Why I bought a Mac and why I feel the need to justify it

by admin on November 5, 2010 at 7:43 pm

I have probably chastised more Mac users over the years than most, probably more even than the average Linux user. I now withdraw all such derogatory statements. The following is a really wanky self indulgent post and I would advise you not to read it unless you are the kind of person who spends ages trying to decide on exactly which laptop to buy.

I just ordered an Apple Macbook Pro 13″ (base spec) because I:
1) think they are pretty
2) think that they are far better engineered than the majority of other laptops
3) want an O/S GUI which doesn’t suck (sorry Ubuntu) but is still based on Unix and has a proper terminal
4) want some decent battery life
5) want a laptop which is fairly priced for the spec (I paid £860)
6) want to do what all the cool kids are doing

So why buy a laptop when I have a perfectly good desktop? Simply, I find it far nicer to sit and use one than a desktop. At work I would probably get frustrated being in front of one for 8 hours, but to come home and be able to sit in the kitchen with the TV on, or on my bed, or on the sofa and get things done is far nicer than being chained to a desk. (As a side note, my standing desk experiment failed- I virtually never use my desktop anymore because it is on a standing desk. I never feel like standing to do things after a day of work and a gym workout).

So why a Macbook Pro? Firstly I actually think they are pretty good value. If you compare 13″ laptops from the major manufacturers a 2.4Ghz non Celeron/Sempron dual core 4GB RAM laptop with decent graphics doesn’t come much cheaper. When you consider the fact that it has the gorgeous unibody aluminium shell and the amazing screen, it seems obvious. When considering the switch to OSX (from a Windows/Linux dual boot) the following comes to mind:

What do I use a laptop for?
1 ) typing. Not so much word processing as writing.
2 ) web development + surfing
3 ) C#/WPF/Silverlight development (requires windows)
4 ) CPLD development (requires windows)
5 ) listening to music, watching videos, looking at photos etc
6 ) recording music
7 ) occasional video editing, 3d modeling, graphic design etc.
8 ) Java development.

It seems I am still going to need a windows to do 4. Programmable logic isn’t exactly my raison d’etre though so thats not a problem. Point 3 is interesting- I can see less point in doing WPF development when I wouldn’t be able to natively run the application, but I really like C# and the XAML presentation layer. Still, I guess I get enough of that at work. Both of these development environments can be run in a VM as necessary anyway.

The sound card I own (Emu 1616) is a PCMCIA Cardbus affair so wont work with ANY new laptops without a converter. The software I know and love (Sonar + Emulator X2) is Windows only, and I could run these in a VM, but the former only works with the sound card hardware attached and the former, a sequencer, is not very useful without a multi channel audio interface! Instead I think I will be selling my quad core desktop machine with a PCMCIA -> PCI adapter and the sound card and software, along with my Behringer ADA8000 8 channel ADAT I/O expander as a package, and buying a small firewire interface. My needs for this are much simpler now than when I bought the EMU since I have sold my drum kit (I think only need 1 guitar, 2 phantom powered XLR, and 2 stereo outs over Firewire or USB now).

So why the 13″ base spec model? Well simply it is really cheap! I know it is tempting on the Apple store to pimp out your machine with all of the available options, but I really didn’t think any of them were worth it. £250 for the 2.66GHz rather than 2.4GHz processor, really? £320 for 8GB RAM? £640 for the 256GB SSD? No thank you. The 15″ models start at nearly double what I paid. I can see that they are quite a bit better performing being based on the i5 and with superior graphics but would that really improve my quality of life? I have a 3.6Ghz quad core desktop and I haven’t achieved Zen or anything. The Macbook Air 13″ was tempting, but it seemed like it would be £1500 for a decent spec machine, which again is nearly double what I paid. I do plan on carrying my machine about, but I’m not going hiking with the thing (and the 13″ pro isn’t exactly huge). I nearly went the whole hog of minimalism and bought the plain Macbook but I really wanted the better screen and aluminium body of the Pro.

So I’ve done a pretty good job at justifying to myself why I just spent £860 on a laptop when I have a perfectly functional desktop. I feel better.

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No Post Title

by admin on October 24, 2010 at 7:46 pm

I am a piece of broccoli. My name is Ray. Once I met a pea and we conspired to escape to another world. We thought that perhaps there might be a dangerous rescue mission laid on in our honour, perhaps to be remembered in freezer mixed vegetable ingredient lore for generations. Our polyester enclosure was just too strong though.

They think we are dormant here, waiting silently for our fate. But we have a community. We have a dramatics society and a sort of rudimentary trapeze, and once a kernel of sweetcorn lead us around our enclosure and we pretended to be wild and free. We remembered where we came from and we were proud: because where we left, others will replace us. They will never keep us down, you can kill one piece of broccoli or one square of pepper, but you cannot kill our community.

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No Post Title

by admin on October 23, 2010 at 11:17 am

Temperate I am – yet never had a temper;
Modest I am – yet with some slight assurance;
Changeable too – yet somehow ‘Idem semper’;
Patient – but not enamoured of endurance;
Cheerful – but, sometimes, rather apt to whimper;
Mild – but at times a sort of ‘Hercules furens’;
So that I almost think that the same skin
For one without – has two or three within.

Lord Byron
(verse 11 from Don Juan Canto XVII)

  Comment

FluidDB Thoughts Part II

by admin on October 14, 2010 at 9:04 pm

I’ve been thinking some more about FluidDB. I mentioned in this post that I did some work adding features to the .Net FluidDB open source project hosted here.

Currently the API has a basic layer for making raw calls to the RESTful FluidDB API, a second layer abstracting the behaviour of FluidDB into CLR objects (FluidObject, FluidTag, FluidUser etc), and a third layer allowing attributes to be used to easily specify a mapping between CLR properties and FluidDB tag values.

For example:

[FluidDBObject]
public class Person
{
/// The tag value will be a json primitive
[FluidDBTag]
public string Name {get; set;}

/// The tag value will be the GUID of the father FluidDB object
[FluidDBObject]
public Person Father {get; set;}

/// The tag value will be the serialized data with the MIME type specified
[FluidDBTagValue("image/jpeg")]
public BitmapSource {get; set;}
}

Person g;
// create a FluidDB object for my CLR object
// tags will be in the namespace guy127917/test
FluidDBGUID id = g.WriteToFluidDB(FluidDB, g, "guy127917/test");
// retrive a Person object with the specified ID in the specified namespace
Guy p = FluidDBAttributeWriter.ReadFromFluidDB
(FluidDB, "guy127917/test", id);

This is a work in progress, some of it sort of works, but don’t count on it yet (if you need it to work, help make it work!).

One of the slight issues I have with it is that if you have a class with a whole bunch of properties it can take quite a while to retrieve each value. The time taken is purely due to making a socket connection for every http call, which occurs every time you query FluidDB. Since primitive values are stored as JSON (strings, numbers, booleans), and JSON has provision for storing “objects” (collections of named values), it would seem that storing all primitive values in a single tag value as a JSON object would solve this problem- all values would be retrieved in one API call to be parsed into the appropriate CLR properties.

The drawback of this approach is that there would be a single FluidDB tag value on an object which means that the data is harder to query for a given tag value, and harder for other people to see what tags are available for them to use. Since data interoperability is the core value of FluidDB this is quite a big deal.

From the perspective of the .Net API, it could easy allow a tag name to be specified as an argument to the FluidDBTag attribute for primitive types, allowing grouping of property values into a single tag value e.g [FluidDBTag("TagGroup")]. This would allow you to decide which values ‘deserve’ their own FluidDB tags. However, what is not particularly important to your app may be the killer for someone else wanting to use the data. For example you may bundle geo-positioning values in with a load of other data because they are not crucial to your app, but someone else may want to search for objects in a given location.

I’m not going to implement this right away. For starters I don’t have an app which requires performance. Secondly I’ve heard unsubstiated rumours that some sort of batch request API may be in the pipeline. Thirdly other more important things in the .Net API need work much more urgently. And finally, I’m kind of convinced by my own interoperability argument, data should be as easy as possible for other people to be use in order to get other people to add value to your application data.

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The herd

by admin on October 6, 2010 at 9:56 pm

This gem popped up in my Google Reader feed today- it is a covering letter by Hunter S Thompson applying for a job at a newspaper.

TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN
October 1, 1958 57 Perry Street New York City
Sir,
I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I’d also like to offer my services.
Since I haven’t seen a copy of the “new” Sun yet, I’ll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn’t know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I’m not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.
By the time you get this letter, I’ll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I’ll let my offer stand. And don’t think that my arrogance is unintentional: it’s just that I’d rather offend you now than after I started working for you.
I didn’t make myself clear to the last man I worked for until after I took the job. It was as if the Marquis de Sade had suddenly found himself working for Billy Graham. The man despised me, of course, and I had nothing but contempt for him and everything he stood for. If you asked him, he’d tell you that I’m “not very likable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)
Nothing beats having good references.
Of course if you asked some of the other people I’ve worked for, you’d get a different set of answers.
If you’re interested enough to answer this letter, I’ll be glad to furnish you with a list of references — including the lad I work for now.
The enclosed clippings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It’s a year old, however, and I’ve changed a bit since it was written. I’ve taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the newspaper business, and developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you’re trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I’d like to work for you.
Most of my experience has been in sports writing, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews.
I can work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don’t give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations.
I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of.
It’s a long way from here to British Columbia, but I think I’d enjoy the trip.
If you think you can use me, drop me a line.
If not, good luck anyway.
Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson

The letter is great- witty, ballsy, and honest as hell. It is almost shocking to read. It sounds to me like something out of a Hollywood film, like something from a novel, but it is a real letter. It is a genuine letter from a real person looking for a job. At this stage, in 1958, Hunter S Thompson was a nobody, just a broke wannabe journalist looking for work.

When I was at university, the careers department taught us to make our covering letter as boring as possible and to follow the provided ‘secret formula’ closely. When I was taught English at school I remember one year before an incredibly important exam we were all given a piece of creative writing to ‘read, remember and personalize’. I’m pretty sure I got an A in that exam, and unfortunately it was probably because I am exactly the kind of person who can read remember and recite text word for word. (Although I do detest the idea of being forced to do anything creative in exam conditions, it seems quite a lot like cheating. Luckily as an engineer it has seldom been required of me.)

At work today I overheard someone tell someone else that they had recently seen an episode of Californication and loved a section where Hank Moody comes to blows with a guy in the cinema (s01 e2) who is rather rudely talking on the phone. I said to this person, “if you think that was cool, why don’t you make the same stand when you see someone do that?” to which he answered “because they might have a knife”. Now I don’t believe for a second that the reason this person wouldn’t reproach a hypothetical phone user is because he is scared. I don’t think he knows exactly why he wouldn’t do it, but he felt like he needed to say something for whatever reason (or maybe the area he lives in is more dangerous than I realize).

The problem, I think, is the herd mentality. People doing what they think they should, rather than doing what they want. People blindly following beliefs they hold without questioning them. People never looking outside of their own experiences to find new ideas.

Hunter S Thompson was clearly an outlier, a free thinker- someone outside of the system of conventional thought. Reading his letter reminded me of the value of this. The ideas and methods he presented to the world during his life (gonzo journalism anyone?) may not be the most useful or important, but the fact that he did something completely different really is interesting and inspirational. I’m not about to write a covering letter to Larry and Sergey in the aforementioned style, but I am going to be less worried about following meaningless conventions (fuck the 300 word job application form boxes).

I think that broadly speaking we are brought up into a system which teaches us to follow orders, rewards obedience and ostracizes uniqueness. This is not a new or particularly clever observation. In “Beyond Good and Evil”, published first in 1886, Nietzsche explains that this is an inevitable situation in classic western societies- “Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured and flattered the sublimest desires of the herding-animal, things have reached such a point that we always find a more visible expression of this [herding-animal] morality even in political and social arrangements: the democratic movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement.” This view is described in more sociopolitical terms in “Understanding Power” by Noam Chomsky, who also explains the dangerous implications- that free thought and expression threatens the ruling class (with the “will to power” to use Nietzsche’s term).

Because this is really an incredibly complex discussion rather than an off-the-cuff blog post topic, I must apologise for treating it with such brevity. I may follow this up in the future. But in conclusion, I would like to state that I don’t want to be one of the herd. I will leave you with my personal motto, which I try and keep in mind every day.

“Do what you want”.

Footnote:
I’m guessing Chris didn’t imagine that by answering my facetious-ish question about being more like Hank Moody he would feature alongside Friedrich Nietzsche in a blog post, but as Hank would say, “I handled that fuck out of that shit!”.

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