iPad, Disappointment in the making

Apple just announced the long awaited paradigm shift inducing iPad! The device to kill all devices after you buy your iPad you will never need another device, EVER!!!!

See I don’t need a Sarc Mark. What an anticlimax, many people are already calling the iPad a 10″ iPhone, which it isn’t… It’s not even that. The iPad doesn’t do voice, and you need to pay $200 + $30/Month to get 3g Data, and it’s not going to be available subsidised on contract either.

But it’s got a 1Ghz processor surely that means it can do multitasking too? Nope… Single task, but it’ll do that task REALLY FAST!

This is an apple device, my understanding is that it doesn’t allow you to view PDFs, so it’s use as an eBook reader will probably be limited to stuff you can buy from iTunes. It’s an Apple product so chances are Apple will leverage the immense  library of media available on the iTunes store to rip a hole in your wallet so deep you might as well just sign your salary over to them. I don’t see it playing divx or MKV or anything other than whatever the iTunes store sells.

But some one will release a bit of software for it that plays other types of media, you can install apps on this thing can’t you? Yeah but… No. Apple don’t like you releasing software that loses them money, the chances of such a piece of software getting approved is IMHO very unlikely, I reckon Apple will cite piracy prevention as their reason for disallowing it, not revenue protection.

It’s got a bajillion apps already written for it in the apps store though that’s a plus isn’t it? Yes and again no… The Apple store may have a Bajillion apps available for it, but 90% of those apps are pointless toys ( A statistic I just made up) and of the remaining 10% 90% of those do the same thing as another app, you have the choice of a million apps that do the same thing, and they aren’t optimized for the iPad’s bigger screen, so until they get an upgrade they will look like a proverbial baboon’s bum. They’ll get upgraded quickly though won’t they, I mean my favourite app’s writer is a genius he can fix teh codez by tomorrow! He may well be able to do that, but it’ll take Apple’s Draconian approval process months  to approve everyone’s favourite app upgrade.

It’s not a netbook, it’s not an mp3 player, it’s not an eReader, it’s not a PMP, it’s er what is it?

If Apple have created a paradigm shifting device with the iPad all they have done is shifted the paradigm about 3mm to the left and it’s on a slope so it’s slid back to where it was.

No doubt hundred of the Apple faithful will rush to stores to buy the iPad, Apple will make money hand over fist and Steve Jobs will buy himself another black turtleneck sweater. Of course they will, Apple is not a software company it’s a religion, the faithful don’t care if it’s crap or not, the new iPad has the Apple logo on it so they must own it to ascend to the next level of the Apple church, it’s a bit like scientology isn’t it, spend more money become a higher level Apple Fanboy… I’m a reformed member of the Church, I was there when things were bad for Apple, before there was a bandwagon to jump on, I know what it’s like, anything Apple release is an object of desire no matter how pointless it is.

I’m going to end this rant now before it gets personal…

But honestly “iPad?” The first thing I thought of when I heard that is female sanitary products…

Engrish: Escalator Over there!



Engrish: Escalator Over there!, originally uploaded by Ohmzar.

I’m mainly writing this as a test post. Flickr seems to have had some trouble posting my last two posts to my Blog. For some reason all the angle brackets and Quotation marks were stripped from the html.br /

This was taken by me 5 or so years ago in Japan, I think it was in a train station…

Didn’t work 🙁 had to fix this manually.

Photo Blog: 365: 26. Uban Fox

365: 26. Uban Fox, originally uploaded by Ohmzar.

I chose this as my picture for my 365 from a set of about 80 pictures I took of this fox as my 36 for today, althought here were other contenders I think this is my favourite.

I bumped into this fox on my way to catch a bus home while walking through the car park of the western infirmary. At first I tried getting him from afar using my zoom lens but I soon discovered he wasn’t very scared of me so I switched to my kit lens (18mm- 55mm) and got up close and personal with him.

He was a little jumpy when I got closer than a couple of metres to him but aside from that he was happy for me to take photos of him, almost as if he craved the attention… Whenever i went to walk away he started following me.

Other possibles were:
IMG_1484IMG_1469

Photo Blog: 365: 24. Morning after



365: 24. Morning after, originally uploaded by Ohmzar.

My first attempt at Still life using a white background.

I got a bit of white paper (It’s actually the backside of some graph paper) and held it up with a tea cup behind it so that it was curved.

There was a glass of water in the original photo but I couldn’t keep the teacup the paracetamol and the water in the shot and still have the background, so I lost the water. Hence the light staining of the paper behind the paracetamol.

Photo Blog: 365: 23. Ferry Inn



365: 23. Ferry Inn, originally uploaded by Ohmzar.

I took this photo from my living room window about sunset today. Leaned out and snapped it.

It’s unfortunate that there is a bit of Herras fencing in the foreground in the bottom right corner, but I wanted to get the two swans and that ferry inn into the frame as well as the reflection of the Inn.

I love the way the sunset paints the water a lovely golden colour.

The Sarc Mark an Excercise in Stupidity.

One of my work mates has been highlighting the existence of the Sarc Mark to me for a few days now, and I just stumbled onto a Telegraph article discussing how the company behind it has sold thousands of Sarc Marcs.

Thousands? Seriously? To me the Sarc mark seems redundant, if you are too stupid to recognise sarcasm then that is your problem and if you feel the need point out the fact that you just used sarcasm then either:

  • You are doing it wrong.
  • You are really insecure.

The whole point of sarcasm is that it’s supposed to be witty, off the cuff, and informal. Adding a punctuation symbol to say: “HEY BY THE WAY I DIDN’T MEAN THAT, NUDGE, NUDGE, WINK, WINK” defeats the purpose.

It’s like the people who end every other sentence with “Pun not intended.” Really? it wasn’t intended? I must have just misinterpreted your entire argument… Oh thanks for pointing that out, and for insulting my intelligence.

If I was going to use a symbol to denote sarcasm why the hell would I pay $1.99 for the privilege? It’s not passed into common use, and probably wont ever. and there is already a perfectly good notation for it, isn’t there 😉

Also The Sarc mark seems to be incorporated into documents as an image (I infer this from the page of the company that’s selling it) that’s just lazy! You can combine unicode characters to make almost any symbol so why insert and image?

Someone should release a Creative commons licensed Sarcasm Symbol, make it available for free, and have it be constructible using unicode characters.

Better yet lets ignore this ever happened, because we don’t need a fracking sarcasm indicator!

Photo Blog: 365: 22 Goma



365: 22 Goma, originally uploaded by Ohmzar.

I think anyone that has been to glasgow has at some point taken a picture like this. Its the Gallery of modern art with a traffic cone on the head of the statue of the Duke of Wellington.

I think it’s also become a semi meme to photograph the duke on the rare occaisions when he doesn’t have a cone on his head…

The photo isn’t that good (Read it’s rubbish) but I took it on my way to work and I was running late. I’m not going to have a chance to take any more photo’s today as I’m going out and I don’t think I’ll be taking my camera with me.

Photo Blog: 365: 21. Zoomabel



365: 21. Zoomabel, originally uploaded by Ohmzar.

I was messing around with zooming in on an image while it’s being taken I set to exposure to about hals a second and zoomed in on Annabel as soon as the shutter was released.

I’m lead to believe that this tecnique can lead to some amazing photos. This one is okay but not overly so. Annabel I believe was busy watching Futurama at the time.