Being the thoughts and writings of one Gustaf Erikson; father, homeowner, technologist.
From now on, my Nokia N-Gage will be referred to as the "taco".
I've looked around a bit, and while there is a lot of software available for Series 60 phones, I still miss some simple things.
Most of these things would be easy to do if the following conditions were met:
This is what I would do if that were the case:
Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow.
20 years in the future, IRC pals from the same timezones help each other out to try to further their Tribes way of life -- easygoing PST, hard-hitting EST, and stodgy, state-loving GMT. Each Tribe has agents in the other's territory, working in management consultancies, trying to undermine the enemy's competitiveness with hare-brained theories.
When our hero comes up with a great P2P scheme his friend and lover conspire to put him away in a mental hospital so that they don't have to share the profits.
Not as far "out there" as Down and out in the Magic Kingdom by the same author, but still a great read. Especially since it's free.
Yesterday I had five friends from KTH over for dinner. We had herring ("sill") sandwiches with akvavit and beer for starters (thanks Henrik), followed by lamb roast with rice and Chateau Musar 1997. This pretty far-out wine (astringent I guess you could call it) went along famously with the lamb, and made the Haut-M�doc that followed taste like it was watered.
Calle and Jonas had picked up a selection of cheeses. We drank a bottle of my birth-day port, a 1960 vintage. Famous taste, like a really rich and alcohol-drenched caramel.
For dessert, David made strawberry- and plum kn�del. Johan bought cigars, accompanied by rum and whiskey (Talisker). Altogether a very nice evening.
I got to use an [1] MP3-player a few days ago and re-discovered the joys of riding the subway with a soundtrack.
But I couldn't keep the player (a nice, but DRM-crippled Panasonic) and instead looked around to buy one. There are lots of USB-stick form-factor players around, but I've been thinking about a Series 60 phone for a while, and most models can play audio too.
The Siemens SX1 was my first choice, but then a local phone store had a deal on an N-Gage for an extension on my plan. So I picked one up [2] today.
First impressions are mixed. I discovered too late that you need a Bluetooth connection to sync and install files, but that can be fixed pretty cheaply. I already have a 64-MB MMC card, so I can listen to at least one album at a time. And bigger cards are pretty affordable too.
I got 3 games included, but none of them were in stock, so I'll get them later. Until then, I enjoy the music and the radio.
So now I'm a kid wannabe. All the guys at work figure I'm having age-related anxiety.
[1] "a" or "an"? Probably "a", but "an" sounds better.
[2] I love this phrase -- carefree consumerism!
Damn Good Show by Derek Robinson
Goodbye Mickey Mouse by Len Deighton
Two very different books about the same period of time: the bomber war against Germany in World War 2.
In Damn Good Show, Derek Robinson writes about bombers, having written about fighters in Goshawk Squadron and A Good Clean Fight.. He brings to the story his trademark humour and nihilism. This time though, he doesn't kill off all his characters by the end, instead leaving a little ray of hope that some might come through the horrors of war and make a life on the other side.
Along the way, he debunks many myths about the wartime RAF, but doesn't subtract anything from the extraordinary courage that it took to bomb an enemy country in pitch-black, freezing planes.
Deighton's book is much more traditional view -- the cold, squalor, and fear experienced by the American pilots protecting the bombers in P-51:s is present, but somehow he doesn't convey as much realism as Robinson. The love story, although detailed, is banal. The characters are from central casting -- the brainy, handsome Eastener, the brash uncultured guy from New Mexico, the beautiful English girl who loves them both. Deighton fleshes them out, but they still look and feel like cardboard.