boakes.org » General

Imagine a scene in the not-too distant future… after a frenzied period of leaks, rumours, claims and counter-claims, interspersed with no-comments, denials, and increasingly reliable and suggestive evidence emerging from component and sub-assembly manufacturers, Apple Inc announce the imminent release of The Perfect Gadget.

The mainstream press attend press conferences and briefings where Apple proclaim that their Perfect Gadget does everything up to, and maybe even including, ordering sliced bread from the online grocer at the precise thickness that it knows you will prefer (a fact derived from a semantic analyses of how you use said gadget).

Socially driven news sites will go utterly berserk.

So how long must we wait until Apple actually makes this announcement? Perhaps we’re only five or ten years away from The Perfect Gadget 1.0. More…

In the UK, the BBC has a radio channel that is predisposed to airing important current affairs featuring argumentative interviews with politicians insistent on not answering any questions and instead peddling their own distorted interpretation of reality - it’s called “Radio 4″. More…

I succumbed to peer pressure today and bought a Wii. It’s still in it’s box and it smells very new. The release of both Mariokart and Wii Fit was what tipped the scale. Wii numbers and mingling will no doubt follow.

One of our favourite TV Chefs (and surrogate conscience for Tesco) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has just announced a Summer Food Fair at River Cottage HQ, this summer, naturally.

Now, normally the idea of a fair, replete with wicker cutlery and forced vegetables is not my idea of heaven, but factor in the fact that there will also be a multiple spit roast featuring goat, lamb and pig and you may begin to see the attraction. This is not just food: this is organic, free range, spit roasted meat, cooked by one of the countries best chefs, on a summers day, washed down with local scrumpy, and probably some local strawbs for dessert. What could be better?

River Cottage gigs often sell out fast, so this is well worth an early look! [Update: SOLD OUT!]

I couldn’t help but marvel at the efficiency of our local station café recently, as I watched the staff pipeline their customer orders. The busy morning rush was so great that they’d streamlined the operations; one person greeted customers, took orders from several of us at once, and processed the payments. This freed the second member of staff to focus on juggling the coffee and tea machines: getting the maximum throughput from the two staff, and the machines. More…

On a recent train journey I overheard a conversation about someone who’d enjoyed the first class wine so much on a recent intercity journey that they had difficulty staying awake so as not to miss their destination. Staying awake is a problem for many commuters and for those whose destination is not the terminating station, it can be both costly and time consuming. An alarm clock is the obvious tool of choice, to solve the problem, but it’s not convenient. Helpfully some phones include alarm clock applications, but aside from the fact that they can ring a bell at a predefined time, they’re not very useful because what’s important is getting off at the right station, not at a specific time. More…

When, by chance, we saw The Velvet Hearts at The Edge a couple of months ago, we were left with the overriding impression that this was a band who had taken a step beyond the norm and were producing something really rather special. We saw them a second time at the sunny Portsmouth Bandstand, and were again impressed, not just by how well the sound translated from the tiny Edge venue, but also by the way the band handled (and revelled in) a stage invasion by a dozen primary school kids, without missing a beat – in terms of stage rapport, think of Barenaked ladies and you’re getting the picture, they enjoy what they do, and it’s infectious. More…

This is one of those “maybe it exists but I can’t find it” ideas. Something that I’d find very useful would be media player plugin that could use the ID tag from mp3’s (etc) to nip off to the WWW and find the relevant guitar tab so playing along is thus a very easy process. The idea could be taken further for different instruments, of couse, but it’s generally something similar to the usual “buy this album” button which is purely commercial. So, what’s out there, anyone know? If it doesn’t exist someone please write it!

After my viva last Tuesday we ended up at the edge of the wedge and what was already a very good day got even better thanks to some very talented musicians and a comfy stool at the bar. More…

In Britain, the process of finishing a PhD involves the submission of a written thesis, followed by an oral examination called a viva voce (the literal Latin translation is “live voice”). The “viva”, as it’s commonly known, is an in-depth discussion into all aspects of the thesis which typically lasts between 90 and 180 minutes. It is conducted by a specially convened examination board, with both internal and external examiners, who typically have have four weeks to digest the thesis beforehand. In the viva, the PhD candidate must defend their thesis: if the defence is successful, the candidate is awarded the degree More…