jon's weblog

Torchwood is amazingly bland

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:26:50 PDT

Sorry to the fans, but I just had to say it. I know plenty of people love this series. But after watching the final one and the half episodes of "Children of Earth", or whatever it's called (which I forced myself too, because you know everyone's talking about it and I had to know what the fuss is all about), I can honestly say without any doubt that, much like ITV's Primeval (which takes the

Bull gores idiot to death, world rejoice

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:51:43 PDT

A 27 year old Spanish man has been gored to death by an angry bull whilst participating in the outdated annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.Daniel Jimeno Romero met his end due to his own stupidity by being unaware that bulls have two sharp horns on their heads and will gore puny humans who agitate them, much like what the now deceased 'victim', who hailed from Madrid did.A twitterer

British Sea Power - Man of Aran mini-review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:13:41 PDT

The fourth British Sea Power album isn't strictly a 'proper' British Sea Power studio album. In fact Man of Aran is actually the soundtrack score for the DVD release of the 1934 classic Man of Aran film. Whatever it is, the score here is undeniably British Sea Power. It pretty much sounds like what you will get if you have the band plays most of their album instrumentally.Man of Aran (the film)

Nokia 3720 with Series 60 please

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:32:03 PDT

Dear Nokia,I want this, but not in its current iteration. Put in a faster processor, Series 60 3rd edition FP3, GPS receiver and WiFi, and you've got yourself a winner that will be ideal for outdoor adventures. We need a true successor to the 5500, but without the bulky design. Remember, this tip comes free.

Nokia E75 "Teach the Technophobe" week one

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:31:40 PDT

Part of my agreement in obtaining a loaner E75 with WomWorld/Nokia involves taking part in a challenge called 'Teach the Technophobe'. Each week I'll receive four challenges of sorts, where I am required to tutor a technophobe friend or family on the E75's various capabilities. My technophobe of choice is my partner, who while once used a smartphone (HTC Magician) for two years is completely

More Camera Obscura tour dates

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:05:39 PDT

Camera Obscura has just completed their mini-UK and North American tour. Well, they have announced more dates, mainly made up of the usual sorts of summer festival before touring mainland Europe and the UK. Best news so far? They will be playing again at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in November!JULYFri 10 Jul UK T In The Park FestivalSun 12 Jul Ireland Oxegen festivalSat 18 Jul UK Suffolk Latitude

ThinkPad's Tactile Touchpad

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:39:27 PDT

The texture we introduced on the T400s was inspired by several things. One of them was the innovative yellow paving blocks used in Japanese train stations and sidewalks to guide or warn visually impaired pedestrians. Every time I visit Japan I am intrigued by these blocks. The square Tenji block system was invented in Japan by Seiichi Miyake in 1965 and first used in Okayama City in 1967. The

Brilliant captcha

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:51:18 PDT

Captcha are those challenge-response security fields where it makes you enter a word/number (like the one you need to fill in every time you want to post a comment on this blog), in order to verify the poster isn't a bot. These are not completely spam proof, but ever since enabling it I've seen spam comments on my blog drop to an average of about once a week. Captchas are randomly generated, but

National Express East Coast to be nationalised

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:26:50 PDT

News of the pending demise of the National Express East Coast fills me with glee. The London-Edinburgh route will instead be nationalised, before being offered once again on auction to private firms next year (a stupid thing to do, but when will they learn?). Still giving the franchise to a proper rail firm like FirstGroup (who has great deal of experience running rail franchises the

Nokia E75 GPS review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:38:39 PDT

Like the Nokia E71 and E66, the E75 is one of Nokia's now many Series 60 smartphones to be supplied with a built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS and digital compass functionality. The GPS can also be assisted via the downloading of ephemeris data that helps with speed. Like the E66, it took me around a minute to get a fix from cold boot on a clear day, though it can take up to a couple of minutes in

Nokia E75 music review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:22:46 PDT

Nokia has been making amends on their E-series of late. No longer recognising that E-series users are only made up of boring business suits, Nokia has finally removed the 2.5mm headphone jack from the newer E-series phones. Here the E75, has a bog-standard 3.5mm headphone socket that allows you to use your favourite headphone with it without the need of adapters. Still it doesn't matter if it

Farrah Fawcett & Michael Jackson

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:29:31 PDT

One was a beauty queen, another a talented pop singer (albeit a bit of a wacko). Both will be hugely missed.Thinking of renting some old Charlie Angels DVDs this weekend and digging out my Michael Jackson records. Love him or hate him, there is no denying he made great music that appealed to the masses. Jesus, still can't believe it.

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 OST cover art and track list

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:22:07 PDT

One thing you can almost from every Battlestar Galactica fans to agree upon is the brilliant score by Bear McCreary. My personal favourite is season three's soundtrack, but rest assured all three soundtracks are worth buying and listening to.Bear McCreary has finally confirmed that the two-disc season four/finale soundtrack will be released next month on 21 July. According to Bear, the second

Nokia E75 camera review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:22:00 PDT

The Nokia E75 camera is pretty much what I expected from an E-series phone: reasonable performance that is good enough for e-mail and web stills, but hardly something capable of replacing dedicated cheap digital cameras or camera focused mobile phones like Sony Ericsson Cybershot phones or Nokia's Carl Zeiss equipped phones. Still, on paper at least, the E75 is one of the better camera equipped

Michael Schumacher is the Stig

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:14:45 PDT

As revealed by Top Gear. Not convinced at all that he is the real. Likely merely a guest Stig sourced by the Beeb purely to drive that expensive Ferrari, or actually sent by Ferrari themselves. Really, there is no longer a proper Stig, merely guest drivers.Still, it was a fun episode. Was rooting for the train to win.

Lake District trip

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:16:16 PDT

We just got back from a camping trip to Glenridding in Lake District National Park, Cumbria. The weather was awful. 50-60mph gusts, high winds, heavy rains and other weather elements (sleet!) hammered us continuously during the whole trip.The campsite we stayed in was Gillside farm, a wonderful campsite that unfortunately got busy from Friday evening. The campsite is on a working farm, so expect

Nokia E75 glamour photo shoot

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:16:10 PDT

Have been spending some quality time with the E75, but it is still early to give a full impressions. The sound quality is a considerable improvement over the E51 and even the 5310 XpressMusic, though the music player still lacks the usability and features of dedicated DAP like my Walkman.The QWERTY thumboard is made up of flat keys and feels similar to my old HTC Universal phone. Give a choice, I

Nokia E75 unboxing

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:15:18 PDT

Look at what DHL develivered today. I was expecting a parcel, but didn't expect this! O_oGlamour pictures later tonight. Impressions will have to wait till next week after my Lake Distirct trip, which I'll take advantage as a testing bed for the E75's GPS capabilities (with ViewRanger) and its photographic functions.Thanks to Donna @ WomWorld for providing the E75.The E75 is available unlocked

Leatherman Kick and Micra

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:01:00 PDT

Got us a Leatherman Kick multi-tool and Micra pocket multi-tool a couple of weeks ago. Finally decided to free them from its bloody annoying and stupidly stupid plastic blister clamshell case that so many companies enjoy shipping their products in.The Kick is a large multi-tool that has 11 functions (a lanyard ring isn't a function Leatherman), where as the ultra small and light Micra features 9

The King and I, Royal Albert Hall

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:25:17 PDT

We were fortunate enough to gain some cheap tickets for Saturday evening's performance of the limited run The King and I musical at the Royal Albert Hall. Maria Friedman stars as the confident English teacher Anna opposite Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) as the beleaguered King of Siam.I won't comment about the story, as I am aware that most people would have experienced the classic tale one way or another

Futurama to return in 2010!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:02:59 PDT

Finally! Some good news for fans of Futurama! US cable TV network Comedy Central has ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama. Airing will begin in 2010. Cancelled by Fox back in 2003, the recent four specials has proven popular enough to have caught the executives at Comedy Central. While I personally found the specials (particularly the final two) to be a huge disappointment, I can't wait for the

CrossRoads MylarOne Quattro in-ear headphone review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:02:54 PDT

You may have never heard of CrossRoads, but their MylarOne line-up of ear canal headphones has been well received at headphone forums as capable of offering good audio quality at a reasonable price level. As far as I know, their products are not sold in Europe, at least not in traditional outlets. However you can get them from Jaben.net (thanks to Uncle Wilson who has kindly supplied this review

MONO

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:14:41 PDT

I discovered MONO about a month or two ago, through Last.fm bizarre 'similar artist' system. However I got there, I am glad I did. MONO is a post-rock band from Toyko whose multi-layered neo-classical instrumental rock music can blow your mind, not too dissimilar to Sigur Ros or Mogwai (and an Amazon reviewer put it, makes them sound like another pop rock band). Guitars are an intricate part of

Final Fantasy VII on PSN

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:23:41 PDT

Owners of PSP and PS3 will be glad to find that Square Enix and Sony has finally came to their senses and uploaded their big money maker title onto the PlayStation Network. Lord knows why they didn't do it sooner, but that isn't the point.If you have never played Final Fantasy VII, then you should, even if it isn't the greatest RPG ever (IMO). For £7.99/€9.99/US$9.99 (honestly, I was expecting

Kratos in Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:25:36 PDT

Holy fuck Batman, Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny is looking pretty good. About time we have some decent new portable fighting games. Best of all? Kratos will be the guest character (will we see Nariko too? Doubtful, but I wouldn't mind). Most of his moves from the God Of War series seems to have made it. The only thing missing so far are the QTE fatality moves, and uhm, hidden sex games with