Category: Musings

RFID Tag Technology Suffering from Excessive ‘Cute’

The BBC has an article today about the evolution of RFID tags. They can now hold more complex information than simple product bar codes and people are doing increasingly clever things to enable normal household goods to interact over the internet. One example of this is Nabaztag wi-fi rabbit, a cute gizmo that can read RFID tags and communicate with the internet. Now some book publishers are adding RFID tags to their books, so that when the book is waved in front of the rabbit it starts to ‘read’ the book out loud – well, stream a recording of it being read from the internet anyway. Cute. But that’s not all. It seems the Rabbit, which according to the website is ‘good for lovers’ (coff), has a PR guy whose last name is Kitten. Maybe this is just a coincidence, or maybe the sinister Rabbit Corp forces every staff member to change their names to be cute just like their product… Hmm… if I ever join them I’d be Mr Fluffy.

From Sun to Snow

Well after two and a bit weeks of sun, sand and surf it’s a bit of a shock to the system to be back in Canada where it’s snow, cold and ice. Luckily it’s not super cold here right now, just chilly, so I can adjust into winter mode without too much angst. Mexico was super fun and here are a few of the highlights/observations:

  • Lying in the sun on a near white sand beach on Christmas day, listening to the waves come in on Paraiso Beach, then having a wonderful dinner underneath clear skies and thousands of stars.
  • Diving the Santa Rosa wall off Cozumel, a place that deserves its diving reputation. Plus my first ever fresh water cavern dive in the stunning Chac Mool (Claw of the Jaguar) cenote. Both of these dives were with the lovely Tank Ha folks in Playa del Carmen who I highly recommend.
  • Visiting Chichen Itza with its stunning Mayan ruins, reminiscent of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Just wish we’d had more time there – not only for the ruins, but it was actually the cheapest place to buy tourist stuff and I never had a chance to shop.
  • Sipping various cocktails poolside to one of the biggest pools in Mexico, plus very rarely using that same pool for exercise style lengths. Yeah right.
  • All that good mexican food; fajitas, enchiladas, moles, soups and the rest.
  • Experiencing Mexican police corruption and bribe gathering at first hand, as well as Mexico’s wonderful exuberance regarding un-signed road bumps that you can only go over at 5mph on a road with a 70mph speed limit. Bless.
  • The wonderful, smiling people who are so friendly and fun – they totally make up for those corrupted by their little bit of power in the police force.

So thanks again to Marsha and John for an amazing trip, you guys rocks! Expect to see some photos up at my Flickr stream soon – honest!

Merry Christmas Eve Everyone!

Just a quickie since I’m not on the Internet very much at the moment being down in Mexico ‘n all! Hope all of you have a very splendid Christmas and associated other celebrations, wish you could all be here with us now – it’s lovely down here, although there’s always something strange about Christmas when it’s not cold.
So as a traditional Christmas Eve activity today I went for my first dive since the Similian Islands in Thailand, way back in March 2003… It was pretty obvious I was rusty, even with the practice dive the other week. Still, it was great to be back in the blue again and expect some photos soon since M and her family got me a lovely underwater camera case for Christmas/Birthday – thanks again for that! And thanks again to dad for his Birthday present of a few years back.. a dive watch that has only just seen its first action. Splendid.

Snowy Hospital Days

Well it’s been an eventful few days… At the moment we’re embracing a scenic, but travel limiting snow storm that’s hit most of Canada and the US. Prior to that I spent an un-fun few days in hospital with some weird stomach complaint.. splendid. Still not quite sure what happened, but I’ve now experienced the joys of drips and morphine for the first time and am now back on solids. All good fodder for my memoirs, or my outstanding screenplay about an ER room – “No stomach pain. Stat!”.

Everything seems to be settling back down now and I should have an actual answer to what happened tomorrow (assuming I can get to the Doctor in this snow). In the meantime though I’d just like to say a big thanks to the Js for being so accommodating, to the nurses for pumping me full of drugs and to M for everything – thanks for being there x

The Song Remained the Same (Led Zeppelin in Concert)

Well Led Zeppelin have just finished their one-off gig at the O2 arena in London. From the Radio 6 broadcast I’m listening to the set list was full of classic Zeppelin tracks – Song Remains the Same, Kashmir and Stairway to Heaven all featured. Hopefully soon someone will put some bootleg tracks up and we can all have a jolly good listen to find out how the old rock fogeys have held up. Some of us can’t afford £86,000 for a pair of touted tickets y’know.

In related news, the Vicar owner of Bron-Y-Aur, the small cottage in Wales near Machynlleth, has asked that Led Zeppelin fans refrain from doing the pilgrimage to his remote home. Back in my young student days in Birmingham I made that trip as part of an ill fated camping weekend. I hadn’t planned on it being a special visit, but as soon as I saw that cottage named on the Ordnance Survey map I had to go. It was dusk when I got there, so I snapped a photo of the wonderfully atmospheric, tree covered driveway then went home – happy to see the place where Page & Plant had spent a weekend creating some amazing songs.

Back Under the Water

Today was my first dive since 13th March 2004. It was only a practice dive, in the impressive 15m deep dive pool at the Stade Olympique in Montreal, but it was wonderful to be back under the water again.

After so long away I was worried about all the things I’d forget or whether my ears would play up – or explode. All sensible concerns. Thankfully none of them were realised and I got to float around, watching the other divers play whilst finding that my neutral buoyancy control is as crap as it ever was. Keep level using only breathing and no hand/feet movements? Hah. Can’t wait to go play in the sea now.

Thanks to Robin from Total Diving for working me through the kinks, and to M for the early Christmas present. I just hope you could join me down there one day…

Movie Review: The Prestige

As a huge fan of Memento, Christopher Nolan’s amazing first movie, and more recently Batman Begins, it’s pretty surprising that I’d missed out on The Prestige – his most recent release. I’m glad to say that it was well worth the wait. The Prestige is visually stunning, full of twists and turns, stunning acting from a great raft of stars and a great story. Did I mention I liked it? I do. A lot.

The basic story follows two upcoming magicians, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, as they follow their careers together from young assistants to Michael Caine, a talented creator of new illusions, to creating their own new stage productions. Along the way there is an accidental death, which causes an obsessive rift between the two protaganists as they try and out do each other. This quest is the core of the story, but the truth in magic is never quite what it seems and as more is revealed you find yourself on the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens. Like Memento, the timeline for the movie is wonderfully non-linear in a manner that Nolan handles masterfully. Add to this cameos from David Bowie as Nikolai Tesla and Andy Serkis as his assistant, as well as Scarlett Johansson and you have a visual and mental feast. I can’t recommend this movie enough – so go get it now, or ask for it for Christmas {:)

The Earliest Christmas Shop Ever

Amazingly I’ve already done pretty much all of my Christmas shopping… In fact at this very moment packages are speeding their way back home to my family in England – fingers crossed they arrive safely! The hardest part of shipping stuff home for Christmas, other than getting it done a month in advance, is filling out the customs form. In theory they want exact details of every item, including not only its price, but also its weight. Given it was hard enough fitting everything in to sensible size boxes and packing to minimize damage risk, the added task of weighing everything individually was beyond me. In fact it was a near miss on my customs form when I wrote ‘Pot’as one line item, before realizing the second meaning and quickly adding ‘..tery’. Good to know I’m on the ball sometimes.

Merry 30th November everybody!

Toilet Roll Trauma

Having flown back in to Montreal last night from England I was feeling a bit dis-orientated, as is usual from all those hours in a plane with no in flight entertainment system (come on Air Canada – get your beautiful IFE onto every plane now!). Our lovely house-sitters had left the place in good shape, thanks to Malcolm & Max. Of course it wasn’t all plain sailing – somewhere in the mix we’d run out of loo roll, which didn’t sit at all well with my post-flight stomach.

So, braving the torrential rain, I set out to our local dep, stocked up on useful sundries such as sparkling mineral water, picked up some lovely Polish food from Stash and headed home. Happily only slightly damp I reached the front door where that nagging doubt from the dep kicked in fully, as I realised I’d forgotten to get loo roll… the whole reason for the trip. Splendid.

One big Polish meal later the rain subsided, so I wandered back to the dep and picked up some loo roll where I declined a plastic bag in the cause of the environment. Walking back past home past the upmarket resto-bars I realised there was was no way to look cool holding a pack of loo paper… Do you casually hang it from your hand? Tuck it under your arm? Balance it on your head and pretend to be from Cirque do Soleil? I guess celebrities like George Clooney et al don’t suffer this existential crisis having people to do this sort of thing for them, but I’d imagine that even they would find it hard to maintain their usual ‘effortless’ cool at this point and the paparazzi from have a field day. Luckily for me it was obviously too rainy for the paps to track me down, so I reached home safe and anonymous in my angst ready for a session of deep meditation.