Returning after four days away, we found the garden thriving; a few days of sunshine as well as the lateness of summer had sent everything into ripening overload; apples and plums are shifting hue, a few of the blueberries are looking almost edible, the strawberries are plentiful and ready for picking, the tomatoes have started to redden and the courgettes are continuing to come in apace. The late planted squash and pumpkin plants are growing incredibly fast and the carrots are getting bigger every day.

We took a substantial crop off the rhubarb plant and a carrot to taste (want them to have a little more time to grow out), but imagine we will have to harvest more or less weekly now to the end of the year. Apparently the flowering on the Lapland potato plants means that the pots are ready, but I’m willing to let them grow a little more – or is this a bad idea?

Will do a rhubarb taste report when we get a chanceâ€¦

Managed to make myself weed the plot on Sunday – I need to do that a bit more regularly. Some weird creeping weed had made its way into the carrot plot and finding its source proved impossible. A fruitless task, you might even say (sorryâ€¦).

Business, Technology

Apple’s iPad profits

August 2, 2011 Armand Leave a comment

Amused to see a bunch of articles comparing Apple’s cash pile to the US cash reserves (spoiler: Apple has more money). More interesting to me is the fact that in its last earnings, Apple had nearly matched Google’s overall quarterly profits with a single product – the iPad (I canâ€™t find the post that crunched the numbers on this but doesnâ€™t seem unlikely).

That is astonishing.

I feel less bad about being an Apple convert. This also made me feel better – as despite now being an Apple fan of sorts, I don’t have a wristwatch made of an iPod Touch, and I never edited a magazine about the rival operating system…

Travel

Isle of Wight-erval

August 2, 2011 Armand Leave a comment

Apologies for the slight delay to service here on Division6, we’ve been away for a few days – a blissful family holiday on the Isle of Wight, staying at the same B&B we were looked after at when Amanda was pregnant with Emily.

We were lucky with the weather; enough blissful sunshine to spend some time at the beach with makeshift parasols to protect Emily whilst she tasted sand and stones; and our hosts were as delightful and helpful as they were the last time we stayed, making accommodations for Emily and giving us useful tips and guidance for things to do around the Island.

We’ve been to the Isle of Wight three times now and each holiday had a distinctive and different character. I love heading down there – if that’s a sign of middle age, so be it. This trip took us to Ventor, Grange Chine, St Helen’s and Sandown beaches, Sandown Pier, Areton Old Village (and the amazing Maize maze, although we gave that a miss) and a number of pubs and eateries around the Island.

Books, Comics, Culture

Internal consistency in a world full of zombies

July 27, 2011 Armand Leave a comment

I was talking to a former colleague about ‘trash fiction’ and he was lamenting that he didn’t enjoy it as much as he used to when he was younger. By ‘trash’ fiction we both meant slightly different things – popular action/thriller novels for Dazzla, my staple of tier 2 sci-fi and fantasy for me.

My comment was – as long as the stories are internally coherent and the worlds interesting, I still enjoy them. That’s part of the joy of being a sci-fi/fantasy fan – you get to suspend your disbelief and take some time off to dwell in a totally different universe.

Sometimes, what’s compelling is the similarity with our own universe. This is the case with the Walking Dead – there’s very little supernatural mysticism in the way the tale is told. Something – indeterminate but presumably natural – has caused the dead to walk, but it relates to the brain stem and you have to stop it with a physical intervention (i.e. destroy the brainstem). You can’t banish it, or exorcise it, or cast a spell and make it go away.

Unfortunately one of the things rooting stories in the real world does is allow for semi-rational analysis. For exampleâ€¦. the zombies are moving, movement takes energy. The zombies might draw on latent energy stores in their own bodies, but beyond that they need nourishment to replenish energy stocks. Nourishment for zombies comes from humans. The humans are (mostly) dead – ergo no food for zombies. Therefore in time, zombies must surely run out of energy and stop moving (as indeed happens in 28 Days Later)â€¦ And yet, in the comics, nearly two years has passed since the Zombie apocalypse and there’s still herds of them moving around. So that jars, slightly.

The second issue seems to be that whenever someone falls victim to a zombie or two, they get eaten alive. That being the premise – humans are food. So the question emerges – where do new zombies come from? If a new zombie is only spawned when an old zombie gets full, then the apocalypse would likely be less complete and have been more controllable.

Perhaps this is overanalysing the situation. Or perhaps it all feeds into the inexorably drawn out exposition plan for the authors of the Walking Dead, whoâ€™ve spent 7 years telling the story and never given a hint away as to the cause of Zombie-ismâ€¦

Business, Current affairs

Awesome maths geekery

July 27, 2011 Armand Leave a comment

I loved this story. Google bid random mathematical numbers for the Nortel patents, including Pi billion dollars. Fantastic. Trying to imagine Dr Evil demanding that in a blackmail demand, and I can’t quite do it – so it must be true that Google isn’t evil…

At the auction for Nortel Networks’ wireless patents this week, Google’s bids were mystifying, such as $1,902,160,540 and $2,614,972,128.
Math whizzes might recognize these numbers as Brun’s constant and Meissel-Mertens constant, but it puzzled many of the people involved in the auction, according to three people with direct knowledge of the situation on Friday.

Comics, Culture, Film, Television

Comic-con, someday

July 26, 2011 Armand Leave a comment

I don’t have a long list of places I’m itching to visit. I’m not one of those people that has 40 things to do by the time I’m 40. But there are a few things I’d like to experience at some stage, and, foremost amongst the ‘selfish’ desires would be to hit the San Diego Comic-con one year.

I’ve been following the news more closely than normal, thanks to Topless Robot and Geekologie, and hearing the inside track on things ranging from the new ‘Avatar’ series to rumours of Dr Horrible 2, seeing Andrew Garfield deliver his heartfelt geek speech on the wonders of Spidey, seeing the posters of the Avengers movie appear, knowing that the people making these things happen are wandering a giant exhibition stall with thousands of like minded peopleâ€¦ well, it sounds intriguing, if faintly sweaty.

My brother and I have a non-specific plan to make it out one year. I’ve never had a lot of friends into the whole comic/fantasy/sci-fi/animation thing with me, but it is something my brother and I have always shared, and a select few other fellow geeks. Thanks to my brother’s career (he makes movies) I’ve met one of my favourite contemporary comic book writers virtually, Mike Carey, and that is a pretty heady feeling. Geek star struck, natch.

Anyway, if you’ve ever gone I’d love to know what you think and if you think I’d enjoy it. I’m not sure how I’d find the crowds – have always found that aspect of exhibitions unspeakably tedious…

Technology

Who buys the blackberries?

July 26, 2011 Armand Leave a comment

Damian asked me a question about smartphone market share for some unspecified reason and it landed me at this article. What’s fascinating about it is it tells you who’s buying which Smartphone platforms. Specific insights:

74.3% of people that buy an Android phone haven’t owned a Smartphone before
84.9% of people that buy a Blackberry haven’t owned a Smartphone before

This tells you two things:

Price really matters when buying a Smartphone and not everyone can afford an iPhone (despite it being the best-selling single device in the UK, Apple’s overall market share is proportionally going down as more affordable Smartphones become prevalent)
Blackberry users literally don’t know what they’re missing.

I’m increasingly of the view that calling a Blackberry a ‘smartphone’ is inaccurate so I propose that someone sets up some kind of charitable movement to protect the public from these heinous devicesâ€¦

Television

Torchwood: Miracle Day premier – first thoughts

July 25, 2011 Armand 23 Comments

We finally watched the season premier of the new Torchwood.

I wasn’t as blown away as I’d hoped. The premise of the show is great and well-advertised (death stops working), and the reveal of the specifics of this within the show is pretty entertaining (and surprisingly gory for a Doctor Who spin-off).

They’ve successfully introduced the new cast – a mobile phone addicted Mekhi Phifer and a generic young, female, attractive CIA agent amongst them, and a creepy paedophile. But the majority of the episode was spent revealing what you probably knew if you’d watched any of the trailers: death has stopped happening and its going to cause problems for planet Earth. And it has something to do with Torchwood.

That said; the production values are ridiculous compared to previous seasons and some of the sequences are fantastic. Jeep vs helicopter on a seaside car chase? Bet on the jeep, every time.

I’m hoping that the show picks up its pace now that the initial unveiling is done. I guess that it had to be from first principles, given that the cable tie-up (the show is co-produced by American cable TV network, Starz, which also co-produced Camelot) will bring it to new audiences in the US. Although I’m not looking forward to seeing Captain Jack’s willy as some are (or not, as the case may be).

Still, looking forward to the next one.

division6

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