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Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, which stars Christian Bale as adult rebel leader John Connor, is due out in cinemas on May 22nd… I… can…. not…. wait!!!!!!!!! Could certainly put a dampner on the release of Night at the Museum II on the same weekend… I mean like… seriously… rampant psycho cyborgs with automatic machine guns set in the future… versus a trip to the museum… mmmmmm….
The movie is meant to be the first of a new Terminator trilogy, all set in the future… billed to “re-invent the cyborg saga”… This time the movie is set in a post-apocalyptic future with a full scale war between Skynet and the last of mankind!
No Arnie this time… awe… he apparently turned down a cameo role as he’s a busy man these days… being the guvnor of California and “vunning de govornmunt n … de… stuff” … either that or they finally realised that skin-tight leather slacks and a bathtub-full of Just for Men on a 60-year old Austrian pensioner was maybe going to make their movie look like a dodgy episode of EuroTrash…
Anyway… can’t wait to see this movie… and you’ve got to ask yourself… how detached from reality is it all anyway…. given the news this week that there are now 4000 US robots fighting in IRAQ, and other headlines this week…
Killer Robots Could Pose Latest Militant Threat – Reuters, 27-FEB-2008
‘Robot Arms Race’ underway, expert warns – NewScientistTech, 27-FEB-2008
That’s all for now… “I’ll Be Back!” (Sorry… I know…couldn’t resist…)
Microsoft Surface was first announced a few years ago, and there’s been lots more talk about this year as it has become more productised.
If you haven’t heard about Microsoft Surface, then click the following link for an intro:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
Think this is really cool and would love to see it transferred to next-generation laptop/desktop screens…
Surface is going to be cool and seems to be drawing an increasing amount of attention… but what about the developer side of this…??? It looks like Microsoft Silverlight, Expression Blend, WPF and XAML are going to play a big part in the application development of all this… have been looking at all of these more and more and self-teaching… Microsoft Silverlight 2 is due out pretty soon which will include .NET Framework coding support and usher in the next generation of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) in direct competition to Adobe Air and open-source Adobe Flex 3 which Adobe just released yesterday morning… .NET coders are going to love Silverlight because it builds upon their existing skills and toolsets and really does allow designers and developers to work separately but together, and for the first time their code will work in any mainstream browser on any mainstream operating system!
Scott Guthrie posted a really good intro to Silverlight 2 earlier in the week… click here…
There’s some more up-to-date videos of this from CES 2008 in Las Vegas…
This one’s just a generic demo…
OK, so it’s now 5.5 weeks left to go until our little girl is due to be born and we’ve been pretty busy since the start of the new year trying to make arrangements for the new arrival.
It’s been my job to move furniture around the house a lot, and do DIY things in preparation. We didn’t have space in our kitchen to fit a tumble dryer, so I knocked down our old shed (which was overdue because the damp had really got the better of it), had a new one erected in the back garden. My dad wired it up for electrics and the new tumble dryer was put in there last Thursday. This evening I put the finishing touches to the new pathway that I had dug out, filled with quarry dust, and then put nice red slabs down on.
Have got our bedroom pretty much clear and ready to go. Shifted shelves downstairs out of the way to make room for crib, and am moving the TV out this weekend because there’s meant to be a nursing chair for Dutalier arriving this week. Not exactly sure where the bedroom TV is going to go to.
Already we have more baby clothes than we quite know what to do with or have room for – need more storage! So apparently M&S are doing nursery furniture inc set of drawers, wardrobe and bed (which she won’t need yet but might as well get) for about £500… will try to get a race up to M&S this weekend to have a look.
My wife, on the other hand, has been doing a huge amount of preparation herself… she has been steadily stocking up on pampers and baby wipes and baby accessories – although we’re both completely torn over the eco/green issue of whether or not we should be buying disposable nappies – the debate continues… she has all the little clothes washed, and tumble-dried, and ironed and ready to go, she has her bag…packed… I don’t…. I think I should pack some comfortable shoes given that I’m probably going to end up doing about 100 laps of the Ulster Hospital maternity ward in 2 days…
As her ‘Birth Partner’… She also e-mailed me her ‘Birth Plan’ this evening which I need to print out and put into my bag for labour. This is the document that outlines how she would like the labour to go pending on the unknown and feasible at the time. This evening I am studying this document to make sure I remember it as best as possible… she has explained it to me a few times now… general gist of it is this…
She would like to try to use one of the birthing pools in one of the Ulster Hospital’s new home-from-home suites, and try to get through the pain herself trusting in her body’s ability to adjust to heightening levels of pain with endorphins. She should also be able to use gas and air. I am to ignore any requests to move her upstairs to the labour ward if, and only if, she is at or beyond the transitional stage in labour. Once you get past the transitional stage you are in the second stage of labour then you’re meant to be on the home stretch.
Anyway… tomorrow I have the morning booked off work. We’re going to the hospital for our last scan which I’m really looking forward to.
In the next few weeks we are also due to start our Parent Craft Classes… these used to be called antenatal classes… think I would have preferred the latter term… the words ‘Craft Classes’ always conjure up images of balsa wood, wood glue, Cornflakes boxes and Sellotape to me… I fear they are going to hand me a doll and a nappie and I, with a trusty pair of safety scissors am going to transform them into a hand-painted Star Wars base and a glitter-covered Father’s Day Card…
FREE – Windows Live SkyDrive has been released out of Beta and upgraded from 1GB storage space to 5GB with a maximum upload size of 50MB, and you can upload up to 5 files at a time.
I have been beta testing this since it was first announced and was one of the few lucky GB-based to get my hands on it before they temporarily closed it off to US-only beta testers.
Now part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of services (now available to all Windows Live / Hotmail users in 38 countries), SkyDrive allows you to store documents, pictures and other files online in the computing cloud, and then access them from any internet-connected web browser. You can keep files private or share them with your friends and colleagues, or make them public to the world. A very nice freebie, and better than e-mailing files to one another!
In fact, if you would like to read the rest of this news article, you can download it from my SkyDrive Public Folder!
Recently read all of Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey books from inc 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001.
In his book 3001: The Final Odyssey, the body of character Frank Poole (the astronaut who was murdered by HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey) is found drifting in space for a millennium and then brought back to life.
One of the most notable features of the futuristic world he has been awakened to is the Braincap, a technology which interfaces directly into the human brain, and allows Frank to participate within Virtual Worlds projected into and generated from his mind…
Sounds like elusive sci-fi wish-list… but are we really that far away from such an amazing device… no we’re not… I have been keeping a special eye on a small company called Emotiv who announced last year their rather cool gaming device…the Emotic EPOC NeuroHeadset…which allows you to controls games with thoughts, emotions and facial expressions… This is going on sale later this year…
http://emotiv.com/corporate/ – the video is really worth watching…
I have seen a growing amount of news headlines on the internet about some of the amazing progression in brain-computer-interfaces over the last few years…
How cool would it be to be able to fully interact with our environments, eg: light switches, cookers, cars, and of course each-other simply by the power of thought…
This technology really seems to be moving forward in leaps and bounds and I believe, in a lot of ways…
Here’s just a handful of the more articles that interested me:
- Virtual and Reality to ‘Merge’
- Microsoft Mind Reader
- Microsoft Brain Backup
- Paralysed man’s mind is ‘read’
- Mapping the Brain’s Neural Network
- Monkey’s Thoughts Propel Robot, a Step That May Help Humans
- Robot Interprets, Plays Back Dreams -the video on this is beautiful…
- Male brains wired for video game obsession
As we chip away at reverse-engineering the brain and the mind I believe we are truly inventing the next evolution of mankind… nearly as evolutionary as developing language… are we on the brink of telepathy and the end of written, verbal and gestured communications… is the human race about to lose the ability to lie to one another???
I find this stuff truly awesome but totally scary at the same time!
My dad e-mailed to me and though it was worth publishing…
If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some
folks.
Please read:
STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured
everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) …..she
said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.
They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she
appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of
the evening.
Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been
taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.) She had
suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs
of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don’t die….
they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
It only takes a minute to read this…
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours
he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke…totally . He said the
trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the
patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.
RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the ‘3′ steps, STR . Read and
Learn!
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify.
Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim
may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the
symptoms of a stroke .
Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three
simple questions:
S * Ask the individual to SMILE.
T * Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today) R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911
immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue
NOTE: Ask the person to ’stick’ out his tongue.. If the tongue is
‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other ,that is also an
indication of a stroke.
A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to10
people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.
My wife Helen and I are expecting our first baby in about 6 weeks time and we went for a tour this evening at the new Ulster Hospital Maternity Unit in Dundonald.
Apparently we were quite lucky. The midwife said they were stopping the tours to help reduce the risk of infection, and instead they’re making a virtual tour DVD instead for future expectant parents to watch at home.
We were there before for two scans last year, but this evening we had the chance to get to see around on the upstairs floors including the Home from Home area and the Labour Ward.
We were really impressed with the new unit. It’s a nice, bright and really spotlessly clean environment and the midwives we’ve met there have been really friendly and helpful.
The Home from Home units especially just looked amazing, each of which includes a birthing pool which my wife is really hoping to get to use.
The tour was excellent and we left feeling really excited about the whole thing and looking forward to going there… at this stage Helen is hoping sooner rather than later!
This was announced a while back but I thought it was worth posting… better late than never…
Seen this post on Ed Dunhill’s blog announcing that WebFusion are offering free ASP.NET Web hosting to all UK Students…
http://blogs.msdn.com/edunhill/archive/2008/01/20/free-asp-net-hosting-for-uk-students.aspx
The free hosting includes:
- Windows Server 2008, IIS 7, 500 MB disk space
- SQL Server 2005 database
- Support for ASP.NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, classic ASP and PHP
To get your free account you need a unique code and a .ac.uk email address.
Coupled with the Microsoft DreamSpark programme offering students around the world free access to their development and design tools, students really shouldn’t be able to complain about prohibitive Microsoft development costs.
