have been a nightmare. So much so that it’s only half done.
On the plus points, it’s more stable, more appealing and easier to manage than previous versions of Windows. If Microsoft’s objective was to justify the upgrade then they’ve definitely succeeded. However, if their objective was to better OS X then they haven’t. It’s still the more consistent and unobtrusive UI.

Categories
politics

Please Elect Me, I’ll say anything !

I’ve decided that the money’s (more than) acceptable & the perks are fantastic. Ah who am I kidding it’s less than half of “peanuts”, does that make it nuts or peas?
I’m gonna become a TD anyway. It’s my civic duty to charge the Irish tax payers for listening to me waffle for the next 5 years. Oh wait, that’s gonna happen anyway! Oh well, maybe it’s the power 🙂
My name might not be on the Waterford ballot but feel free to add my name and a little tic if you support my campaign manifesto. Not to be confused with my art gallery of the same name which I’m shamelessly plugging like a politicians memoirs. Jayz, I’m good at this.
I PROMISE

  • Not to visit your house and listen to your silly problems as if I’m going to do something about it
  • Not to pretend to be more knowledgable than I am about a range of issues including planning, incineration, the environment, nuclear power, health care
  • Not to take out any advertisements in the paper with my photo on them or any mugshot endorsements from potential voters
  • To avoid saying I’m “tough on crime” at any stage during my campaign.
  • To avoid saying I’m “working hard for the people of Waterford” during my campaign.
  • Not to exploit the impoverished in my attempt to gain political power by portraying myself as a “working class hero” and general do-gooder
  • Not to pretend I support the INO’s action if you’re a nurse or condemn it if you’re not
  • To pay consultant doctors the 400k a year they deserve if you’re a consultant. Skip that, they all vote PD’s anyway
  • Not to reference Michael Collins, Eamon DeValera, Padraig Pearse or any of a number of long dead Irish heroes in my election manifesto. (well, I wasn’t serious about that promise)
  • Not to take credit for anything good that happens in Waterford during my term including health care facilities and much needed transport infrastructure which has already been agreed.
  • Not to pretend I’ve been spending every spare moment lobbying the minister of education for the proposed University of the South East
  • Not to be affiliated with any political party, especially any party who’s name is in Irish with long illustrious histories to be wheeled out at election time like a sacred cow.
  • Not to smoke in the Dail bar to prove how with-it and cool I am
  • To build a 60,000 all seater multi-purpose stadium for every man, woman and child. Sorry, my principles just dissolved in a puff of electoral smoke.
Categories
technology

The case against Steorn

Deliberately misleading title for this post. The truth is that I’m a believer. This must be qualified as I’m not sure they know what they’ve actually done or the exact/proximate principles upon which it works. It’s interesting though that the arguments against Steorn should be looked at dispassionately. Here’s the arguments against from Wikipedia.

  1. Instead of opening up their technology for public inspection, Steorn has pitched their claim directly to the media. This is considered by Dr Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park, to be an important indicator that a scientific claim lies well outside the bounds of rational scientific discourse.
  2. Steorn’s claim violates the first law of thermodynamics. Many ordinary people and established scientists including Leonardo da Vinci have attempted to do this for centuries and failed.
  3. In particular, Steorn claims to violate the law using “a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy”. Magnetism is a conservative force, so it is well established that the energy of motion which one gains when two magnets attract or repel is exactly equal to the energy needed to restore the starting position, no matter how you arrange the magnets.
  4. In view of the fundamental nature of the laws of thermodynamics within physics,
    overwhelming evidence would be required to support Steorn’s claim that these laws have been violated. No such evidence has been provided.

1 – Dr. Park’s reasoning is sensible but not conclusive in and of itself.
2 – Ignore the DaVinci comments. Most scientists I know realise that his contribution to science is far far below his contributions to art. So let’s deal with the first law of thermodynamics. (“The increase in the internal energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the amount of heat energy added to the system minus the work done by the system on the surroundings.”) In an age where there exist many scientific phenomena which are not fully understood can we really consider the first law of thermodynamics to be inviolable? If we do then how do we define “surroundings”? We don’t have a GUT, we don’t have an independent reference frame so it’s all observational. In light of this it’s very difficult to say that so-called “energy from the void” theories and apparatus are unworkable as we can only talk about observed energy transfer. Try getting a string theorist to define “surroundings”!… Don’t think we’ve reached our zenith of knowledge yet just like we hadn’t in 1905 when classical mechanics was revealed to be inadequate and relativity was born.
3 – It’s possible their mechanism to achieve the end result (apparent perpetual motion) is not well explained in their documentation for deliberate or accidental reasons. This is not cold-fusion. According to the company they’re repeating the experiment every day. I just don’t think these guys are cranks. However, it’s important to note that they CAN’T PATENT THIS SYSTEM IN ENTIRETY until they understand roughly how it works. Patents generally can’t be granted if they violate physical laws. So I’m guessing they’re getting their scientific evaluators to help make their case.
4- Agreed. So let’s wait and see.