Much Ado About Macworld

Wow. I really left this post late. It's almost half past midnight.

At least I have an excuse this time. I've been busy pouring over all the details coming out of Macworld. For those of you who don't know, the annual Macworld conference is where Apple reveals all their latest and greatest gadgets, hence the deluge of Mac-related articles all over the media.

I can't be bothered tracking down links to articles and so on so I'm just going to link to the main Apple homepage and let anyone interested browse from there. I've not had time to take it all in myself so I'll just go over the major points of interest and then maybe tidy it up for a MacTake article tomorrow.

As I type this, my iPhone is sitting in its dock, waiting for the latest firmware (1.1.3) to finish downloading and install. It's a relatively minor update, merely adding a few neat features such as a locator function on the Google Maps app and some ability to customise the home page. It's this customisation function that I find most revealing – it's very obviously gearing up for the release of the official software development kit in February. I'm still not quite sure what to expect from that myself but at least the company behind it has confidence.

I should note that by installing this update, I'm basically giving up on hacking it anytime soon. I've been considering getting an iPod Touch purely to fiddle around with the various apps that have sprung up semi-illegally on the internet over the past few months.

Oh, and that's another thing. To update the iPod Touch, adding in a number of functions that come as standard on the iPhone, Apple is expecting customers to pay over £10. I'm a little disappointed by this but I expect it to work out quite profitably for Apple.

Still, we'll see how that works out later.

Another big announcement was the MacBook Air, an ultra-portable being touted as the world's smallest laptop. Looking at photos and the guided tour video on the Apple site, I have no reason whatsoever to doubt this. For all the people who will complain about it being a typical “style-over-substance” Apple gadget, there's no denying that some serious engineering and design skills went into this.

The absence of an in-built optical drive comes as no surprise in such a device but Apple's means of getting around it are ingenious. As the “Air” name implies, there's a large focus on wireless technology. If you're on a wireless network with another computer, PC or Mac, all you have to do is install a small program on said computer and your Air can instantly connect to any available optical drives and use them for its own purposes.

There's also a small, USB-powered optical drive for those who insist on watching movies not rented from the new iTunes movie rental system.

The final big thing is the Time Capsule. A wireless device, no larger than an average router, it is essentially a 500Gb or 1Tb server-grade hard drive with a wireless network connection. Any Mac running Leopard can connect to it using Time Machine, which will automatically back up to it. I don't know much about it but it sounds very impressive and keeps with the whole “wireless” theme Apple's had going this year.


So, in summary and in brief, there's nothing hugely revolutionary. To be honest, given the revelation of the iPhone last year, this year's show was almost guaranteed to have fewer surprises. The same thing happened to the first few E3s and other video game trade shows after all the new consoles had been released – all the secrets were out and it was just a matter of improving things.

Well, that's getting kind of late now and I still need to finish some Computing homework and discuss some of this Macworld news with Sam. I have a feeling Skippy will have a lot to say on all this tomorrow, in one medium or another, as will my other technology-inclined (or, as they are more commonly known, geeky) friends.

I can't think of anything conclusive to say so... Have a nice day.

This Post Contains No Icosahedrons

Today has been, I would like to think, mildly productive. I got a fair chunk of that Visual BASIC programming I need to do done, I made a start on my C++ book and I came up with some more concrete plans for how to go about my fiction writing.

I also helped Erin with a talk she's writing for English. It's supposed to be about what she did in her summer holidays and she chose to document the various items of retro gaming equipment that Sam and I purchased and dealt with over the course of the holidays. Needless to say, the talk requires a folder full of visual aids and is almost twice the necessary length.

Her section on Superman 64, for which she wanted some quotes and screen captures, gave me an excuse to do two things I've been wanting to do for a while: a) fiddle around with my TV adaptor doohickey and b) play Superman 64. Well, I didn't really want to “play” Superman 64, but I have been meaning to record some so-called “game-play” for mocking purposes.

For those of you unfamiliar with Superman 64, here's how I described it to a friend over Adium earlier today:

15:47:44 Alasdair Corbett: you ever heard of Superman 64?
15:47:55 Jimerson: lol, no, is it good?
15:47:59 Alasdair Corbett: ...
15:48:08 Alasdair Corbett: think of the best game you've ever played.
15:48:24 Alasdair Corbett: now imagine it in an alternate universe with a goatee, wallowing in a pile of dog shit.
15:48:34 Alasdair Corbett: that's superman 64.

Even just playing it while recording, we both had some rather choice and humorous words to say about it, so I'm hoping to use it as a video feature in the VersusCOM podcast. Other games waiting for a mocking include F-16 Fighter (Master System), Wonder Dog (Mega-CD) and with any luck I should be able to pick up a copy of ET for the Atari 2600. Oh, and Shuggy's Garden, which I only know of from horror stories told to me by Sam.

Tomorrow should be a relatively easy day as well, considering that if I do my Computing work first lesson, followed by Physics second, I'll have last four lessons off to play the GameCube and SNES in the common room.

I could have sworn that I had more to say today. I would like to have another one of those posts where I ramble on about thoughts that seem deep in my head but lose something when put out into the world. Or maybe they never had that something and reality just makes it show. Either way, I'm doing a lot more “factual” rant-type stuff but that seems to be okay, judging by the sudden upswing in visitor numbers for August.

Okay, so it's not huge (and no, you can't see the graph... because I can't be bothered cropping the screen caps Skippy sent me and explaining what each one is) but it's encouraging nonetheless. Speaking of Skippy, he's returned from France and he's posted about it over at the MacTake, in addition to shamelessly nicking my idea of showing a Simpsonized version of myself on a blog.

His discussion of a French Apple Store he visited, combined with some comments on my post about it, has made me consider revisiting the store in Glasgow. It's not hugely out of the way if I'm ever in the area and I am still considering that new keyboard. Not that I really have any money to pay for it right now having just bought a bunch of books off Amazon. And if I did have any money to spend in Glasgow, I'd probably spend it in Forbidden Planet anyway.

To round off, I think I'll link you, once again, to the TV Tropes Wiki. More specifically, to the Wild Mass Guessing page, full of theories, both sane (Captain Jack is the Face of Boe) and insane (Pokemon are Transformers) but all highly amusing. Enjoy.

Another Day, Another Headache

I have a splitting headache and the scroll ball on my Mighty Mouse, apparently detecting my negative views of the Apple Store, has decided to play up again. All this on the day before I go back to school.

So I'm not in a good mood.

As such, I'm keeping this post short. Those in need of my witticisms and cynical opinions can find them at the MacTake article I linked above, which I managed to type up before my headache got worse. I suspect that it's due to a lack of sleep or, failing that, I'm hoping that sleep will somehow cure it anyway.

This is the last Metroid Retrospective, giving a look at Fusion and the overall timeline of the series. It's pretty good, so I'd recommend giving it a look. It goes into a bit of detail on some plots but you needn't worry about spoilers for Corruption (as I did) since it keeps everything fairly brief there. This comes along with rumours of the return of Metroid Dread. A rumoured 2D DS instalment of the series, Dread was unofficially canned before it was officially announced, with precious little mention of it recently. It's referenced as a bit of an easter egg/plot hook in Corruption. It's hardly Reggie standing on a PAX stage and beating his chest with it but, for we 2D hopefuls, it'll do.

One last link, to a Halo Wars demo trailer. I can't say I've been hugely excited about this game so far, RTSs not being my favourite genre and console-based RTSs generally being in the lower ranks of that genre, but it's an interesting enough video to waste 10 minutes on.

On All Kinds of Stuff

It's amazing what you can find when you tidy out cupboards. For example, I've just come across some sheets of paper with what I think are level passwords for my NES version of Lemmings. I haven't played that in ages... and now I want to. Shame all 8 of my NESs (don't ask) are currently buried under a pile of all kinds of other crap next door.

The moral of the story is that if you want me to tidy something, hide a copy of Lemmings under it.


I've decided to do a running commentary on me sorting these drawers. I've just found a packet of crayons. And I don't know why.

And lots of earphones. I think they just appear out of holes in the universe. Possibly the same holes that socks fall into when they're not being watched.

And I've just found my old passport. I was thinking of showing a picture of the pudgy, hoodie-wearing 9 year old whose identity I stole in 2000 but the camera just comes out blurry and I don't have access to a scanner. So you'll just have to use your imaginations. Don't imagine me as too ugly.

Daleks are really hard to clean, particularly all the dust that builds up in the slats and around the sense globes. I wonder how Daleks clean themselves... A car wash maybe?


Well, given up on tidying now. I'll have to get more done tomorrow but for now, Optimash Prime!

Ever just seen some cheap little thing and think "I need one of those" even though it's completely useless? And once you get it, even if you realise it was probably a waste of money, you still think it's awesome? Pretty much everything I own is like that and Optimash there is just the latest example.

On the bright side, it gave me a chance to fiddle around in Photoshop:


I was hoping for a better background to edit him in but I went with what I had. I might try again some time simply because I'm trying to get better at image editing. For reasons that totally don't involve blackmail.


I wrote this little post for the MacTake today, discussing some iPhone news. I started off talking about logical fallacies and end up discussing general relativity. I stopped just short of digging out my Physics folder and doing some calculations on the relativistic mass of an iPhone at various speeds.


I came this little gem of a video on YouTube today. It's worth watching for the music alone but it also does make you realise just how often Homer Simpson changes careers.


I got an actual comment on one of my posts yesterday. Eletric_Rainbow said of "Warning: This post is terrible. Don't read it.":

"That wasn't half as boring as you seemed to think it would be. It was actually pretty interesting. You're very entertaining. :)"

Not half as boring as I thought, huh? How dare you disagree with me, insolent peasant! Everything will be as boring as I say it shall be! Just for that, tomorrow's post will be about the history of turnip cultivation in Europe. Then we'll see who's boring!

But seriously, thanks for the comment. Reading over that post, it's actually not as terrible as I'd thought. Which throws two things into sharp relief; one, I should read over these things before putting them up, and two, it's extremely depressing that I get so few comments that I can afford to devote several paragraphs to each one. On the bright side, I can claim that 100% of comments are positive.

Also, I wasn't joking about the turnips thing. Prepare yourselves.