Do Androids Dream of Electronic Donuts?

Over the last few days, something has been puzzling me: a lot of science fictions movies have "replicants" - robots that are considered a facsimile replica of a human being, complete with skin, hair etc.  Examples of these appear in Alien and Aliens (I stopped watching the trilogy after that monstrosity) and Bladerunner. Within these movies, they are sometimes shown eating a meal with their human counterparts - this presumes that they obtain their energy from food as we do.

Anyway, the question I have is: do androids suffer from obesity?  Obviously, if we assume that the android knows the limits of its requirements, it is reasonable to expect that it will stop consuming when it no longer needs to. But what if there is a bug in the software?  It is possible that it could continue to "eat" and there would be an excess of energy that it is unable to process.  Then there is the example of Rachel in Bladerunner - she was an android that believed she was human. Therefore, would she gain the same pleasures from (for example) eating chocolate?  And if so, if she ate to excess how would her weight gain be shown? (Not that we want a fat Sean Young).

Then there is the issue of alcohol & drugs.  The replicant in Alien knew that he was one, but had to fool the human crew members.  How would he emulate their effects?  And again, go back to Rachel - she would have had to been able experience all the effects. Does this mean her designer had to be an alcoholic druggie in order to fully describe the effects?

These are questions that movies have not addressed....

Big Brother...

No not, Channel 4's attempt to turn the nation in to one populated by knuckle-draggers.

I noticed this article today, and I am of two minds. While copyright theft is a concern, especially for newly emerging "talents", I am against the wholesale admonishment of people that do download music and or movies. For example, if someone wanted to buy a movie and discovered that the DVD had been deleted and was no longer available, I believe that they should be able to download it. Of course, that is not to say that BPI, etc would necessarily agree with that theory, so if they want to prevent illegal downloading, they need to extend consumer choice by providing catalogues of older material and charging people to download them. Everyone would be a winner...

Of course, there is also the issue of DRM and what not but that's not likely to be fixed anytime soon.

One Mighty White Elephant

Reading the paper this morning, I saw this article about an airborne laser "gun" designed to kill tanks from 10 miles (15kms) away. Pretty impressive considering that tank armour can be 300mm thick and beyond.

Whilst a great idea in theory, and obviously big-shiny technology always looks impressive (which is why billions are spent on high-tech planes rather than making them cheaper and in greater quantities), I do feel that this plane is going to be rather limited as it is totally reliant on air superiority.

Currently it is mounted on a converted 747, with plans to later fit in to the venerable Hercules. Certainly on my travels, I have not considered the 747 to be the most agile of craft and while 10 miles sounds like a considerable distance, it is not that deep for a battlefield as they can stretch to several miles by the time reserves are taken into consideration. As such, its use is going to be limited to insurgent situations and the flight crew will have to hope like hell that they don't possess any cheap anti-aircraft missiles, which the US government would have in no way supplied to them. And if you believe what's in store for the future, it's not going to be of much use.

Even assuming that the future is not so bleak, the limits of the laser means that at maximum range the laser is going to be degraded substantially by atmospheric conditions (smoke and dust from the battlefield, water vapour in the atmosphere), which will causing "blooming" and reduce the effectiveness of the beam. Still, with a skilled controller they should be able to beam "USA! USA! USA!" into the clouds.

Find dodgy content faster!

I read this interesting piece in the Telegraph this morning. In a nutshell, the future Internet will allow you to enter a single search term and it will lead you to all related content. So far example, type in "Mel Gibson" and it will return his biography, options to buy his back catalogue and links to religious nutjob websites.

The article also discusses the possibility of linking bank accounts to online calendars and photo collections, so that you can see the impact that a holiday had on your bank account. Leaving aside the privacy issues, I am not exactly sure how that will be of benefit. After getting back from a pleasant holiday, the last thing I want is a reminder of the damage it did to my meagre funds. Still, it could persuade people not to holiday so much - ah, it's part of the Greenie agenda!

Predictions for 2008

As it is the start of the year, I thought I would put down a few predictions for the year ahead. I am no Mystic Meg, and most of it is pretty much guesswork so I don't know how accurate I will be.

Football

• Premier League winners: everyone seems to think it will be Man Utd or Arsenal. I don't know though, I can see Derby having a good run of form. Failing that and a few intimidated referees later, Chelsea do have an outside chance out of the remaining 2 in the top 4. So, let's go with Arsenal.
• FA cup winners: I would like to see an outside team win it, but I think Chelsea may have the edge as they tend to do well in tournaments.
• Champions League: I will say this much, it won't be an English team.
• England team: a year of optimism for future will be brought to a stuttering halt by a few players continuing to not find form. Rooney to become a super sub, Lampard to dropped completely after a dismal performance against Switzerland.

Politics

• UK election: not while Gordon Brown is in power. If one is called, a slim majority for the Conservative party (maybe a hung Parliament?) with Labour losing out to both Tories and Liberals.
• US election: isn't there one due soon? Don't know if it is this year or not, but if so, expect the Republicans to retain by 1% again, after multiple recounts, suing of the balloting machine developers and within 2 months everyone complaining that they didn't vote for them. The Democrats will blame Michael Moore for losing them votes.
• Middle East: more of the same, I'm afraid.
• Australia: they have just had an election, so they will be happy for a bit longer.

Economy:

• Housing: prices down, then up, then down, then up. Then everyone will realise that Halifax's economic predictor is suffering from a previously unseen Y2K bug.
• High-street spending: more on-line spending leads to less high street spending. By the end of the year, queues at on-line checkouts match high street stores.

Technology:

• Facebook: mass desertions as everyone gets tired of being poked, bitten by Vampires and receiving dubious "do you find me hot?" requests. That, and people read the privacy statement.
• iPhone: new one introduced, the world goes crazy. Steve Jobs has more followers than Ghandi, is canonised by the Pope, starts managing the US Football team, forms a US cricket team, cures cancer, etc...
• Next big thing: not sure. Last year it was Facebook and the year before that You Tube, as a guess I will go with an application that syncs all your contacts, emails, instant messages, calendars, etc across work and home, mobile phone, etc. There are a few options already available in this field, but none of them have really taken off yet.
• This blog: sporadically updated ;)

I will try and remember to check these out at the end of the year.

Happy New Year and a few resolutions

Happy New Year to all. Hopefully, 2008 will be a successful and prosperous one for you all, and your resolutions are achievable. In that sense, here are some of mine:

• Get to the gym more, and not just weights but cardio as well
  
• Update this more

So not many, so hopefully I will be able to keep them going for more than a month.

I read today that TIME has awarded Vladimir Putin the Man of the Year award. At first I thought it was a practical joke given that Russia have started sending out their long range bombers to probe the Western air defences (something that has not happened since the height of the Cold War in the 1980s).

However a review of the TIME's Man of the Year awards shows that this is not entirely without precedent. Previous recipients have included notables such as:

• Adolf Hitler
• Joseph Stalin
• Harry Truman (in the year that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was bombed)
• Nikita Kruschev
• Lyndon B Johnson (in the year prior to the Vietnam war escalation)
• George W Bush (enough said)

As such, Putin joining such a list is therefore not entirely out of character for the editors of TIME. Here's hoping that Putin does not join his Russian predecessors...

Sheep, lemmings, etc...

Obsession is a dangerous thing... The cult of the iPod totally confuses me: it is a device that has a very high volume of competitors, often with superior products and despite the negative press (battery life, locking you in to iTunes), people continue to buy the thing.

Now, Apple have released the iPhone and again the lemmings are let out. This is a phone that's one innovation is the built in tilting mechanism, other than that it offers nothing and in some respects is a retrograde step (e.g. lack of 3G, vendor-locked service provider, etc). By the looks of it, there is again no way of changing the battery so within 18 months, users will have dead phones as good old memory effect will make them useless.

I am sure people will continue to buy them irrespective of how good the product is or the company's ethics. Wonder if Steve Jobs will ever get round registering Apple as a religion? He does a better brainwashing job than the Moonies.

Five of the best looking blokes on the planet

While browsing around FaceBook, I noticed that one of my friends had added a post about his celebrity look-alikes. Always eager to try out something new, I followed the link and uploaded a picture taken at the Roskilde Rock Festival that we were at last year. At the time that the picture was taken, I had not showered or shaved for more than a couple of days, so to say I looked a grot is a bit of an understatement.

After a couple of minutes, my results came through and I was slightly suprised by the results (to say the least). My results are below...


Robbie Coltrane and Peter Jackson I can sort of see, but Kofi Annan????!!!! Obviously the tan after 6 months on the road was better than I thought. I'm quite happy about Patrick Swayze and Michael Douglas though :)

Winter's Night in Blackheath

A few weeks ago, Heather and I were crossing the common and saw this picture which we thought was well worth taking. After getting home, I dug out my camera tripod and went and took the snap. Hopefully, the snow promised in the next week or so will come - I reckon a snow-covered picture of the church would make quite a good Christmas card for everyone.

One thing I have been killing time with is to try and research my family tree. Heather had bought me a book on family history research for Christmas (I had asked for it), and it's really useful that so many indices exist online with cheap or even free access. Unfortunately, they are mostly English (which isn't really a bad thing) or American. A bit of a problem for me, as I am such a mongrel with Jamaican, Irish and French ancestory. Also, there is a lot of inconsistency accross an index - one entry in a birth register will have the mother's maiden name listed whereas one won't. Coupled to this is that sometimes it is impossible to find an entry, it makes looking for a needle in a haystack easy.

I think this will not be an easy task...

Happy New Year!

Another week, another post. I should get more regular with this. I've been having a relatively hectic week at work with year-end and various things going wrong. Anyway, I thought I would proffer my opinions on the Saddam Hussein Execution.

There has been a lot of hand-wringing by the Bush and Blair about how he should not be executed. It's kind of ironic that Bush is adverse to this, given his track record. That being said, one thing that is bugging me is the constant need by Western countries to impose their morals and values on to another country, which has opposing views.

Taking the example of China, they are a totalitariean state that supresses individual human rights. However, they are also in a position where their economy is one of the fastest growing and they are slowly giving more rights to the individual. Contrast this with the changes that took place with the fall of the Communism, which resulted in bloody conflicts and massive corruption at the same time that Western values and a Capitalist economy was adopted. I really believe that it is better to allow countries to progress at their own speed, rather than to force upon them foreign values.

Anyway, time for me to go party :)

Merry Christmas!

Well, it's been over a month since my last posting. In my defence, I have started my new job and in addition to being pretty busy, I also wanted to check out their policy regarding blogging (do they allow it, etc). Fortunately, as long as I don't publish any confidential information, I should be fine. All common sense really.

Hope you all have a merry Christmas out there. I am not going to apologise for using the C-word. It appears the only people that have a problem with it are the anorak wearing drips whose spine is gelatinous. Heck, even most Muslims don't mind it being celebrated because if I recall correctly, Islam acknowledges both Jesus and Mohammed as a prophet. (Apologies for any incorrect information or spellings).

Oooh... This will be fun

Heather and I were sorting out our holiday photos last night, and I had been exploring MyPixmania as a place to get them printed (as low as 3p each!). Heather however insisted on more of a coffee-table style picture book, something that MyPixmania no longer supports (that I can find).

After a bit of a hunt with Google, I found this interesting website. The great thing about it is that you download an application and design your photobook, before uploading (or sending it via CD) and they print it for you. The prices although they sound steep, seem to be pretty reasonable: £80 for a 144 page book, about A4 size.

Therefore instead of sorting out the house and preparing for our housewarming party, I am going to be playing with this. Much better than housework :)

Crikey, it's been a while

Well, I had a week off posting not because I lost interest but because I was slightly busy.

The house is a complete bomb site at the moment as I try to assemble furniture (Lewisham council's recycling truck must be overloaded with cardboard waste from me) and we had my sister and her partner's wedding over the weekend. Plus there were interviews for that elusive job.

But I am back now, although with a strained back from lifting heavy furniture incorrectly. Remember people, bend the knees not the back!

Just a quick update

We had our broadband connection relocated to our study today. Now it means I don't have to perch over a laptop while Heather tries to watch America's Next Top Model or some such tripe (for an intelligent woman, she does like more than her fair share of reality tv).

Also got my mate coming over from Basingstoke for a pub crawl around Blackheath. Should be a messy night as Heather is away :)

It's like Christmas early

Well, not quite.

We had our consignment arrive today from Australia. It had been in storage while we travelled and started its own journey itself at the end of August.

The guys from Allied Pickfords were scheduled to arrive at 10am, so we set the alarm for 8:30 to give us time to shower and get dressed. Heather came out of the shower first at 9:10 and 5 minutes later the guys arrived (nearly taking down a tree in front of our house in the process).

After reading about the troubles our friends had when they moved, I was a bit nervous about what state ours would be in. In fact, everything went really smoothly with only a couple of minor breakages, which hopefully the insurance will cover.

Our place is currently full of half-empty cartons as we did not bring over any wardrobes as our last place had built-ins. We have ordered some cheap junk from Argos, which should arrive soon. Until then, it's a bit more living like a backpacker (albeit with nice furniture, HD tv, etc).

Oh and happy anniversary Sophie and Paddy!

Moving in...

Ok, so we are now in our new place. Unfortunately, our stuff has yet to arrive so we are sleeping on an air mattress and using an inflatable sofa as our only seating. On the plus side, our new high definition television has arrived so at least we can watch tellie, and 40-odd channels of it!

We are renting a 3 bedroom place in Blackheath, which is a really nice suburb in London - very close to the Canary Wharf and the city but green and picturesque.

When we walked across the common for the first time, I knew that this is the place I wanted to be when I saw the church sitting in the middle of it. Hopefully, it will be cold this winter and it will get covered in snow. That would be a picture worth recording.

Our stuff arrives sometime soon (we hope) so our sparse place will soon be a lot more homely.

A new blog and a new posting...

Ok so I have been running my other blog for a couple of years now and although it's reasonably up to date, it is more geared towards holidays, rather than the routine of day-to-day life. So with that in mind, I have decided to fire up a new blog and keep it regularly updated.

This blog will be a place for me to keep a record of what goes on in our life, what (non-holiday) related activity we are up to and a place for me to vent my opinions on politics, world affairs, sport, etc.

Let's get cracking!