Thinking about the Future

Nice one, Audi

Having discovered that blog posts here attract more comments and offline follow-up when they're about cars, here's another one.

About six months ago, I contacted my local Audi dealer to ask about the availability of live traffic data for the SatNav unit built into my car. Living on the east coast of England, I know that the capability is incorporated into my car and functional, as the map occasionally detects congestion and accidents for me... over the water in the Netherlands!

I was told at the time that the necessary software update to decode the equivalent signals in the UK was unavailable.

However, yesterday, I received an email from my Audi dealer. The update is now available, and it would appear to be free until June.

I'm impressed; the dealer had the presence of mind and infrastructure to log and track my interest over months, and to follow up with me when circumstances changed. And they're not ripping me off with the update.

Way to go, York Audi.

It is a shame, of course, that I had to wait until 2007 to gain functionality from my car's manufacturer that anyone can get for themselves by popping down to somewhere like Halfords and buying a hand held SatNav unit. But that's another story.

Snow!

Well, almost. A light dusting when I left home on the east coast yesterday morning, and a similarly light dusting here in Birmingham this morning.

Can I have some proper stuff for the weekend, please?

On BMW

So are people who buy BMWs already predisposed to driving like idiots?

Or is anyone who gets behind the wheel of a BMW predisposed to acquire idiotic tendencies, regardless of their driving history?

Or am I merely predisposed to encounter that vanishingly small population of truly moronic BMW drivers?

Counting as high as five

Ugh. Fingered by Chris and Ian. Guess I'd better come up with something then...

1. Unlike Ian, I absolutely, definitely, and unequivocally loathe board games. Actually, (with a few exceptions) I can't muster much enthusiasm for computer games, card games, 'party games', etc either. Beyond (for computer games, at least) a short-lived enthusiasm for the quality of the look and feel, I guess I just don't really see the point... Or maybe I've just never forgiven my (younger, and disgustingly over-paid) brother for thrashing me at Monopoly again and again and again when we were children.
2. I once spent just over a day in New Zealand, as the National Library asked me to go and I could/would only do the trip if I could attend a child's birthday party one weekend and their actual birthday the next. Luckily, they (the Library, not the child) were prepared to pay for upstairs seats on the plane, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I really must go back, as it seemed like a great place, there was such a refreshing enthusiasm for cooperating on the problems at-hand, and it was high on my list of places I wanted to go before they asked me.
3. Snakes. I'm petrified. I'm even scared of my daughter making snake-ish hissing noises in my general direction.
4. As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut. I guess that probably dates me pretty effectively...
5. My academic background is in Archaeology, but sadly I don't get to revisit it much. The journey from there to here looks exceedingly weird, but every single step along the way made perfect sense.

And now for my victims. The Talisians are pretty well all accounted for, and I've left responding so long that pretty well everyone else has already done it, too. Hmm. The pseudonymous Mr Fox, Ed Vielmetti, Andy Powell (in either persona!), Tony Gill, John Blyberg.

CC-licensed picture by Yogi, available on Flickr. It seemed apt, in more ways than one...

Back to basics

Dan Chudnov blogged about WriteRoom last week, and I was just downloading it to have a go when my colleague Richard Wallis also brought it to my attention (I think he'd read Dan's post, too, rather than some spookier piece of synchronicity).

Tonight, Scott Wilson also finds it.

Like Scott, I'm finding it oddly helpful in clearing my mind and focussing upon the task at hand (a document over which I have been agonizing, rather stupidly, for months).

One additional thing I'd like to see is a timer; I want to tell the program to prompt me after a given period of time, so that I can pop out and see what's been happening on RSS feeds, emails, IMs, etc. Otherwise, every time I stop typing there's that nagging niggle at the back of your mind to stop - just for a minute - to see if anything important has happened.

Note to self - remember to register this piece of shareware. It's worth it, even without the timer.

Technorati Tags: Calypso, Talis

James Bond would be so disappointed

Driving down to Talis this morning, I lost count of the number of times the (excellent) Today Programme mentioned that MI5, our Security Service, was introducing two new email alerts, so that subscribers would receive an email if the threat level changed.

Erm... RSS, anyone? It's even reached Internet Explorer now, don't you know...

Not only do they turn out not to have Aston Martins or fancy watches... but they're languishing back in the world of email alerts, where only grandparents dare to tread... (at least according to research from someone like the Pew...)

And this is 'news' ?

Technorati Tags: RSS

iPhone

OK, I'm sceptical about how that screen will survive my fingerprints or my pocket, I'm disappointed that the rumours about iChat video conferencing and social network support weren't true, I wonder how well it would hook into my Exchange/Entourage-dominated world, and I'm annoyed that it launches in the US way ahead of Europe...

...but I'd still like one. Some of those interface capabilities look simply amazing.

I'm of course talking - like everyone else - about the iPhone.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone

The things you hear...

Overheard in a hotel restaurant...

“In England it's totally legal to take a copy of your own music CD.”

This was spoken with total conviction by 3 IT types. At least, I'm assuming their roles, given their earlier (authoritative) discussion of Microsoft Exchange's capabilities.

Pity they were so wrong about the cd thing, but at least (as an earlier post I have no easy access to from this mobile device reports) the music organizations' leeches are unlikely to prosecute.

If this is a view held by the tech-literate, what hope do we have for instilling responsible media skills in the rest of the population?

Make laws and policies that make sense, then we might stand a chance...

And now, pudding.

Update: back in front of a proper computer, I can of course confirm that my earlier post was this one.

Isn't it weird who you bump into?

This evening, Youngest and I made our regular Friday trip to a local coffee shop, whilst waiting for the older one to finish his guitar lesson.

The usual excitement of mocha, a carton of juice, and the latest reading book from school paled into insignificance today, as our Deputy Prime Minister was sat in the corner.

Slightly worryingly, neither child knew who - or what - the Deputy Prime Minister was.

Of course, I blame the school for this shocking gap in their education. It couldn't possibly be anything to do with the parents.