100,000

I hadn’t looked at the log-file analysis for a while – since moving in fact – so when I looked at the comprehensive report I was pretty surprised to find that d4d™ is now coming close to it’s 100,000th page impression. By my reckoning, it’ll happen within the next week or so.

3G

More and more I’m sure that I really shouldn’t be let out on my own. After a farcical search that will probably end up being detailed in a mini-rant sometime over the weekend, I finally sorted myself out with a new mobile phone. I can semi-justify it (if I wanted to) because the battery life on the old one was steadily getting worse and worse, to the extent of needing to be charged every day.

I’d managed to avoid most of the hype about 2.5G phones, the camera ones and so on – I wasn’t that bothered, and for me the cons far outweighed the pros. Oddly enough, while I’m pretty geeky, I don’t feel a burning desire to own every piece of new technology as soon as it comes out. However, when I do buy stuff, it’s normally current new/cutting-edge stuff. And so of course with the new phone, it had to be 3G on the Three network. The network has had it’s problems on start-up, including some deeply shonky phones <mutter>NEC 606</mutter> but now the next selection of phones has come out, and they’re a lot better.

I’ve ended up with a techie special, the Motorola A920. If (like me) you’ve only dealt with Motorola’s ultra-nasty flip-phones and clamshell designs, then this one has some major surprises up it’s sleeve. The touchscreen interface is – gasp! – actually usable, instinctive, and comfortable to use. I’m still learning the speed stuff, like handwriting recognition, but it’s pretty good. On the geeky side, it’s got fun stuff like built-in GPS, so you can pull up a map of where you are, and it’ll include nearest restaurants, pubs etc. The built-in camera seems good, and will be acid-tested in the next couple of weeks, I’m sure.

All told, first impressions of it are pretty good. We’ll just have to see what time brings.

As predicted

Yes, it’s true, I didn’t go to see Skin. Such is life. Instead I’ve managed to get tickets to see Donna Tartt doing a reading next week from her novel “The Secret Little Friend” (thanks dvd for pointing out that I’m a twat and mixed up the two titles), and Neal Stephenson in a couple of week’s time for a reading from his new novel, “Quicksilver”. That’ll do me.

Current Thoughts

I’ve just added a new piece to the thoughts section – and in fact a new sub-section too – about the start of SAD. It’s something I suspect I’ll be writing more about over the next few months, I can already feel the curls of it’s tendrils (and yes, I do think that part of that is the reason for the post below) so we’ll just have to see where it goes…

Gig Apathy

I’m supposed to be going to see Skin (ex of Skunk Anansie) tonight, and at the moment I’m really not sure that I can be bothered. I’ve slept badly for the last three nights, and feel shit. Hardly the best mood to go to a gig. I’m trying to keep an open mind, see how I feel later, but at the moment I keep coming back to “I really don’t feel like it”. Getting the ticket was a spur-of-the-moment thing, before I’d heard the album. I know if I don’t go it’ll turn out to have been a sensational concert. But will I care?

Responsibility

At the Guardian, there’s a feature about a study that blames TV adverts for a rise in junk-food consumption. Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that the report was funded by the Food Standards Agency, so it’s hardly a shocking revelation at the best of times. Their own report on it is here, if you’re interested.

The report says that children are influenced by advertising for junk food, and proposes putting health warnings on junk food. <sarcasm>Well, it’s worked SO well on cigarettes, so why not?</sarcasm> Some of this report seems all too willing to lay blame anywhere it can, although I do agree that the manufacturers should take some (but not all) responsibility for producing complete junk food.

I’ve ranted about this before, but surely more “blame” should be allocated to the people who choose to be bone-fucking-idle and not cook, who think a Big Mac qualifies as a well balanced meal, who buy everything pre-prepared, and who think that food only comes in a plastic carton that can be nuked for ten minutes “because they’re too busy to do anything properly”. As with so many things, personal responsibility comes into this – people choose to buy quick easy things, they’re not forced to do so at gunpoint. (Although maybe that’ll be the next advertising “concept”) Perhaps more food and nutrition information should be available in school, in doctor’s surgeries, in supermarkets – and that should be the Food Standards Agency’s next step, to start thinking about how things can be improved not by slapping a health warning on a pack of chips, but by educating people about what’s good and bad for them.

Stop the World, I wanna get off

via Sapientum, a collection of optical illusions. Be warned, if you’re feeling slightly unwell, don’t look at them – some of them are quite disorientating, and appear to move. My eyes are now thinking “what the fuck was that all about?”, and to be honest, I don’t know what to tell them. I dread to imagine how the artist must have felt while drawing them – to be that close to the image must be weird in the extreme.