Android 1.6 (Donut) initial thoughts
I installed donut earlier this week. This is on my G1 devphone, so I don't recommend you use the htc page otherwise. This time I didn't bother going through all the nonsense with the tools, I just mounted the phone on USB and slapped the image across one by one into the SD card as […]
Compassion in the Martial Arts
I recently had a conversation with some people who wondered if there could be any place for compassion in the martial arts in general, and certainly in Iaido, or Japanese swordsmanship in particular. It may be useful to start by considering the idea of Bushido, or "the Way of the Warrior". A lot of people […]
Derren Brown tells porky pies, get over it
Derren Brown has been back on our screens recently with a series of big events. It's brought him a lot of publicity, and a lot of the public comment has been amusing to say the least. I've been watching everyone comment on the TV and Radio that he's a trickster, and his explanations of how […]
Virgin Media, Netgear and Vidzone
The PS3 has an free network application called Vidzone. I downloaded it when it originally came out some time ago, but it never actually worked. It would load, show playlists, adverts, and the seize up the whole console when I tried to actually play videos. It's a shame, because it looked like a nice app […]
Jedi training in Belfast?
Ok, ok, bear with me here :-). Allen Baird and Rory O'Connor will be offering a personal development seminar in Belfast on the 17th October, but with a twist. Like a previous event that Allen has offered, the whole thing is steeped in metaphors related to the Star Wars movies, in order to put over […]
Campaign for an apology for treatment of Alan Turing
The website for Number 10 Downing Street has a new petition calling for an apology for the treatment which led Alan Turing to commit suicide at the age of 41, rather than submit to having his homosexuality "cured" by chemical castration. Turing was, not only a founding father of Computer Science, but a leading member […]
Choosing a development hosting solution
I'm considering changing the development environment we use to host our projects in work and I'm not alone. The reason why will become more clear further down. To be honest this article is partly to help me work out what my priorities for this are, and to appeal to the lazy web for any other […]
Violence and Gender
Recently, I've spoken to a few people about an English tourist having his genitals set alight in Crete. Apparently he was exposing himself to a local girl and fondling her. If so, his behaviour was just plain disgraceful, and regardless of the justice of the situation as defined by the law, a stern reminder to […]
Steganography, prevention before is better that detection after
New Scientist recently ran an article about steganography. If you don't already know, steganography is essentially encryption with a difference. Specifically, encryption is usually obvious. It may be that the data Alice sends via email to Bob with public key cryptography is entirely secure from eves-dropping by Eve (pun intended, sorry), but Eve will know […]
Receiving Ukemi
For those not acquainted by martial arts. The title is a bit of a weak play on words, since "ukemi" means something like "receiving through the body". Uke is generally the receiver of a technique and thus the attacker in aikido, whereas the nage is the thrower to use one possible word. Ukemi is important […]