2011 — 18 January: Tuesday
Were one to read this reliably scary "Butterflies and Wheels" piece1 one might be tempted to conclude one is glad not to live within range of the place where the Catholic nutjob is mouthing off with his perverted opinions. (Without being locked away, too.) I know Voltaire said something along the lines of "I disagree with every word you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" but, sometimes, it does almost seem there should just possibly be limits!
And there's the slippery slope, of course. (Source.)
A reasonably sunny start so we're going ahead with our planned walk, but sticking to roads to avoid most of the mud. It's 09:27 and breakfast is complete.
There are few things...
... guaranteed to make me feel my age quite so unsubtly as a hardware review in "The Register" of 10 essential budget Android smartphones. Here, for (random) example is the £64 T-Mobile Pulse Mini:
If you please, "The 528MHz — backed by 256MB of RAM — is on the slow side." Good god! I've paid more for programmable pocket calculators. And there was a time when my Acorn RiscPC desktop with a 202MHz StrongARM processor and 64MB of RAM seemed pretty nippy, though it was of bugger all use for making phone calls, or taking 3.2Mpixel photos.
The 6.4 mile stroll, in glorious (but chilly) sunshine, was excellent. As was the chicken salad lunch. And (at 14:24) the sky remains predominantly blue with some fluffy white stuff floating around.
A for Android
I had no idea that the Android2 OS had come so far, and so fast. In fact, to my disbelief, I find I've just spent an hour looking quite hard at the Samsung Galaxy Tab and even, from time to time, vaguely wondering whether I actually have any justifiable use for one. It does have a few tricks up its non-existent sleeve that the iPad lacks.
Mind you, I dithered for so long over whether or not to get a Dell or an HP PDA several years ago (not, as it turned out) that in the meantime the whole market segment imploded, rendering the need to make any decision moot. But (as Christa would have been the first to confirm) I do still have a sneaky fascination for portable hi-tech toys, almost regardless of their actual utility. Help! I must be going mad :-)
As I mentioned...
.. a few moons ago, it's hard but rewarding work being a Loudon Wainwright III completeist. Somehow, this little gem...
... escaped my notice until a couple of evenings ago. [Pause] Speaking of moons, there's a bright one tonight — I suspect a cold night ahead. It's 17:51 and soon time to think about an evening meal. (No thought really necessary, actually, until I've drained the current [pork-based] crockpot.) Yum.
Win7 saved my life
Well, slight exaggeration. I leaned down to press the eject button on the DVD drive and accidentally pressed the power switch. After a brief pause spent with my head in my hands thinking (roughly) "Oh, bother!" I looked at the screen only to see that it was merely politely suggesting that five or so applications needed to shut down, and there was also a "Cancel" button I could click, so I did, and all went sailing merrily along. That's neat.
I presume if I'd held the button down it would have powered off regardless, but I'm in no hurry to experiment. Meanwhile, I now have to dig out details of dear Mama's water supplier to organise a repair to the supply from the road into her house (which is the bit that's sprung a leak recently). It all makes work for the non-working man to do. Grrr.
Getting later
Started, tried, and given up on three films so far this evening. Pretty bad, even for me, I guess. So it's back to some podcasts for a while as I ponder (again) possible uses for a tablet device and contemplate — aghast — some of the contract pricing. These devices are not supplied by charitable institutions :-)
It's 22:46 and -1C out there already. Brrr.