Verbo.se

Beer

07/08/2007

Since I had Lipotrim coming out my ears and Volvic coming out of all of my other orifices, I’ve decided to take a break from the old diet for a fortnight, which means that I now have the opportunity to celebrate my thus-uncelebrated 35th birthday, and my ~~impending doom~~ happy engagement to the lovely T. Plus of course there’s the long, complicated process of organising my stag night, with all the associated discussions, fights, interventions, arrests, and ultimately duels at dawn. So set aside Friday week the 17th in your calendar for a few pints please. More details as we have them.

PS. 27.5 pounds so far, and really that extra half pound at the start was cos of a Johnny Fries a couple nights before I started. That’s just short of two stone, or the weight of this amount of water.

Yes, I’m using bottles of water to visualise my weight loss. But still, not bad eh? Sorry for the journally-type post, but I’m dead chuffed.

Dual Network Handsets

06/08/2007

Indian handset maker Spice Mobile has introduced two new mobiles, both of which can handle dual connections: GSM + CDMA for the D-88, and GSM + GSM for the D-80. It’s not clear if they take two SIMs or handle the second virtually, or even if it’s just an extension of the clunky dual-SIM addons you’ve been able to get for years, but it’s a major step forward either way simply because it comes as part of the package. It’s just a pity they decided to rip off or licence already dated Moto designs and not come up with a new design to go with it.

Of course Nokia, Motorola or any of the other handset makers could have done this years ago, but they like to pick and choose where they innovate, and where they help the networks retain their cosy little cartels.

Spot the Undercover Reporter

04/08/2007

Wired: DefCon staff lured her to a large hall telling her that the Spot the Fed contest was in session and that she could get a picture of an undercover federal agent at the contest. When she sat down, Jeff Moss, DefCon’s founder, announced that they were changing the game. Instead of Spot the Fed, they were going to play Spot the Undercover Reporter and then announced, “And there’s one in here right now.” Madigan, realizing she’d been had, jumped from her seat and bolted out the door with reporters carrying cameras chasing after her through the parking lot and to her car.

Open Letter to Acer

01/08/2007

Prompted by this idiocy.

From: Adam Beecher
To: euro_mail@acer-euro.com
Subject: “no demand for [linux] in the UK”

Dear Acer,

At some point in the next year I will be buying a laptop, and given’s Ubuntu’s progress on the desktop, it’ll likely be preloaded with Linux.

If you don’t have one, I can’t buy one from you. And with your company’s attitude, I might not buy anything from you.

Do yourself a favour, start talking to your customers instead of reporters, and fire your marketers. They haven’t a clue.

Neither do your HR people. Give them Cluetrain. Give everyone Cluetrain.

http://www.cluetrain.com/

Regards,
Adam Beecher

Biologists Helping Bookstores

30/07/2007

Brilliant. Science fans are going into bookshops and moving creationist garbage – and atheist opinion – from the Science section to Religion and Philosophy. Unfortunately this person doesn’t think Dawkins should be moved too, but I’m sure a few comments will set them right.

Happy Birthday To Me!

27/07/2007

Happy Birthday To Me!
Happy Birthday Dear Me…e!
Happy Birthday To Me!

Yaaaaaay!

Car Porn

26/07/2007

Why did no-one tell me about Jay Leno’s Garage? If I didn’t happen to spot an article on the wind turbine* Leno is installing in his garage – in Popular Mechanics’ RSS feed, of all places – I’d never have known this absolute gem existed. My advice would be to start with the 1966 Dodge Hemi Coronet 500. It’s no Road Runner, but I wouln’t kick it out of bed for eating biscuits.

* I happen to think wind turbines are cool, ok? Particularly the one in that article! It’s my right as a woman. I want you all to call me Loretta!

“The aft toilet please.”

25/07/2007

That way you don’t have to worry about, um, voiding yourself. Popular Mechanics correlates plane crash death rates and seating plans and decides that you’re better off in the back.

ATI caught in the headlights

24/07/2007

You can bet your sweet bippy AMD will be rushing around pulling fat middle manager fingers out of fat middle manager asses in ATI now that Dell has come out and said publicly that it wants to ship ATI systems. Of course my headline is probably a bit overstated, what with Dell’s ongoing relationship with AMD and all, but I’m sure they wouldn’t have allowed Amit Bhutani to embarass their new partner in crime if ATI were actually any way close to rolling out a Linux driver.

ATI and WPA drivers are the last big hurdles facing Linux in the mainstream. It needs to just work, and it nearly does. Which, to a regular joe, is the same as saying that it doesn’t.

Mobile Phone Registration

23/07/2007

An open letter to Minister Eamon Ryan about government proposals to require the registration of all mobile phones, and the frankly juvenile comments of a junior minister about their reasoning.

Minister,

I would like to formally object to the apparent plan being put together by your government to require the registration of all mobile phones. This is another – completely unnecessary – step the Irish government is taking on the slippery slope of privacy invasion.

I say completely unnecessary because the only people who /won’t/ be affected by this type of initiative are the people it’s supposed to target. And in highlighting them, your junior minister demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of privacy issues.

I hope both you and he will take the time to read this relatively short paper on the, frankly immature, “Nothing To Hide” argument.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

I would appreciate your confirmation that you won’t in fact be going ahead with any legislation or initiatives regarding this. It is, to be blunt, the kind of useless security theatre one would expect from the current US administration, or possibly fascist dictators.

We’re better than that.

Yours sincerely,
Adam Beecher

Also see posts by Fergus, Damien, Antoin, DaithÃ and TJ.

UPDATE: I received this reply from the Minister’s office on the 24th of July btw. Just an acknowledgement, no substance.

On behalf of Mr Eamon Ryan T.D., Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources I wish to acknowledge your email below, the contents of which will be brought to the Minister’s attention.

I sent a complaint to the junior minister too btw, but I don’t have a copy as I had to do it via a web form. Obviously he doesn’t have the testicles to post his email address on the web. I received no reply from him at all, surprise surpise.

UPDATE: The Minister responds.