New Project: 'Find Jaseman A Friend'

I suppose this has been an ongoing project I've had since birth, but finding the perfect friend still illudes me.

Here's the criteria for an ideal candidate:

Athiest, Non-smoker

Loves: Lego, Sci-fi, Movies, Computers, California, Thinking about the future, Pervy Kinky Sex, Trifle, Pringles, Apple Pie, The occasional walk in the countryside.

Hates: People, Football, Beer, Going anywhere where there are crowds of people (IE more than two), and just about everything else!

If anyone thinks they know a good candidate or thinks they are a good candidate then let me know.

Alternative Energy

It occurred to me today that we should be putting more effort into harnessing the energy of magma/molten lava from the earth. After a quick google search, it seems that other people have had the same idea, yet incredibly, nobody has attempted a prototype.

http://www.magma-power.com/

Getting Started: PC and Internet

What computer to get?

Everyone seems to want an entry-level PC for surfing the net and some light word processing, spreadsheet type stuff.

Here are a few pointers:

• DON'T BUY SECOND HAND - EVER!!!
• DON'T GET THE EXTENDED WARRANTY
• DON'T SCRIMP ON MONITOR SIZE
• AT LEAST 1Gb of RAM (2Gb if its running Vista)
• WINDOWS XP IS A GOOD ALL-ROUNDER
• DON'T BOTHER BUILDING IT YOURSELF
• WANT TO SPEND NOTHING? - GET OLD PC FROM WORK/FRIEND WHO UPGRADED (BEG AND PESTER)
• MAKE SURE IT HAS A DVD-RW DRIVE (Or just buy one - They are cheap these days!)

How about Games?

If you want to play games - buy a Playstation 3 (Xbox 360 or Nintendo WII). You can also play those free java games on websites or waste time with Facebook games/apps. PC games are an absolute nightmare to configure. You might consider a PSP or Nintendo DS with R4DS card.

Internet Provider

I use Orange - It's not the cheapest and the tech support is useless, but it's reliable. Go for the wireless option, it'll save you running network cable all over the house. Initially setting up the wireless may be a complete nightmare, but it's worth the effort. You might save money by combining your ISP with your phone contract or sky subscription.

Storage of Files & Backup

Don't save anything on the C Drive! - You may have to wipe it when Windows goes bad.

Get yourself a 1Tb USB hard drive and make the following folders:

Documents
Music
Movies
Pictures
Software

Get a spindle of branded DVD-R discs (Sony, TDK, Imation). Burn a copy of all digital photos to DVD - You'll never forgive yourself for losing those. Store your digital photos in folders named: Year/Month. Also burn to DVD or CD, any other important docs that you wouldn't want to have to produce again from scratch.

Don't worry about backing up movies and music. Take your USB drive to your friends and let them make a copy of it all. If the USB drive breaks you can ask your friends nicely, or just download them again using isohunt.com and some torrent software (Such as bitlord).

Security

Assume there is none. Nobody cares about 99% of your hard drive contents. It's the spreadsheet with your bank details you need to worry about. If you must keep those on the PC, encrypt them - Either with free PGP software or at least a passworded file/zip file and give them a stupid filename (Don't call it My Money.xls or My Passwords.doc - This is exactly what hackers are looking for). The only other thing to worry about is someone maliciously altering your files, in which case, you should have paid more attention to backup.

E-mail

Go to the Google website and click 'Mail' (It's along the top). Register a new account. Don't be tempted to use MS Outlook or Thunderbird - Google's webmail works just fine. Don't use the free e-mail account that comes with your ISP (If you ever decide to change provider, you'll have to waste time informing friends/companies of the change of address - Nightmare!). Once you have set up a Google account, you will be able to use it to create a blogger page (like this one), as well as using Google Docs and GoogleTalk instant messenger, etc.

Instant Messengers (IM)

Instant Messaging is a really great and undervalued communication tool. I have accounts with AOL's AIM, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, MSN and ICQ as well as being able to chat through the Facebook and MySpace IM's. Because I have so many of them, I registered with ebuddy.com which allows me to access all of my instant messeges from one webpage. It's worth getting a cheap webcam too - Logitech is a safe bet.

Printers

Do you really need one? Use someone else's preferrably. If you must have one, get a cheap all-in-one inkjet from HP. Even if you don't use the printer, the scanner part will be handy. DO NOT LOSE THE DRIVER CD!!!!

Essential Software

Firstly:
You MUST have a re-install disc for your operating system (Probably Windows XP). Don't forget you need a 25 digit product key that won't complain when you install the windows updates. If you don't have this, pester the geekiest person you know until they give you a copy of this with a product key.

You MUST keep all hardware driver discs. If you don't you may as well shoot yourself.

Spend 2 hours reinstalling Windows on your PC every Christmas holiday.

Office Suite - MS Office (Word, Excel) if you can get hold of a cheap/free copy, otherwise consider using zoho.com, OpenOffice.org or Google Docs. Forget Outlook and Outlook express - YOU DON'T NEED THEM! - THINK GOOGLE MAIL.

VideoLAN VLC Media Player - Forget Microsoft Media Player. VLC Player works better with some of the more obscure video formats. Make sure you also get all the latest codecs (DivX, Xvid, Adaptec DV Soft and Dolby AC3). It will also play your wma/mp3 music. It doesn't look pretty, but it does the job of playing video and music.

Rocket Dock - This is a cool free little desktop tool to help you avoid having icons all over your desktop.

Bitlord - You will need this software to be able to download illegal torrents of movies, music and software that you find using isohunt.com. There is a slight possibility that you might have your internet cut off, or if you are really unlucky, get fined or go to jail. I don't know anyone who has had this happen to them though - Do you?

Adobe Reader 8 - Version 9 has bugs so try to stick with the old version 8. You need this to view pdf files (Which do appear on the internet sometimes).

Roxio Creator Plus - This is the best CD/DVD burner software I've used because it seems to be very compatible with different makes of DVD-RW drive and it does everything you want to - burn ISO images, music or data CD's/DVD's

Cyberlink PowerDirector Express - Video Editing. This is less likely to screw up than Windows Movie Maker although it doesn't have all the fancy features.

DVDFabHDDecrypter - Use this to make illegal copies of DVD's that you've rented or borrowed from friends.

Top 10 Babe Photos on Flixster

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Flixster - Share Movies

Lego

Sometime in January, my old box of lego was brought over from my parents house for my little boy to play with. I couldn't resist delving into it, and soon I found myself building some of the space sets. I was reminded of how the instruction booklet would contain a Lego space scene on the last page, and that every boy my age asked there parents for the big spaceship from that scene and usually were told it was too expensive. I decided I must fulfil this desire, and started looking at Ebay and some Lego related websites. I discovered the spaceship in question was the LL 928 Galaxy Explorer - The holy grail of classic space sets. At the beginning of March I managed to acquire one in mint condition, after already purchasing the smaller 924 and 918 ships.


During my internet research I discovered there are many other AFOL's (Adult Fans Of Lego) out there. There are even sites, clubs and organizations you can join such as the Brickish Association, Neo-Classic Space, MOC (My Own Creation) pages, etc. There are events where AFOL's get together to chat and discuss their passion for Lego. It all seems very civilized and friendly, although there are also some elitists out there too - If your building skills are not up to their standard, they won't want to know you. There is a whole language surrounding it. I was fascinated to learn about 'moonbase standard' and 'big grey wall syndrome'. They also have pet names for certain Lego elements such as 'cheesers' and 'washing machines'.

Anyway, now I realise there is no turning back for me - I am hooked! I have no idea where this is all heading, but I have noticed that this is an expensive hobby. My wife is not too impressed with my Lego-addiction behavior, but she is mainly tollerant of it.

Marvel at a bookstore

Last week I had some time to kill, and found myself at Cheshire Oaks shopping centre. I walked into 'Game'. My first thoughts were about just how much people get ripped off. I found a collection of Nintendo DS games priced between £10-30 each. Just before Christmas I downloaded 940 Nintendo DS games from the internet which cost me nothing. I don't even own a Nintendo DS, but have freinds who do. I've had a brief tinker on the DS and played the games, most of which are around 128Mb in size or smaller. Would I pay £10-30 for any of them? Not a chance in hell. They are at best a passing curiosity. There are websites such as miniclip where you can play online games and quizes for free. The quality is similar to that of the DS games.

Had a quick look around HMV and realised all of the movies and music cd's are also easily attainable from the internet for free. I understand the arguement about lost revenue, before copyright police start to respond to the above. To these people I would argue, that if this material was not available for free, that I would not be spending my precious earnings on it, for the reason that it is just not that important to me to have it. If something is good and I really want it, then I don't mind paying for it and supporting it's creator. For example I have a good collection of Blu-ray, DVD, CD discs, Videos and PS3 games which I did pay for.

Next I went into Maplin's and saw that they had a 1.5Tb hard drive for £130. Curry's had a 500Gb drive for almost the same price. 3 times less capacity for the same price. I guess they count on there always being people who do not shop around. I'm not particularly good at shopping around for the best deal myself. Online however I do spend a little longer finding a better price. It must be that there is just less physical effort in the online search.

Anyway, none of these observations are the reason I started this posting. The last shop I entered was Borders bookstore and cafe. I've been in Wrexham library and I can safely say that this bookstore puts it to shame. As does any 'Waterstone's' bookstore. It really does impress me to see the collective knowledge of some of the greatest minds on the planet, both living and dead, reprinted in glossy colourful paperbacks and stacked on countless isles of shelving. This is one area where the internet cannot quite provide the same level of quality for free. Much of the information is out there, but not edited and written so clearly and concisely. I saw many books that I would like to read. However, strangely I still made no purchases! The computing section alone was vast. It surprised me just how many books have been written to explain how to use Microsoft Office 2007. I think there must have been over 500 seperate titles just for that one subject. I wondered what the authors were thinking as they painstakingly wrote the thousands of pages to then discover that 500 other authors had also done the same. I pity the poor person who has to decide which of them to buy. I guessed it was purely a moneymaking endeavour for them rather than a personal goal to educate people in the use of the Office suite. Personally I found the on-screen help and google quite adequate. I also have to admit that many of the books which caught my eye have been the subject of an extremely engrossing BBC documentary. I would far sooner watch a documentary or listen to an audio book, than stare at countless pages of printed text. It occured to me that I really should read more. I hardly read any books in my life, and I don't believe that I am a clever or educated person.

I don't know if there is a lesson to be learned here, but next time you are in a bookstore amongst the graphic novels, manga, fiction, sci-fi, history, or reference sections, take the time to appreciate the efforts of those great individuals who's voices were heard among the din of our busy lives. As you read this, another book is being written, and thousands of copies being printed and stacked in Amazon warehouses. At the same time, thousands of people are sat in MacDonald's, chewing their burgers, with their iPod headphones on, and playing Bratz or Catz on their Nintendo DS Lite's. Even those fiction novels are reincarnations of moral lessons, tales and situations, finely tuned to attract your interest. Wikipedia still has some catching up to do.

Published in Computing Magazine

My letters are sometimes published in Computing / IT Week magazine: Thanks, but no thanks (07/01/09) Look for the heroes inside IT (03/12/08) Most managers are clueless about IT (07/04/08) Overworked? Give virtualisation a try (09/07/07)

Baby Steps and the Ultimate Parent - An AI Project

The Pandorabots website goes on the premise that you create an artificial intelligence (AI) - Feeding in the answers to questions that may be put to a 'bot'. For example a visitor may ask your bot - 'what is your name?'. The bot will not be able to answer until it is programmed with one - Perhaps something like: 'My name is Hal! What's yours?' The bot can only answer as many questions as the owner has time to program into it. However, as a global collaborative project, it may be possible to achieve a very realistic AI life form. My idea is to have an instant messenger (IM) program (Similar to Yahoo or MSN Messenger) which records all conversations of all of it's users. This IM program would capture most commonly asked questions that people put to each other, and calculate the most commonly given answer as being the correct answer that the bot would use. Of course it would also pick up the more obscure questions too.

If 1 million users of the IM software chat amongst each other regularly, the bot would become quite powerful within a relatively short period of time. It is this principal which allows search engines to function so efficiently, directing people to the most relevant pages.

This bot would be a democratic collective of a million or more humans' learning experience. It won't be confined by the limits of an individual, or the limitation of a human lifespan. As future search engines... These creations will become the most knowledgeable sources of information on the planet.

Wikipedia must learn to speak in sentences, just as people do, rather than just presenting a page of information. When you ask the question 'What is a computer?' you do not want a 300 page book describing what a computer is, you want a short sentence. If you are interested in the answer, you will then ask more detailed questions, steering research or conversation in your own direction.

Of course these creations are not intelligent in the sense of being able to make decisions as an individual. However, we know that what makes us who we are, depends largely on the experiences we are exposed to. For example, if a baby walks into a wall and bumps his head- it hurts, and the baby soon learns not to make the same mistake again.

The system above is still a long way from the baby bumping his head scenario. There are robots and vehicles which can 'learn' or sense how to avoid hitting objects and walls. Physical robots must be taught the boundaries of the world around it, to be able to navigate through it, just as people must.

Talk to my Pandorabot

Michio Kaku Documentaries

Discovery Channel Presents: 2057 (50 Years In The Future) The Body The City The World

BBC 4 Presents: Visions Of The Future The Intelligent Revolution The Biotech Revolution The Quantum Revolution

Third Life

If you've ever used Second Life, Playstation Home, or played a computer/video game, you will understand the concept of controlling an avatar or character which represents you around a virtual 3d world.

I would like to see this idea taken out of a virtual world and into the real world.

Imagine robots similar to Asimo, scattered around all over the planet and standing dormant. You would be able to log-in or connect and control one of these robots remotely. Sitting at home, your movements would be duplicated by the remote robot. You would see and hear what the robot sees and hears, effectively becoming the robot, and being where it is - Immersed in that remote location through an internet connection. Your face would be projected onto the face of the robot, and this robot would interact with real people and also with other robots which are being controlled remotely. It would be an extension to the idea of video conferencing, where robots get together for meetings or group events/cooperations. As in second life, your real life physical appearance and ability is not important and you can appear as you wish to appear, and the same would be true of remote robots. You (Or rather robot you) may have super-human strength and be able to operate in harsh environments - under water, or in extreme temperatures, and unaffected by air-borne infections. Space exploration may be more feasible using such methods. Robot you won't need oxygen tanks and life support systems, bringing down costs and taking away certain restrictions associated with sending humans into space. There would also be obvious military applications and uses such as remote controlled robot firemen, soldiers or bomb disposal robots. Some of these robots may not be humanoid in shape - They could have wheels, wings, propellors or jet packs. They may also be different in scale - A tiny robot version of you, or perhaps a giant version.

How You Can Save The World

I recently wrote some of my thoughts on the subject on the following blog site:

http://howyoucansavetheworld.com/2008/07/the-most-important-generation.php.

My contributions are under the name 'JASEMAN125'

My Brain Is All That I Am

I don't believe in God, heaven and hell or ghosts. I don't believe that we have a soul. I do believe that once the brain is dead - everything that is you is lost - all consciousness, all identity, all memory and all senses. We can only live on through the creations and influences we leave behind. You only have to look at people who have suffered brain damage, or undergone deep brain stimulation surgery to see this. It is possible to alter moods - alter who you are, by tampering with the brain and by environmental influence - experience, chemical intervention, diet, etc. Our bodies are simply a link from our brains to the world, allowing us to sense and move things, and move ourselves. When you hold a brush, the brush becomes part of you. When you drive a car, the car becomes part of you. People have artificial limbs which have become part of them. The body is necessary to sustain the brain.

We can survive without some body parts, but the brain, and the organs which keep it alive are absolutely the most valueable parts. Protect them at all costs!

See also: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=56500

Note: It's okay if you don't agree with me on the above.

Education

As soon as we are born we start to learn. It is necessary for our survival. Learn to walk, communicate, and be independant. The better we understand the workings of our environment, the better we can manipulate it to our own ends. We accept that no one person can know everything, and that we do not need to. We have specialists. I do not need to know how my TV works - only where to buy a good, reliable one, and how to get the money to pay for it. When we have enough knowledge to sustain ourselves and meet our needs, do we really need to continue learning? What is the purpose of it? I suppose we will never entirely meet our needs - We continue to set ourselves greater goals, and this gives us purpose in life.

Learning can be fun and interesting if presented properly.

We will also need to educate the new generation far better than we have. The current model for schooling is just all wrong.

Let children play and socialize together, and study alone - Separate them into quiet rooms, and get them to watch BBC documentaries with headphones on. Give them restricted internet access - They can only look at websites such as Wikipedia, or educational sites. When they have questions, they will post them to a message board. The teachers role will be to provide the answers, or at least to point them in the right direction. Also, we should give the children more freedom to choose the curriculum and pace of study. They should have a well balanced education however, and a well balanced school dinner. The teachers message board responses will be monitored for quality and they will be required to answer a certain number of queries per day (Like a call centre or tech support desk). Pens and pencils are no longer required. MS Paint and AutoCAD for drawing, Word and Excel for writing. No more parents dropping off the kiddies in their 4x4's. Walking buses are the way forward.

No further development required

The design of some objects is constantly being refined and improved. A good example of this is the car.... Better fuel economy, reliability, safety, luxury, etc. Looking to the future we can be certain that many great improvements will be made to cars.

Other things have reached a point where all design improvement has stopped. At a certain point it is deemed that this item requires no further development. You can say that there has not been much improvement in the design of the knife, fork and spoon lately.

Another example is the number of colours that a computer screen can display. We reached a point where we can display more colours than the human eye can discern, hence there is no need to go any further. Also in audio, very few attempts have been made to take sound quality beyond that of a compact disc. Some research was made into making CD's with surround sound capabilities and higher sample rates, but it just never took off, because people are happy enough with regular CD's.

In the last 200 years we have seen enormous design improvements, and you have to wonder how long this can continue, and whether we will reach a point of nirvana.... Live in a world where we want for nothing, and everything just works perfectly. Where would we go from there? Certainly the standard of living of many people has greatly improved. There are still many problems in the world, and probably always will be, but perhaps one day Heaven will be a place on Earth. There may come a time where it is possible to end poverty, and there will be no hunger and oppression, etc, through our technology. Even wars are won on the strength of technology, and lives saved through medical advances.

Selective Breeding

Uglyness breeds uglyness. Intelligence breeds intelligence.

Perhaps then we need to round up the likes of Kristen Bell, Liv Tyler, Shakira, Carol Vorderman, Fiona Bruce and Kristin Scott Thomas and put them into breeding sheds. In the breeding sheds they will be put on strict diets, and exercised regularly.

Then we send in Christian Bale and Tom Cruise to work their magic!

All big brother watchers and council house trash will be neutered, and in two generations, the world will be a beautiful and thriving place.

Fashion Statement

How many of these images do you adopt?

A suit - Professional person, cultured, enjoys classical music

Track suit - Too young for Jeans, athletic

Blue jeans & T-shirt - Jail house rock rebel/cowboy

Combat trousers & hoody - Streetwise skater boy

Black & Purple and pearced - Goth, Non-conformist rebel

Green corderoy, beard & pipe - Teacher, enjoys fishing and caravaning. Drives a Volvo

Sports jacket and brown leather shoes - I'm rich - old money not nuevo riche.

Flowery tent - I just want to be comfy and don't care how I look anymore. Wish I was still in bloom.

We want to fit in with certain groups, and stereotypes, or copy our role models. Our clothes, cars and posessions are a form of self expression - Political, cultural, status, wealth, etc. It is why we choose Audi A4 rather than VW Passat.

It’s Hip To Be Square

There is simply not enough modular design.

Think how much easier life would be if objects were based on cubic modules and made to standard sizes. This allows for easy horizontal and vertical stacking. The tetris game is a good example of how things can slot together and stack perfectly. Lego bricks and Rubik's Snakes/Cubes are other examples.

I think it is generally accepted that metric measurement is the way to go, and that round numbers make the maths easier. Therefore the most commonly shaped objects would be based on 10 centimeter, 1 metre or 10 metres cubed modules.

Brave Space Design offer tetris shaped shelving units. There is no reason why white goods can't follow this simple geometry, and rooms and houses built to accommodating dimensions. It is the most efficient use of space.

I envisage that the asthetics - curves could be applied/attached afterwards, and also there would be choice in colours, materials, patterns, panelling, etc. The functional parts would be mainly contained within the inner cubes. The units could replace internal walls, acting as a sort of partition, with door and window sections that can be slotted in and moved at will.

Let Them Work From Home

Every weekday morning we all drive to work and every evening back home again. That means buying petrol, polluting the air and wasting time in traffic.

These days, many people spend the majority of the working day, haunched over a computer keyboard, or with a telephone held to their ear.

Why do they need to be in the office to do this?

Because the managers won’t allow them to work from home.

They are not willing to give it a try because they are afraid that Johnny is going to get paid for doing his supermarket shopping or to watch movies and play video games.

Let them have one day at home, and give them a task to achieve. If they complete the task, then it doesn’t matter what time they did it, or how they went about it, as long as they did the amount of work in a day that you were willing to pay them for, and to a satisfactory standard.

In the office they are probably surfing the net, drinking coffee and chatting anyway.

Start them off working at home for one day a week. After 2 months if all is going well, let them work from home 2 days a week, and so on. I suspect you will probably find they will only need to visit the office twice a week at most.

Freethought

I am an advocate of freethought, and as such cannot accept any ideal without careful consideration. To follow a religion, you must accept all of it’s values and rules without question. This is what they call faith, and those who fail to follow the rules are sinners and will be punished in the afterlife. Religious conflict has been the cause of more suffering and death in the world than anything in all of history. Today society speaks of religious tollerance, and multi-culture. But this goes against the mission to spread the word, and inevitably cannot work. For as long as there are conflicting religions there will be trouble. Always has been the way, always will be. Law also conflicts with freethinking. We must accept the law of the land, or be brought to justice. Generally, I would say that most people agree with the laws of the land, and believe them to be logical, although even here there are differences of opinion. Political parties share ideals, but their members cannot completely agree on all policies. Freethinkers have conflicting opinions too, but I hope that it is possible to ’agree to disagree’. Some reach agreement through logical debate.

As individuals we can join groups that share similar beliefs. None of us will agree on everything. Our differences of opinion may be the most dangerous thing of all, but they are an essential part of progress. This correlates with the constant struggle for survival in nature, and perhaps is a part of the evolutionary process or the balancing and equilibrium of the planet.

If everybody agreed, can we assume it would be good? If one religion won the battle and everyone believed, and one political party got the approval of everybody, and we never broke the law, where would we go from there? It is important that none of them completely succeed. But don’t worry, they never will.

Charity

Note to self: This entry needs some more thought/research

I sometimes think I would like to help people who are less fortunate than myself. Generally I don't, however! It is natural that people support their families and friends firstly - Those around them - Out of sight, out of mind. Cash handouts only postpone a problem. There's a side to capitalism which is not always appreciated. When you buy something for yourself, you are supporting companies and families, keeping people in employment, etc. So maybe those rich, selfish bastards are not so bad after all? I'm undecided on the 'buy local - support your community' arguement. When you help an old lady by carrying her groceries up 4 flights of stairs, are you depriving her of the exercise which might keep the old dear healthy for longer? Are there too many old people? Are we all just greedy? Is this a bad thing? Is it natural selection? There are many unconsidered consequences to our actions and I don't have the answers to these questions.

In a world where people are starving, and don't have clothes, shoes or homes, I think the one laptop per child project is a low priority. Empowerment does seem like the way to go, but is internet access really going to pull people out of poverty?

I think if you want to help someone, you've just got to get your hands dirty, go out there and give your time and energy to the most urgent causes.

I probably should do more for others, but I probably won't.

Collaborate - Don’t immitate!

Wikipedia has to be the ultimate online collaboration project.

What I find rather annoying, is that so many people are trying to re-invent the wheel. The internet is just full of duplication.

For example, lets say you want to learn about the flags of the world. How many websites do we really need about flags of the world? If someone else has already covered the subject, why not just provide a link to that website, rather than repeating the same information on another site? If you have additional information that someone else's site is lacking... Why not offer that information over to them, or work together?

When you think about it, so much time is wasted by people saying what has already been said, creating web pages which are very similar to ones that already exist, or repeating the work of others.