Introspection

So, for the last couple of years I feel like I've been stuck in a rut. I'm not depressed, as such; been there, done that, it's a lot different. I'm just a bit, well, apathetic. Anyway, I just realised that in a bit over a year, it'll be ten years since I started college. Ten years! So I'd really better snap out of it, start doing stuff again. Hobbies, not dreading the long evenings, etc. Maybe even get back to writing this blog!

Well, that's it, really. I just wanted to get that out, so I told the Internet, which hopefully is too busy with popup ads and cat photos and The Twitter to judge me for it.

Come Censor with Me

I was watching Come Dine with Me with the subtitles on (as you do), when I noticed something vaguely interesting. One contestant was bemoaning her shriveled vegetables; the commentator's line was "Shriveled or not, the show must go on", but the subtitles said "Shriveled or not, the show must go on, as the actress said to the vicar". I assume this was considered a little racy for a respectable Channel 4 show about having horrible people over to your house, particularly as one of the guests was a vicar...

Careless, careless governments

As you'll no doubt remember, the Irish government recently found an extra 3.6bn euro it didn't know it had. Bizarre, right? Well, it turns out there's a good bit of this about!

Last week, Germany found a little windfall in a nationalised mortgage bank; 55 billion. And the week before, the US government found 6.6bn dollars it thought it had lost in Iraq.

Perhaps the entire financial crisis was caused by national governments losing a billion here, a billion there, down the back of the couch.

Another victim of LIBERAL OPPRESSION

Poor Eamon Delaney. The gays are demanding rights, when everyone knows that those are only for white heterosexual middle-class men like Eamon Delaney! Really, when I first saw the article I assumed it was a parody of one of those absurd American right-wingers moaning about minorities...

I mean, really:

Increasingly, it seems as if the homosexual community has forgotten that it is the minority

Bloody minorities, looking for special treatment! (NB. In screeds of this sort, 'special treatment' means the rights that everyone else has anyway.)

AS the cliche goes, some of my best friends are gay.

This has to be a joke, surely?

Bisexual? Isn't that reminiscent of the loose Seventies sexual experimentation? How many bisexuals are there? And will the plain people of Ireland be happy with legalising rights for, and spending money on, all of this?

Bisexuals? Do they exist, Ted? Also, bisexuals are apparently very expensive.

Thus gay magazines are full of ads endorsing late-night gyms, sex lines and a freewheeling sexual activity which would be dismissed as sleazy in heterosexual culture.

Did you know that there are no sex lines for heterosexuals, and those which don't exist certainly aren't advertised in magazines that you can buy in Easons, or indeed on cable telly? It's true!

Still, at least someone benefits from all this; Kevin Myers, who for once didn't write the stupidest thing in the Independent this week.

More Android tablet numbers confusion

The latest controversy in the world of mobile devices is the market share of Android tablets; in particular, when analysts claim that Android has, say, 26% of the tablet market share, are they talking about sales to real live people, or shipments to the channel?

One technique for getting a very vague idea is to take the total number of Android activations (190 million) and multiply it by Google's version share data for the tablet OS, Android 3.x (1.8%), giving 3.4 million total Android 3.x tablets (as compared to about 40 million iPads sold thus far). Clearly less than 26%. I used this technique before it was cool.

However, it should be cautioned that it is a very, very vague technique. There are a few problems. First of all, the Google version share numbers are based on Android devices which have been in accessed the market in the last two weeks. Does this mean all devices in use and in communion with the Android market, or does it mean all devices where the user has hit the marketplace button in the last two weeks? If the latter, it might be the case that there are lots of Android tablets, but their owners don't bother much with the marketplace.

Second, what is an activation? For instance, if a phone is sold to person A, returned, and sold to person B, is that one activation, or two? If person B then buys a new phone, is that another activation? That is, does the figure relate to a specific device, or to a specific Google account, or to a specific device with a specific user account?

Then, even if there have been 190 million Android devices 'activated', undoubtedly many are now out of use. Say there are 100 million now in use; that's only 1.8 million Android 3.x devices now in use.

And finally, is it possible that Google's reported figures are just wrong? A cap of 3.4 million 3.x tablets sold seems bizarrely low, as compared to shipment numbers of 4.6 million in the most recent quarter alone. It should be borne in mind that these numbers include Android 2.x tablets, and the Barnes & Noble Nook, which, while it can be used as a tablet when rooted, is really intended to be used as an ebook reader, of course.

Anyway, I mention this because of this GigaOm article, by the same author who cited me a while ago on the above technique. I think he's relying on it too much; he seems to almost be stating as a matter of fact that there are 3.4m 3.x tablets, and further muddying the waters by comparing that estimated lifetime sales number to a claimed Q3 shipment number. All a bit messy, I fear.

The AWFUL TRUTH about the Star Trek replicators

In all series of Star Trek but the Original Series (where they eat common household sponges), most of the crew's food comes from the replicator. The official line is that this is a machine which synthesises food, through Star Trek magic. But think of it; how much simpler would it be if it were simply a 3D printer which produced the 'food' out of whatever biomass was available (human waste, crew members shot by the Romulans in the previous episode, etc.); tongue implants would then be used to lie to the brain about what the subject is tasting.

This would also explain why, when they visit Earth, we see people cooking, even though they have the magic ultra-convenient replicators.

It can, in fact, even explain the peculiar tendency of Kirk-era Starfleet people to eat kitchen sponges (watch an old episode if you believe me not); presumably the secret to 3D printers was lost in the turbulent years of the 21st century (along with circuit breakers to stop consoles randomly frying operators, emergency stop buttons for enormously dangerous things like the Holodeck, emergency brakes for lifts, and so forth), and subsequently rediscovered (unlike any of that other stuff). 

And why do we never see toilets on Star Trek? Because the toilets discreetly built into the back of the 'replicators' would be distasteful to modern audiences!

HP's poor luck with CEOs

With all the fuss about yet another ejected HP CEO, I can't help remembering Carly Fiorina, about three ejected CEOs ago. Who ran for office in California. With THIS:

I mean, if you were a company board, would you hire the sort of person who'd greenlight that as a CEO?

Incidentally, the new HP CEO, Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, also ran for office in California, but had less insane ads.

The slow, grinding death of Flash continues

When in 'metro mode' (the mode for tablets), IE10 for Windows 8 will not support Flash, or any other plugins. Further, it looks like IE for Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) may lack Flash, too. Adobe had previously said that Windows Phone 7 would be getting Flash, but then, back in the day they said that the iPhone would be, too.

There's been a rather perverse tendency in the tech press to view the absence of Flash on iOS as some personal vendetta of Steve Jobs'. I don't think that's really credible, now, if it ever was; other companies are clearly willing to avoid it.

By the way, I called this in February 2010:

Microsoft says that it is working with Adobe on this. I strongly suspect that Microsoft, which has the advantage of entering late, is just playing for time; by the time the initial Windows Mobile 7 (or whatever we're meant to call it now) comes out, Flash will have been on Android for some time, and Microsoft will just be able to point and say "Given that everyone hates Flash on Google phones, we're not going to bother". This wouldn't be a great surprise; when Microsoft pre-announces a feature, that by no means demonstrates that the feature will actually ship, as we saw with Longhorn/Vista

It increasingly looks like Mobile Flash will be an Android-only thing, which can't be wonderful for Adobe.

Worst ad targeting ever

Should be self-explanatory.

Lazy, lazy police on anarchists

From the Guardian:

 There was no warning about other political groups, but next to an image of the anarchist emblem, the City of Westminster police's "counter terrorist focus desk" called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating: "Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police."

From the Wikipedia page on anarchism:

Anarchism has been variously defined by sources. Most often, the term describes the political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy

And the same page a few months ago:

Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy

Such a shame the wiki hadn't been vandalised the day they looked. "A type of vole? Oh, okay! Beware the voles, citizens!"