Big Sister is Watching You - Part 1
As a new parent, I am worried about the safety of my child, as any normal parent would be. I am also concerned about civil liberties and privacy. However, these two concerns are colliding together in various ways in our society right now, and you should be worried about it. Let me try to convince you that your lovely UK government wants to treat all of you - yes, even you there on the third row - wants to treat all of you as a terrorist threat. In this post, I will give you the first example: children’s fingerprinting.
Fingerprinting of children is growing at an astonishing rate in England’s schools. Touting fingerprinting as a way to make access to library books simpler (just put your thumb on the reader), Micro Librarian Systems for example sell a fingerprint recogniser for primary schoolchildren. On their website, they use the following enticements as to why it’s a good idea to buy and use such as system in the school library:
No more lost or damaged reader cards!
No more lending of ID cards between borrowers!
No more bar codes being washed or tumble dried!
In other words, spend about £20,000 on a fingerprint system, fingerprint all the children in the school, and it will make it slightly easier to control the ditzy little b*stards reading habits. After all, it’s too hard to write down what books they’ve borrowed in something as simple as a book, and the children need their fingerprints scanned so the teacher can remember what their names are.
Sounds unconvincing said like that, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, plenty of schools have been taken in by the technobabble the companies spout about convenience, and about 2 million children have now had their fingerprints recorded, mostly without the knowledge, and therefore without the consent, of parents. And it’s not just for library books; such systems are also being used to keep track of lunch payments, again with the vague notion of improving efficiency, however that is defined.
Of course, the companies that sell these systems claim that the fingerprint data is secure, but having seen the entire Child Benefit database disappear on a CD a few months ago, I don’t believe that for a moment, and neither should you. And neither did Fionna Elliot, who has campaigned for parents to be informed that the security of their childrens’ identity is being compromised. As a surprisingly well-informed Daily Mail article points out, schools are even worse than governments in taking care of personal data, and most teachers are unaware that a scrapped fingerprint computer would be very handy for ID thieves. Once your fingerprints are copied by someone, you cna’t use them to identity yourself any more. Think it’s hard to copy a fingerprint? Actually, it’s quite easy, and can be done with a few simple ingredients.
LTKA has more information on all of this, but the message is pretty simple: tell your kids that if their teacher asks them for their fingerprints, say no. This message, and the fact that fingerprinting children is anyway illegal (it’s a breach of human rights, goes against the Data Protection Act, and can breach the 2002 Education Act), is finally getting through to some people, and councils are starting to distance themselves from possible litigation.
What does central Government have to do with fingerprinting in schools? UK.Gov is subsidising fingerprinting technology formerly through the DFES curriculum online project, and now through Harnessing Technology funds. This is seen by a number of people as softening up our younger population to accept intrusive identity checks as a normal part of life, in preparation for the dreaded Identity Cards.
By the way, it’s not just kids that are being asked to present their thumbs to identify themselves. Parents at a nursery in Kent are also being asked, as are those at a nursery in Swansea. Whatever happened to using your eyes and brain to identify the person coming through that front door? And anyway, as anyone who has used a security gate knows, you can just tailgate behind someone who is authorised to get in. Totally pointless.
New MacBook Pro from Apple
The new MacBook Pro
So, after much hype and rumour, the new MacBooks are finally out, and many of the ‘wishlist’ items are there in reality. You can see the whole announcement at Apple, including the usual Steve Jobs bit, and a quirky missive from Jonathan Ive, who is clearly enjoying being able to make new components. In particular, the following new things are included:
- Unibody construction, i.e. machined from block aluminium. This is supposed to confer increased rigidity and reduce the weight.
- Large, glass trackpad with additional gestures, including a 4-finger gesture for Expose and application selection. There is no button any more, and left- and right-button clicking is available through software.
- LED backlighting, which is becoming an industry standard to replace previous cold-cathode backlights. It’s supposed to increase battery life, but the quoted life on the MacBook Pro is 5 hours with the slower Nvidia graphics running.
- SSD option. This is expensive, but is now available at 128 Gb.
- Nvidia graphics. The Pros come with two chips, where you can choose which graphics chip you wish to run with - not sure how that is done yet.
- Mini DisplayPort is to be the standard across the product line.
- No more Firewire 400 sockets. I don’t like this myself. Firewire 800 is there instead, with 400 via a cable.
The main ‘missing’ item is the much hoped-for touchscreen, which I guess will come at some time in the future. Another thing, which won’t be missed, is the lack of Blu-Ray on the drives. Don’t all Mac owners pirate their HD video anyway? In terms of product line-up, Apple isn’t offering a Netbook yet; they seem to be sticking to premium-priced products, which enables them to maintain innovation I suppose.
There are two interesting things about the new products are the unibody construction and the graphics chip. The unibody construction seems to be the same thing as the secret ‘Brick’ project, and is where Apple are machining the main frame and lower case in a single piece from aluminium block to save assembly costs. They say it’s more environmentally friendly because they recycle the swarf, but the quoted wastage is 90% - a 2.5 pound block becomes a 0.25 pound frame according to Steve. I’m sure the wastage on stamping is less than this. It now looks like the MacBook Air was a 1st-generation niche product to see how a unibody construction could be used. It’s now entering the main Apple product line.
The second interesting thing - for scientists at least - is the use of the Nvidia 9400M and 9600M GT parts in the same laptop, which contain 16 and 32 cores respectively. If you’re interested in stream processing, then this could be an interesting product.
Of course, there are other products in the announcement. The 13-inch MacBook is now just a mini MacBook Pro rather than a differentiated line. There is also a 24-inch LED-lit display (available in November), and I think they’ve missed a trick here by having a rather clunky 3-plug connector cable rather than a dock or single plug design.
All in all, not a bad upgrade to the line. It would be nice to have a full touchscreen, but I shudder at what that would cost…
Partical Physics
Phew. It’s been a long couple of weeks, but I’m pretty much moved in now.
So, I’m apparently a lecturer in physics at Manchester University, and no longer employed by HM Govt. It’s been a busy couple of weeks to say the least, as I’ve been out of the university arena for some years. I’ve joined the Particle Physics Group (also confusingly called HEP - High Energy Physics), and am a couple of doors down from fellow group member Brian Cox (whose site is much better looking than mine). It’s been a steep learning curve getting ready for the teaching load, but being given the nuclear physics lab is kind of nice, as I think I understand it. I’ll let you know after tomorrow’s first day! Universities are a lot more lively than when I was an undergraduate, and there is a real buzz about the place. It’s a bit like being in a hospital - everyone else seems to know what they’re doing and where they’re supposed to go, but there are few signs about. The ones that are there can be confusing (see picture!). Bit by bit I’m picking up what I’m supposed to be doing, which is teaching and research basically…
Fortunately, my office in Schuster is with the other physicists, and not in the old Rutherford Building, which is part of the older quad of buildings on Oxford Road, and I think now occupied by psychologists. People have commented on a possible link between the deaths of five people who all worked in the building, but given the very low levels of radiation so far measured (it’s been a hundred years guys) I’m betting it will turn out to be another leukemia cluster. In other words, it will be a random clustering of events that people call attention to because they are looking for a specific, well-identified cause. There is a lot of psychology in that activity - maybe the building occupants will look into that!
Hopefully unconnected with my arrival is the rather amusing decision by the Student Union to re-classify the toilets from men/women to with/without urinals (in the words of Al Murray, ‘I was never confused’). Transgender students have perhaps correctly pointed out that there is an uncomfortable choice to be made about whether to have abuse thrown at them by either women or men, depending on which door they go through. In typical student fashion, there is a backlash from more conservative student groups who wish to maintain a clear gender divide for their own comfort. The union representative on that there TV (who had surprisingly green hair which made me forget her name) seemed a bit non-plussed at the media attention, but gamely held her own on the rights of all to choose. Good on her. For me, the amusing part of the story is that anyone would want to use any of the toilets in that building. They are after all rather dingy.
Eating Blackberries
Some people have made fun of a recent comment made by one of John McCain’s aides, that the grizzled senator helped to invent the RIM Blackberry. Ok, so in reality Douglas J Holtz-Eakin (why do all these guys have names that sound made-up?) was pointing to McCain’s time on the Senate Commerce Committee, but it seems to me like another example of taking credit for an idea after it’s been successful. The idea in question here being mobile telephony.
The latest Nokia
Some of the older ones around here remember the collective media and public laughter at London bankers who were some of the early adopters of mobile telephones. I recall the original phones in the mid-80s, which were huge and sometimes had to be physically connected to a car (hence the name Carphone Warehouse, of course). ‘Why would anyone want one of those?’, they said; ‘why not just use the phone you have at home?.’ Even the notion that a phone number referred to a person rather than a location was difficult to grasp. By the way, am I the only person who thought these phones looked a lot like the radios the police had in the French Connection (the film, not the clothes shop)?
But now of course, nearly all of us have these wonderful gadgets in our pockets, and therefore don’t refer to them as gadgets any more, even though they possess a huge array of functionality that most people rarely use, such as mobile internet, calendaring, document reading, and so on. Similarly the iPod, where I recall a similar cry of ‘why not just listen to your CDs individually?’. Of course, nowadays most of us use them not just for music, but for TV programmes and movies, and crucially for the growing phenomenon of podcasting, which few people thought of when these devices were introduced - especially people like John McCain, who by all accounts doesn’t know how to use a computer. I wonder what he would make of the iPhone 3G, which is a combination of the above two things, and is a Satnav too. I guess he would say that his fondness of military spending would support the satellite developments that gave us GPS. Actually, maybe he would be right there! Anyway, there are a lot of people like McCain who decry technological developments while early adopters are eagerly consuming them. I am reminded of a notable physicist at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory who is well-known locally for never touching a computer himself, and employs a secretary (of sorts) to perform his programming; this man will remain nameless.
And then there are those who think that more development is not worthwhile. Sir David King has achieved a rapid notoriety for his disparaging comments about the LHC, which of course did not destroy the Earth last week when it was switched on; why would it, when the collisions which will make those pesky black holes are scheduled to occur some weeks from now? Anyway, Sir David intimated that 4.4 billion quid on solving the mysteries of the universe is a waste of money, a notion that has unfortunately gained traction in some of the science press (for example Research Fortnight). Brian Cox (who I now live next door to at Manchester, girls) said exactly the right thing, and completely demolished Sir David. After all, we are presently chucking a lot more money than that at dodgy banks, and to put it into context we need to be building a great many power stations in this country over the next few years, each of which has a similar price tag to the LHC. Brian rightly pointed out that there are a lot of us (me included) who work on machines not just for particle physicists play with, but which also have a lot of practical uses, nuclear power, X-ray production and radiotherapy being just three insigificant ones.
Sir David’s comments smack a great deal of a mythical quote by US patent commissioner Charles Duell at the end of the 19th Century, who supposedly declared that ‘Everything that can be invented, has been invented’. It’s only a short step to fundamentalism and the rejection of novelty in all its forms. ‘What more do we need to know? Don’t we know enough already?’
I prefer Mark Twain, who said perceptively: ‘The man with a new idea is a crank, until the idea succeeds’. Cue Edison, of course…
Senator McCain having trouble texting
So, back to John McCain. Less well-reported is that a group of scientists have posed a set of key questions on science policy to both Obama and McCain. Their replies are interesting, being prepared comments from their likely policy. Much of the response of both candidates is the usual generic fluff, and Senator McCain in particular likes to make reference to his time in the army (and the navy, apparently), and also gets an oblique reference to his invention of the Blackberry whilst on ‘that committee’. Amongst all that, there are a couple of things worth pointing out. Firstly, Obama is clearly less keen on space and NASA than McCain is (no surprise there).
‘…work toward a 21st century vision of space that constantly pushes the envelope on new technologies as it pursues a balanced national portfolio that expands our reach into the heavens and improves life here on Earth.’ (Obama)
‘…Ensure that space exploration is top priority and that the U.S. remains a leader (against China).’ (McCain)
Second, McCain comes out with very clear targets for new-build nuclear power, whilst Obama is more circumspect:
‘As President, I will put the country on track to building 45 new reactors by 2030 so that we can meet our growing energy demand and reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power is a proven, domestic, zero-emission source of energy and it is time to recommit to advancing our use of nuclear energy.’ (McCain)
‘A new generation of nuclear electric technologies that address cost, safety, waste disposal, and proliferation risks.’ (Obama)
Finally, the issue of stem cells expose the typical Republican/Democratic split in the US:
‘I oppose the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes and I voted to ban the practice of “fetal farming,” making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes.’ (McCain)
‘As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight’ (Obama)
It will be an interesting autumn for science, and for physics in particular.
Bouncy Castle
The SRS: now just so much junk
Today was a rather surreal experience.
Now that the SRS has finally shut, and before the men with spanners start to dismantle the accelerator - some parts of which are over 40 years old - the site has been opened to staff (and the many ex-staff) for a full Sunday. It was a strange experience to come as a tourist to my own place of work, and even stranger that for the event the lab has decided to include a funfair, classic car rally, and birds of prey exhibition. I’m not really sure what any of that has to do with synchrotron science, but maybe it brings in the punters. Unfortunately, the bouncy castle and ‘megaslide’ (whatever that is) were both stolen last night, so the funfair consisted solely of rides next to our decrepit site stores building. I’m not quite sure why it’s best to put playing children near to piles of scrap metal, but there you go.
The celebratory aspect of the day seemed a bit misplaced to me, since there is nothing really to replace the facility, and more than a few people are being made redundant. It was doubly poignant for me as I’m leaving the lab myself in a week’s time, and I worked closely on the SRS for some years.
Oh well…
Of course, the open day was timed to come just after the last SR user meeting to be held at Daresbury. Besides the expected eulogies to the varied research that was done on the SRS, there was an interesting presentation by Jon Marangos, project leader of the ‘New Light Source‘ (what a terrible committee name that is). The science case has been completed, and is available in draft form for comment before final submissiong for funding for the design stage. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it calls for a high-repetition rate X-ray FEL suite (i.e. above 1 kHz), albeit without much technical definition that ties the experimental needs to hard accelerator parameters - the lack of which may or may not come back to bite as it did on 4GLS. Maybe it will get sorted out during the design phase.
Those ‘in the know’ realise that high repetition rate basically means superconducting cavities, since normal-conducting ones can only operate in pulsed mode under 1 kHz. And there are plenty of accelerators being built around the world that will do that - so won’t get funded in the UK. A superconducting design would be kind of nice, since I published a design for one of those a few months ago. Ok, so my design is based on ideas from a number of other people (WiFEL, LBNL etc.), but I think it’s quite good. Maybe they’ll ask me to carry on working on it even though I’m leaving.
My new Windows Mobile phone.
Okay, so I was set on gettng an iPhone eventually, probably by persuading my friend Sam to part with hers and me switch to an O2 SIM card (I’m on a crap T-Mobile tariff right now). But then, only yesterday, I got a special offer email from Expansys for the Ubiquio 503G, reduced from 230 quid to just 99 - with no tie-in contract. Since it has a full, real QWERTY keyboard, and I need something that can hold 1000-plus contacts, I thought ‘why not?’ and clicked on ‘buy’. Good old Expansys had it delivered in under 24 hours (and on a Saturday morning) on the default cheapo delivery, and so here I am typing this post one-handed while carrying a sleeping baby. Try doing that with a laptop! Setup of this Windows Mobile 6 device is a doddle: I haven’t even looked in the manual yet. And the keyboard is pretty good for its size: certainly better than the Blackberry or iPhone when I tried them. Mobile blogging is pretty easy thanks to the moBlog software I downloaded using the phone’s 802.11 b/g capability, and is really helped by the extensive predictive text dictionary. I am pleased so far, and 99 pounds for SIM-free is definitely a bargain.
That’s all, folks…
So, it’s the time of year that always seems to herald change for me. Ever since I was a kid, mid-September was when those feelings of uneasiness drifted into consciousness, making one aware of the changes to come. At school, September was the start of a new year, usually bigger and more challenging than the last. When I left school I thought that this September feeling would stop, but it seems to have continued due to one event or another, always significant, always in September.
Last Friday, my friend Naomi left Daresbury Laboratory, where we’ve worked together for over eight years. It was potent to me because she was one of over 40 people who have left the lab in the last few months, and September is when a big chunk of that number are going out the door. There are lots of leaving dos happening right now, and I’ve never seen the Ring of Bells up in the village so frequently! This loss of staff is happening partly because the SRS has finally closed after 28 years, and the lab is oddly silent and devoid of users. The other part is the STFC funding crisis which has meant even more people have been encouraged to leave to help overcome the chronic funding shortfall. Without a replacement facility on the site, the mood is sombre.
This situation reminds me a little of when I stayed on at Manchester University to do a PhD some years ago. After the bustle of 200-odd undergraduates which built to a climax during final exams, the summer campus after they left was a ghost-town to me - warm and bright, but melancholy. It took a few years for me to really shake that feeling off.
So it’s a strange situation for me to be in now, as I’m also leaving Daresbury after having worked there for quite some time. Even stranger, I’m going to work back at Manchester University, this time in the Particle Physics Group. Whilst I’m sad about leaving the lab, especially after the professional investment I’ve made in the projects I’ve worked on, I’m pretty excited about moving, and the opportunities at the University. Four days at Daresbury left!
Review: First thoughts on the Sony Reader
If you haven’t yet heard of the Sony Reader, you will have in a few months’ time. This device is set to become to books what the iPod was to music, and what the digital camera was to photography. Publishers, beware! The Sony Reader is going to revolutionise digital media. In summary: I think it’s amazing. Here is a short Sony Reader Review.
Although it’s been available in the US for over a year, the latest incarnation of the Reader (the model PRS-505, which replaces the previous PRS-500) is only due to be released in the UK on the 4th September, and will be available in both Sony Stores and in Waterstone’s bookshops. Waterstone’s is also starting an electronic bookshop on the 4th to coincide with the launch of the Reader, although W.H.Smith seems to be the first well-known company already offering electronic book downloads.
However, with the launch a few days away, Sony Stores are taking delivery of the new Reader, and thanks to a helpful store owner, I was allowed to be the first person to purchase it as a retail consumer. Of course, a few devices have been given to reviewers. Keen to get these devices out, the store owner even gave me a discount on the retail price of £199. I won’t say which store or what discount, so that he keeps his job!
I’ve been reading on the device most of the day, in between holding my new daughter, and I am very impressed: the Reader lives up to all the hype about it. If you haven’t yet seen an e-ink display, you will be surprised by its readability.
So what is the Sony Reader? Like several other offerings presently available (such as the Amazon Kindle, although the Kindle isn’t yet available in the UK), the Reader is an electronic book which allows you to comfortably read large amounts of text - electronic books can be read on a computer, but the back-lit displays of computers lead to eyestrain, and in addition laptops are hard to read outside. The Sony Reader and its cousins use an electrophoretic display (e-ink) that is readable in pretty much any conditions. Believe me that you have to see it to really appreciate it - it’s very different from the computer display you’re probably reading this blog on right now.
To answer the question of why not just read on your computer, consider this exchange I had over coffee at work a few days ago:
Me: Have you ever read a book?
A.N.Other: Yes, of course, I’ve read hundreds.
Me: Have you ever read a book on a computer?
A.N.Other: No.
Me: Why not?
A.N.Other: Because it hurts my eyes.
Me: So what do you do if you want to read something electronic?
A.N.Other: I print it out.
That to me is the whole reason for having an electronic book reader: the screen is the key part of it. I read a lot both at home and for work, and a device that lets you carry around more than 100 books (the Sony Reader’s internal memory allows for about 160 typical-sized books) is very useful. The screen is easy on the eye and large enough to be useful - far larger than the alternative method of using a PDA, which I found to be irritating in the extreme. When travelling, I can now carry a large collection of books around with me, and read them comfortably.
Seven years ago, when the iPod was first released, people asked why anyone would want to carry their entire music library around with them, rather than just take one or two CDs. Well, everyone under thirty seems have an iPod now. The same will be true of electronic books with the Reader. In fact, the killer application is likely to be in education, where students need access to a range of textbooks and course notes. An e-book reader is the ideal method of storing these, and rumours abound that the next version of the Amazon Kindle will be a cheaper unit aimed at students (although Amazon itself are denying it).
So what do you get for your money? Well, the UK boxed product contains the device itself, a nice leather cover, a USB charging cable, a CD installer for the Sony ebook software (which you only really need for purchased books), and a CD containing 100 classic texts - the last part is really great for me, as I mainly read old books anyway. There are also various bits of paper and guarantees.
Next to the power swith, the Reader has two card slots on the top edge (Memory Stick Pro and Secure Digital) to expand the internal 256 MB memory theoretically up to 16 Gb, and headphone jack and volume control on the bottom edge for the included MP3 player. Pictures can also be viewed on the device, although the 16-level grayscale screen is not intended for this. However, audio quality is as good as on my iPod, and you can of course listen to music while reading. There is no internal speaker on the unit, but it is a book reader not a hi-fi. A mini-USB and power charging socket on the bottom edge complete the available ports: charging is done via the supplied USB cable, but a separate AC adapter can be bought. Personally, I would but a mains USB charger for a few pounds/dollars and use it to charge all your other mini-USB kit.
Reading on the device is fantastic. As I said earlier, the screen has to be seen to be believed: the best way to describe it is it that it’s like looking at an off-white printed page that has been laminated. The screen can be viewed at any angle, the only caveat being that it can reflect lights, unlike a matte print page. It is much, much better than a laptop screen, so much better it makes you wonder why you put up with LCDs for so long. 800×600 resolution on a 6-inch screen doesn’t sound like a lot, but even at the smallest text display size the text is crisp even when viewed close up. Three sizes of text can be selected, and the rest of the menu system is pretty intuitive after a few minutes. The ‘manual’ consists of a small fold-out Quick Start guide, but you don’t even need that. Whilst the button layout seems strange to begin with, after holding the device in its leather case for a while it’s obvious that someone has thought carefully about the button positions and overall design of the device. This is not apparently true of the Kindle, where there are complaints that it is hard to hold the device without accidentally turning pages. The Kindle is not yet available in the UK (and might not be at all this year), so I can’t compare myself. Unlike most Sony software, which is pretty crap on the whole, the Reader menu system is straightforward to use. The graphics are utilitarian rather than well-designed, but you get used to them almost immediately.
The Reader can access not only the Sony .lrf file format (inherited from the Japanese-only Librie device), but can read .TXT plain text, RTF (i.e. your Microsoft Word documents), PDF, and the emerging EPUB format. To me, this places the Reader way ahead of the Kindle, which apart from plain text can only read the proprietary .azw books available on the Amazon website. The Kindle (in the US at least) has over-the-air downloads using the included EV-DO wireless connection, theoretically dispensing with the need for a computer, but I don’t see many people without a computer and broadband buying these things. EPUB and some PDF files can be re-flowed to adapt the text to the A5-ish screen of the Reader, but even PDFs containing scanned images of A4 sheets are just about legible, meaning that bookworms can download scans from Google Books, or academics can view scans of old papers while they are out and about. It would be nice if the firmware were updated to allow zoom-and-pan, as it doesn’t seem to yet.
Text-based documents load pretty quickly, and turning pages takes just the refresh time of the display - a bit less than a second. The flash of the whole screen is odd at first, but then you think of it as just like turning a real page. Graphic-heavy documents like scanned PDF take longer, and the device struggles a bit with loading them. I’ve only had the device for a day, so I can’t report what the battery life is like, but battery is only used when turning pages, and is reportedly good for around 7000 page turns. That’s a lot of reading - more than a month maybe? I’ll let you know.
Interactivity on the Sony Reader is limited. Since it lacks a keyboard or touch screen, it would be hard to implement a search function, and accordingly there isn’t one. The Kindle does have both keyboard and search, which is a big advantage, but I can’t get over just how ugly the Kindle is. The Sony at least is small, and well-designed. You can bookmark pages on the Reader, but I haven’t really used that feature yet. Some people have commented to me that it would be good to be able to make notes on documents - back to the student use again. To do this, you could buy an iRex iLiad from WH Smith, but adding a touchscreen doubles the price to £400, and I think the iLiad also looks clunky. But it’s a bit like asking a pig to lay eggs - if you want interactivity like this - which needs a fast display - a laptop is the right thing to use. Right now, eink displays are amazingly clear, but not fast enough for this kind of work. You pay your money, you take your choice. By the way, colour eink displays are in prototype but are still a way off.
So, is it worth the money? £200 seems a bit steep (and you can get it for USD300=£150 in the USA), but I think it’s worth it if you read a lot (maybe an obvious statement). If you like out-of-copyright books then you are on to a winner with the Reader, as you can download ebooks for free from the likes of Feedbooks and Manybooks. In paper form these typically cost a few pounds each, so after 30 or so books the Reader pays for itself. For academics and students the PDF compatibility is a real plus, and I can easily see the Reader becoming the normal method of reading books, papers and course notes at universities within a few years.
The Sony Reader is one of the devices pioneering a change in the way reading is done. With the three best-known booksellers in the UK - Amazon, Waterstones and WH Smith - either selling or about to sell books electronically, a sea change is coming in the way people read. Already, new sellers like Lulu are giving authors the ability to publish without traditional publishers, and thus increase their royalties whilst offering lower prices to customers. Like the music industry did with mp3 players, publishing companies must be quaking in their boots. In 5 years’ time, you’ll even be reading your newspapers on one of these.
The Difference Between Men and Women
I saw this recently by Dave Barry. Very true:
Let’s say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to dinner; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out again; and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.
And then, one evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: “Do you realize that, as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other for exactly six months?”
And then there is silence in the car.
To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he’s been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I’m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn’t want, or isn’t sure of.
And Roger is thinking: Wow! Six months.
And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I’m not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I’d have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward… I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?
And Roger is thinking: So, that means it was… let’s see… February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s, which means…let me check the odometer… Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.
And Elaine is thinking: He’s upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I’m reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed, even before I sensed it, that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that’s it. That’s why he’s so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He’s afraid of being rejected.
And Roger is thinking: And I’m going to have them look at the transmission again. I don’t care what those morons say, it’s still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It’s 87 degrees and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.
And Elaine is thinking: He’s angry. And I don’t blame him. I’d be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can’t help the way I feel.
I’m just not sure.
And Roger is thinking: They’ll probably say it’s only a 90-day warranty… idiots.
And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I’m just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I’m sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.
And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They’d better not say its only a 90-day warranty.
“Roger,” Elaine says aloud.
“What?” says Roger, startled.
“Please don’t torture yourself like this,” she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. “Maybe I should never have… Oh my, I feel so… (She breaks down, sobbing.)
“What?” says Roger.
“I’m such a fool,” Elaine sobs. “I mean, I know there’s no knight. I really know that. It’s silly. There’s no knight, and there’s no horse.”
“There’s no horse?” says Roger.
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” Elaine says.
“No!” says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.
“It’s just that…it’s that I…I need some time,” Elaine says.
There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work. “Yes,” he says.
Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand. “Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?” she says.
“What way?” says Roger.
“That way about time,” says Elaine.
“Oh,” says Roger. “Yes.”
Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.
“Thank you, Roger,” she says.
“Thank you,” says Roger.
Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn.
When Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it’s better if he doesn’t think about it.
The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.
Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine’s, will pause just before serving, frown, and say, “Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?”
And that’s the difference between men and women.
The case of the Phantom Phone Call
I’ve just come back from France - lucky me - to find a phone bill from Virgin Mobile with a large spurious call charge - unlucky me. It says I’ve called 07953968999 for 166 minutes!!! Which obviously I haven’t. Here’s the evidence:
So, no calls there that are 166 minutes long. In fact, I’m surprised how few calls I made in France (the roaming entry). Where did it come from then? A quick Google and it appears that 07953968999 is the WAP connection setting for Virgin/T-Mobile in the UK. But here’s the thing - I haven’t used WAP or any other circuit-switched data (as you see from the data calls entry). And the phone can’t automatically connect - there’s a confirmation button. So Virgin are trying bill me for a phantom call. How does that work? If anyone has any idea, please let me know.