Archive from November, 2007

Blade Runner: “The Final Cut” at the cinema

26 Nov 2007: If you’re reading this before 2 December 2007, you still have a chance to see Blade Runner – The Final Cut on the big screen at one of a tiny number of cinemas such as the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge. Forget the fact that it’s a whole new version of one of the most influential films ever made. The real importance of this is that you may never again get the chance to see any version of this movie on the big screen again. And whether you remember it from the first or second time out, or have it on DVD, or are yet to witness its brilliance at all, you’ll be kicking yourself if you could have caught it [...]

Bruce Springsteen European Tour 2007 Setlist

22 Nov 2007: …well, not quite, because at the time of writing, it hasn’t started yet. But Bruce has just finished playing the couple of dozen gigs in the first North American leg of his “Magic” Tour, and – renowned as he is for varying the set list from night to night – there’s a definite pattern in what the band has been playing. In most gigs there have been 23 songs, and in each slot there’s a song which has been played significantly more times than any other. So after having a look at some of the meticulously compiled set list resources such as this one, I present the statistically most likely set list for the forthcoming gigs, including the one at [...]

In-car phonograms – the next big thing?

21 Nov 2007: I’ve just had a demo and an extended test drive in a Lexus RX400h. Very nice, and I’d certainly like one. But why is such a technically advanced car let down by such an antiquated audio system? The dealer kept telling me all about how the “Mark Levinson” label meant audio quality of the highest standard, but he was reduced to mumbling excuses when I asked where the DAB radio was. For goodness’ sake, it’s 2007, surely we shouldn’t have to listen to BBC Radio Five Live on medium wave in a car which costs more than my first house? Quite ordinary in-car audio manufacturers seem able to make complete digital radio/CD units for well under a hundred quid. I [...]

Importing to WordPress from a text file

19 Nov 2007: I had a website of football reports which was managed by a homebrew flat-file database, and it really needed dragging into the 21st century and being managed by WordPress, or something like that. But how to transfer the hundreds of entries, with all their dates and categories? It turned out to be surprisingly easy, assuming you can export from your database in a specific, user-defined format. Wordpress has a whole list of import filters (see the “Manage” tab), each dedicated to a specific format. One of these is “RSS”, which takes an RSS feed and converts it into WordPress posts. That’s the one you need. Here’s the procedure: 1. Create your WordPress blog, which – when new – should have [...]

Born to Jump

9 Nov 2007: I’m always amused when Google’s AdWords ads go wrong. They’re supposed to be “contextual”, assessing the search query and matching the right ads to it. My amusement at coming straight in at number one in the Google search results for “discount booze for tramps” (following a blog post about an off-licence yesterday) turned to even greater amusement to see a column of AdWords ads about trampolines. My first thought was that maybe the word “tramps” confused Google because they don’t use the term in the USA. But tramps like us, baby we were born to run. So clearly they do, at least in New Jersey. Perhaps these trampoline advertisers have all chosen “tramps” as a keyword. Or maybe there’s a [...]

The case of the disappearing login items

9 Nov 2007: I’ve always had a problem that login items disappear under OS X, and it hasn’t gone away with OS X 10.5 Leopard. I’ll add something to the list in the conventional manner, and about 50% of the time, when I next startup the Mac, the application fails to do so – and on investigation, has disappeared from the list. So here’s my home-made solution. Take all the applications out of the login items list and replace them with an “Automator” script. You can then put this in the login items and with any luck it’ll stay there; it did for me. You can also add some nice pauses between each, so the Mac doesn’t go mental trying to open everything [...]

Discount Booze at The Local. For selected tramps.

8 Nov 2007: Bad product branding always cheers up a dull day for me. There are all sorts of reasons why a product or business might launch or re-brand itself amusingly awfully, but the most obvious ones seem to be: [1] A terrible idea sometimes gets right through the marketing department and out the other side, perhaps through a case of Emperor’s New Clothes or something; [2] A graphic designer from the planet Zog is employed with an open brief, once again thanks to a clueless marketing department; [3] A parent company, probably from another country or continent, decides that what works ten thousand miles away (or in Germany) is quite suitable for a totally different culture, and imposes some sort of “global [...]

They won’t thank their parents

4 Nov 2007: I always wonder if I was given a very mainstream name (Christopher was the most common boys’ name in the early sixties) because my father was given a daft one and, I suspect, always resented his parents for it. So here then are 15 names which were given to more UK boys in 2006 than Andrew, Christopher, David, John or Robert. Poor kids. Jake Tyler Connor Harrison Kyle Brandon Reece Mason Kai Logan Riley Harley Jayden Kian Bailey

The true cost of that OS X Leopard Upgrade

2 Nov 2007: Let’s get things straight from the start. I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) this week, it was painless, and it’s a worthwhile upgrade (even if some of the interface changes are “insane”). At £79.98 from Amazon UK, it’s not unreasonable, especially as there hasn’t been an OS update for so long. And it comes in the freakiest holographic box I’ve ever seen. But the cost doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Firstly, there’s a great new automatic backup feature called Time Machine – but that needs an external hard drive to work properly (well, it is a backup system). Now, many people already have external hard drives, but chances are that even if you do, you’ll probably think this [...]

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