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So there I was, catching up on questionable content when this happened: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1379


The ensuing twitter conversation between myself (bobreturns) and Mark (thesheldon):


@thesheldon "The Daft Punk Disco Dong - Harder! Better! Faster! Stronger! You'll be saying 'One More Time' All Night Long!" I lolled.

@bobreturns from which questionable corner of the interwebz did you dredge that?!

@bobreturns also, serious missed opportunity there for a 'rollin' and scratchin' ' pun...

@thesheldon "make Love" with "Emotion" "Face to Face" with this "too long" "aerodynamic" "digital love" machine - "Prime Time of Your Life"

@bobreturns 'oh yeah' it will definitely make you feel 'alive'. No more need for ''crescendolls,' this gives 'da funk' 'daftendireckt.'

@thesheldon And no worries! It'll keep you "fresh" rather than "Burnin'" "Around the World"

@bobreturns no need for 'teachers,' this 'technologic' 'hi fidelity' 'voyager' will make you feel 'human after all'

@thesheldon Oh dear, I think you just broke me. Also, we're pretty much out of songs.

@bobreturns who wouldve thought so many innocent looking daft punk tunes were actually thinly vieled sex toy ads?!

@thesheldon To be fair... the lyrics of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger make it pretty damn obvious. "Work it harder" etc.


Oh dear.

Lately I've been reading up on an interesting Geology/Environmental
Chemistry topic - what the near and distant geological future will be
like without us, and what kind of trace we'll leave behind.
Ignoring the perhaps slightly morbid subject of the extinction of the
entire human race it's a fascinating subject. A lot of people have
difficulty comprehending the vastness of geological time and how small
a part of the Earth's history we're a part of, and looking at this
subject reinforces how small an impact we actually have.

The two books I've read on the topic take vastly different approaches
to the subject. The first, "The Earth After Us: What legacy will
humans leave in the rocks?" by Jan Zalasiewicz takes a long term view,
examining the topic from the point of view of an alien archeological
expedition visiting the earth 100 million years from now. In doing so
he retells the history of our discoveries in the geological sciences,
turning the book into a history of geology from the age of the
enlightenment through to the present day. By taking this long term
view of the situation Zalasiewicz concludes that the traces we leave
will be noticeable, but perhaps not as catastrophic as certain
environmental groups would have us believe. This text makes for a
great introduction to geology, but as a second year geology student I
found little material that was new to me, except perhaps for some
specifics about how geological processes would affect preservation of
human artifacts.

The second book, "The World without Us" by Alan Weisman takes a
shorter term approach, examining the effects we've had on the planet
now and how they'll extend forward in time. I thought this book had a
lot of potential, it included some great science about breakdown times
of materials, the effects of the elements on buildings and our effects
on biodiversity. However, the author tends to get caught up in his
characters - the biologists and park rangers he interviews get long,
scene-setting prose that outweighs their actual contribution to the
book by a substantial margin. Weisman also tends to get caught up in
a bit of an environmentalist crusade, writing lovingly of prehuman
times - particularly about large mammals in North America which have
been killed off by humanity. Ultimately, the book takes a fairly short
term view, which dissapointed me. I don't hold much truck with those
who seem to view the very existence of the human race as an affront to
the natural way of things - it's true we've created problems, but we'd
be better managing these than never having existed.

The subject as a whole is very interesting, but ultimately I was
dissapointed by the treatment of it in these books, I was looking for
a clear headed scientific examination of mankinds legacy in the rock
record, and instead was treated to typical science writing aimed to
entertain rather than inform.

Remember this post?

Yes well, I'm a shameless hypocrite. Since I wrote that I've not only bought an iPhone on contract but I've also got myself a MobileMe account. My justifications for this are many, but it mostly happened in September. Over a period of three days at the training for a new job everyone else around me was sitting playing with the things, and I started to see what the fuss was about.

This also coincided with needing a new phone for work, being addicted to twitter and looking for a decent ebook reader. A wired article about Stanza was the thing that settled it for me. I went out and bought one just like that.


Other news: I've got a new job (as implied above), I'm now an Apple Campus Representative for Glasgow University. Best job I've ever had, great pay, great benefits, just generally fantastic all round. If you're looking for info about higher education discounts, using macs at uni etc then e-mail me.

Also, there's a podcast episode recorded and in the bag which will be posted in the next week or so.

So I caved a while back and finally got myself a twitter account.

I fucking love it.

It's a great way to keep up with friends, bands, politics, authors. It's great fun, and It's nice to have a reference of which of my mates are doing what, where.

So despite my initial snubbing of twitter... I'm gonna have to give it a thumbs up.

So the iPhone's been out for a goodly long while now and I still haven't bought one. You wanna know why? It's not for me. Maybe if it didn't have the phone part or didn't have the ridiculously priced contracts (my current phone costs me maybe a tenner a month tops - I will not be changing this).
Similarly, the Kindle has been around for a while. On the surface it sounds pretty sweet, but this time it doesn't quite have all the features I want.

However, I need an e-book reader. I need a new media player (my shuffle is on its last legs). I need a portable internet/e-mail machine. Don't get me wrong, I love my 17" MacBook Pro. It's a wonderful machine, it's my TV, my music player, my word processor, my audio workstation etc etc. However I'll be damned if I lug the thing on the train, or to uni and then around all day one more time.

What I want is something portable, something that gives me what I want.

I want... an iPhone without the phone, a kindle in colour - a tablet PC that doesn't completely suck.



So here's what my ideal mobile device is:

Hardware:

• Multitouch Screen, I'm thinking 12" across or so. Colour, high-res. Basically the iPhone screen but bigger. Let me say this clearly: FUCK. E-INK.
• SD slot/other card reader
• Headphone Jack
• Wireless (802.11 b/g/n)
• Bluetooth would be nice, but isn't essential.
• 3G support* (see services)
• Flash SSD, doesn't have to be huge. 8-16GB should be plenty.
• No keyboard - keyboard is on screen, I don't plan on using this thing as a word processor.
• 3 buttons - home (like iPhone), and previous/next page.
• GPS - definitely a non-essential, but it would be nice to have.

Software:

• Operating System: Something similar to the iPhone OS - But a lot less locked down to allow whatever applications you like.

• PDF Reader -  +support for other e-book formats, CBRs for comics, photographs, etc
• Web Browser - Firefox, the full thing - would be nice if you could rotate the tablet for this.
• RSS reader - Just stick Thunderbird on there.
• MP3/(maybe) Video Player - VLC (or similar) supporting divx, ogg, open formats

Services:

The whole kindle thing with free(ish) EVDO is pretty neat. However for a mobile browsing device you probably also need 3G. Seperate from phone functions this isn't a huge issue, you can get mobile internet quite cheaply with USB sticks these days. I know Vodaphone for example do 3 gig a month for £15. That's reasonable enough. This isn't a device for bittorrent - it's for occasional browsing at most. Personally I could see myself going without such a service - after all I'd be using it at home on the couch (home wireless network) or at uni (uni wireless - although I would need a VPN client on the device to use it - silly security thing for using the uni network, not an insurmountable issue).


I can't be the only one who wants something like this can I?
It looks like Apple might be leaning that way at least....

I haven't been posting much lately so I though I'd fire up a few videos I took at the Jason Mraz gig in Glasgow.





Last.fm event details

Flickr Page

Went shopping to one of my favourite shops today - the Oxfam records store. I absolutely adore that place, I firmly believe that the future of music is in digital downloads and vinyl. I can't justify spending £10 on a new CD that I may or may not like, thus downloads - and then for albums or singles I really like buying the vinyl so that I can listen to them properly.

Today's Purchases:

U2 - Rattle and Hum - £2.99
My favourite U2 album, felt like it was worth owning on vinyl. The sleeve is a bit battered but the record is fine.

U2 - The Joshua Tree - £2.99
I don't actually own a copy of this album, but it's highly spoken of and contains a couple of songs I love, so I figured it was worth a shot.

John Lennon - The John Lennon Collection - £0.50
That's right, 50p for Lennon's greatest hits. Totally worth it. The record's a bit crackly but perfectly listenable.


Coming soon:
New podcast episodes!

Well then, I'm back from Milton Keynes and back at Glasgow. Classes start back from tomorrow, Earth Science essay is due in a week on thursday so I'm going to be returning to psycho student mode pulling all nighters of typing and research - should be fun.

I cleaned my entire room today, untangling cables and clearing my desk to get my printer up and running, it's a monster of a thing - but it's got a flatbed scanner built in which is grand. Anyhoo, the next couple of weeks also herald the start of flat/jobhunt '08 - A grand scheme involving dropping CVs from helicopters, planting CVs on executives pillows and begging a shop to take me on. Sadly only one of these statements is true, hopefully I'll get a weekend job in some shop (hopefully not matalan again; been there, done that - literally got the t-shirt [and a very cosy fleece which is sadly missed]).

Jono is coming over tomorrow afternoon to podcast. With whiskey, so it should be fairly entertaining. We've also received a review copy of Game Night by jonnynexus, which I've just about finished and will hand on to Jono tomorrow. Look for a review of this in a couple of weeks. So far I'm loving it, the book is practically mirroring a game of WFRP I ran a few years ago. The characters are shades of people I once knew, it's a fantastic trip down memory lane for lapsed and active Gamesmasters and players alike. There's a free chapter on the website, I highly encourage you to check it out.

It's been a few days since my last post, sorry about that. I'm down in Milton Keynes with Liz so I haven't had the free time I usually have to faff around on the interwebs. Over the last few days we've played about 40 games of Arkham Horror with the Dunwich and King in Yellow expansions which has been great. We're still pretty bad at it, and it's still ridiculously hard so we lose often, but it's become more fun than ever before.

I finally managed to get the Garmin Etrex to play nice with OSX; the hardest part was finding the right drivers for the serial adaptor. Once I managed to track them down the Garmin software didn't work, but through a combination of GPSBabel+ and MacCaching I've managed to get the functionality I require - letting me load waypoints to and fro the device.

The other thing I've spent the week doing is reading the entire archives of yet another comic - Scary Go Round. It's awesome, and for once is set in the UK so I get all the references to products and pop culture that are exclusively British.



I've also been repeatedly attacked by a certain ginger cat by the name of Ginny, not so much of the fun. At least my allergies aren't bothering me too much.

I only just now spotted how fitting yesterdays song was.

Lots of deliveries arrived for me today. Including my GPS and assorted cables, as well as The King in Yellow expansion for Arkham horror. Tomorrow I'll post about some of my difficulties with getting the GPS to play nice with OS X. And sometime next week I'll fire on a post about how awesome the new expansion(s) [stay tuned for news on Dunwich Horror] are.

Until tomorrow, goodnight internets.

As promised, today I decided to go climb the Eildon hills. Unfortunately I didn't count on this (from BBC news)

Friday 21 March WEATHER WARNING Strong to gale force winds and heavy snow will affect northeast England overnight. Gusts of 70mph will make travelling hazardous. In addition, heavy snow will affect ground over 150m in both northern Scotland and the Borders. 15cms accumulations are possible. Valid until 0900GMT.

Yeah, I got caught in a near gale force hailstorm on top of the Eildons today. It was grand. Some Photos after the jump.

Photos are from my Flickr Page

I spent most of today catching up on the telly that I've missed lately. Namely the last 4 episodes of Stargate: Atlantis and the last 3 episodes of Torchwood.

Stargate was very enjoyable, the lead up to the Beckett reveal was well handled - even knowing in advance that it was going to happen it was great seeing the clues dropped through the episode. The finale was... explosive. I'm a sucker for time travel stories and McKay and Shepherd heavy episodes.

Torchwood is so much better than it was last year, it still has moments of shittiness but certain episodes work particularly well. "Something Borrowed" is probably the highlight of the season so far.

Tomorrow I'm going to climb the Eildons.

Just for kicks.

P.S: Hot Chip are awesome

I'm back home with the parents for a couple of days, and I have to say: it doesn't feel like going home anymore. I live in Glasgow now, that's my home. I... I miss murano, as unbelievable as that sounds. Although, even more than that: I miss Elizabeth.

...but you'll never know! *cackle*

Oh, maybe you will then.

'Today' was good fun, I was helping out at the University of Glasgow open day for the Earth Science department, giving tours of the building and answering questions from applicants about the course and university. This was good fun, and afterwards a bunch of us went out for a few drinks then came back to mine for a lot more drinks, gamecube and a movie marathon. Good times...

Chris came up for the applicants day and slept on my floor, which was nice. Good to catch up on the goings on back home, plus he restrung my guitar for me. Tomorrow I'm heading home for a week.

Broadband! yay!

Happy St. Patrick's day to anyone who cares, I really should do given the preponderance of Northern Irishmen living in my flat. That and one of  my middle names is Patrick.
 Despite my resolution to post daily very little happened today. I waved Liz goodbye as she got on the train at central and then came home to bum around the flat all day. Should've started work on my essay... didn't though. About all I accomplished was a slight tidying of my room and a lot of tea drinking. Tomorrow is the applicants day, guitar restringing and drinking sesh with Chris... Don't expect a post tomorrow.

I can see myself spending far too much money on comics. Generally I try and avoid this, buying only graphic novels and trade paperbacks of ongoing series. But then these two happened. And they're awesome. I'm buying AatF every month, and seriously considering picking up Season 8. Especially given the latest news...


In other comic reading news, Captain America continues to be fantastic.

I really need some more money :/

Late post (albeit back-dated) tonight, due to the fact that I slept all day and just finished a 4 hour arkham horror marathon with Liz. I love that game, and that girl.

The party last night was good, ended around 2am. Peter and Jono got on like a house on fire, as I knew they would. I had a nice time - big improvement on the previous two days. Also got a really nice present from Ruthie - a framed photo of Liz and I, as well as a photo of me and Ruth. Today is gonna be a day of tidying and sorting out washing, so I'll almost certainly have time for a quick post. That's it for now.

Yes, that's right. My resolution to post daily failed after the very first day. But to be fair I was pretty busy yesterday.

The Geological Society lecture was pretty good. More entertaining, but less interesting than the last one. I'm not sure which of the two I preferred. It seems to be official that i am in fact the only member of the society under 40, which is a bit weird.

Today is my big birthday shindig. Jono's coming over, Liz is baking cake and... well everyone else is still asleep to be perfectly honest. The rampant drinking begins in an hour or two. This possibly means no posts tomorrow morning due to hangovers.


In other news I've decided that I'm going to try and get out as much as possible over the Easter holidays. Visiting the fossil beds at Scremerston and Dob's Linn. As well as clambering up the Eildons. This is of course time, weather and transportation permitting. Expect photos and stories over the next week and a half or so.