Signs that the product design team at Nokia have completely lost the plot.

• Nokia 7600 [via Technovia]
• Nokia Medallion [via 2lmc.org]

[via xlab : mac os x]

Who would have thought that Leon Hendrix, younger brother of Jimi, is a guitarist in a rock band. He’s a decidedly average guitar player judging by Tuesday’s BBC2 documentary about the Hendrix family, but you can’t blame him for attempting to earn a dollar or two on the back of his brother’s legacy.

There’s this perception (one which I shared) that since the Hendrix family won the rights to Jimi’s music after a long legal battle with various music industry heavy-weights, his legacy had returned to its rightful home, namely the family run ‘Experience Hendrix’ label. Experience Hendrix was actually set up by Jimi’s half sister Janie, who Leon believes manipulated his and Jimi’s dying father Al into leaving Leon nothing in his will. Meanwhile, Janie – who is no blood relation to Jimi – is making millions from Jimi Hendrix’s music and name. Both sides of the feud can be accused of greed in the shadow of Jimi Hendrix’s achievements and it’s difficult to decide who his right and wrong in all this (especially from an hour long TV documentary), but it does seem that Leon, being Jimi’s closest living relative, deserves more.

• RollingStone.com: News: Hendrix Family Feud Continues
• Official Jimi Hendrix Site
• Original Hendrix
• The Leon Hendrix “AXIS” Petition

Yesterday’s Royal Society keynote by Tim Berners-Lee has been archived as a RealPlayer video stream.

Macrumors has posted a link to a job vacancy at Apple for a programmer to work on a Screen Reader for OS X. It’s clear that the software will be intended as a general screen reader for the Mac, but it will no doubt have features enabling web pages to be converted to speech as well.

As conscientious web developers, we’ve built sites to W3C recommendations, tinkered with CSS and structured (X)HTML logically, but a real understanding of how alternative web browsing software and devices operate has been difficult to attain. Finally, web developers using OS X may be able to find out what their pages sound like, and of course, the benefit of this software to blind and partially sighted Mac users will be immeasurable.

The Virginia Tech PowerMac G5 Cluster: 1100 machines, 2200 processors. Apparently, the Finder is still sluggish, although Quake III Arena flies.

I’ve noticed a worrying trend in bad puns created by replacing the word ‘dogs’ with ‘blogs’. This weeks Spiked Online seminar was called ‘Gone to the Blogs’, now Biz Stone intends to title his next book has given his next book the working title of ‘Who Let the Blogs Out?’. Future titles for blog related seminars and books could include:

• Blog eat Blog
• Let Sleeping Blogs Lie
• Blog Tired
• A Blog’s Dinner
• Raining Cats & Blogs
• You Can’t Teach an Old Blog New Tricks
• Work Like a Blog
• Sick as a Blog
• In the Blog House
• Love Me, Love My Blog
• The Blog’s Bark is Worse Than its Bite
• The Blog’s Life

Today is Talk Like a Pirate day. Why? I haven’t a clue.

Thanks to Kev for putting the question out and to Tom for the reply:

Money is simply not a medium in which I can work. I am not a native speaker; my accent betrays my igorance. I put on my suit jacket and go to an office in midtown and, if I am hired, tell the story of a software application, a story in words and documents that will, in turn, be used as a kind of lexicon for those who speak the language of millions of dollars. – from Medium of Choice by Paul Ford

Working as a freelancer, I can sympathise with Paul Ford on how the language of money is difficult to work with. If Barclay’s are ‘Fluent in Finance’ I seem to be merely at GCSE level; I know enough to get by.

• New wireless Mouse and Keyboard
• New 17” Powerbook with Mobility Radeon 9600 and a 2X SuperDrive.
• New aluminium 15” Powerbook (at last) running at 1.25 GHz, with a maximum of 2GB 333MHz DDR RAM, Superdrive, Backlit keyboard
• New 12” Powerbook. USB 2.0. 1 ghz with 512k cache and Geforce FX

So, no surprises at this Keynote.

Now all we need is a ‘Two-term Prime Minister’ version.

The recent BBC TV series Restoration sought to raise awareness about the architectural heritage of the UK. Each week, buildings of architectural and historical importance – but in a poor state of repair – would be featured with the aim that one of the thirty selected would be chosen by the public to be fully restored.

The program did a great job of bringing dilapidated buildings to public attention. For example, having originated not far from Hanley in Staffordshire, I’ve walked past Bethesda countless times and not realised its significance. Even though it didn’t win the vote, I’m sure it will no longer be a canvas for graffiti and fly posters and its mere presence on the show will help preserve it for the future.

Last night’s final show, in which the winning building was voted for and announced, was more like the final night of Big Brother, which makes sense because the production company that made Restoration was Endemol, the same company responsible for inflicting TV license payers with Changing Rooms and Groundforce and Ready Steady Cook. Endemol seem to have mastered the art of reaping the most monetary reward from the cheapest-to-make television, the pinnacle of their achievements being, of course, UK Big Brother. If you strip away what little entertainment value there is from Big Brother, you’ll see that the show is solely geared up for enticing the UK public to vote or text using a premium rate line day and night for the show’s nine week duration.

While Restoration was far from being the pits of television that the likes of Changing Rooms and Big Brother represent and I was genuinely ‘informed, educated and entertained’ by most of it, I was slightly disappointed to see Endemol on the closing credits of the program. If there’s any opportunity to make a few million from public phone votes, Endemol will be there. Unfortunately, I think that using the public vote to choose the winning building made Restoration an unfair contest, and as guest John Peel pointed out on the show, how is a building in the Norfolk town of King’s Lynn going to have a chance if one of the candidates has the whole of Greater Manchester voting for it? Public phone votes have little value when regional interests are involved (as the Eurovision Song Contest clearly demonstrates), which is why the winning building should probably have been chosen by a panel of architects. Some would argue that this wouldn’t make for exciting and engaging television; but then, Endemol would know all about that.

Following up my response to yesterdays comment in the Pinball Song thread, Walt Kraemer has been kind enough to email me with some information about the song. So here it is, definitive and from the person who composed and produced it, everything you ever wanted to know about the Sesame Street Pinball Number Count.

As composer and producer of Sesame Street’s Pinball Music I was flattered to find interest in something I created over a quarter of a century ago. Our company, Imagination, Inc in San Francisco produced a great number of animation pieces for Children’s Television Workshop at that time so forgive me if I’m a bit hazy as to some of the particulars.

Those were indeed the Pointer Sisters. All four of them. At the time only three were performing regularly and I recall budgeting for just the three when June showed up at the session with the rest. It was a bonus. The basic track was performed by San Francisco Bay Area musicians and since there were to be eleven pieces of animation I had the track structured to accomodate three different lead instrument overdubs to give the pieces some variety. On some numbers Andy Narell plays a steel drums solo, on others Mel Martin plays a soprano sax solo, on the rest… I forget. Much credit should go to Ed Bogas for interpreting my melody ideas and for the musical arrangements.

The concept and design was devised by our animation director, Jeff Hale. It was his idea that I create basic tracks then record as ‘wild-lines’ the Pointers shouting the various 2-11 numbers in different intensities and different compliments of voices. Then, each time the pin ball hit a selected number he would drop in these (off-key—couldn’t be helped) wild lines. While I have retained first or second generation masters (quarter inch tape now converted to DAT and CD) of 99% my audio productions over the years it is for above reason there was never a ‘master’ track. This news came as a dissapointment to the folks back at Sesame Street who were planning the current CD release. Unfortunately, I have retained nothing from this session. Matter of fact, I haven’t heard the piece in years.

On the techinal side, we recorded at Richard Beggs’ (Francis Ford Coppola’s) studio in the Columbus Towers Building, 24 track, analog—of course. Mag transfers were made at Imagination, Inc. which is long out of business. And, again unfortunately, there is nothing left of either the animation cells nor audio elements for any of that beautiful work.

Personally, I am honored to be thought of in the same company as Herbie Hancock and Frank Zappa. My approach was to write the piece in 12-4 or 12-8 time but that didn’t quite work out. And it wasn’t until we had completed the project that I realized I may have stolen the first five notes of the Woody Woodpecker Song. Something I’m sure neither Hancock nor Zappa would be guilty of.

Cordially,

Walt Kraemer

It appears that Walt Kraemer, writer of Sesame Street’s Pinball Number Count has recently left a comment. If this really is Walt, I must say I’m absolutely honoured! Then again, it could be anyone.

Apple’s promotional graphics for the new iPod are an interesting departure from the usual portraits on a white background. HTML geeks will notice that the graphics are presented using alternate stylesheets which can be switched using the coloured buttons at the top of the screen. Sound familiar?

For me, there is one conclusive indicator that David Blaine’s current endurance feat near Tower Bridge is nothing more than an elaborate illusion: the absence of Norris McWhirter to check that everything is above board. Or maybe his absence can be explained by the fact that he and Guinness World Records are simply not impressed with Blaine’s antics. Here are some far more impressive endurance records:

• Longest Time Spent in an Attic: ‘Stephan Kovaltchuk spent 57 years in his attic in Montchintsi, Ukraine, emerging in September, 1999.’
• Longest Full Body Ice Contact Endurance: ‘Wearing only swimming trunks, The Netherlands’ Wim Hof was able to endure standing in a tube filled with ice cubes for 66 minutes 4 seconds on the set of Tomorrow’s World , at BBC Television Centre, London, UK on March 13, 2002.’
• Most Squares Crocheted by a Single Person: ‘Susie Perkins of Cottonwood, Arizona, USA, has crocheted more than 14,000 squares over the past 25 years.’

After weeks of being in a broken state, the RSS feed is up and running again. That’s it.

Fulfilling its public service remit to offer a certain number of hours of religious programming, the BBC broadcasts a magazine show called Heaven & Earth between 1000 and 1100 on a Sunday morning. Every week, the show treads carefully around issues of religion and ethics while simultaneously having to appeal to everyone regardless of religious belief or ethical standpoint. To be honest, I think I prefer the all-out no-nonsense style of religious programmes like Songs of Praise, then I know to definitely hit the off button.

This week, to celebrate the show’s fifth birthday, the Beeb broadcast a ‘Belief Special’, in which the biggest question of all was debated and opened to national phone vote: ‘Do you believe in God or not’? Joining an audience of ‘Holy Folk, New Agers and Sceptics’ was the debating panel of Dr Robert Beckford – director of the Centre fo Black Theology at the University of Birmingham, Jonathan Cainer – astrologer for The Mirror and all-round jerk, and Barbara Smoker – President of the National Secular Society (check out their merchandise) and campaigner for atheism.

After the phone poll had closed, the alarming result was announced that 81% of British public believed there is a God and 19% believed that there isn’t (not sure where Agnostics fitted into all this). So, the presenters Philippa Forrester and Ross Kelly concluded the programme and the credits were just about roll when Barbara Smoker said:

‘Excuse me. But this is a religious program, so most of those watching and voting are bound to have religious beliefs’

It was a stunningly obvious thing to say but it desperately needed saying. The sceptics in the audience clapped in agreement while the presenters looked slightly embarrassed. However much the BBC tries to broaden the appeal of its religious programming, they will never broaden its audience by placing such programmes in the Sunday morning time slot and therefore polls like this will remain completely worthless. Thankfully, Barbara Smoker was there to highlight the silliness of it all.

An article on the Japan Media Review site explores how camera phones are changing the definition of picture-worthy.

As the mundane is elevated to a photographic object, the everyday is now the site of potential news and visual archiving.

I explored similar territory in the post Out of the Ordinary. [via Gizmodo]

Dynamo is a large multi-user interactive surface that allows people to gather round to share, display and exchange media with others.

The demo movies available for download are hefty in size, but it’s definitely worth a look.

Well I never thought I’d see Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan star alongside each other in a film. They are both in a remake of the Jules Verne classic, Around the World in 80 Days; Coogan as Phileas Fogg and Chan as Passepartout.

The rest of the cast is pretty incredible too: Jim Broadbent, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Cleese, Kathy Bates and Owen and Luke Wilson.

Do you think it might be a comedy?

Paul Ford gets to the heart of what a web page is and, by way of examples of “little computer languages”, offers his thoughts on how the process of creating one may be “elegantized”. Such is the quality of Ford’s writing, I now feel compelled to start fiddling around with both Processing and CSound. I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. [thanks Stu]

While much of Apple’s website is well laid out and easy to use, the news that Jeffrey Zeldman and Doug Bowman are teaming up with Apple to (presumably) push the site towards standards compliance and accessibility is very welcome. However, there is one member of the Apple.com family that, I believe, requires special focus; the .Mac site. This site is an attempt to make a web page look and feel more like the 3-paned interface seen the iLife apps; the brushed metal effect is an annoyance on the desktop nevermind on a website. Apple have made the mistake of believing that in order to make the .Mac site (and the tools within it) as user friendly as possible, it must behave in a way that Mac users are familiar with, i.e. the iApps. I have a .Mac subscription, used primarily for POP3 mail and the excellent Backup utility. However, it is rare that I use the .Mac site simply because it offers a poor user experience. I’m not compelled to go back to it to see what’s new and as a fee-paying subscriber I expect more.

Although it’s unknown how this alliance with Apple will develop, I personally hope that Zeldman and Bowman will be working to create a faster, leaner, more usable .Mac site using XHTML, CSS and not a whiff of brushed metal.

To commemorate 75 since the discovery of penicillin, The Royal Society of Chemistry have started a competition to find the mouldiest coffee mug. Sir Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin after leaving a Petri dish festering in the lab one summer.

Rather than chancing upon a half-drunk mug of coffee and sending a photograph of it in, I expect people will choose to experiment by seeing what furry bacterial cultures they can grow in their coffee mugs by placing them strategically in warm, poorly ventilated areas around the house. This reminds me of the Stinky Meat project, a site not to be viewed if:

• You’re about to eat meat
• You’re in the process of eating meat
• You’ve just eaten meat
• You’re a vegetarian

I think John Gruber is wrong to write so negatively about OpenOffice.org. It seems like the people working on the project are doing an honourable job bringing a free Office Suite comparable to Microsoft Office to OS X, albeit in a manner that’s particularly clunky and Windows 95-like.

Gruber counters criticism leveled against him for refering to it as ‘vaporware’:

Insult or not, however, vaporware is precisely apt. As defined in the American Heritage Dictionary: New software that has been announced or marketed but has not been produced.

OK, so an OS X native version of OpenOffice.org has not been produced, but neither has it been announced or marketed; instead an estimated time for completion has been given as the year 2006. What has been produced, announced and, to some degree, marketed is an OpenOffice.org port for OS X that runs under X11. It’s ugly, but it’s functional and I believe that it’s wrong to call it vaporware.

I do agree that to develop an OS X native version of OpenOffice.org that offers a decent user experience is a herculean task – especially for a team of 2 part-timers – and the hope that this will ever come to fruition may be in vain. However, I’m puzzled by John Gruber’s apparent indignation towards the project; maybe he would just rather pay for a better user experiece, i.e. Microsoft Office, which is fair enough. I, on the other hand, choose not to. Roll on 2006.

Thanks to all those who wished me well for my holiday/vacation and for the highly entertaining Tomato discussion while I was gone. As you might have guessed, Michelle and I went down to the New Forest (her own neck of the woods) for a while and we popped across to Devon for a spot of festival-going and camping at the South Devon coast. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to discuss where at the South Devon coast we stayed. You see, each conversation we had with a local went something like:

• Them: Hello. Where are you from?
• Us: Cheshire and The New Forest originally. We’re currently living near Newcastle Upon Tyne.
• Them: That’s a long way away… so how did you find this place then?
• Us: Well, we were driving round looking for a campsite and this looked like a nice place to stay.
• Them: Oh. Well you just make you sure you don’t tell anyone about it, OK?. We don’t want too many people round ‘ere.
• Us: Erm. OK.

You see, we were Grockles.

Due to legal issues, The Coding Monkeys have renamed Hydra, their Rendezvous enabled text editor, to SubEthaEdit. I like the fact that the name is in honour of Douglas Adams but it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue does it? Still, it remains an excellent piece of software and has opened up a new realm of possibilities for collaborative development amongst Mac users.

Over the last few months, I’ve been learning GNU Emacs. Previous attempts at figuring out Emacs’ mind-boggling keystroke commands failed miserably until I found this excellent tutorial introduction. Yes, there is a steep learning curve involved in learning it, but in my opinion, it’s worth it. I can access Emacs running on my Mac remotely from any machine (regardless of platform), do a spot of editing as well as check my Mail and Newsgroups. There are not many editors that allow you to do that.

So, because Emacs does everything you’d want an editor to do plus a million other things, I realised that it must have some kind of SubEthaEdit-like function for editing collaboratively. This command does something similar:

M-x make-frame-on-display host.example.com:0.0

OS X users can run GNU Emacs from the Terminal by typing ‘emacs’. Alternatively, there’s a Carbon port available for Jaguar here (recommended).