On which side of the line does this little stunt fall?
When I was at school, some of the teachers still used blackboards. Some of them had whiteboards, too. At university they had whiteboards, blackboards, and sometimes they used video projectors and laptops and Powerpoint presentations. Clearly technology is advancing.
Some genius has decided that the way forward is clearly, to fuse whiteboards and laptops. By their powers combined, they are... ELECTRONIC WHITEBOARD.
And they suck.
You have a laptop. You have a projector. You have a fancy touch sensitive screen. You project the display from the laptop on to the screen. You have a "pen" that you point at the screen with, which acts like a mouse. Basically you are controlling your computer through a big touch sensitive screen.
So what sucks?
- Writing on the screen with the pen is, literally, like writing stuff in MS Paint. It comes out all scrawly. Your writing, no matter how bad it is to begin with, will look worse.
- Text recognition is pretty rubbish. If you write in nice neat un-joined-up letters, then it might just pick out what you're trying to say. If you write in joined up writing and try to get it recognised, as you may well want to, in order to avoid the scrawly mess mentioned in point 1, then you can forget it. My brief test involved my pretending to write a biology test on the board about cells. The statement "1) Where is the DNA stored" became "Dithers the data spore". Close. Oh, and you can forget about writing any numbers besides 4 and 8, it just won't recognise them.
- Teachers will, inevitably, draw on them with whiteboard markers. Then try to rub it off. With hilarious black smudgy consequences. Ooops.
- The pointy pen things break. One of them broke while being demonstrated by the guy from the company. Brilliant.
The biggest problem, however, is simply that it's all a big fat waste of time. I simply don't believe that students will learn any more for seeing stuff written out on a fancy pretend whiteboard than they would have done if it were being done on a good old fashioned blackboard. Mind you, I don't really see how having oodles of computers for the kids to use aids learning, and I'm working to support this, so maybe I'm a bit of a hypocrite.
Bring back blackboards. And the dunce hat. And caning. Oooh, in my day... uphill both ways etc etc.
I'm going home.
When the new single by Nelly (bling blinging "R&B" star) uses a sample of True by Spandau Ballet, you know somethings not quite right. I mean, was the song really any good the first time round? Not really. Does it adequately prop up Nelly singing about some woman with man trouble? Not really. For that matter, do R&B stars sing about anything but men with women trouble, or women with men trouble? Not really. But I digress. The song is terrible, and the sample only lends further lameness to it. As a Radio 1 listener this morning pointed out, it sounds like something Goldie Lookin' Chain might attempt.
Kylie Minogue has breast cancer. Which sucks for her. It looks like she'll make it through pretty easily though, as they've caught it early. Call me a cynic, but I suspect this will garner a lot of attention from middle aged men praying that her beautiful figure stays intact.
The real big news, of course, is the Iraq soldiers Amarillo parody video. You may have heard about it on the news last night. The Amarillo single by Tony Christie, released for comic relief with a quality video by Peter Kay, is clearly loved by the British public if the charts are anything to go by. Since when do singles stay at number 1 for seven weeks? What is this, 1993? Anyway. Apparently some squaddies out in Iraq decided they liked the song too, and recorded themselves re-enacting Peter Kay's video. Only it's called Armadillo this time around, because apparently there's a few of them in Iraq. Anyway. They then sent the video to all their friends and so on, which crashed the MOD's e-mail system. Awesome! After some scratching around on the 'net this morning, I have managed to find a site where you can download the video in full, but by the looks of things it's getting clobbered so you might still have to hunt around the 'net if you want to see it. It's quality. I'd put it up on this site, but I'd like my bandwidth to last to the end of the month, not just the hour! Enjoy.
I spent much of Saturday at an event called the Leicester Creation Conference. It was an event put together by a group of evangelical Christians who believe, essentially, that the Bible is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was quite an interesting day.
There were seminars about the importance of Biblical Creation to the rest of the Christian belief system, about why evolution didn't happen, about why the whole primordial soup thing is grossly improbable, why radiometric dating is potentially flawed... and so on. It attempted to attack the present scientific ways of thinking with conflicting scientific evidence that showed that it was flawed, which was a rather more mature approach than you normally get from fundamentalist Christians, so that was pretty good.
I'm still not sure what I think to be honest. On the one hand the scientists seem to have it all tied up and can produce a whole shedload of evidence to back up their ideas. On the other hand, the Bible rather contradicts a lot of modern scientific thinking, and most evangelical Christians make it pretty clear that you can't have things both ways and pick and choose at the Bible - if you want to believe it then you have to believe in a 6 day creation with no evolution, that kind of thing. Obviously my Christian beliefs pull me in one direction, while my scientific mind and education push me the other way. I like the neatness of the science, yet at the same time I find it terribly hard to believe - I don't really buy the big bang theory and everything appearing out of nowhere, though obviously the same can be said of God always having been here; likewise I find evolution terribly hard to believe and don't really see much evidence for it.
Science is supposed to be about facts. Religion is much more about truth, and what you believe. Given the present climate, science can push through what they believe and what fits their agenda, and push aside conflicting evidence, which is present whether they like it or not. Theories such as evolution and spontaneous generation are held up because they are en vogue, despite being somewhat leaky and improbable; evidence that stands against these things is discredited and doesn't get heard. I do find it somewhat curious that religious people are fighting their battles on scientific turf, but so long as they're properly qualified to speak about such things then I think some healthy debate will do us all good.
I expect that Christians and perhaps other faith groups will continue to find evidence to support what they believe and to discredit modern scientific thinking. I also expect that scientists will continue to do their best to ignore or ridicule Christians for their "faith" in anything besides the scientific method and what can be seen and tested. I don't suppose scientists will ever fully explain how we got here, but will instead asymptotically approach the truth, or fact, or whatever.
For now, I am somewhat undecided. I find it easier to believe in a God who created everything than I do in everything appearing out of nowhere and arranging itself nice and neatly into what we see today, yet I also see compelling evidence from the science camp.
I'm sure God will tell me all about it when the time comes. Ho hum.
The Inuit are complaining to the US that pollution and global warming are destroying their land and way of life.
The U.S. is presently unavailable for comment, as they are far too busy building a 4 mile high neon sign that spells out "Bothered". The sign is powered by it's own coal burning power station which will be instated alongside the sign on the borders of Canada.
The sign is being constructed in Texas. It is made of top quality plastic, that is guaranteed not to decay within the next million years, long after ice at the North Pole is a thing of the past. Top scientists are also working round the clock to produce a truly dangerous cocktail of gases to provide the virulent colours for the signs lettering.
Once completed, the sign will be transported piece by piece by a fleet of SUVs. The trip up North is expected to take several weeks though, as the SUVs only get 12mpg and will thus have to stop for fuel roughly every 45 minutes.
President Bush has hailed the sign's construction as a boon to the flagging U.S. economy. He also said that it was "a great way to show them Kyoto faggots who's boss".
Seriously now, what is it going to take for us to start using nuclear power? Breakthroughs in technology mean it is safer than ever, with much more easily disposed of waste. It provides enormous amounts of energy and it's really the only way we can sustain our present energy expenditure.
And yes, I note with some measure of sadness that on the day I choose to bitch about the lack of nuclear power use, that Sellafield should have a nuclear leak. Damnit.
Does anyone else have particular bits of clothing that just make them feel good? Something that just makes you feel cool?
I'm not at all a big follower of fashion at all, and I don't go a bundle on spending much money on clothes (I'm saving for a new CPU for my PC at the moment, go figure) but there are still some bits of clothing that just make me feel like I'm the man. Even though I'm clearly not.
I'm wearing my black corduroy flares today. Oh yes. I don't know if they look much good (though Alison says they do) but they sure as hell feel good. As a result I end up swaggering about like I own the place. Which I don't, I just fix computers and get yelled at by various people. Still, the trousers feel good.
Another contender for most awesome item of clothing ever is one of my shirts. I own many short sleeved blue shirts of various kinds. The bestest is my prison shirt. It's dark denim with patches on the chest like all those work shirts that were fashionable a few years back. One patch says "California Correctional Facility" and the other says "Convicted". So I look like a real prisoner. Most excellent.
I have yet to attempt to wear the shirt and the corduroy pants together, for fear of what so much cool will do.
Labour got in again. Anyone surprised? I thought not.
It's a pretty good result though. The conservatives are utterly ill equipped to run the country and their policies are made of sky-pie as far as anyone with a calculator and a handful of brain cells can tell. Howard is also a fairly dubious character, though breaking news is that he's going to stand down. The Liberals lack experience, though that does leave them in the catch 22 of needing the job to get the experience and vice versa. Labour, like it or not, are probably the best bet at the moment. They have experience of what is going on at present, the economy is benefiting from them, they're fairly realistic about what they plan to do. If only their leader wasn't a smug liar.
It will do Labour a lot of good to lose some of their majority. They have pushed through some ludicrous legislation which could have been avoided had the opposition been stronger. The best example is the whole university top up fees debacle. That went through on only 4 votes. The Liberal Democrats have gained 11 seats net at last count - if they'd had those numbers last time around tuition fees wouldn't have made it through. It's just a good job we had the house of Lords to smack down more outrageous legislation like the Serious Organised Crime and Police bill, complete with it's You-May-Not-Discuss-Or-Criticise-A-Religion clause in the form of new Religious Hatred laws. It's not healthy for a government that is based on discussion and debate to be so strong that it can steamroller any old thing it likes through, so I expect this coming parliament should be a lot healthier than the last, as Charlie Kennedy has noted.
One last thing I would like to rant about, is people who didn't vote. Turnout in many places was below 50%, which is disgusting if you ask me. We're privileged as it is to live in a democratic country, not to mention all the furore just under a century ago for women to get the vote... For people to squander that is fairly disgusting. If you don't vote you should also forfeit you right to complain about the government. You had your chance to do something about it, and you wasted it - on your head be it. You can shut up and bear with it till next time comes around. Even if there's no candidates you like, at least go along and spoil your ballot paper. At least that shows your interest in the system, and your lack of approval for the situation. Not even turning up is just lazy.
Right. Time to eat my yoghurt. Hmm. Perhaps UKIP are onto something... I still wouldn't vote for them in a hundred years though.
Bye!
It's election day today... I'll be voting after work. I suspect Labour will win, though the Lib Dems are looking like they could make serious inroads into the opposition given the Tories' laughable chances. Anyway. I'll probably write more about it tomorrow when it's done.
Bank Holiday weekend was good. We went to visit an old friend (Sarah De Hoxar for those of you to whom it means anything) for dinner on Saturday which was nice. It was good to catch up. She's changed since I last saw her. I think her and Alison hit it off pretty well which was cool.
On Monday we went to see The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. The film is polarising people such that they either love it or hate it. For the record, I liked it. However, the world and his wife seem to be discussing this film though, so I'll not go on about it. Instead I will discuss... the trailers.
- Batman Begins
It's a widely accepted fact that Batman is cool. And hard. So a film about how Batman got to be cool and hard can only be a good thing. Christian Bale will be great as Batman. The film also has Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Ken Watanabe in it. The love interest is Katie Holmes. There is, as far as I can see, no way that this movie can be anything but utterly awesome.
- War Of The Worlds
We only got a little teaser trailer of this... I'd forgotten it was due out. It should be pretty good. Spielberg directing, Tom Cruise starring. It'll be a manic special effects fest, which could turn out amazing if they get it right. Another one to see this summer.
- Kingdom Of Heaven
Orlando Bloom stars in a film about the crusades. So... that'll be a big huge epic battle type film like Gladiator or Troy or whatever. About the only interesting thing about this film is the idiotic controversy it's stirring up. Oh no! The film features violence between Christians and Muslims! We must ban this to prevent such things in this dangerous and terrifying age! Yeah, nice one, let's just censor our history.
- Monster In Law
This film stars Jennifer Lopez's Ass and The Rotting Carcass Of Jane Fonda's Movie Career. It is Meet The Parents. Oh yeah, except this time it's the wife to be and the mother-in-law having trouble, as opposed to the husband and father-in-law. Yeah, I know - original, huh? There's scenes that look like they were lifted almost verbatim from MTP, like Jane Fonda quizzing J Lo about her sex life, which is just a wee bit reminiscent of Robert De Niro hooking Ben Stiller up to the lie detector. Honestly, they've already had two films out of the Meet The Parents mould, must they make another one? Avoid.
- The Pacifier
Vin Diesel could have been great. For goodness sake, Spielberg added his part in Saving Private Ryan especially for him after seeing some of his early work - that's quite high praise! Sadly, his career rather fell off the rails once he got big with The Fast And The Furious and xXx and the like, and it's been all downhill from there. This new vehicle of his is just Kindergarten Cop with Vin in Arnie's shoes and a slightly different setup. Wake me up when Hollywood does something original, OK?
So that's two good, two bad, and one I'm fairly indifferent about. Bring on Willy Wonka. That's the next big one as far as I'm concerned.
Lunchtime. Bye!
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