Patti and I Visit The Royal Observatory - Photos
BlogYesterday, Patti and I visited the Royal Observatory and saw, amongst other things, stuff. Some of my favourite pictures are below, and you can see the full set on Flickr.
Katy Perry: Kisses Girls, Pisses Future
BlogFrom the girl who brought you the brain damaged ‘Ur so gay’ comes another pitch for nothing more than the spare change of the world’s suckers — ‘I Kissed A Girl’.
Seriously, it’s a shame. It’s only slightly less depressing than seeing a girl, whose music I can’t stand but whose talent was obvious — Amy Winehouse — destroy herself.
Perry can sing, and there’s no doubt. And for that, one star out of five. The latest song is catchy with plenty of hooks — ingredients for a good pop song. For that, one more star.
The content, however, is once more abysmal and nothing more than a disposable gimmick, exploiting the “sex sells” cliche in typical pop junk form. In fact the guy who wore the Mr Blobby suit retains only moderately greater dignity for at least hiding his face.
The more the song sells, the more reward the label and producer gets for being devoid of original creativity, and the deeper the nail gets smashed into the coffin of futurelessness Perry has sadly constructed for herself.
Owning iPhones doesn’t make us friends
Blog, CNETApparently it may surprise a small number of people to know this, but simply owning an iPhone does not automatically make you friends with someone else who owns an iPhone.
I was on the train from the office the other night, reading the Web on my iPhone. Sat across from me was a girl, also using an iPhone. She noticed and raised her iPhone to show me that she, too, had an iPhone, and smiled at me accordingly.
Mostly, that’s fine. People on trains habitually look miserable during their journey, and smiling at someone is always nice. However, her reason for smiling at me was purely because we both had iPhones — a ‘meeting of minds’ over N95s, BlackBerry Curves or Sony Ericssons would not have caused this moment of atypical kinship.
Now, if you’re a one-legged albino midget, and you bump into another one-legged albino midget on a train, that’s a reason to strike up a conversation (especially as you’ve probably both fallen over). Simply owning an iPhone is not. Continue reading…
Read the rest here!
Why do Apple laptop upgrades cost 200% more than Dell’s?
Blog, CNET 
Everybody knows Apple laptops are pricey. You know it, Crave knows it, Steve Jobs knows it. We also have a fair idea that its PC-selling counterpart, Dell, is relatively cheap. But have you ever stopped to examine just how much more you pay for Apple upgrades than you do for Dell? We have.
Having trawled the online configurator tools of both laptop makers, we’ve detailed just how much Apple takes the biscuit with its pricing. Base configurations look pretty similar on the surface, but when you start upgrading with faster internal components, Apple charges through the nose.We can understand why Apple can justify charging more for its superbly designed chassis, or its excellent operating systems — they’re bespoke, and you pay more for premium designs. Fine. But we can’t fathom why Apple charges so much more than Dell for simple components.
If you’re thinking of buying a Mac or a Dell, or have just bought one, you should definitely check out the next page to see exactly how these two computing behemoths compare.
Read the full article!
Wii Fat: How to cheat at Wii Fit
Blog, CNETI’ve shot a new video for CNET: Wii Fat — 4 ways to cheat at Wii Fit!
It’s no secret that one of America’s biggest contributions to Western society has been fat people. And it’s spreading. Britain is becoming as bloated as our overseas friends and all it’s doing is giving Daily Mail readers more things to complain about.
Fortunately, Japan stepped in and gave us Wii Fit. It was the East’s way of saying, “Oh hai, you no can has cheezburger, you can has rice and exercise. It build small stomach, happy mind, rich experiences for all family!”
But some people just want to play cool games and not lose any weight. Here are four ways to abuse the fundamental principles of Wii Fit, without losing out on any of the balance board-fuelled fun. Go nuts (on nuts), podgesters!
Eight Apple questions Clarissa didn’t explain
Blog, CNET 
Hip TV teen Clarissa claimed to explain “it all” in the early 90s, but she failed to explain anything about our consumer electronics, 15 years ahead of the broadcast of her otherwise astute explanations.
To compensate for her miserable failure in this area, I shall pretend to be Clarissa, explaining some persistent questions about Apple she never got around to. Here goes.
Read here!
Computational theory of mind
BlogI was thinking about the semantic Web earlier today, and it reminded me of when I was studying a theory of psychology (well, philosophy technically) for my A-Levels — the ‘Computational theory of mind’ — that likens the human mind to the internal design of a computer.
Emotion and self-awareness are really the two key factors that prohibit computers from “turning intelligent and destroying us all,” as so many movies like to portray. But eventually, I wonder if that will happen.
But then I wondered, could that ever happen?
The brain fascinates me, and in many ways we’ve built computers based on our own understanding of how the brain works. As soon as we understand consciousness — which we don’t currently — will computers stand a chance of becoming truly self-aware, kick-starting Web 7.0 and giving us the answers to our questions before the questions have left our fingers/lips/mental probes, since a formed question exists in the mind prior to it being spoken or typed.
And would that be awesome or not?
We’re discussing this here.
Movie & TV sell-outs: When tech product placements go bad
Blog, CNET
Cue gravelly voiced trailer man: “In a world where tech companies desperately want to look cool, there’s only one thing they can do — give ginormous sums of money to film and TV producers to use their stuff…”
Ever since an Apple PowerBook saved the world in Independence Day there’s been a powerful feeling that every movie and TV show should feature a gadget doing something to make the world a better, safer place — or at least look cool and shiny.
More often than not, the choice of gadget is influenced strongly by how much money the tech company ponies up, how much of the production company is owned by an electronics manufacturer, or simply what they could blag for free.
Here, we’re proud to present our most over-the-top technology cameos from TV and films, for either being a hilariously blatant attempt to sell more kit, or simply because their presence in the production was so jarring it made us cry.
Included in our choices is our patented Sell-out Scale, so you can see at a glance just how in-your-face the placement is, from near-arthouse integrity to filthy kerchinging commercialisation.