Fitting the battle of life

Well, the pwn to own contest has come to an end, and after the early exit of the MacBook Air, the Vista laptop was the second to go, leaving the Ubuntu machine still standing at the end.

It’s not a particularly scientific contest - I’m sure the Air went first because it was a more desirable prize than the Vista laptop, but the fact that the Ubuntu machine ‘won’ doesn’t surprise me, and probably doesn’t surprise anyone else either. The Mac succumbed to a flaw in Safari, and the Vista machine apparently a flaw in Adobe’s flash player.

There are security vulnerabilities in Ubuntu - or there would never be security updates - but for the moment, we’re safe.

Well, I heard about debatewise earlier last term when the guy running it came to one of our debates to talk briefly about it, but it’s only now (when I remembered about it and dug out his card from a pocket) that I’ve had a good look and signed up, and started to contribute.

Today I came across a debate titled ‘Macs are better than PC’s‘, which, aside from its flagrant misuse of the apostrophe, is just a silly thing to `debate’. I will keep half an eye on it, but we all know what happens when an argument (yes, argument, not debate) like this starts up. Rule #2 of the internet: Reason holds no sway over the fanboy.

I’ll admit I did step in to offer a counter-argument, but that was only to point out the futility of the topic. I’ll blog about the actual concept and the site itself later this weekend; I just needed to get that off my chest.

In other news, I think I had better sort out my categorization and tagging.

This week I recommend:

• In film, This is England. (Watched it tonight, and it’s brilliant, just brilliant. The dialogue’s great, the soundtrack is perfect, and most of the acting is great too.)
• In music, Portland Rise. (Yes, I have a bit of a vested interest in these guys, but would recommend them even if I didn’t know them.)
• In books, Under the Net. (Iris Murdoch’s first novel, and unfortunately the only one of hers I’ve read, but will try and rectify that this summer after my exams.)

That’s my watch, listen and read for this week. I might even make it a semi-regular feature, depending how revision goes.

• (And as a bonus, in podcasts, the Ubuntu-uk podcast episode 2, or uupc as it is become known. It even got a mention on lugradio this week!)

This one’s for Londoners: follow the tubinator for updates one which tube lines are currently playing up (updated every 15minutes). However, the short form of tweets means messages can be cut off, as in the current “Broken tubes: Circle (Part suspended), District (Part suspended), East London (Bus service), Hammersmith” - surely removing the ‘Broken tubes:’ bit would be sensible, as you’re reading the status for a reason. I might message the guy who created it; it appears to have surfaced earlier this month.

So, to recap my twitter treats:

• twitter from irssi,
• google calendar integration,
• follow the plotline of a short story (or at least, one strand of it),
• and now tube updates.

Is there anything twitter can’t do? Aside from make me another cup of tea?

Following up from my first impressions, I’m now on beta 3 (which comes as default in the Hardy beta), and noticing a few more features I’m really impressed with.

First up is better download management. It was good to begin with, but there’s now a quick-look indicator in the status bar so you can keep track of how everything’s going without bringing up the download window:

The new download window itself has been revamped, but I don’t like having to right-click to clear the list - having a separate button was much more intuitive. I suppose that with the ’search’ box as well, the developers were aiming for a google-esque archiving everything you’ve ever downloaded feature, but it doesn’t really float my boat.

It may just be the slightly tweaked Hardy icon set, but I’ve noticed some tiny icon changes, specifically dealing with rss feed icons, which look slicker if a little bigger to my eye (can’t compare as I’m on a clean install of Hardy). Shots of both the address bar and live bookmark icons:

Finally, the new Add-ons dialogue is a great idea, letting you search for extensions without opening up another tab, but in my first test didn’t perform that well. Still, it’s a neat feature to have:

That’s about it for now, will do another update when it moves out of beta.

Now that Evolution has (or at least, now I’m aware that it has) support for syncing with your google calendar, I’ve found (quite without looking) a handy way of adding events to your calendar via twitter.

By following gcal on twitter, and authorising twittercal to access your google account, you can send gcal a direct message to add events (e.g. “d gcal Birthday party tomorrow at 9pm”).

I’ve not found any privacy concerns on my (limited) googling yet, so it looks to be secure, unlike the G-Archiver app that surfaced a while ago - but of course, it’s up to you to trust it or not. (To be honest, I haven’t yet decided - just thought I’d put this tip out there for whoever might be interested.) There seem to be over 3,000 people following gcal on twitter at the moment. Once I’ve set it up I’ll report back.

(Setting up Evolution with your google calendar is as easy as File->New->Calendar, selectiong ‘Google’ from the drop-down box and filling in the relevant information.)

Update: I’ve now tried this, and 15mins later still no appearance of the events I was trying to create. Score -2 so far, not looking good for twittercal.

I own an iPod.
Because my mother bought it for me when I finished school. I don’t have rockbox on it because I did buy a couple of songs from the iTunes store which are drm’d (I also bought some iTunes ‘plus’ songs which are drm-free), and while they’re not the best songs in the world, I do still want to be able to listen to them!

I use Flash.
Because half the internet would be unavailable to me. Yes, I know there’s gnash, but I’m not sure if it’s stable enough for my browsing habits - anyone with experience here would be welcome to leave their experiences in comments below :)

I have most of my music in mp3 rather than ogg.
Simply a relic of my Windows days - and given that iPods don’t support ogg, I’ll unfortunately be sticking with mp3 for the foreseeable future. I do use my iPod quite a lot, so it makes sense to keep doing this. If and when my nano breaks, well, perhaps I’ll be buying a more Linux-friendly player, and then start moving to ogg. What do I mean, ‘perhaps’? Of course I will.

I use the restricted ati driver.
Because Hardy told me to. Would that all graphics cards would come with open-source drivers, but alas, it isn’t (yet) the case.

I use Skype.
It’s simply very good at what it does, and isn’t interoperable with other voip networks. Various people I know use Skype, and so do I. If a lot of people I knew used something else, or there was a compatible open-source programme, I’d use that. I still use a hotmail account for MSN chats, although I do use Pidgin for those.

Am I a freedom hater? No, I’m just pragmatic.

Well, it has been a great year for the Debating Society, culminating in a rather fun Foundation Dinner. With MPs from all three major parties speaking over the year, academics and seasoned debaters, I think we’ve managed to provide and entertaining and informative range of debates for all to enjoy. Once again we grew in size, with both membership and regular audience numbers growing from last year - growth we plan to continue next year. We broke at many more competitions this year, and got a team to the final at Nottingham - well done to everyone who debated so well!

Foundation Dinner was a brilliant success, with not only a great dinner but a great debate afterwards, featuring three Tory MPs attacking the government, and two Labour MPs and Dr Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, successfully defending it (for the first time in several years).

Many thanks to everyone who came this year, and here’s looking forward to September!

Well, not novel, more short story. Have a look at www.wetellstories.co.uk, where six authors over the next six weeks will be publishing short stories with technological twists, based on classic stories themselves.

The first one, a reworking of The 39 Steps into The 21 Steps, features Google Maps which allow you to follow the action on-screen (the story itself is presented through markers on the maps). Some of the map movements weren’t that slick, with little time for the maps to load when the action was moving fast (e.g. on the tube ride), but apart from that it was a brilliant little idea. Who’s up for doing a Ulysses mashup?

The second one, Slice, is more involved. It’s about an American family who’ve done a house-swap with an English family, and there are two blogs to follow the action on: the daughter’s blog, and the parents‘. Both sets of characters also have twitter accounts, which interact with you. I sent an @ message to the parents and was rewarded with a reply! I’m still waiting for the `daughter’ to respond to my e-mail, but will update when I do. [Update: Both Splice and the parents are now following me back on Twitter! I'm loving this new, interactive creativity!]

There’s also something of a competition, with the chance to win a library of 1300 Penguin Classics books (approx. 25 metres!), and a hidden story (at least in the first - clues about a girl named Alice and phone numbers to ring for hidden messages).

What these stories show is that new technology, although posing questions for the future of the book, is a wonderful medium for creative literature. I’m going to keep watching the site and read the stories - so far the project is very promising.

[Posted in Ubuntu because of the web 2.0/geek aspect of using new technologies]

I am at an utter loss to understand why two of London’s mayoral candidates have vowed to remove the bendy bus from our streets (background here). Reading the comments shows how silly people can become, pleading for the return of the Routemaster (which still operate on two routes, including the number 9). Since when did nostalgia overtake practicality as a primary factor in public transport policy? Idiots.

The bendy bus has had accidents associated with it, yes. But not so many as to pose a massive danger to public health. Plenty of other cities have been using them for years without the same outcry.

The bendy bus is long, yes. And? It means it can take more people. They make up 5% of the buses in London, but account for 9% of the passengers. I call that efficient, not an eyesore.

So people can get on without paying. They can also get on double deckers without paying, by sneaking in through the exit doors. Bendy buses are subject to more inspections than other routes - because of this fact. And since inspections now consist of the police surrounding the bus and its exits in a military-esque operation, it’s not exactly a pleasant experience to admit to not paying. (And not paying is how a lot of students I know tend to survive week to week.) The answer is not to get rid of bendy buses, it’s to create a system whereby more people are likely to pay. I imagine if TfL were making a horrendous loss, they’d do something about it, but it seems for the moment that they are in an equilibrium where those who do pay, pay enough to cover the ‘loss’.

Oh, they’re difficult to stand on, apparently. Rubbish.

The only concern I agree with is from cyclists (as an itinerant cyclist myself). But any concern about how they are driven is not to do with the vehicle itself, but the driver. Lorries are worse, anyway. And taxis, they’re pretty manic. Ban the lot?

I think that’s enough. Sod the critics, keep the bendy bus - don’t vote Boris. Brian Paddick’s suggestion of trams is at least creative, but with the volume of traffic in London I think is a little impractical (to say nothing of the cost). Seems it’ll have to be Ken…