May 31, 2003
No QWERTY more
Take a look at Keybowl website, they are selling a keyboard without any keys, its called orbiTouch. You use it by grabbing two handles which can move left/right and up/down. With these two handles and combination of movements you can type.
The thing that interests me about this is that when we see films set in the future, they are mostly still using keyboards, if we saw actors using these sorts of keyboards it would look very futuristic, but then again this technology is here and now. Will we all be using this keyboard in the future?
Finding the books
I remember a long time ago in my life, at Junior School being sent to special reading classes. It was deemed my reading skills were not good, or non-existant. I imagine my Parents were shocked by this discovery. The reading classes ensued and over a short period of time I went from reading no books to reading the whole collection of The Famous 5. How I enjoyed those books, I read them and re-read them, I wonder what I would make of them today.
Then I discovered the Library, or rather my parents drove me there. It was great, a whole building full of books, and get this, I could read them for free. I think I was lucky one of the first books I remember taking out from Crewe Library was "Scrub Dog Of Alaska". It was a superb book, about a dog and his trials and tribulations throughout his life. Hold on I am going to amazon (new verb?) this book to see if it still exists. It does exist, I was reading the reviews from a 11 year old, he should be writing this instead of me. I may just buy it, only available second hand of course.
I think it was a while before I found a whole section with the title Science Fiction and Fantasy (why do they put those together?). But once this happened there was no going back, straight through Clarkes books, Bova, and whatever else was on the shelves. I soon out-read the Library and was ordering books (not free) from other Libraries. And then when I had my first weekend job I was out to WHSmiths ordering books.
Books are great, I hate to be without a book, not sure the last time that I had nothing to read. This would I reckon put me into panic mode. So from not be able to read at such a small age all the way to now. A great journey of tails, books and stories.
May 30, 2003
Chilean Foreign Minister: visit
Just been down to the runway here in Paranal to watch the landing of the Chilean Foreign Minister, Canciller Sra. Soledad Alvear.
I am a UNIX System Administrator by day, but clothed in my Rescate (Spanish for Rescue) boiler suit I am a member of the Paranal Rescue Team. We were on site just in case anything went wrong with the landing. Cool or what. Nothing did go amiss.
book: The Physics of Consciousness
I think this is a better place than any to keep a list of the books I am reading and allow anybody to comment on them, perhaps inform what my next book should be!
Right now I am reading "The Physics of Consciousness" By Evan Harris Walker, ISBN 0-7382-0436-6.
This book had been sitting on my book shelf now for quite a while, I bought it on a whim, a mate here in Paranal, Chris Mckinstry who reads these sort of learned books all the time pointed it out to me, or led me to read/try to these types of books. This book is quite learned I must say but the writing style along with a mixing in of a good bit of humanity makes this an excellent book. Last night I was reading about quarks, leptons, mesons, quanta, and baryons etc.. All things small really. And along with all this heady stuff the author writes about his younger life and his love loss, which lead him to try and understand life. I am about a third of the way through, I may comment this entry when I finish.
May 29, 2003
Roll Of Honour
WE ARE THE DEAD, SHORT DAYS AGO
WE LIVE, FELT DAWN, SAW SUNSETS GLOW,
LOVE AND WERE LOVED, AND NOW WE LIE
IN FLANDERS FIELDS
By Lt.Col. John McCrae
I saw this on a plaque that can be found at the Castle Eilean Donan, Scotland. Its was written to the members of the Clan MacRae who lost their lives during WWI. I was driving up to the Isle Of Skye with my newly wedded Wife on our honeymoon, we stopped off at the Castle. The suns last glow was setting, and I was being loved.
Geek Test: 15.38462%
I got only 15.23462% on the geek test, a little depressing really as I work as a UNIX system administrator and thought (wanted) I would be a little more geeky. Why not try and take the test as well, it is a little long though, so its something best to do throughout a day, not just in one go.
I like the five decimal places on the score, thats defo geeky.
Ideas and notebooks
When I am in the shower, walking to work, going to sleep, driving I do have good ideas, honestly I do, its just I don't have anywhere to write them. Just last night as I was going to sleep, or at least trying to I had a great idea, now though, this morning I cannot remember a thing. I think two new things will abate this problem. 1) A pocket notebook that I have bought in England, it a moleskine one. Apparently Van Gogh, Hemingway and Matisse had one, so it got good pedigree. Lets just hope I can put it to good use, noting my little ideas. 2) A device like a Palm always connected to the internet, so I can write and be connected at all time.
You can see why I went for the Moleskine can't you, it was a lot cheaper and easier to use. I still think the little computer things that are on sale today really don't surpass a notebook. No keyboard, not much disk space. Whats the point?
Who is reading
At the moment there are few posts and little amount of comments. Should I be worried about this or just write on. If I write will they come? Of course I will have to work on the content, this is going to take a while. Come on all and read and comment. Perhaps this is a short coming with Blogging, perhaps nobody will ever read or write, and then it will all have been in vain. But then at least I will have a record of things, like say this stupid contentless blog.
Matrix Reloaded: Theory
First of all lets just say for me this film was the best film I have ever seen, action, story, science fiction, music. I rekon it will be many years before this film is surpassed, or maybe a wait till November for Matrix Revolutions.
Now to my theory: Neo is another part of the Matrix, and may even turn out to be enemy of the people of Zion.
Reasoning: Zion itself exists in a Matrix, there is a Matrix within a Matrix. Neo has the ability or the programming to become the one, but he is supposed to be only Human like Trinity. But he can now as we see control the machines. Therefore everybody is still in the Matrix and Neo is more a part of it than he knows.
May 28, 2003
Cebiche a la chilena
4 a 6 personas
ingredientes:
1 kl. pescado fresco (de preferencia de carne blanca)
1/2 kl. limÛn
un atado de cilantro
pimienta (a gusto)
sal (a gusto)
aceite vegetal (a gusto)
materiales:
exprimidor de jugo
fuente grande no muy profunda
preparaciÛn:
lavar y cortar el pescado en cubos pequeÒos, dejar en la fuente. exprimir los limones, hasta obtener el suficiente jugo que pueda cubrir 3/4 del pescado. agregar la sal. esperar 1/2 hora. luego picar el cilintro y aÒadir junto a la pimienta y aceite. revolver hasta que todo estÈ bÌn mezclado. dejar reposar de 1 hora mÌnimo hasta 5, seg™n gusto.
servir en platos individuales acompaÒado con rodajas de pan tostado y vino blanco.
sugerencia:
preparar de un dÌa para otro
First Web Blog
To blog or not to blog? That is the question. Well its already answered I am to blog, this is my first! What then is the question? I think the question is what am I going to write here. Do I rant and rave, do I write about stuff that interests me, do I bear all to the world? I think not, there has to be some measure of control here. This then is some part of my life, ideas and things, its nothing else.
So what is the usefulness of this thing, this blog, not sure really, this is my first time, my blog virginity lost. Perhaps some of you already know the answers who have been blogging for a while.