cayoblog

iPhone v Xserve

2007-07-07T18:49:00.000+01:00

After the weekend that saw the US-wide introduction of iPhone, we were treated to an equally long-awaited technical marvel of our own. A cluster of nine 3.0 GHz Xserve machines arrived. With 18 dual core CPUs, a 7 TB RAID and oodles of RAM, this was a piece of equipment that would serve us well for the next years. Scientific computing as we do it needs a lot of oomph.

But as genuine geeks and technophiles, we were of course aware of all the hoopla surrounding the iPhone. I myself had watched the January Macworld Keynote, and being an avid reader of DaringFireball, along with all the other reputable sources of Mac related news (CARS first among them), the excitement certainly didn't go unnoticed. Then came the finally days of buildup, on TWiT, on DF, on the Wallstreet Journal, and by Pogue. This was getting unreal, the whole tech world was getting swept up by this phenomenon.

Still, we had our job to do and had been looking forward to our own special XDay for several months. So when I got the message that the final parts had been delivered, I stormed home from work, packed up some essential tools, some buns and a large bottle of soda, my wife and daughter and met up with my co-conspirator to start unpacking the goods.

We soon started discussing the iPhone. What were it's real merits? Was it worthy of all the sound and fury? The specs surely look impressive on paper. Or on the web, to be more accurate. We continued along these lines as we schlepped the boxes - three Xserves at a time - through the narrow corridors of the department, from the IT offices to the small shack that would house the rack-mounted servers.

The iPhone certainly compares well to the likes of a Blackberry, a Treo or any other smartphone. Absolutely, that was evident, my colleague agreed, as we slid the penultimate 1u machine into place. While connecting the fiber-optic cables from the RAID to the top server node, I said that it would soon be compared to every other gadget on the market. Every mp3 player, every other phone, camera or small handheld internet device. Sure.. yes. The green and blue diagnostic lights started to flicker into action after we plugged in all the power cables and booted our cluster for the first time. The iPhone is better than just about everything on the market to date. Was it really better than.. .. well.. I looked at my friend. How would it compare to... I asked. He slowly shook his head, you can't suggest... A teraflop cluster with 36 cores ? 64 gigs of RAM and 24 installed hard drives ? How would the beloved iPhone compare to one of these puppies ? We had to know!

We decided to start where all Apple product descriptions start. The unpacking experience. I should preface the following by saying that all the information I have on the iPhone comes exclusively from the web - be they descriptions of sorts or movies on youTube. That just as a cautionary caveat.

So then.. the unboxing experience. The iPhone comes in a cute small box, which most buyers have commented very positively on. It easily fits into one hand and shows off the sleek and beautiful exterior of Apple's newest offering. Our toy came in twelve large boxes, each weighing upwards of 28 kilograms.

Unpacking the iPhone takes about twenty seconds, if you are very excited, don't mind scratching the box with your car keys and are desperate to upload your video of the procedure to youTube. Our unpacking procedure took a solid hour, mainly because moving boxes in and out of the small shack where we were setting up the cluster is an exercise in advanced logistics. The verdict: clearly the iPhone beat us hands down here.

Next is setup. To setup your iPhone, all you need to do is place it in the supplied cradle, and iTunes 7.3 walks you through all the steps. Activation requires, as everyone now knows, an AT&T account, costing between 59 and 99 US$ a month, only then can you use it to make a call. The Xserve does not come with a cradle, but all the software is pre-installed, and the IT department had issued us with ten IP addresses beforehand. So if you want to make a call - as we are on a very fast University internet connection - Skype can be downloaded in a few seconds and you are ready to go! There is also no price-plan attached to an Xserve -although two part time support staff have to be paid to keep it running (one of them being yours truly, the other my friend opposite). As more infrastructure is required to operate an Xserve cluster, here again the iPhone is the winner.

When comparing other features, things get even more interesting. The iPhone includes an iPod. As the storage capacity is either 4 or 8 GB, this translates to being able to hold upto 800 or 1600 songs, respectively. The storage on our Xserve RAID is currently 7 TB, which means it can hold roughly 1.5 million songs. This equates to roughly half of the total catalog of the iTunes Music Store. Clearly, the cluster spanks the iPhone here.

It loses out on not having a number of other goodies. There is no ambient light sensor. We are not that fussed, because the lighting conditions hardly vary in the tiny room we are in. If the lights are on, you can see, if the lights are off, it is very dark. We always work with the lights turned on. Also, there is no accelerometer. Its function is to indicate to the iPhone if it is being held in portrait or landscape mode. On the cluster though, this is not a major downside, as it is not recommended to operate the rack-mounted server in landscape mode at all. But the lack of gee-whiz sensors hands another win to iPhone.

Let's talk about important tech stuff such as IO. These features could hardly be more different. The iPhone has a headphone jack for audio-out, and one 30-pin iPod connector as it's main interface with the computer or peripherals. That's it, two ports. Contrast this with the cluster: it has two independent Gigabit ethernet connectors, two FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports and one mini-DVI port per unit, of which there are nine. This adds up to 72 ports in total. Our cluster is also equipped with a dual channel fiber-optic PCI card for ultra-fast IO. Alas, there is no headphone jack anywhere in sight, even though many of the small holes at the back of the unit look like one (but they're not - we checked). Upshot - if you like lots of ports, go with an Xserve, if you don't want lots of holes, take an iPhone. Verdict: even par.

The iPhone does have the upper hand in terms of wireless. It supports WiFi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth, EDGE and has access to the cellular network. In actual fact, the iPhone itself can be completely wireless if you buy a bluetooth headset. Very sleek. This is totally different on the cluster. At the back of the unit, when you have everything plugged in, there are wires absolutely everywhere and it looks a total mess. In terms of pure elegance, the iPhone wins by a large margin. We were getting trounced.

Next up is everyday use and mobility. Both machines are designed for everyday usage. We expect to run our servers 24/7, most days of the year. People also expect their phones to be working whenever they are. This is either all day (if you are on call), or between the hours of 11 am and 2 pm, if you work in our IT department. Mobility is high on the list of priorities for the iPhone. It weighs in at 135 g. You can take it just about anywhere, as it easily fits in a shirt pocket or handbag. The assembled cluster weighs more than 175 kg. It can be moved a few inches if you manage to point all four wheels of the rack-mount in the same direction. This is harder to do than on an average shopping trolley, so beware. In this category, again the iPhone comes out top. This was getting worrying.

The last comparison deals with price and running costs. The iPhone costs either US$ 499 or 599 up front. Add to that a two year contract worth at least US$ 59 a month, and you arrive at a grand total of US$ 1915 in the cheapest case, or 2975, if you go with the 8 gig model and the 99 bucks a month plan. This sort of money will be available in most average household budgets. To finance our baby, we had to write a grant application to a government funding agency, wait months on their decision and fret if it was going to be approved or not. The total amount we needed was upward of 250.000 US$, covering hardware, warranty and part time staff. This is serious money. An iPhone can be had at less than one percent of that cost. This iPhone was good! We were beginning to regret our purchase.

We had to regroup. And focus. There is no coverflow on the cluster, as it still runs OS 10.4 Server. No visual voicemail, no multitouch to pinch and zoom, no one finger scrolling, no swish sliders to unlock the unit! This was serious, we were getting desperate! Why again did we spend that quarter of a million dollars ? What were those killer features of the server OS ? We hastily leafed through the manuals and looked for reassurance. Why don't we have Google maps, this thing isn't even quad-band and where is that cleaning/polishing cloth ?! Ah.. yes! Here...Xgrid for distributed computing, access control lists and multihoming, as well as all the admin tools you will ever need to manage this thing from off-site. And not to forget those 18 dual core 3 GHz processors... and the terabytes in that RAID. Whoa, we could breathe again. That was close.

Alive again!

2007-04-12T10:08:00.000+01:00

This has been inactive for nearly a year. A year ! Holy s.. mokes. And sure enough, things have happened. Will update soon.. (right..! ). In any case, I need to revive something here. Let's get started.

Citation Circle

2006-04-13T23:50:00.000+01:00

Now that Gruber has gone mainstream (and many congratulations to that, John ! ), all I need to do is wiggle myself into that cosy citation circle as well. John, gentleman that he is, has of course reciprocated, and quoted a worthy news article of the elevating site on his fireball. It was on the issue of booting windows. Boot Camp reverberations abound. Impossible to say who went first. Most certainly, and by his own admission, Siracusa was fairly late. His pointing to Grubers article was early indication that John (G.) is on his way up. The small 'via aim' references at DaringFireball already hinted at an ever closer connection between John and John (S and G). The BootCamp issue made it official. But final confirmation came when J.G. (as he signs his emails to yours truly) quoted said article of the website that made him mainstream: Boot into Windows, published online on April 11th. A month earlier, the journalists made first mention of him, on their regular 'Friday Help Desk' feature. Here it is verbatim:

"Don’t go to Chris Breen or John Gruber or Rob Griffiths if you want help on any of those subjects, either."

That was it. A short but inclusive mentioning of Gruber. Alongside Chris Breen and Rob Griffiths. What more can an aspiring author hope for ? So, in all fairness, Gruber quotes them back. Full Circle. I say, you've made it if you're mentioned by CARS. Forget Digg, technocrati, even John Siracusa. None of this beats a throwaway remark at the Q&A about Trojans (as it was in this case). And no, I'm not talking about the rubber sort.. sheesh.

Oh! Two dot Oh!

2006-03-31T13:15:00.000+01:00

Newsweek knows it, and has made a lovely wordplay out of it ("Putting the 'We' in Web"). Bloggers fear it, or endear it, or simply always hear it. We should just embrace it and get over it. As much as everyone hates taglines and buzzwords, it is here. And despite pundits everywhere insisting that the 2.0 moniker actually means nothing, it does.

Saying that 2.0 is used because people want the buzz again, is true. Saying that 2.0 is just what 1.0 wanted to be, is true. Saying that hearing 2.0 makes you want to puke is.. well, understandable. Well, then puke. People with a sense of perspective, like Tim O'Reilly, don't find 2.0 so hard to understand. And why should it be ? 1.0 was primarily one-way, 2.0 is equally two-way. What's so hard about that ?

Things follow from that, obviously. Eddies of complexity will appear and are doing so. Great ! Flickr, mySpace, Digg. Maybe it makes you giddy trying to classify everything at once, shoehorning things into a single cage. Then don't! Or if you insist, let the explanation be longer than one sentence.

It used to be 'the big three-oh' that everyone was afraid of. Now, the next generation is staring at two dot oh with equally frightful eyes.

Don't fret. Once you hit it, you'll see it's not painful at all.

Windows User Calibration

2006-03-05T22:36:00.000Z

Reading about Windows Vista(tm) is a bit like watching a gory movie. I do it just for kicks, for the shivers, the joy of listening nails screech down a blackboard. So when John Gruber made Andre da Costa his 'Jackass of the Day', I had to read it. Head over to da Costa if you want to read at length (and I mean at length!) about what's new about Vista.

Da Costa's post got me thinking, and I headed over to PT's site (another gory stop), the 'Internet Nexus', one of Paul Thurrotts many web ventures. He mentioned that the next version of Windows will be offered in at least six flavours. Eight, if you count the European Versions separately, and even more if you make allowances for the 32 / 64 bit differences. That's heavy into the double digits. For one operating system. One - in theory.

The list currently is: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. All except Starter come in 32 and 64 bit versions, and Home Basis and Business will have said separate EU versions. Everyone will have their taylor-made version of Windows, it seems.

Imagine customer calls to your favourite ISP in the near future. As if the poor support personnel at the other end of the hotlines didn't have enough compatibility issues to tend with. Apart from XP, ME, 2000 et al., they will require you to specify which flavour of the current OS you are running.

I seriously think Microsoft is going down the wrong avenue here. If this trend continues, can you imagine where this will leave users for the next major revision ? How do you decide which version is the right one for you ? I suggest MS incorporate a query before each installation.

I call this "Windows User Calibration". Before you are allowed to install the OS, a program determines your computing needs. It finds out how advanced your computer knowledge is and gauges its installation accordingly. It will start by asking you simple questions about your basic understanding of computer technology. This will determine how - in future situations - it will go about giving you advice when troubleshooting.

If you come across as a real novice, you get the 'Starter Version'. If you know the difference between GB and GHz you are allowed to install the Home Basic Version. If you know what IEE1394 refers to, the speed of your USB 2 port, and what BIOS and MSDOS stands for, you get Home Premium. Anything to do with ROI, FTSE or NAFTA, you are clearly headed for one of the Business packs. This way the system knows exactly who you are and what software components need to be on your computer. It will be able to classify you easily, and calibrate all of the components adequately to your abilities.

Real geeks, of course, will head for the Ultimate Edition. Or they will just install Linux and be done with it.

You should be able to do at least this....

2006-02-11T22:14:00.000Z

At the moment, I'm really quite happy with things in my life. I like my new job, things are going nicely, the other people in the group are all great, without exception. I have my own space in the lab, and a corner desk (not yet quite the corner office;-)). I like the desk, and there would be even more space for myself and all the accouterments of doing science (papers, folders for results, lots of catalogs... stuff, in less words), if I didn't have to share my desk with one of the communal Dell PCs.

For people who know me, this must be a bit of a shock. I try not to be as ardently outspoken as many other Mac fans, but I do pride myself in the knowledge that I've been lucky enough to have always had a Mac at work. It's just standard in my part of science. This has been the case in each and every lab I've worked in so far, and in many labs I know around at different universities. But now, there is a Dell on my desk. Fine. I've learnt to deal with hiccups. We can make this work. How hard can it be.

Turns out, it isn't hard. A few minor details are different. Imperceptibly so, or annoyingly so. I asked our lab IT person to let me install Firefox, I have the login password, I can do stuff. Hey, Windows kinda does it. It crashed the first time I inserted my (Mac formatted) USB stick, and couldn't reformat it for the life of it. But hey, that's like asking an American to understand a sentence in French. No can do. Fine, I'll deal with it. Removed the USB stick, plugged it into my PowerBook, and asked the Mac to reformat it. It does so. Being a member of a smaller nation, it is invariably multilingual. The PC now accepts the memory stick without a struggle.

There are a few things I haven't mastered yet. Like getting a new Windows Explorer window with a keystroke (akin to command-N in OS X). I use the mouse. Works ! New folders, ditto. I miss the ability to view the contents of folders by having collapsable hierarchies

(this is what I mean), and can't for the life of me understand why Windows won't calculate the size of a folder, even if the 'size' column appears in list view. Surely, a Pentium IV must have enough oomph to perform sums.

I like the task bar at the bottom, but that sidebar thingy in each window has yet to provide me with any appreciable use. Of course, I severely miss Exposé. Yesterday, I ended up with five, yes, five, windows of the desktop open, because I hadn't realised there was another one open behind the browser window already. Or another two, or three, or actually four.

I admit, these are all very basic tasks. It should be able to do them well, after all, the system has been in development for over two decades. I was therefore a little suprised when I encountered something else which I had considered a basic task until then. At least (and now I'm entering full 'the Mac can do this eeaasily' mode..), I've never had any problems with something like this before. What I was trying to do was to move a folder from one location to another. Filesystem stuff. Basic. The one complication was that one of the files contained in the folder was open. I was viewing the file. While trying to move it. Aah, well. Ok, now we have a problem. Windows started the job. It ran into said problem, and, ... yes. It notified me of the issue. Good! It told me that it was having a hard time with something that I had asked the filesystem to do.

The results were a bit confused. As probably everyone in Windows world knows, you end up with two folders. And, again, as probably everyone has been taught to live with, the contents of the folders differ, and represent a job half finished. The file which is open remains at the source location, whereas the others have been moved to their intermittent destination (I say intermittent, because I was trying to move the folder to an altogether different location, and chose the desktop just as a halfway point in its short voyage across the filesystem).

Now, this is just plain silly. I got the impression that Windows was being prissy here. I asked it to do something fairly simple, maybe overlooking some of the hidden complexity of the task, and what I ended up with was a message saying: 'Can't do that, that's way to hard, I'm going', and it leaves me with a half finished job I have to clear up. Look, this is really your job, Windows. Move an item from A to B. You should be able to do this. Isn't this the prime purpose of a filesystem ? To keep files (and, by logical extension, folders) organised and to respond to user input when changes in this organisation are required ? This is the umpteenth iteration of Windows, and this issue must have arisen before, at some point. I'm actually pretty sure John Gruber wrote about this a while ago (I wish I could link to his article directly, but, as I said, it was a while ago, I can't remember the heading of his piece, and his headlines are just about as opaque and unhelpful as mine). Others must be aware of this, too.

Be a Pill

2006-01-22T22:11:00.000Z

David Pogue, love the man ! :) How to be a curmudgeon ... read on
here.

No more no Radio?

2006-01-14T19:54:00.000Z

Among all the hoopla about the iTunes MiniStore calling home and possibly (or not) giving away information about your musical tastes, and the assurances from Apple that none of this information is kept, and anyway, you can simply command-shift-m everything dubious away, what happened to the ability to show/hide the radio?

Wasn't there a check box to disable the radio item in the source list ? Seems nobody has picked up on this yet. Strange.

[UPDATE]
The checkbox has moved, as Leo from fscklog let me know. It's now under 'parental' in the prefs. My previous iTunes updates must have just retained the setting (in good Apple manner) without having me hunt for the checkbox. Good to know it's still there.

Core Duo

2006-01-12T11:06:00.000Z

We've seen it, drooled over it, and are fumbling to pronounce 'MacBook Pro' at every turn. But say what you will, there is one thing that is enormously relieving: Intel may be on the inside... but it is not a Pentium!! What a timely change from them. I can live with 'core duo'.

'Core Duo' has a nice ring to it. It reminds me of the very first Apple laptop I owned, which was a Duo. Great little machine ! :) I wonder if Steve was pushing for a name change on Intels part. It's not a Pentium, not a Centrino, has a new swish logo that has an Apple like luster to it.. nice.

In between Times

2005-10-19T13:09:00.000+01:00

This is going to be interesting. In the seven years I've lived here, the Conservatives have gone through three leaders. And now they are set to elect another one. Ken Clarke was ousted from the selection process yesterday, and the contenders are scampering to get his supporters. As much as this decision will influence future British politics enormously (will it ?), I want to capture this moment, where things have not yet been decided. I love these 'in between' times. And althouth Cameron has just been saying that he takes nothing for granted, he will emerge on top. My inkling, nothing more. But as we don't know, and can't be sure, and are held not to predict, these times are interesting.

Long Tail Science

2005-10-16T18:29:00.000+01:00

Taking a page out of Chris Andersons book, I am sure that this applies to science aswell:

It seems obvious in hindsight. As most of the long tail metaphor does. The interesting thing is what you can do with it, once you have really understood the concept. I suppose you can plot the impact factor of science journals and get such a curve.

[Update]: people have looked into this. This June, Nature had a short story on exactly this topic (Nature 435, 1003-1004 (23 June 2005)):

These figures all reflect just how strongly the impact factor is influenced by a small minority of papers — no doubt to a lesser extent in more specialized journals, but significantly nevertheless. However, we are just as satisfied with the value of our papers in the ‘long tail’ as with that of the more highly cited work.

The citation rate of our papers also varies sharply between disciplines. Many of Nature’s papers in immunology published in 2003 have since received between 50 and 200 citations. Significant proportions of those in cancer and molecular and cell biology have been in the 50−150 range. But papers in physics, palaeontology and climatology typically achieved fewer than 50 citations. Clearly, these reflect differences in disciplinary dynamics, not in quality.

It would be interesting to see the disciplines aligned according citations.

RIBA Sterling 2005

2005-10-16T11:11:00.000+01:00

Pretty neat architecture. Very different buildings. The Scottish Parliament won the prize this year. It was probably a foregone conclusion, especially since it was given twice as much time on air as the other buildings. I actually really liked the Fawoods Children's Centre a lot. It has open space indoor play grounds. Because the walls are just wiremesh, the indoors is equally outdoors. It looks wonderful, and gives the kids a lovely, uplifting and fun place in this otherwise quite dreary estate. The other buildings are also certainly worth a look. Channel 4 has a page on them here.

Stevenote

2005-10-14T19:37:00.000+01:00

This is Steve Jobs showing off PhotoBooth.. :) The crowd went hysterical..... :):)

The stream is currently here. Enjoy.

Blurb

2005-10-13T20:34:00.000+01:00

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been receiving calls from some phone company, wishing to sell me a new mobile phone. You can of course always tell right at the start - even before you hear a voice - that this is a sales call, because it takes a second or two to make the connection to India, while one is treated to a pleasant background of static crackling. After the line has sorted itself out, invariably a polite person asks me if I use a mobile phone, and if I was interested in upgrading to a new one.
Now, I have sympathy for these people. Those working the phones. The young people in India. So I am polite. I ask them, what they are offering me, and if they could tell me what it will cost (I love the bloke who initially sad he wasn't trying to sell me anything, just offering me a service. Sure, a service. One that I have to pay for, surely. He agreed. My question, what he was trying to sell me must have somehow caught him offguard).
Today the lady was slightly more impertinent. The offer sounded interesting. There were loads of free minutes, a free phone, free texts, cashback every three months. Ok, sounds nice. A free flight to Boston or New York. Wow.. really ? Amazing. That sounds great. I asked, whether I could have the details of these offers. Sure - do you have a pen ? No, I mean, in writing. Can you send me the details, on paper, as a proper contract ? With all the lovely benefits, freebies and cashbacks, so that I can properly decide, whether to take up your offer ? She argued with me. She offered me the phone number of the customer call centre (0870-66 66 888). The name of the company (Mangotel Inc, Tulip House), offered to repeat everything she said so that I could write it down. No, I am interested, but I would be glad to receive this offer from you, in writing. She became desperate. This she couldn't do, it would be like divorce before a marriage, was against company policy.
One does have to wonder. I did. Is this legal ? Do I have the right to expect to see something in writing before I commit to some vague offer ? The dti (Department of Trade and Industry) has a page entitled "Guide to Distance Selling Regulations" here. The seller does have to provide prior information. But written information only has to be given once an order has been made. This is the furthest the seller has to go, according to the dti:

The seller must provide this confirmation at the latest by the time that the goods are delivered or, in the case of services, before or in good time during the performance of the contract.

So, according to this, this is legit. I can always send it back, of course (although said lady referred to this as 'divorce before marriage' - how shameful my suggestion must have seemed). But I am not entitled to receiving an offer in writing before commiting myself. This is rubbish. But of course, one can always bluff, and bamboozle them, by telling them they are probably not dealing in accordance with the dti's regulation to Distance Selling, (SI 2000, No. 2334), which stipulates - and I quote - : "The seller must provide confirmation [of the goods or services offered ...] before or in good time during the performance of the contract." If you feel cheeky, leave out the "or in good time during".

Umfrage - Survey

2005-10-12T16:17:00.000+01:00

If you speak German - an alle deutschsprachigen hier.. :) Eine Blogger Umfrage...

Diskurs ist wichtiger als Dogmen

2005-10-11T23:30:00.000+01:00

Mein erster Eindruck ist, diese Entscheidung war falsch. Dem Spiegel zufolge hat Dieter Althaus, der Ministerpräsident von Thüringen, Siegfried Scherer ausgeladen. Ich kenne Scherer nicht, und halte kreationistische Ideen für wissenschaftlich leer und irreführend. Aber Diskussionen sind wichtig. Vielleicht würde ich nicht so urteilen, wenn sich Scherer als erfolgreicher Populist heraustellen würde, als jemand, der Eskimos Kühlschränke verkaufen kann, als Hypnotiseur oder Fernseh-prediger. Ich vermute aber vielmehr, dass er nicht die Gabe besitzt, Menschen von komplettem Unsinn überzeugen zu können. Und insofern sollte man sich seinen Thesen stellen, seine Anschauungen betrachten und kritisieren dürfen. Auch - und vielleicht insbesonders - öffentlich. Es sieht nun nach Zensur aus, was der Debatte nicht hilft.

CARS

2005-10-11T22:40:00.000+01:00

We all love CARS. At least, I do. Everybody loves CARS ! If you're thinking four wheels, a bonnet and cylinders, fuel fumes and the like, sorry, nope. I cycle everywhere, and I'm talking about CrazyAppleRumourSite. They are just brilliant. I don't know what it is, they just really make me laugh. Gotta love them.. this is just too good. Love it. I'd love to see how they work. I can sort of imagine, and maybe I don't really want to know... but their stories are just ... Although.. you have to be a complete Mac-head, to find their stories even remotely funny. But as I am... :) I should link to some of their best stories. The TiBook one all started it off for me. It was actually quoted in a newsgroup, and some people believed it was a genuine news story. The resulting outraged comments were hilarious...

What is this called again... ?

2005-10-07T19:53:00.000+01:00

He is my favorite web-pundit. He adorns his site with an evocative image courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc. - without a copyright notice, or even a link to the proprietors site. He then spends a number of posts on the issue of the scratching iPod nano. In his eyes, 'this is suddenly starting to look like a huge problem' - notwithstanding the headline, identifying the same issue as 'Pocket-sized'. Maybe he has huge pockets.. He then quotes Jim Allchin, whose nano broke on him the first day he had it. That's sad. Jim is a terrific guy (not that I know him personally... but I've read things that make me respect him), but that wasn't a particularly effective swipe, either. He, PT, has a psychopathically ambivalent attitude towards Apple. Loves the stuff, and loves to take a whack. Reminds me of Monty Python: the Aussies hunting mosquitoes: 'I love animals, that's why I like to kill'em' Go ahead, Paul. Take another shot.

Amanda Platell

2005-10-06T17:45:00.000+01:00

A few days ago the BBC aired a programme entitled 'How Euro Are You ?'. Andrew Marr hosted it, together with Dara O'Briain. It was one of the usual audience - cum - panel quizzes, where you get to answer mildly or terribly inane questions on your opinions on some subject - Europe in this case. Among the panelists was Amanda Platell, William Hagues former press secretary. A conservative Lady, who is originally from Perth, Australia.

At one point the discussion turned to the role of the media in shaping opinions of Britons toward mainland Europe. A person in the audience noted how she found the papers were full of mistrust and in some cases, outright lies, about what happens on the continent. This was the source of the many negative feelings people here harboured toward the rest of europe. Amanda disagreed. The papers, she said, would simply go out of business, if they didn't reflect the views of the public. They were not responsible. They simply mirrored opinions held by the majority of the public. This is what the readership wanted. You would go broke if you tried to sell them anything else.

This is hardly a convincing argument. It reminds me very much of what Jamie Oliver faced when he tried to do something about the attrocious food children are / were being served in schools here. The retort constantly was that these children simply wanted rubbish food, they loved it, wouldn't eat anything else. No matter that we know it is devoid of anything really healthy, contains nigh a trace of minerals, is low on vitamins and makes kids hyperactive and fat.

The same can be said for the news outlets Amanda works for. What they write is dangerously low on the essential trace elements of context, perspective and subtle argumentation. They sell easily digestible headlines, under the excuse that it is this that people crave for. As if we didn't know any better. This kind of nurishment is analogous to a diet consisting exclusively of saturated fat, processed starch, flavoured only with lots of sugar or salt. Refried Headlines. Fizzy News.

Sampling Error

2005-04-19T00:37:00.000+01:00

Just watched the end of Channel 4's 'The Hundred Greatest Albums'. What is your guess for the all time No. 1 album ? Well, whatever your guess, it's wrong. According to whoever voted, it is 'Ok Computer' by Radiohead. Surely, surely this must be some kind of sampling error. WTF are Radiohead ??? They aren't even in the iTMS! Ok, I've heard of the band, seems familiar. And I'm sure they're pretty good, have a ton of fans and all. But the No. 1 album of all time ?? You cannot be serious! (sorry, John.. ;-). Are they short of cash and somehow got to the heads at Ch. 4 ? Did they come in at number 7 and someone couldn't read some other blokes handwriting ? Suure, they're better than U2 with Joshua Tree (nr. 2), a hotter sell than anything Madonna ever did (well, ok, maybe..), and so much more influential than 'Dark Side of the Moon', of course ! What was I thinking ?!

The really weird thing is, that up until that moment, it sort of made sense. Sgt. Peppers was 7th (or so), Nirvana with Nevermind number three. Well, I can see that. That's a seriously cool album. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Lithium, Come As You Are... Madonna was somewhere up there, number 5 or 6. She's made great music, no question. Fine, put her in the top ten, I guess most people can agree to that. Oasis had a to ten album (so this is a british channel - sue them :). At least they weren't interviewing Liam Gallagher.. Guns n' Roses were up there somehow (on the merit that we can all sing the chorus to 'Paradise City'... geez..!) number nine, I think. All big guys (or girls). Automatic for the People landed just outside the top ten. Michael Stipe was cool and sweet as ever. He loves 'Man on the Moon', great song. He said he was hanging out with Curt Cobain a lot and Curt always used to put a lot of 'yeah's' in his songs. So Michael Stipe wanted to sing a song with more 'yeah's' in it than any song Curt had written. He managed.. ! 56, it said :)

I can get most of this. But what fluke of statistics put 'Ok computer' ahead of all these fantastic, great, heartwarming, soulsearching, earthshattering collections of songs ?? I hope I'm not as stumped by the result of the next big poll, on May 5th...

Don't Mention the War!

2005-04-17T00:36:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I need to say why I've been so reticient for the last days. This nasty flu had me firmly in its grip for about a week. It felt like a total waste of time, especially since I've got a lot to do and I don't want to hang in bed all day. But there you are... some nastly little viral strain got the better of me.

On Wednesday I was in town for the first time again, in the evening. We met friends and went to see 'The Downfall', which really was a worthwhile movie. It didn't grip me as strongly as 'Schindler's List' did, years ago (gee, that was 1993!). I saw that movie in Berlin, for some reason. I was obviously a lot younger, 21. But after coming out of the cinema those years ago, I was aghast. I was the same nationality as that insane man Goeth, and my ID card bore the word 'Deutsch', the same word that was written across the entrance to Schindlers factory, the 'Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik'. It was frightening, gripping and full of a sense of real horror. All contrasted with the amazing humanity of some of the protagonists, mainly of course Itzhak Stern, played so magnificiently by Ben Kingsley.

Now, of course, everyone has seen Schindler's List and I need not say much about that film. 'The Downfall' was quite different. The people were a lot closer. Closer to the camera, for one. Closer to each other, locked up for days, weeks, in that bunker. The closeness of warmth and insanity, as seen in the eyes and the words of Bruno Ganz, portraying Hitler.

What also struck me is how long it took German cinema to make such a movie. Daring to make a movie about how everything ended, and thus showing how history got rid of this nightmare of a regime, must be a bit like finally laying it to rest. Maybe those were the apprehensions previously. Be that as it may, one of the faces I remember most vividly is that of Christian Berkel playing the doctor Ernst-Günter Schenck. The professor, who refuses to be evacuated right at the beginning of the film, and in the end escorts Traudl Junge out of the bunker. He seemed to not quite understand what was going on, all the while acting as if he knew exactly what was to be done. This kind of incredulous amazement seemed most appropriate for that particular time. This massivley cruel and violent structure is tumbling down right before his very eyes, and he has to cope, find his way through it. That was fascinating.

Then, just a few weeks ago, I walked past the block of flats that stands next to the patch of grass at the Wilhelmstraße, in Berlin Mitte. There is no sign, no memorial. It is, though, very close to the large Holocaust Memorial which is being finished right now just south of the Brandenburger Tor. This is of course the site of the bunker. It is eerily devoid of mention. It seems this is still a place we'd rather not look at.

Gaps

2005-04-08T00:37:00.000+01:00

Everyone is familiar with the gaps to be minded on the London tube. I've just encountered some quite different ones. Because I am currently seeking for a job, I have the ability to claim for various kinds of benefits. Nice - just that I don't qualify for any of the major programmes, Job Seekers allowance et al. Still, the government is willing to come up for my National Insurance contributions (which otherwise would just go unpaid), and I'm glad they do. To this end, I need to sign up every two weeks, which means going to the Job Centre and sitting down at a desk for a brief period of time. I am happy to oblige.

Today was slightly different. After thirteen weeks (why thirteen?) you are scheduled for a slightly longer interview. The curious thing is, I found out today, the Job Centre offers a number of training programmes (of which I hadn't been previously informed) that you are eligible for up to thirteen weeks after your last employment. So people who show up to their thirteen week interview can be told that they are not eligible for these wonderful course (if they are that..), because they have been unemployed for longer than thirteen weeks. If that isn't a feat of just in time scheduling. It appears like an episode from a Douglas Adams novel. Please make sure that you arrive on time, so that we can tell you that you are too late.

And it continues. The next courses are available to those who are unemployed for longer than 12 months. I know this makes perfect sense to someone well trained in bureaucracy. And I perfectly accept that training resources are scarce and need to be allocated appropriately. Nonetheless, it's an interesting situation to be in. Oh, sorry, you've been unemployed for too long. Oh, sorry, you haven't been unemployed long enough. Everyone smiles, and agrees that these gaps are regrettable. Being told both these things on the same day is odd. Then why did you ask me to come here today ? I ask myself. In my mind, the nice clerk at the other side of the desk answers: Yes, we get these questions very often. We haven't yet been able ascertain the exact reason for this common enquiry...

Peeves - Pet and Otherwise

2005-04-03T01:35:00.000+01:00

On Friday, Karen and I had lunch with our closest friends here in Cambridge. They are a true delight to be with. And while talking about this that and the other, I noticed something that had always annoyed me greatly with other people I know. Often, while talking to some of my friends, I will start some little story about a weird or amusing occurence. Just any old story that happened to me recently, and is slightly worth telling. Then, at the end of it, someone else will start another story with the interminably annoying words: "Yes, but it was even better when I...." or "Yes, but the best thing was when I...." or something to that extent. It has always bugged the hell out of me. They probably don't even realise what they are saying, but why on earth is their story even better, let alone the best ?? Just tell your story, do your spiel, go ahead and say it... just don't put yourself above anyone else here! I find this incredibly rude, because it's a subtle and superfluous way to blow ones own horn. It happens so often with a certain bunch of my friends, that the expectation of their reaction is really off-putting.

How different things can be with a little bit of consideration. With these particular friends, things are totally different. I have never heard any of them introduce their remarks with such superlatives. It's just not necessary, and becomes so boring when it is completely predictable. Certain people just do it all the time, regardless of how good, funny or obtuse their little thing actually is.

Plus, I don't know how to react to this. What do I say ? Let them finish, and then bluntly say that it wasn't the funniest thing ever after all ? Counterstrike, by saying something else that is even better than the best story on earth, ever ? I'd do that, but I'm not twelve anymore. Be ironic, laughing and saying that yes, this really was the best story I've ever heard, by far and away and without a shadow of doubt, funnier than all of Blackadder, Chris Rock and Crazyapplerumors put together, squeezed through a funny-extractor cloth and distilled in a single drop of ultra-extreme funnyness. Your story really was the best. Thing. Ever.
:)

A Toy that Saved My Life

2005-03-31T01:34:00.000+01:00

This is about a toy that saved my life. Not literally, as it was my academic life that was threatened, not my biological one. Years ago at Uni, I had a final chance to re-sit an particularly nasty biophysics exam. In addition to being my last chance, it was going to be an oral examination, meaning I was convinced I really had to know my stuff. I had a few months to prepare, and prepare I needed to do.

For some strange reason, I convinced myself that what I needed was a white-board. I would pace up and down my room, thinking, repeating formulas and checking myself when writing them down on the board. I could wipe mistakes away, redo calculations, correct formulas. It seemed the perfect solution. And - lo and behold - it was. After some hunting around, I got a nice, large and heavy one and hung it in my room. From day one I was enthralled. Much to my surprise, it had exactly the effect on me that I had hoped for. I could pace up and down my room, think, repeat, write... it was fantastic. In a geeky, studenty kind of way. I loved that white-board. The daily sight of arcane formulas was reassuring in the days while preparing for the exam. Later, the use was more mundane, when I noted shopping lists or to do's. Friends would jot down stuff or leave messages, if I was away. I splattered it with ideas, doodles, telephone numbers. Whatever came up, went up. Up on the board.

Now - I have been living without this board for the past years. When I moved to England, there just wasn't space in my luggage, and neither in the small college room where I stayed for the first months. After that, accommodation was always university property, and drilling holes into walls was severely frowned upon. No white-board. Luckily, this didn't have a major negative effect on my academic life here (although I did miss it occasionally), and time passed and degrees were awarded. Some years and a PhD later, I am still without white-board. Until today, that is ! Once again there is this creeping feeling that I need to wander and think, plan while holding a fat marker, being able to walk while going over ideas. So, I walked into Staples, and out with one under my arm. It's still on the floor, the power-drill is charging its batteries. I have high hopes again, although no biophysics exam is waiting for me this time. But projects are nonetheless, and ideas, and doodles, and telephone numbers...

Capa in Berlin

2005-03-31T00:33:00.000+01:00

Apart from not going to Christoph Schlingensiefs play (or rather, going, but walking out again), I also went to two exhibits in the 'Gropius Bau' in Berlin. One was an exhibition about Stanley Kubrick (way too much to take in in one afternoon - but brilliant nonetheless). There were photographs, film snippets and props from nearly every one of his films, including the mask Tom Cruise wore in 'Eyes Wide Shut', as well as his cape.

The other one was a Robert Capa retrospective. I initially kept mixing him up in my head with Frank Capra, who is, of course, someone else altogether. Capra made movies, and imdb tells me there are 52 of them. Robert Capa was a photoreporter, who was born as Andre Friedmann in Hungary. His legacy are over 10000 pictures (stills), and a few of them are iconic. Such as his picture of Pablo Picasso, holding a parasol for Francoise Gilot, or the world famous picture of a soldier collapsing in the spanish civil war. There is quite a controversy about this latter image, and the exhibition catalogue had a multipage article by Robert Whelan devoted to dispelling the myth that it is a fake. His article can be found here (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/capa_r.html). I personally find it hard to believe that two people were shot at exactly the same spot, and that they collapsed in a nearly identical manner. It might of course be a moot point, as everyone has seen the image and has felt the shudder of the closeness and the immediacy of killing. As an image of pointless death, it is clearly evocative enough.

Back again

2005-03-29T03:32:00.000+01:00

Back from Germany. We spent the last ten days home. This trip had the shortest planning time of my life. The reason was a sad one, a funeral. So we booked RyanAir tickets and were airborne less than 24 hrs later. Arriving in Lübeck I noticed once again how calm Germany is. It felt appropriate and welcome, though. After the hustle of India, the uncertainty of our own life in Cambridge, the grey skies and the reserved nature of the people in Schleswig-Holstein seemed like a relief.
Days later I made my way to Berlin via Münster. Job interview. It went incredibly well, and know I have to face the prospect of moving to Westfalen. Why not, it seems like a very pleasant part of Germany. We'll be spending a fair amount of thought on that.
Berlin was great as ever. It's such a cool place. We walked around the banks of the Spree, passing the Paul-Löbe Haus, peeking into the foyer, where the MdBs (the parliamentarians) walk and lobby around. We walked quite a bit, and that evening, I walked out of a Schlingensief production. Kunst und Gemüse, Theater ALS Krankheit. A play about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. We were naïve enough to walk into the theatre without knowing a thing about the play... Trust Schlingensief to make you wrench, give you a headache and just be plain annoying(*). We left, got our money back and went to a Sushi bar. My parents stayed and watched the play. Isn't it kinda cool when the older generation is more open minded than the younger one ;). They didn't like it either, though, but had the stomach to sit through 90 minutes of disorientating mayhem. We talked at length about how the theatre scene in Germany is so different from that here in Britain. And even though I love surrealist painting, the writings of Breton, or most of what Damien Hirst does, I can't stand much of what is put on stage in avant garde places in Germany. I just don't get it, it just assaults my senses, and I can't properly cope with any of their images. If they want to communicate anything meaningful, please, adjust the volume, and I'm happy to listen.
The exhibition in Kiel was much more interesting. Shanghai Modern, chinese paintings from the 1930s. I had no idea that there was a great fascination of chinese artists with european art at that time. They took up styles and were assessing their own work in view of the modernists in Europe. Those must have been exciting times. Both Mao and the Nazis put an end to that exchange. Sixty years onwards, and people are apparently starting to reopen that chapter.

(*) Disclaimer: As this is a (semi-) public forum, I should probably add that my annoyances are directed against the production of the play, and not against sufferers of this terrible and debilitating disease. I would have gladly donated the entrance fee to a fund aiming at helping these people.

2005-03-17T11:20:00.000Z

Calculating Vision

2005-03-17T00:22:00.000Z

This is quite an amazing story. It's on the cover of Nature, from a few days back (3 March 2005). Our brain is constantly involved in figuring out how things actually look like. Not just how they appear to our eyes. This subtle difference is apparent, when one looks at the images shown in the article (pp. 79-83). It's quite a striking effect - I scanned in one image (part of Figure 1).

The rationale given is that our brain is trying to asses the true optical properties of each and every object, and not just pass on the exact image that reaches the retina. So there is a lot of computation going on, which takes into account such things as ambient light, haze and similar things. I guess, these things are more or less 'added to' or 'substracted' from the image that reaches the back of the eye. Our perception is then suitably adjusted, giving rise to what can be 'seen' here above. The circles on the left clearly are dark in tone, whereas we get the feeling that the ones on the right are actually very light. In fact, of course, the circles themselves are completely identical. Yes, I find that hard to believe myself ! But you can check... :)

Free as in...

2005-03-16T00:28:00.000Z

We just got back from India two weeks ago. While we were there, we got ourselves an Indian SIM card for our mobile, which worked perfectly fine. Sweet and easy. The only strange thing was that after nearly every phone call we received an SMS advertising some useless competition or such. Blech.

Well, now we're back, and need a different SIM. Fine, again no real sweat. Pay-as-you go will do fine, signed up and all is nice. Walking out of the store, maybe 200 yards down the road, the mobile rings. What gives ? No one has the new number yet. I receive the call, and.. well, of course. It's an ad. 500 free SMS messages if I call this number. At home, I check the terms and conditions. Sure, there it is. By accepting the 500 free messages, I am in fact signing up to a monthly service which will cost me £ 1.50 a week. For whatever, more ads, more rubbish. But the SMS's are free. Sure. They are free, other than the fact that you have to pay for them.

I love that. I dream of applying for a job in one of these companies. When it comes to discussing my payment, I'll just say 'oh, yes. I'll work for free, sure.' Everybody laughs, we're all happy. All they have to do is adhere to the terms and conditions. £ 50 an hour. Other than that, my services are free.

Weblog 101 - Getting Off the Ground

2005-03-15T23:20:00.000Z

HW :)

'Hello World', I guess this has never been as pertinent for me as now. There you go, a new blog. I need to fix a few things, as soon as I've figured out how. Links, I want to have different ones (obviously!). Then there need to be new header pics. It's kinda exciting... all the while people are writing blogs by the million.

Whats with my title ? We'll come to that, too. All in due course ;-). I need to find the ropes first. Let's see. First post :)