Entries by ct

The OpenIsland conference on Free and Open Source Software will be held in Spires Conference Centre, Belfast on the 1st February 2008. The registration is now open, and all the details can be found on the conference website.

Posted by ct

I bought a Garmin Nuvi 310 sat nav system over the holidays. It is a nice device, a good size, neither too small nor large, and the "d" bundle came with most of the accessories one might want, like the USB cable, carry case, mountings and so on, as well as a DVD with map information, that I haven't gone near yet. I discovered with some pleasure that at least one upgrade was installable on Debian GNU/Linux using the Java application at their site, whether or not it will be possible to avoid Windows for upgrades in all cases I don't yet know. The maps are accurate, with only a small number of very new changes not appearing on them so far, the device calculates, and recalculates routes quickly, and acquires a satellite lock very rapidly, even without the external antenna. It's a nice feature that the internal antenna turns off the power to the GPS as soon as its closed up. A comprehensive list of categorized destinations, such as restaurants, airports, hospitals and shops is very easy to access. The screen is bright and easy to control. One reason I bought this model is that it can act as a bluetooth handsfree kit for a phone, in my case a Sony Ericsson K800i. I have a headset, but this was a big draw for the extra money for me. Out of the box, I paired it with my phone quickly, and I am able to receive calls with good clarity with no problems. Beautifully the device accesses the phone books, call lists and so on from your phone allowing a nice interface to it from the device directly. I did hit one big problem, I could not dial out. None of that functionality worked, the garmin "dialled" the number but the phone did nothing. I contacted Garmin support today (their website is ... um ... awful for support navigation) and was immediately told the phone needed an update. I was surprised, and skeptical since the phone has continuously told me that it has the latest software when I have asked it to update itself. Nevertheless, I went to the Sony Ericsson website and found a Windows (yuck), Flash (yuck) program for updating the phones. They were correct, there was an update for the phone and it has done the trick. All in all, first impressions are a great device. One tiny niggle... I wish the keyboard could be laid out in QWERTY format rather than ABCDE.

Posted by ct

So, it finally has been confirmed, the Home Office will ban "imitation" samurai swords in England and Wales, and I expect the rest of the UK will soon follow suit.

First of all, most students of the martial arts hate the "samurai sword" name, so let's call them Japanese swords. I understand that attacks with these weapons are very high profile, and although in the past I wrote in support of the sale of these weapons by Battle Orders, I am becoming uncomfortable of seeing them on sale in almost every gift shop in every town, often upside down or back-to-front. Having said that, in the main shopping area in Barcelona, every other shop sells them. It's a shame no-one can legitimately appreciate even these cheap swords as a work of art.

My appreciation for swords is now a bit more refined I suppose, and I prefer the zen-like minimalism of real Japanese swords, and my current training sword reflects that, as does the new one on its way, but where will the dividing line be cast?

"Real" swords, shinken forged under license with appropriate paperwork and signed tangs cost thousands of pounds, and are both well outside the price range of beginning Iaido students, but are also far too dangerous to train with since they are razor sharp. The "iaito" most Iaido students train with are, by very definition, imitation swords, made of non-steel alloys and either fully blunt or "semi-sharp" (not filed flat, nor polished to a razor sharp edge), and cannot be sharpened. These are around £300, will they be banned? If so it will destroy Iaido.

And what about my new sword, still on its way, which is in the middle ground, just over £1200, made of unfolded steel, sharp but not signed and licensed. Will I now need to buy a real shinken to be able to train?

Posted by ct

So, I've been practicing Iaido for seven years now. For almost all that time I've used my trusted Iaito or training sword. Like most Iaito it's got a zinc alloy blade coated in chrome to look like the real thing. It's a lovely sword, but slightly too short for me, and has taken a bit of a beating over the years. It's also semi-sharp. I have some decorative (reasonably sharp) steel swords, and I sometimes practice aspects (usually drawing and sheathing the sword) with those, but in many ways they are inferior to my Iaito, so I've long considered buying a steel sword, and have been deciding between three sellers, Nine Circles here in the UK, SwordStore.com in the USA, and Bugei. This week I discovered that nine circles have removed their better steel swords from sale, in fear of coming legislation to ban sale of swords. No-one knows yet when and what shape that legislation will take. It could, at a stroke, totally destroy a martial art like Iaido in the UK, since only those who already own swords will be able to train fully. Anyway, this all worried me, so this week I finally ordered a (very) sharp steel sword from SwordStore (which are a front for a company in Japan). It will apparently take four months, and I'm looking forward to it immensely; I spent several hours poring over which fittings I wanted, and I'm sure the result will be beautiful as well as practical.

Posted by ct

With apologies to Spinal tap...

P1. The A level is a great qualification, and it's going to get even better, they are going to introduce the scale up to A*.
P2. A*?
P1. Yes, how cool is that? All other qualification only go up to A.
P2. Hmm, but wouldn't it be easier to just call the A* an A and use the scale that way?
P1. [blank look] but it goes all the way up to A*

etc.

Posted by ct

Please show your support for the BBC's kidnapped journalist.

Posted by ct

Ok, it's another pet peeve posting. The BBC have just posted a story about strange lights seen over Bangor. The summary reads "Residents in County Down have raised the possibility of a UFO sighting above the skies of Bangor." It's not a possibility, it was a UFO sighting. That is, they were Unidentified Flying Objects. It irritates me when people use UFO to mean "bizarre alien craft about to abduct me", because that would clearly be a well identified flying object. On another note, I lived in Bangor for many years and I also had a UFO sighting when I was there. I was in the back garden with my telescope watching Saturn, and was vaguely aware (I had one eye shut, the other to the eyepiece of my 8" telescope (SCT)) that there odd lightning like flashes going on. I was watching the sky for a while then, and was lucky enough to see one right in the centre of my vision. It was a very bright corkscrew like motion that lasted about a second. I shouldn't rely on memory, if I remember I will dig the details from my observation notebook.

Posted by ct

I used to have a very simple clock, synced to the atomic clock at Rugby. It took a single AA battery, warned you when the battery was low, had a snooze, and basically it worked well. Unfortunately when Aimee was very young she broke it. So I looked for a replacement and couldn't really find one. In the end I found a Science Museum clock that was real overkill, it used batteries and mains and was rather big. I got it as a Father's day present last year (but all that follows is my fault, I picked it). I ended up sending the following to the Science Museum:

This clock is appalling. It frequently fails to sync with the radio signal, in a position that worked for a similar clock for years, and having failed to sync resets the time incorrectly by minutes, hours, and sometimes whole days. When it attemps the sync - it does it midnight and 1 AM. During that time, and it takes a long time, the clock vanishes and is unusable. If that isn't enough it beeps loudly for every button press, so setting the alarm with a partner asleep is a nightmare. You need to flick a switch to turn the alarm off in the morning, and it can be easy to forget to switch it back on. It is sadly a masterpiece of poor design. I hope other SM products I have bought as gifts have not been as poor.

To their credit I got this reply

Thank you for your email. I'm sorry to hear you have been disappointed by the performance of your clock. Our buyer was very concerned to hear of your quality issues, and appreciates you taking the time to write to us with your comments. If you could send the item back to me at the address below, I will certainly replace it and contact the supplier for their feedback regarding any production problems. I am also happy to offer you a full refund, including any postage costs incurred. We take quality and safety issues very seriously, and do test our products thoroughly, but with 1200 different lines it is not always possible to monitor on an ongoing basis. The buying team would like to pass on their apologies and hope that this experience does not deter you from visiting the museum and shop in the future.

I think I should take them up on this kind offer, since the photo attached shows that it synced three hours off the correct time last night .

Posted by ct