VinceH's Miscellany

I’m a science fiction loving geek and, while I love all sorts of science fiction, I’ve a particular fondness for apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic material. I don’t know why that is, although I’m sure there must be some deep psychological explanation for it. However, whatever the reason, it’s a plain and simple fact: I like stories in which the human race has been brought to its knees and all but wiped out.

I’ve also always loved horror, and I can well remember staying up late as a child to watch the old double bills of classic horror movies – and as a young teenager I saw quite a few of the so-called video nasties that were subsequently banned. Um. Yes. As a young teenager. Good parenting there, then, obviously. Here’s the thing, though: I’ve turned out to be a well balanced adult who doesn’t go around killing people. However, I’m digressing slightly. Read the rest of this entry »

About a month or so back I was lying in bed unable to sleep, when the first verse of this more came to mind out of nowhere. I grabbed my phone and typed it in, and two and a half of the next three verses quickly followed. It’s been sat on my phone since then, until yesterday when I transferred it to the PC and added the last two lines. (And at the same time, came up with the beginnings of two more silly rhymes about animals, which may or may not get finished at some point). Anyway, it serves no purpose, and has no real significance – but, as they say here in Brizzle, “Yer ’tis…” Read the rest of this entry »

There seems to be a bit of excitement in the air at the moment surrounding a tournament involving the game of football (or soccer to any Overpuddlian readers). With that in mind, I decided it would be a good idea to resurrect something I wrote about two years ago – this tournament thingummy makes it actually topical! I originally posted this as a Facebook ‘note’ – but here it is in all its glory: Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Jobs Announces the iPad by Jesus Belzunce (Click to see photo on Flickr)

The iPad has finally hit the UK, having officially gone on sale on 28th May, 2010 and, not entirely surprisingly, Apple fans queued up to get one as soon as they possibly could – some even beginning the queueing process the day before.

My first thoughts upon reading that news at the time? Get a bloody life. It’s just a computer, FFS! (A point with which Apple fans might argue, but that’s their prerogative – and I’d hold that they’d be wrong!)

There was a time when I considered Apple a possible route for my computing platform. I’m a long standing RISC OS user by choice, and a Windows user by necessity and, looking back now, I’m not entirely sure I was thinking altogether clearly. I would have continued to be a RISC OS user by choice, albeit (as now) not using the operating system as frequently as I would like, and I would have continued to be a Windows user out of necessity (some of the software I use and need is only available for Windows) – except that I would have been running Windows under virtualisation on an Apple computer. So what, exactly, would the point have been?

I suppose one answer to that would be to benefit from a nicer user interface – but, as I said, I’d still be using Windows under virtualisation, so I’d still be using the Windows user interface. I’d just have a brief use of a nicer interface to get me to that point – or, if the option was available, to save the extra clicking to get me into the operating system I need to be using, I’d probably boot straight past the Apple GUI and into Windows. At which point I’d realise that I’d wasted the extra money I would have paid for the hardware and might as well have just bought a Windows computer – so I’m glad I never made that ‘switch’ !

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