Triple-thread

Hello out there, single regular reader of this blog. Actually, judging by some feedback and my analytics I know that at least three people regularly read this blog, whereas the rest think I’m this guy.

In any case, I’m going to break from my normal writing tradition to give you three posts in one. This is mainly because it looks set to be a busy few weeks so wouldn’t want my readers to be deprived of my arrogant and opinionated rants.

First, a brief mention of why I have to stop talking about religion on this blog. If you have read my review of The God Delusion, my reaction to the news that the film of Charles Darwin won’t be shown in the US or, for some god-awful reason, looked at my meta tags in the coding of the site, you will know that I am an atheist (and if you’ve done the last thing stop reading this and go to a club you code-brained twit). I’m not going to go into my overly complicated reasoning for rejecting theistic belief (again) but there is a reason I must stop. If you look to the right of this post you will notice my Google ads that I use to try and make a pretty penny (truer words were never spoken) out of this blog. Odds are that you’ll also see that many of them are pro-Christian, which (though I have no problem with that being advertised) is not the main subject of this blog, which is (of course) technology and gadgetry. So I’m mainly going to desist on my atheist commentary simply to weed out the adverts that won’t really be necessary for my readers. However, I just found out that God is on Twitter – maybe I was wrong.

Second, a short book review (yes, you may remember this blog is about literature too), today a break from fiction as I hesitantly dive into the surprisingly word-abundant world of punctuation pedantry. I speak, of course, of Lynn Truss’ ‘Eats, Shoots & Leaves’, recommended to me by a lecturer discussing the use of language in course-writing which I felt would be important if I want to have any sort of career as a professional tech writer or journalist. Having read the book I can’t help be drawn to Truss’ delightfully witty and funny narrative, pointing out her own stickler-dom (not a word but still) for correct punctuation. A book all about the correct punctuation sounds about as exciting as discussing the future of Twitter with Brian Sewell (and believe me, I’ve tried), but the book is as much, if not more, about the psychological process and quirks of Punctuation Communist (my own invention, the equivalent of the Grammar Nazi) and would’ve been a wonderful piece of literature had Truss chosen to write it as such. As any guide to anything must, however, Truss spends a considerable amount of time  detailing the correct ways to use punctuation marks, the overworked comma (this very sentence being indicative), the misplaced apostrophe and the shockingly lazy semicolon (I don’t think I’ve used the semicolon in any context other than programming). This extensive and all-around tedious list of uses is punctuated at very regular intervals with Truss making a joke to point out the problem that occurs if misused, which can be persuasive. However, and though it pains me, as a writer, to say so, I profess myself unconvinced – I could, though only after reading it, point out to you a number of punctuation errors that I will discover in proof reading, and I imagine that Truss could point out many more. Despite this, I can detect no confusion in meaning that anyone reading this may perceive in it’s meaning whatsoever. For the sake of ensured clarity and, I suppose, preservation, I strive to use correct punctuation to the best of my knowledge, but I don’t feel that, in any capacity, my writing is deteriorated or my reader loses any respect for me and my opinion if the more subtle of errors occurs. Though I am unsure of the correct use of a semicolon; so do my best to avoid them (damn this sentence), it’s reasonable to say that a lot of people my age are equally as unsure. Though I highly recommend this book, it’s collected quips by other writers and Truss’ tales of a teenage typist being it’s main selling point, don’t expect to come away with the sudden urge to buy a sharpie and correct every sign in town. If Truss wants a revolution then this really is Mein Kampf, she sets out her goals but the changes won’t come around for a while.

Ah, splendid. Good to get my book review fluids flowing frequently.

Now, the gadget review. I’m not really sure what to review (I should really plan these out beforehand rather than just a train of thought that my fingers quickly translate into keystrokes) given that my Windows 7 review, which is technically written for Spark (the Reading Uni newspaper), will be reposted here, and a quick glance around my flat uncovered nothing particularly new (I’ve got to get some money for new tech). Ah, I’ve thought of something -

The Amazon Kindle, you may remember some weeks back I wrote an article about the availability of the Amazon Kindle in the UK, albeit via a complex system of imports and US phone carriers. It’s been in the UK for a little while now and, alongside it’s old-and-new-world-colliding rivals, I’ve been vigorously scouring the dried casserole of reviews off the web to get thoughts on the new device. How will the country that had Shakespeare handle this?

The Kindle was a reasonable success in the US, the land of it’s birth, with an agent ready and willing to put up any amount of cash to make it easy to use, lacking data contracts to download eBooks and read online content just so long as it pulled in the green. However, the Kindle’s attempt to break the little island with lots of tea wasn’t as easy a transition with (running with the record label analogy) an agent running affairs from afar whilst really focusing on other projects (Amazon MP3 anyone?). Basically, if you want a Kindle you have to have a US model imported, you buy eBooks in dollars, don’t have a UK charger and can’t browse the web (the “UK Model” still uses AT&T’s wireless so Amazon have to absorb roaming charges), an affair which costs a proverbial bundle.

Furthermore, many reviews of the Kindle’s bookstore (the only way to get eBooks on the device) show that many, many popular or classic titles simply aren’t there, owing mainly to the copyright issues highlighted by the ‘1984’ irony which also shook some people’s trust in Amazon.

Personally, I can imagine I would have some trouble getting used to the Kindle as a book but then I am a luddite when it comes to digital mediums. I don’t download music, films or (I assume) books because I like to own what I buy, I want to pay for something and have it as a physical entity that I can hold in my hand and do what I will with it. Though perhaps 4 times thicker, any one of the books I am reading currently can be picked up, moved around, repositioned and it available irrespective of the battery life. Sad as this may sound, one of the sights that most inspires confidence in my own intellect is that of my stocked bookshelf – one that can’t be replicated on a device. There’s also the old iPod conundrum appearing once again in that should I lose, break or format my Kindle, or simply if I want to buy another eBook reader, even another Kindle, I will lose all the books that I own – with no method of recovery or capacity for backup as there is no way (currently) of backing up purchases to your own system or to Amazon.

I absolutely love the idea of it, and the Kindle is a very nice piece of kit, different from any other eBook reader and truly unique, but I question it’s practicality in a country that loves it’s books AS BOOKS.

It’s far from all doom and gloom however, as any emerging technology has teething troubles as people get used to it, any good idea will catch on eventually. People, particularly reviewers, are very quick to forget the classic early adopter syndrome, that is, jumping to buy a new medium before the content providers are up to scratch and populated, one of my lecturers was telling us earlier today about the early days of Twitter – describing it as “texting myself” due simply to lack of users at the time – and look where it is now. In gadget terms, however, the growth depends less on how many people use it and simply how long it takes Amazon to develop it, namely with the bookstore, promising a UK version very soon. People who immediately jump on the tech bandwagon usually end up getting one of two things – either they get screwed because the tech flops and support ends (how’s that HD-DVD player doing?) – or they have to get by with the manufacturer’s progress while they fine tune everything. I am absolutely certain that nobody at Amazon feels that work with the UK Kindle is done.

Time will tell, it always does…

Well my friends, it seems I’ve exhausted every scrap of my digital breath out of every digital orifice – I’ll leave you with that image.

Tech² Episode 2: Anti-Farmville

Apologies my dears, as my heavy workload means I must neglect you again from my amazing blog posts, so instead I’ll leave you with the latest episode of Tech² – the podcast that me, Louis and Paul make – for you edification and enjoyment.

I’m technically the presenter, giving the introductions and links etc as well as putting in reviews, discussion and shamelessly plugging this blog, but given my trouble with speaking you can see that any time I speak it flows with all the grace of a drunk giraffe – enjoy!

Tech² Episode 2:
Anti-Farmville

In this episode, we discuss the new iPod Nano 5th Generation, Snow Leopard, £30 Windows 7 Student Discount, Super Webcam, Command and Conquer, the slaughter of digital animals and, of course, plenty of Apple bashing.

Find in iTunes

Published

Hey all, this is just a quick pre-lecture squee.

If you backtrack my posts a tad (or scroll down) you’ll find a post titled ‘Windows 7 – Yes, it still has minesweeper’, which was my first submitted post to the Reading Uni student newspaper, Spark*. I mention in the post that it’s been submitted to the editor but I haven’t heard back about if it’s been published or not. I just picked up the new issue and found my review in there!!!!

For the next issue, the Science & Technology section that I asked about, contributing partly to it’s inception, will become my main section to write for. The main editor (whose standing in as the Tech editor while she looks for a section editor, which I’m going to go up for but probably will lose out to a third year; which makes sense) has allowed me to write two article for the next one, a Windows 7 Review (which explains the lack of the article thus far on my blog) and a report on the whole Lord Mandelson three strikes thing (see ‘Geffen is coming, look busy’), which I’ve already blogged about.

Just wanted to mention. By the way, can people let me know if MatGreenfield.com works for them if they’re at university halls and campuses now. I think it’s started to work and I want to stop having to double-post so reply in comments.

Cheers, Mat.

Facebook – Cold Turkey Time?

As usual, my first comment explains the title, I found this image to use on the page and wanted to make it relevant, ah well.

Could’ve been worse – I could’ve said ‘Facebook – at a shot’.

Now unless you’re socially inept or have parents who don’t like you using social networking sites (which given recent news I’m not going to comment on), you may’ve noticed some major changes to the workings and look of the world’s current favourite website, call me quick to write them off but I’m sensing another mass exodus from the directory of faces to the next up and coming network on the scale that we’ve seen with MySpace and Bebo in the past.

Ignoring the mainly adult-targeted site ‘Friends Reunited’ and the slightly pre-dating website Friendster (the latter being ignore because I was too young to remember it and I’m too lazy to research it), it’s fair to say that MySpace was the major social network that introduced my generation to the idea of an Argos Catalogue of people, invariably allowing you to learn a wealth of information on someone you may not have even met yet, most of which orchestrated to promote yourself while you save all your weird, unusual or else creepy aspects of your personality to yourself.

MySpace was a revolution in that it allowed proper personalisation of a page, appealing to the web designer in all of us (of course, some of us actually designed our own websites, having said that I did only a bit of coding of this site, cheers Louis), was well placed in time to be able to provide people posting full songs to their profile above copyright, for a bit, and the first iteration of the ‘status’ update and moods. Eventually, MySpace broke past the barrier of the Star-Trek discussing nerd fan base and actually became cool, with practically every band in the universe (both rock stars and unsigned) creating a MySpace page, an easy platform to showcase your tunes. A fair few bands of infamy today started by putting their music on MySpace and being talent scouted there, such as Elliot Minor, My Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco (I’ll let you fill in your own MySpace-Emo joke here).

It’s fair to say that the heavy emphasis on new musicians that MySpace put on during the height of it’s popularity has saved it now. It remains a great platform for all kinds of music, but when was the last time you heard anyone ask if you have a MySpace page? Eventually uncovering my old MySpace page (the password long forgotten and the e-mail address no longer mine), was a huge nostalgia tour, as the interface seems to have changed very little, if at all, I will talk more on that later.

Alas, the days of MySpace are all but over and us fickle teenagers quickly hopped to the next social network site, doodle circles and draw a lower case ‘b’ in your maths textbook my friends, for Bebo.

Bebo was much the same as MySpace in that it had almost the exact same features, except it was just a bit new. Starting off as the cool people’s social network, simply because everyone was on MySpace at the time, people eager to prove their street cred (simply by my terminology you can tell I was never amongst the popular people) abandoned (or later deleted) theirSpace and started rebuilding their piece of the youth catalogue from scratch. My fond recalls of Bebo, which I must’ve been using up to 2008 so hardly a stretch of the memory, are mostly ones of arguments and paranoid worrying over how far up someone’s ‘Top 16’ list I was and how much ‘Love’ I had received/given in the day. One of my favourite features of Bebo was the level of personalisation above and beyond the realm of MySpace. Whilst the former champion of the interwebs left customisation to other people, with separate websites distributing the coding needed to customise your page, hardly unique, or else code it yourself, tricky for most, Bebo allowed you to put together a skin in site and easily.

The process of designing a Bebo skin was simply a case of creating images of certain dimensions and uploading them to the relevant fields as well as allowing minor tweaks in font colours. Though very simple, the very idea was enough to put off a lot of people and I clearly remember designing and creating skins for people, I was a sad little boy. However, looking at my old Bebo page is a snapshot of how I was circa late 2007 and, though it is evidently different, again it’s still relatively similar.

Once again, Bebo, as with MySpace, began to decrease in popularity and, though it is still very much alive and not so much kicking as visibly twitching, it remains (unlike MySpace) a haven for spammers trying to squeeze the last out of Bebo. We quickly learned to love another social network, the current champion, Facebook.

Once again, the lure of Facebook convinced us to rebuild how the digital world saw us from scratch. I won’t go into much detail on Facebook because you probably already know it, but I always find it peculiar that a social network with no major page customisation tools has become so popular. My thoughts are that the ability to keep up to date in real-time, albeit a relatively recent feature, has saved all the tedium of refreshing that was necessary on it’s predecessors as well as it’s general speediness from dynamic pages makes it a generally happier experience for the user.

Facebook has been renowned for significant changes in usability and aesthetics, but possibly for the wrong reasons. As soon as even the most minor visible change occurs on Facebook, you can bet your belt-buckle that 80% of Facebook statuses reference how much they hate the new features, yet it’s popularity continues to grow. Generally, I’ve been open to the changes, actually quite enjoying them, and I’ve been anything but a doomsayer, until now.

Major changes have appeared recently on Facebook that overturn entirely how the website works, it’s new features are far from intuitive and bringing in multiple feeds makes it a confusing experience trying to work out which is which, with no clear distinction between what, for example, Live Feed and News Feed are supposed to show. It’s also been noticeably slower and e-mails notifying a comment or other such information has been coming in much later and often in the wrong order. History has shown us that when it comes to social networks people are fickle, and Facebook has tried to stay fresh by frequent changes and updates to how it works, but in their struggle to do so they appear to have run out of ideas and not had a proper look at how it affects their site overall. In the bid to keep up with the young people that outran Bebo and MySpace, has Facebook encountered an update too far?

And now, as we must, we look to the future. What’s next for the the modern student’s fight to create a positive advert of the self?

Twitter? No, hell no. Twitter is good but remember that it’s just 140 character status updates and little else, there would have to be a new source of revenue and a huge overhaul before Twitter is on par with Facebook. Spotify? Their music service has plans to implement a social network into their software and programs, but all centred on the free music streaming that makes Spotify what it is, which puts it the same track that MySpace had. In all honesty I don’t know of any new social network that is radically different from the old ones, at least not enough to persuade people to switch, maybe Google will come up with something in the near future.

So maybe, if Facebook refuse to reverse their poor choice of changes, people will stick with them simply because of no real alternative or better site to use. But, as ever, something will appear and Facebook better hope they can keep up.

But just in case I’m wrong, do some revision -

Mat

Windows 7 – Yes, it still has Minesweeper

Hi all, this is my first news article that I’ve written for the Reading Uni newspaper, Spark*. Whether or not it’ll actually appear in the paper remains to be seen, I’ve only just e-mailed it to the editor, but here it is anyway so if it doesn’t get printed (or even if it does) I can use the feedback to improve the next article. Remember that though I’m a tech geek, I’m not a gamer, so this was a tricky one to write (there’s no tech section, yet) but here goes:

The latest iteration of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, Windows 7, has hit the shelves to the collective celebration of Microsoft fans. But what does this new mean for gaming?

Out of the box, Windows 7 has all the games you need to procrastinate away hours you should be spending on your studies. Minesweeper is still in its familiar place, but now with the option to sweep for flowers instead of mines, the flowers still explode like mines (for some reason) but your disappointment is lessened by the soothing melody that covers the explosion, it almost makes you want to lose. This was included with Vista too, but Microsoft seems eager to promote it this time around. Hearts, Solitaire and all the classic card games come in their unchanged glory and, for the intellectual amongst you; Chess has pride of place as ever. All online, flash-based games should still work with this new OS, which makes up for the lack of pre-installed Tetris, the ultimate time-waster.

For the serious gamer, the also newly-released DirectX11 promises huge improvements in GPU, tessellation and multi-threading support. However, at the moment relatively few games have DirectX11 support, so it may be worth waiting a few months for the upcoming releases (including some big titles like Crysis 2 and Alien vs. Predator) before upgrading. Compatibility, as ever, will play a major part in deciding 7’s fate in the gaming world, and a full list of games tested on the last Windows 7 beta version showed that a vast majority of games install and run with no problems. However, the list of non-functional games brings up some popular titles like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, as well as a sizeable list of partially functional games that’s worth checking.

The future, however, looks bright for gaming on Windows. The codenamed Project Natal, Microsoft’s attempt to perfect gesture control and get rid of games controllers entirely, a feat so far only partially achieved by Nintendo, is slated to run on Windows 7 machines, as well as the Xbox 360, when it’s released next year. As developers create new games to use the Natal technology, gamers will inevitably need to upgrade to Windows 7 to play them. But from what Microsoft has showcased of its new system, it’ll be worth upgrading for it.

As with the release of the PS3, Windows 7 as a gaming platform has been long awaited but hasn’t given developers enough time to catch up, given the delays in DirectX11-supported games and the wait for Project Natal (slated to be available in late 2010) means that, for the time being, this is essentially Vista with potential. My recommendation is, if you plan to use 7 for just gaming, wait for the first service pack to be released to fix all the latent bugs with current games before upgrading, and then prepare for the ground-breaking Natal.

Windows 7 is available online from Microsoft for £30 if using a student discount, which requires a valid edu e-mail address (ending in .ac.uk), or free if you are a System’s Engineering student at Reading University from ELMS, though this version has pre-installed Games disabled by default that can be enabled in the settings menu.

Geffen is coming, look busy!

Now my dears, I realise I have been neglecting you due to my increasing workload at university. Fear not, for I have a number of treats and delights edible for your edification coming very soon. I’m even killing two birds with one stone as I intend to put my first Spark (Reading Uni student newspaper) on here as a blog post, I’ll come to more detail on that later, now something much more vital –

YOUR INTERNET IS BEING CUT OFF!

Yes, my friends, that is the stark warning that you may (but probably won’t) be getting through your post box (well, not if the Royal Mail strikes continue) very soon as the now defunct French ‘three-strikes’, or as they called it there ‘tres fúckups’, policy to combat illegal file-sharing will shortly become law.

Yes, clutch your keyboards in horror as I elaborate. This policy, which as I said was briefly introduced and swiftly chucked out in France, means that if you are caught torrenting, downloading, file sharing or even simply holding a microphone up to a radio (I expect) once, twice, three times the charm and you will lose your internet connection. Ironic then that the man in the government advocating this through mouthfuls of wine (courtesy of music tycoon David Geffen) is none other than Peter Mandelson, the twice disgraced, twice resigned, ‘voice of the people (in the music industry’)’. I would very much like to see this policy applied to government disgraces and watch him tumble.

The governments sheer lack of understanding about how anything with a microchip works is apparent in this PDF document outlining the proposals, courtesy of The Guardian.

What does this mean for you and me, well exactly as it says on the tin. You will lose your internet connection for a variable amount of time (most likely dependent on the scale of the “offence”) but you will have the right to appeal, of course, and go through all manner of tedious bureaucracy and costs before you might be able to watch bad Woody Allen impressions on YouTube again. For ISPs, it means it becomes a legal requirement for them to turn over the data of suspected file-sharers, the slightest implication of illicit activities (which, as we know, can be perfectly legitimate) means an entirely different type of tedium reserved especially for the providers, who then have to backtrack their records and drag up who was using the IP address at the time and all manner of things from their voluminous plethora of data, all of which will cost a lot of employee time and money. Then there’s the government body to monitor and manage these cases, and the cost of an entirely new branch of Ofcom is added to the mix. From what I can gather, none of these costs are going to be covered by the entertainment industry, who are pushing their considerable weight around to get these policies in place. Now, you’ve hopefully noticed that every mention of cost has been emblazoned with an extra layer of black gloss to point out just how much these proposals will cost and, given how taxes work, the British taxpayer will be fitting the bill to assist what could be their own prosecution.

Now, many of you will gasp with horror at this, and rightfully so, but(just as an aside) I do hope many of you have the good sense to not start beating the “internet access should be a human right drum”. I, personally, don’t think that access to the internet should be a human right for one very simple reason, it’s a commodity, a product, and entirely non-essential. Human rights, by the very nature and, indeed, definition, dictate the basic needs of each and every human being to survive, maintain dignity, be free and unrepressed. What possible liberty do you think is being taken away by not being able to add another inane comment to some viral video? If we start adding unnecessary shit to the requirements of human rights then how far are we willing to go? Should, under that same logic, mobile phones become a human right? A computer (Interesting to note that right to web access requires, indeed demands, that access to a web-enabled device of some manner to be available under the same right)? An iPod? Camera? TV?

Don’t think for a moment that I am supporting the government on the human rights issue, because my argument works both ways. The internet can’t be a human right because it’s a product, something you can buy or not buy, take it or leave it, we don’t (necessarily) need it. However, if this is true then the government shouldn’t, they apparently will but nevertheless, have any control or power to cut it off due to misuse. I know that Finland has just made 1Mb broadband a human right, but this is a mistake, I feel, reaching deep into the depth of the slippery slope.

I can’t imagine, for a moment, that ISPs are taking this lying down. Because for each and every penny, second and manpower that put in, just to fulfil their now legal obligations, they are potentially losing a customer. It is purely counter-productive for them because they have no way of making money from this and will inevitably lose a customer (I don’t imagine that the ‘criminal’ will be forced to still pay their ISPs for internet that they can’t use). Ofcom surely don’t want to have to deal with the complaints from parents demanding that their internet be restored (possibly so that they can do their job) after their teenager torrented an episode of ‘Family Guy’. There is also an enormously high risk of false positives here as it is painfully difficult to track filesharing, which is why many do it knowing full well the risk of prosecution, leading to a lot of innocent people without a web connection. The odds of getting caught are so low, and I take it that success and prosecution targets at the new department will be so high (in an attempt to justify the cost no doubt) that there’s a risk of the body getting a bit slap-dash with trying to make only genuine prosecutions. I may be wrong.

And amongst all the crap that these proposals create, who’s happy? Not the voters, not the consumers, not the ISPs, not the entertainment industry (despite what they’ll tell you, every illegally downloaded track does not equate to one lost sale) when they realise the flaw of this plan, not the government having to deal with the execution, or the backlash, of this. Nobody, well except the tycoon who (convenientally)  took Mandelson on holiday just before Lord Peter started advocating three-strikes. Of course, we are taking food right out of the mouth of these billionaires, they are being forced to live in abject poverty because of you thieving bastards. How could you be so cruel? He’s down to regular caviar!

I am not advocating illegal downloading, filesharing and torrenting as the right thing to do. But just look at the incredible lengths that our elected government is going to simply to satisfy, essentially, one man. Isn’t this report simply highlighting how easily our elected representatives can be bought if your wallet’s big enough, Mandelson is a blatant illustration of this. Politicians hardly represent the moral high-ground when it comes to not paying for things, but that is no matter, the point is that any intelligent person in the government can see, simply from observation, that these plans are an exercise in futility and simply pandering to the big cash monster enrapturing them all that is the entertainment industry, forcing them to look as though they’re doing something (Geffen is coming, look busy).

Copyright infringement, on an industrial scale that profits the wrong people, deserves prosecution. Watching a few episodes of a TV show online does not. The internet is not the government’s to cut off, nor our own to claim it as a right. Our leaders should not so easily bought, nor should we have to fit the bill for it.

Good Night!

The God Delusion – An apatheist’s review

Hmm, perhaps the term apatheist isn’t a clear reference, it’s a perhaps bad play-on-words with the term apathetic as what I intend to here blog about is a tentative subject which commonly gets a comment or two so I will explain. I am going to review ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins, which I finished reading a few weeks ago. But I want to make it clear I am not, repeat NOT, trying to make this into another Christianity-Atheism debate and merely want to review this book from a non-subjective, an apathetic, view.

The God Delusion is Richard Dawkins in-depth discussion about the existence of God. Investigating where it comes from, what we can learn from it and, above all, whether or not God exists.

I say discussion, though it is clear even to a moron that Dawkins has firmly made up his mind on the matter, with cheekily titled chapters such as “Why there almost certainly is no God”. However, he does fairly look at the evidence that religious groups (the book is unashamedly aimed at Christianity but there are still numerous references to other religions) give for believing in God and expertly dashes them.

I’ll illustrate, the classic argument of evolution vs. creation is a point that Dawkins talks about greatly, himself being a biologist. He systematically picks up and examines each and, to my vast knowledge, every argument and “evidence” that creationists give to show that there was an intelligent force, which they choose to believe was the God of the Holy Bible (peculiar how they have to make that additional clause distinction for the “one true god”), that created and fine-tuned the planet some 6000 years ago, created animals and then humans as a superior species on the planet. Dawkins, as scientists do, picks up and plays around with the notion, toys with  it, has fun and draws conclusions upon it, before he looks at the evidence that his prodding, poking and his own scientific knowledge before, with a melancholy sigh at not learning something new about his planet, setting it aside and concluding that it is not so and clearly explains why, it’s hard to fault him here.

As a side-note, it is always baffling to me the amount of hysteria surrounding Dawkins by Christian groups suggesting that he was responsible for the conception of Nazism in Germany long after his death due to his conclusions in Origins when it is Christianity that assumes that Man is superior to animals. As I said, I’m not interested in sparking off another debate but it is a noteworthy parallel all the same. Undoubtedly, that will cause somebody to say “But, weren’t Hitler and Stalin atheists?” Well, ignoring the fact that it’s never been proven, they both had moustaches too, what of it?

This leads me on, conveniently, onto morality. Some Christians repeatedly argue that we need religion to base our morals on. Though I have never bought this for a moment, Dawkins manner of illustrating this point is truly captivating, with examples that, though they sound ludicrous, tap into some inherent and base understanding of right and wrong.

The book is dedicated to Dawkins friend, writer Douglas Adams (of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as well as various Doctor Who episodes), and the wit and comic timing that Adams gives in whatever he writes (many of his comments on religion are used in the book) is channelled expertly through Dawkins, using this to great effect to simultaneously satirise and expose religions more ridiculous side, it pains me that I do not have my copy to hand (a good book reviewer I turned out to be) but it’s a very entertaining book in itself and worth reading for some Adam-esque humour.

Of course, I too must look at the dark side of this book. Simply because I’m an atheist doesn’t mean that I must agree with every word in this book, much in the same way that most modern Christians are no longer word-perfect literal about the Bible. I don’t think anyone, least of all Dawkins, would want everyone to agree entirely with him or else it risks spawning an entirely new pseudo-religion. So it is with confidence, indeed glee, that I jump into my criticism of this book, and perhaps it will unfortunately double-up as a criticism of Dawkins himself, in that he can be unbelievably scathing and cocky about some Christian viewpoints, taking his humour into the realms of bad taste. Towards the end of the book, for example, he investigates the fear of death and shows how Christians have a tendency to be far more reluctant to accept the end of their life than atheists, despite the former’s firm belief that they are venturing unto paradise. It is, I’ll admit, an interesting point, but the humour with which Dawkins injects this point, suggesting that the terminal patient should be congratulated at the news of their impending demise among other crass comments. Intriguing a point though it is, how can Dawkins honestly make a point for his views from each person’s fear of death, might not someone fear death not because they do/don’t fear almighty judgement, but because maybe they have a family that needs them. This research doesn’t, as far as I can see, take into account any variable factors besides Christian/Atheist and Scared/Not Scared, which seems to basic a result to go by.

Despite this, Dawkins writes a very persuasive, informed and entertaining book, making me eager to read more of his work. There are some points which, with their logical argument, evidence and comparable examples of the “absurd” (see Bertrand Russell’s teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster for examples).

Some reviews have said that this book “will not leave you unchanged” and that is certainly true. Whether it will change your beliefs entirely, in any direction, depends mainly on your current religious standpoint. My own was near enough where it is having read it, just a step or two further from the delusion that there is a God in the Biblical sense. Despite Dawkin’s confident introduction, I’m afraid I must contradict him in that I don’t feel it will change anyone’s view, fundamentalist Christians won’t listen or even want to listen to contradictory evidence, most modern Christians will listen and accept most of what he says but I doubt his arguments are persuasive enough to shake beliefs that far, but I may be wrong. Atheists will simply have more bullets in their arsenal to use when they’re next shot at to repent their wicked ways (an archaic reference I know, but illustrative all the same). Agnostics may be moved by this, but the thing that made them agnostics in the first place (namely, the fear of ‘what if I’m wrong’) is too strong a gravitational pull, I feel, to pull them out of orbit.

Overall, a delightful, intriguing and fantastic read that I recommend whatever your religious view. I cannot recommend this book any higher, read it and feel yourself thinking, emoting and considering with each word. When you put it down, the words will ring in your head and your own thoughts will rise up, revitalised by this concise and clear piece, it’ll make a thinker out of you.

Hyper-Mania

Make a twat of yourself on Question Time you racist nutjob, my friends! After a brief radio silence, I have returned to my keyboard once again!

I realised that I’ve been neglecting you, indeed, starving you of my opinions, reviews and general geekery – which I know you all crave like sugar and spend many a day constantly checking your RSS feeds for your next fix.

It pains me then that I must disappoint for now. But I felt I owe it to you to explain why, this is not yet another assertion that I’m switching to a different blog or anything just a quick update on what I’m doing.

Firstly, the blog. You may’ve noticed the look of the site has gone walkabout, which is my fault entirely – an error when updating the version of wordpress installed on the server – hopefully Louis would be so kind as to put the theme back soon but I know he’s busy at the moment so no rush at all. Secondly, I’m yet to investigate fully but I believe that maybe matgreenfield.com now works in university buildings and halls, or at least it is for me. I’m yet to look into this fully but fantastic if it works.

Secondly, my university course. As you may know, I am at Reading University studying Computer Science, and it’s keeping me occupied to say the least. I know that more work is to come and obviously that is my priority. Those of you who’ve followed this blog since the beginning (I know there are a few of you out there) may remember I started this blog just after I finished college, so juggling the blog and my education is something new to me, and indeed a juggling act in which my education must be caught first if I fail to co-ordinate properly.

Thirdly, in preparation for what I hope will be a very prosperous career in technology journalism after finishing my course, I’m doing what I can to boost my CV in terms of media and outside-course activities – namely joining the uni newspaper (who, at mine and others suggestion, will hopefully be starting off a technology section). I’m also looking into information on writing skills (I’ve taken yet another diversion from my ongoing book list to read “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss), the uni television station (who I hear are looking for people to work on a new gadget review show) among a wealth of other stuff going on.

That is not to say, by any means, that I will specifically avoid writing posts and will do so whenever I can, just the pace that I managed to maintain over the summer will be notably reduced.

Coming up, I will finally get around to reviewing Windows 7 (though in the meantime, I reviewed the Release Candidate a few months back), a piece on language and writing inspired, in part, by Truss as well as discussions I’ve heard recently, a review of “The God Delusion” and Tech-Squared makes a triumphant return to your earholes. Stick around, I have cookies for you!

Windows Live Writer – A Practical Review

Good Afternoon, again (You’ll understand why again later). I recently read a rave review about a new application on the Windows Live suite, Windows Live Writer, which had installed itself sneakily on my machine when I last updated Live Messenger. It’s not very often that you go to download a new piece of software and find it’s already on your computer, now that’s service!

Windows Live Writer is a blog integration tool that links itself to your blog, supporting all the major blogging platforms, including WordPress (a-thank-you), allowing you to write blog posts with all the creature comforts of Microsoft Word, just as if you were writing a document before posting it online. Features from this include a spell-checker (good for me), standard text formatting tools and previews of how a post will look online before it’s published.

I thought the best way to test out the quality of the program is to write an actual blog post, indeed one reviewing the software itself, to my blog and see how it goes. If you look closely at this screenshot, you’ll notice that it’s content is different to this post, that’s because when I was tinkering with the settings (trying to get it to post to two blogs at once) it crashed on me. Lacking an autosave or recovery system, that meant that the post was lost forever. The software does come with options to save drafts as you go both locally and directly to the drafts area on your web server, but neither will save unless you elect to, so keep saving just as you would with any old document, even though Office comes with an autosave function.

As well as the normal old top menu buttons that Microsoft have been gradually phasing out with more recent versions of Office, the word processor facade is re-enforced by the text formatting tools giving everything you’d expect and/or need for a normal blog. It also comes with a few mission-specific buttons for starting/opening/saving new posts. The side menu, which oddly is on the right instead of left, as is normal for most WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors, is half a view of recent posts, drafts and links to the blog, and half an insert menu, pre-loaded with all the normal things you would put on a blog post. Clicking “Add a plug-in” takes you to the Microsoft website, specifically a page about available plug-ins and extra functions that are free and, I’d expect, easy to install.

The bottom menu is more interesting, as it has all the admin stuff that I should (but don’t due to laziness) be putting on each post, including categories, tags and publish dates, which are easy to input and are attached to your post just as with a normal post. It also has tabs to see the post you’re working on in various views, edit, preview and source (which churns up your bog-standard HTML coding).

As a piece of kit I’m whelmed (not over or under). It’s a useful little tool, particularly if I can get it to post to both incarnations of my blog and save me having to do constant re-posts, but it’s nothing to write home about. It’s useful for saving me a bit of hassle and may become my main method for writing blog posts, but if I find another version of this application with even slightly better features, I’m jumping ship.

What it really needs is more layout functions. I’m able to do the standard stuff but inserting images with the software, as I have done above, doesn’t come out the same on the edit mode as it does in the preview, and may look different still when published. For example, if I moved an image around a block of text, it’d be interesting to see the text work around the image, like if I wanted a small image central in this paragraph and text all around it, rather than just the entire paragraph shifting around it, above or below.

Here’s an instructional video from Microsoft on using Writer:

My main reason for writing about this software is because of the impact it has on me and my writing. This is the first blog integration tool I’ve ever been persuaded to use and it has a lot of tools that will make my posts easier to deal with in the future. But the proof is in the pudding, so try it out for yourself and comment below.

In other words, I’m too lazy and have too much Uni work to do to properly finish this post off so I’m passing the buck. I plan to write a post in the next few days on Windows 7 when it’s released on Thursday. I’ve downloaded my free copy that I get for being a student from my university, but after the backlash that Microsoft got from early Vista adopters, I’m going to wait a bit and let MS work out the kinks and quickly throw out a few updates before I delve into the land of Windows 7 on my only fully functioning laptop, but I’ll still do an initial thoughts post and later a review.

Time to hit the books, unfortunately one of my text books is 800 pages so it hurts a bit to hit them…………bad joke I know.

Makeshift Kangaroo

Hi all, I’m writing this in the peaceful serenity and serene peacefulness of the Reading University campus (and using their wifi) because I can, frankly. If you are aware of the problems of accessing my main .com blog from universities, then you’ll understand why this post won’t appear on that site until I return to my flat. I’m returning to Horsham this weekend just for a visit so perhaps I’ll stumble upon the solution there.

I read a news story not one hour ago, regarding Channel 4 (a broadcasting company in the UK) and their deal with Google to provide full television shows and content on YouTube, probably ad-supported (much like the channel itself). Like all the major broadcasters in the UK, they have their own Video-on-Demand (VoD) service online with which they stream full shows (with interspliced short ad-breaks). The big difference between this channel’s VoD and the one run by the BBC, the iPlayer, is that television shows are available from the time they were broadcast and remain (supposedly) available indefinetely, whereas the iPlayer streams programmes for a limited time after initial broadcast, most of the time one week.

For a bit more background, there was a recent project between the aforementioned British broadcasters to provide a single, universal VoD service that would stream all the broadcaster’s content (details are sketchy) in one place. The project was codenamed Project Kangaroo and came to an untimely end when the Competition Commission deemed that a universal service run by all the broadcasters could be “too powerful” and expressed fears that the service could “hurt competition”. The project was ended but subsequently bought by another company in July who said they would launch in the coming months, no such development appeared and there was no indication of how the formal blocks imposed on the project by the CC would be dealt with.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I heard about Kangaroo when it was in it’s initial stages and was excited by it, as a teenager I watch a lot of TV but socialise, meaning that it’s a pain to have to keep switching between websites and services to get the show I’m looking for when I miss something. The idea of a universal service was delicious and it was disappointing to hear of it’s blockage. But if Channel 4 are willing, and (thanks to Google, only time you’ll hear me say that) able, to put their entire back-catalogue on YouTube, and will run in parallel with 4oD (their own catch-up website) to put new shows online shortly after broadcast, then doesn’t it follow that other broadcasters can to? What do we get then? Why, my friend, we have a universal platform for VoD!

Of course, there are problems to overcome. First, and foremost, the BBC will have to get off their license-fee-funded high horse and put their content on indefinetely (and backlog their old shows if they so choose), which will probably never happen, and then they have nothing to lose from putting the same content on YouTube as well. It wasn’t clear, while Project Kangaroo was still somewhere in the mist, how the Beeb were to run their online content with Kangaroo, given that Channel 4 would undoubtedly have their content on there permanentely and the BBC may not have agreed to do this also, but there is certainly the scope for them to do so which would be the way for the BBC to get full shows on YouTube. Once they’re on-board, it’s quite likely that the other main broadcasters (ITV, Five and Sky) would follow suit, and if they didn’t it wouldn’t really matter (all you’d really miss is Corrie, Neighbours, Gadget Show, Fifth Gear and Futurama). But if they did.

There you have it, a Video-on-Demand service on one univeral platform, which most internet users are familiar with and already know and love. This could be easily acheived without any discussion or deals between the main broadcasters themselves and all they would need is the go-ahead from YouTube (arguably a broadcaster in their own right). This would also avoid all the crap and red-tape from the Competition Commission as long as it’s only ever seen as several individual deals between the broadcasters and Google and never as a joint venture and be far easier to manage if it’s each channel working their own account on the Tube.

This would be the ultimate makeshift Project Kangaroo, and far more convenient than the travesty of watching the universal VoD service in the USA, Hulu, attempting to get it’s act together for a UK service (they were allowed in the US so presumebly avoid the bureaucracy here). It would be far more adaptable and keep up to date with changes on YouTube and with online video content delivery technology in general, without the BBC or any other channel having to shell out to beef up their technology.

Now I think about it, the BBC might as well opt to put their shows on YouTube, it’s mostly already pirated anyhow! Plus, if you don’t pay your license fee, though you can’t watch live tv, you are still allowed to watch BBC iPlayer, so there’s no loss of income by joining this than there is with just iPlayer on it’s own, in fact it’ll probably break up or share out the server demands on the BBC that ISPs are so pissed off about (yes, I know iPlayer is peer-to-peer but the point still stands) and reduce the BBC’s bandwidth cost considerably, so the Beeb could actually save money by doing this.

This is staring them in the face, why don’t they do it!

In other news, I finished The God Delusion the other day and have made a sizeable dent in The Great Gatsby. In any other context you probably wouldn’t consider 30 pages sizeable but given that Gatsby is only about 200 pages, small by most standards, it’s a respectable chunk. I’m hoping to finish it at the weekend to free up shelf space in my flat and add it to my shelf at home – I’m proud of that collection.

Speaking of awesome things, namely me, I was saved £30 today. When I was on the verge, indeed the very pinnacle, of buying Windows 7 Home Premium edition online using my Student Discount to get it cheap. I realised I had to go to my lecture where, talking to someone, I discovered that the University had an educational license to distribute Windows software for FREE. Better yet, it’s available now, so when I’m home for the weekend I will take advantage of the fast internet connection in comparison to here to download the installation file and upgrade my laptop (so I call it because I can upgrade without it deleting my files/programs). At home it will take hours, here it will take days, to download. Now all I need to do is work out how to uninstall my Windows 7 RC dual-boot install, presumebly I can delete the partition that has the OS installed on it but I’m worried it’ll screw up my boot menu that appears when i start up my laptop with which I select an OS installed on the hard drive (7/Vista). If anyone can help, let me know.

Oh and also does anyone know a good image host, I currently use turboimagehost to quickly put my images online so that I can embed or link them into blog posts but the one I use now is pretty unreliable (if you can’t see the picture of John Barrowman on my last post then it’s down again and my point is proven) so if anyone knows a similar but more efficient image host comment and let me know (I have flickr but it takes too long to sign in and I’d rather have a quick and easy one).

I’ve run out of sign off ideas! Goodbye!