Thought Socks

I’m only regularly tuning in to one show at the moment:

Mock The Week (BBC 2, 10pm, Tues.)

It’s ceaselessly amusing, and the next episode always seems that little bit funnier. Think Have I Got News For You, but hipper, and ruder. And funnier I suppose.

The five regulars, including irish stand-up comic Dara O’Briain, are wonderful, and not in the slightest bit similar. They’re comfortable with one another having done a few series now, and the chemistry shows; the atmostphere breeds humour. Two guests each week make up the numbers, but don’t simply do that, often being as funny as the regulars themselves.

Check this out if you’ve the opportunity. Some videos here, and here.

Since September last year, Amazon has offered an alternative to Apple’s iTunes - a potentially better alternative - in the form of Amazon MP3.

I say it has the potential to offer a better service because the songs you download are, first and foremost, cheaper, of a higher quality, and DRM-free. It can’t hope to compete with iTunes yet - downloading isn’t as quick and simple, and there are currently around half as many songs available as there are on iTunes - and this is coupled with it being a new service, and not having Apple’s dedicated following, and half the world using iPods and iTunes to sync. and play music anyway. Hopefully though, with Amazon MP3 being made available all around the world in 2008, and a foray into the video download business using similarly cheap pricing, higher quality and freedom from DRM, it will stand a chance of competition and success. I’ll certainly be using it when it becomes available in the UK.

A comprehensive comparison can be found here.

My last phone got run over. The one before that I dropped in the sink.

They were both advanced and quite expensive at the time; so losing both was a blow. They could both could take decent quality photos, record decent (For a phone) video, connect to the internet etc, which was all great, and part of me still yearns for whatever technology offers currently. However, I decided my next phone would be cheap, practical, simple. Cheap enough to be almost disposable: I wanted a phone I didn’t have to care about.

What I found was the Motorola Motophone F3. It’s features agree with the terms I set:

Simplicity: The F3’s most advanced feature is SMS. There is no camera, no internet connectivity. There are no games. I think I could say it’s the epitamy of simplicity in mobile phones.

Practicality: The user interface, though a little difficult to master and generally poorly designed, allows me to do everything I want to do quickly and simply.

Price: £12!

The F3 tells me the time and lets me make phone calls. It also clearly tells me that I can do so, with the signal and battery status displayed at the top of the screen. It is 9mm thick and survived a drop as soon as I unpacked it (See this video for further bludgeoning and a review). There’s two weeks (Standby) battery life. It’s so cheap it’s practically disposable. I don’t want to worry about it. It’s what I want.

Screw the iPhone, I love my F3. (This is not to say I wouldn’t swap it for an iPhone if anyone’s interested though …)

F3 on Amazon, CNET, Motorola official and GearDiary.

I’ve been having a cast around the web for new music this eve’ so thought I’d compile a list of 6 artists to listen out for in the coming year.

Everyone coming through at the moment seems to be taking nothing particularly seriously, which is great because I’ve felt the last few years of music have been annoyingly serious. Hopefully you’ll find something to your taste!

Late of the Pier - A delightful, synth-laden mess

Noah and the Whale - Blissful, sugar-and-sweetness folk. Recently released their second single and working on their debut full length.

Adele - Sweet soul. The press like her.

Neon Plastix - Freaky disco.

Foals - Geeky folk-pop from Oxbridge dropouts. So good! Try Balloons.

So So Modern - Kiwi Punk / A’cappella / Funk?

Foals and Adele are the best here. If you’re going to try anything, try one of the two.

Heath Ledger, star of A Knight’s Tale, Brokeback Mountain and the upcoming Dark Knight was found dead in his apartment at 3:30 this afternoon.

‘Authorities do not suspect foul play, but found pills next to the body. The actor was 28.’

Deepest condolences to his family and friends. More details here.

Glyn Hughes at Squashed Philosophers has taken the time to compile condensed (Sorry, squashed) versions of many of the most famous and brilliant philosophical texts, ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Turing and Popper.

The texts are according to Mr. Hughes, meant to be read in one sitting and are a great resource for students and those first taking an interest in philosophy (Such as I). The abridged versions are written as overviews, introductions or reminders, depending of course upon who you are and what you know. We are told the percentage of the original text is in the squash, and how long it ought to take us to read.

A wonderful resource, as I said in different words, for those who need a quick reminder, an introduction or an overview of any of the texts on offer. Squashed Philosophers is one of those things that makes me love the web. A brilliant find - an incredible idea. Thank you Mr. Hughes.

Wireless booting - the MBA’s answer to a disk drive - will be a feature of all Macs running the upocoming Mac OS X 10.5.2 , according to MacRumours.

I’m not sure why it’s useful - I see nothing wrong with putting a disk into my disk drive. It just means you need to have an extra computer around. Well you don’t, because every other Mac already has a disk drive. Are there other benefits? Anyone enlighten me?

The main subject of the article linked above is some MBA unboxing photo’s. It’s looking even more gorgeous than it did at the US Macworld. But I must keep telling myself that they’re bad.

I speak entirely from experience:

1. Don’t: Don’t try to be anything you’re not.

Do: Be yourself. Content will be more genuine and interesting when it comes from the real you. Assuming the real you is interesting, of course.

2. Don’t: Don’t just sit down to write a post just for the sake of writing a post- it’s a waste of time. Anything you post in the wrong mood be 1/2 as good as what you can produce in a productive, creative mood. We don’t want a prospective reader - Yay! Finally! - to find your blog, only to read a bad article. What bad advertising. To quote the toy-cleaner in Toy Story 2: ‘You can’t rush art’. Neither can you force it.

Do: Write when you have the inspiration, preperation and inclination. It doesn’t have to be all three, but it ought to be. Get into the habit of thinking about what you might post throughout the day. The most bizzare, unexpected things might stimulate an idea or prompt a thought. We write about what we experience. If you really have nothing to post about one day, don’t post. Don’t feel you must post every day.

3. Don’t: Don’t faff around doing unproductive things like looking at your blog stats an hour after you last did. You’ll feel guilty about it but still you’ll do it.

Do: Learn something new. You might have something to post about then.

4. Don’t: Don’t decide that you need a new layout a week after you’ve finally finished your most recent redesign, and waste your every evening (And much of your nights sleep) for a week designing another.

Do: If you simply have to do something to your sites layout, make one aspect of it better. Do it bit by bit. Plan it. A site redesign can’t be spontaneous. No one has that sort of time.

5. Don’t: Don’t give up. You might be tired, or have had a bad day. Keep thinking and writing. Wait a while if the words aren’t coming.

If you’ve had the inclination to blog, then a good blogger you have the potential to be.

Do: Keep writing. Keep blogging. Your traffic, skill, expertise - everything blogging uses in a person - will get better over time.

Please share any other Do’s and Don’t’s you think are essential.

The editors of the American Heritage dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every student to finish High School should know.

Senior editor, Steven Kleinedler, says “The words we suggest, are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language.”

Here’s the list.

I can’t decide whether it’s good or bad. On one hand it promotes the furthering of language and vocabulary in the texting generation, which is a necessary and wonderful thing to do. On the other it seems silly: I won’t dispute that knowing the entire list would make you a, urm, superior commander, but I wouldn’t bet on there being more than 50-100 individuals in the UK who know that entire list when they finish compulsary education - more than that select bunch have a superior command; thelist is no indication. Take for instance ‘Ziggurat’ (One which I had to look up). It seems to me like a word one might pick up on the off chance and for some reason - probably because it begins with ‘Z’ - remember. It’s a piece of random general knowledge, of no use to you in general conversation, unless you’re into Babylonian and Assyrian history. Or Mitosis - it’s used only in biology. They’re trying to include high school scientific terms - they are, I suppose, just trying to cover all the bases, which they’ve by no means done.

But a definite stance doesn’t have to be taken. We get vocabulary from literature anyway, not lists, and intelligence is indicated by the clarity not elaborateness of the explanation, especially in high school exams.

Thoughts are very welcome. Some interesting ones on this are offered at 9rules Education Notes.

I’ve written a blog tutorial for absolute beginners. Take a look and spare a comment on what you think if you’ve a moment. (The link is over there on the sidebar if your viewing this on the homepage. Which you probably are.)