Windows 7

Wammo tells me he’s installed the pre-release version of Windows 7 and it’s like being born again. His computer (get this) actually does what he wants it to do! ZOMG! Revolutionary.

I’m reminded of my old boss at IDG Communications, Pat McGovern, and a story he tells of the first time he saw Steve Jobs demonstrate the Mac OS.

Steve had invited Pat and some other assorted luminaries to check out his new product and was, the way Pat tells it, quite anxious that they be impressed. He ran them through the demo, showed off the “mouse” and the “graphical user interface” and some other bits and pieces and stood back.

“Well, Pat. What do you think?”

Pat McGovern, for those that don’t know him, is well over six foot tall and has been kicking around the IT publishing industry since before there was an IT publishing industry. He set up IDC Research to monitor this growing market but couldn’t find any publication that wanted to take his research. So he founded IDG Communications and set up Computerworld and the rest is history. Pat was a big cheese and if you could get Pat on side, you were made.

“What do you think?” asked Steve, with (I like to think) a tremor in his voice.

Pat stood up, looked around the room at the assembled journos and said, “If this catches on, we’re all out of a job. It just works”. Thankfully, it never did, and so countless millions of pages of reviews, tips, tricks, support and help were able to be written and re-hashed over and over …

Windows 7 is best summed up, however, by XKCD and if I can make it fit, the comic is below. You should, however, go visit XKCD and look at all the comics and let your mouse hover over each one as there’s a secret message for those In The Know.

It’s mostly a fail until such time as I can move the post down below my sidebar. Hmmm. Any WordPress gurus who know what they’re doing out there?

XKCD: Now with more batshit insanity

It’s a thing of beauty:

From the master of the batshit.

EDIT: Hmmm. Can’t shrinky dink it to the right size. Anyone speak computer? A little help?

EDIT II: Hmmm. Now I’ve moved it down you can see all of the cartoon BUT the mouse over doesn’t deliver the same results! Will try to edit. No, actually, I’ll just point you to the original at the XKCD website and you can mouse over there.

Audent loves Anders loves Maria

I do like a good online cartoon and alongside XKCD and Questionable Content I now regularly read Anders loves Maria.

It’s a heartwarming story of two young Swedish folk who decide to have a baby. The art work has improved over the opening comic and the story line is great.

Did I mention it’s full of nudity and sex? Well it is. It’s also got some wicked dialogue, great character development and as of this week some tremendous plot twists.

As well as nudity and sex.

Plus some great scenes from around Stockholm (where I have been and really enjoyed…). And the nudity and sex.

It’s official

Firefox 3.0 has become the official single biggest download in a 24 hour period.

“The final record breaking 8,002,530 downloads for Firefox 3.0 took place in June with parties in over 25 countries”

I’ve been using FF3.0 for a while now and I’m enjoying it. Faster to load pages, easier to move around AND long extensions on XKCD. Nice.

Boom De Yada

That’s all I have to say really.

Well, that and this of course.

Enjoy.

(PS – Stephen Hawking rules, as do Mythbusters and Randall Munroe)

PPS – Having watched the clip about oh, a million times this morning, some things become apparent.

Firstly, the words don’t necessarily synch with what’s on the screen. For example “I love when great whites fly” is sung over pictures of an orca (which I recently discovered is a kind of dolphin not a whale at all) while De Niece tells me that’s not magma but in fact lava. Does this say something about the validity of Discovery Channel TV shows? I don’t know.

And secondly, I really don’t mind. It’s fun.

Heh, is April 1 in the rest of the world

so when I went looking for this cartoon this morning, I found something about dinosaurs…

and when I went to XKCD, I found Questionable Content.

Well I thought it was funny.

Science. Still working.

When my parents were born, antibiotics were yet to be mass produced. When I was born, the CT scanner was yet to be used on a human. In 1977 we saw the first full body MRI scan. My wife had her Stealth scan in the early 2000s before our youngest daughter was born.

What’s next to be developed I wonder?

Today the Herald carries this story (from the UK Independent) about Philips and a new generation of CT scanner. The pictures are amazing and I was stunned to see the suggestion that EMI managed to invest in the first CT scanner simply because the company made so much money from The Beatles. Who knew!

Science. It [still] works.

Pulled elbow

Well that was an interesting evening. At 7pm (bedtime) eldest daughter gave youngest daughter a vigorous hug. Tears ensued. Many tears. Wailing. This is not how youngest daughter typically handles being vigorously hugged. Ten minutes later we were packing her and her mum into the car for the short (1km) trip to the local medical centre.

Half an hour later they were back – youngest daughter with her elbow having been relocated back into its proper place. OW!

Apparently a dislocated elbow is not uncommon in children under three. It’s more common in girls and typically in the left elbow! Right on all three counts.

You can learn more about dislocated elbows here (with pictures), here or here should you so wish.

Incidentally, my local doctor is great. We didn’t go to see Dion tonight because a: his surgery is miles away from where we live and b: it was after hours but really, if you need a GP in Auckland, go and see Dion. He never prescribes anything (“come back and see me in three days”) unnecessarily, so if you need something done, make an appointment with Paula instead .

They help run a useful website called Family Doctor which is great if someone in your family has been diagnosed with something you’ve never heard of and you want to know more. A great starting point for any online research into basic medical matters.

Junior daughter is fast asleep having returned from the doc’s with a lollipop in hand. Through the tears and pain she asked for one for her big sister as well, which is just amazing really. Big sister was very upset about the whole affair but thankfully now they’re both fast asleep and all is right with the world.

The whole thing made me think of this cartoon on XKCD. I may be taking the whole blogging thing too far.

Two of my favourite sites

First up, there’s Questionable Content and it’s on my list for two reasons. First, I like following the storyline and secondly, I’m well impressed with someone who throws it all in and decides to make a fist of it by doing what he wants to do which is be a cartoonist and by putting it all online. More power to you J Jacques.

Then there’s XKCD which is a legend and rightly so. XKCD is beginning to influence the real world (read through the blag for more info on Wet Riffs (NSFW by the way) and of course the Stallman issue and The Meet Up but it’s the roller coaster chess ride that really did it for me.

That and, of course, in a previous life I emailed creator Randall Munroe and asked if we could run his cartoon each week in Computerworld New Zealand and he said yes. I promised to buy a t-shirt when I was rich enough and I’m sorry Randall, I lied. I bought this one from Questionable Content instead. Sorry. OK so that didn’t work – it’s the Teh t-shirt. Nice. Randall, I’ll be back soon for a science one. Sorry, sorry.