25 years ago I wrote and released a video game called Chimera. 25 years later, I want to do it again.
Please follow the blog at Chimera2010.com and share your thoughts with me.
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I was impressed with the efficiency of TfL yesterday (no, this is not fiction) having managed to get me the Cycle Hire Scheme activation key the day after my registration on Wednesday. Today was the ideal day for trying out a Boris Bike.
Muslims tend to like trying new things on Fridays, but my reason was more pragmatic. I had to get to the mosque for Friday prayer and today I was going to the one in Mayfair. It’s about half an hour walk, but I thought I could manage the bike ride in less time than that.
I carried my helmet and gloves in a rucksack to work. The first two items are important. Breaking an arm or a leg wouldn’t be the end of the world, but losing all the skin off your hand, or the skull off your head, probably would be. The rucksack is optional as the front of a Boris Bike has an interesting holder. Not quite a basket, as it’s open at the sides, but there is a bungee hoop that inserts at the head-post and attaches over the “basket” to two prongs at the front. So you could easily carry a briefcase or similar at the front of the bike.
The Barclays livery is of course daft, but it makes you a lot more visible, always good, and it advertises the scheme. I couldn’t help but notice just how many people seem to be using the scheme now.
As for the bike, there is a front and rear brake, a Shimano three-speed hub-gear mechanism, which is smooth and operable without pedal torque; if you’re used to a derailleur, you’ll know that you need to be spinning the cranks to engage a new gear. There are also lights, front and rear, and a simple bell. Oh, and it weighs a tonne. It’s not unmanageable, but you wouldn’t want to carry it up stairs. Neither do I imagine, would TfL want you to do so.
The key (a picture of which was shown in my post yesterday is inserted into a slot on the left side of the dock as you face it from the bicycle side. The lights should turn green within a moment or two, as they did for me, and you are then free to remove the bicycle from the dock. Remember to remove your key, and off you go! That’s pretty much it.
I found first gear really easy and unlike with my Bad Boy, I had no difficulty managing inclines. In fact, I found third gear a little short, but this bike isn’t meant for racing.
As long as your trip is completed in under half an hour, the ride is free. I had expected my ride to take 20 minutes, but I managed it in 11, with three of those minutes pushing the bike through a shortcut and another two at traffic lights.
Once you’ve found your target dock, just insert the front wheel firmly and you’ll hear a motorised sound fixing the wheel in place. It seems to take a little while for the TFL website to register the journey, but it does seem to work. Next week, I will be a little more ambitious and try a number of trips.
So far, so good.
(The astute Muslims will notice the time seems an hour off to make it to jumu`ah. The reason for that is simple – the Mayfair masjid has two jama`ahs. I made the second one.)
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Boris Bikes. Imagine that. A cycling scheme named after a Tory. It sounds kind of cuddly too. I don’t know anybody who says “Boris Bikes” (or perhaps the more accurate Boris’ Bikes) with derision. Nobody says “Barclays’ Bikes” either, which means that people are still in the honeymoon phase.
I registered for a year yesterday and received my key today. Very efficient. I haven’t got around to registering my key on-line, so there will probably a part two for this post, assuming I survive pushing one of those 20kg+ behemoths up the first hill I encounter. They are supposed to be very heavy, but with a first gear that even I should be able to manage.
Now I must confess to a dirty secret. I actually bought a really good bike last year. A Cannondale Bad Boy Solo. I’ll wait until you stop sniggering, because I said that with a straight face. That’s a lie. Nobody can say “Cannondale Bad Boy Solo” with a straight face. It’s matte black and utterly gorgeous. A thing of stripped down beauty. Light, elegant, strong, durable and single-speed. Yes, fat boy bought a single-speed bike with a first gear he was too fat to push up the first mild hill he encountered and demolished the notion that he might ever have been a “Bad Boy”. I told my friend about this hill. (The climb up Salusbury Road if you must know) He laughed, like a parent laughing at a playful child’s obscene exaggeration. So this bike now stands like a piece of modern art in my wife’s studio, on a turbo trainer. Also unused.
My plan is to use the Boris Bikes to build up enough fitness so that I can eventually cycle to work and back on my, let’s just call it “Solo”. The only thing that worries me now is finding a parking space. If you thought trying to park a car in Central London was tough, you should see how difficult it is to get a Boris Bike parking space. The one outside the office is nearly always full. This morning I spoke with two of Boris’ Bikers who complained about not finding a space in five bays in the area. That would really wind me up, but it would wind me well before that.
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Today I received my iPad Camera Connection Kit and Twelve South BookArc for iPad tabletop stand. They’re being put to good use at this very moment. Before I describe the set-up, let me prove I’m not a fanboy.
I’ve had the iPad for quite a while as I’m sure you’re all sick and tired of hearing. What I haven’t had is the iPad Camera Connection Kit. I’m not particularly interested in hooking up a camera to my iPad, but I was interested in connecting my keyboard to it. I know that sounds daft, but until you’ve tried the combo I’m describing, you really haven’t experienced how beautiful writing can be. The Kit just has not been available. I eventually put in an order at the Apple Store and received it after a delay of around 5 weeks, along with the stand.
First impression wasn’t good. Where was this £25 connector? I couldn’t find it at first in the large box, and just when I thought I’d only received the BookArc, I saw a tiny little white box. It was sealed stupidly and I had to destroy the anonymous little cardboard puzzle to pieces to get to the contents, which consisted of a cheap plastic packet with two plastic and metal bits in it.
I’d expected just the one connector, but obviously I hadn’t got the “Kit” bit into my head. One “bit” is a USB converter, that moans when you plug in a PC keyboard (but it still works, despite the warning) and another bit is an SD card reader. I don’t have an SD card and my Canon uses Compact Flash, so I guess there’s a good reason to upgrade my camera right there. Yes, I’m joking. But you weren’t sure for a minute, were you?
So two bits of plastic that probably cost no more than 10p each, in a cheap plastic packet which in turn was in a cheap cardboard packet I had to destroy to get to the cheap plastic. And that set me back £25. Apple is nothing if not opportunistic when it comes to the accessories. And that’s putting it mildly. I don’t mind paying over the odds for a Mac mini, and in fact, I did pay over the odds for it. And it wasn’t just for packaging either, though the packaging was very nice. Minimalistic, greenish and tasteful. For £25, I expect more than a couple of bits of plastic. I don’t know quite how I feel about getting another £25 bit of cheap plastic for free, but I’m not over the moon about it. Especially when they probably paid the manufacturer about 10p for the “Bumper”.
Now that I’ve proved I’m not a fanboy (as if there was ever any doubt), let’s move onto the good stuff. As usual, the video in this post was made on an iPhone, but here’s the sickeningly self-referential part. The video was transferred using the iPhone data cable to the iPad via the USB connector. The iPad launched the Photos App and immediately gave me the option to import the video. It did this with no fuss and very quickly. I then proceeded to plug the keyboard back in and start writing this post. All of this is as close to tech incest as you’re going to get.
As for the BookArc stand, I’m pretty sure I saw a recommendation of it in TUAW or something like that, and it looked like a futro (retrofuture) metallic thing. Very elegant and useful looking. Sadly, looks can be deceptive. The packaging is expensive looking, but labelled very badly. There’s a bit that tells you to “lift here”, which I did and in so doing, destroyed the box. Fantastic. The note was upside down.
The stand itself looked useless at first, because it seemed to hold the iPad completely vertical, rendering it useless unless at eye level, which most desks aren’t. I looked at the instructions, but should have just tried facing the iPad the other way. That worked. The angle is subtle, but useful. It works well in portrait mode, but if you want to use it with the USB connector, you’d have to have it sticking out of the top. Just as well that the iPad lets you orient just about any keyboard-able program in any orientation.I prefer to have the connector sticking out of the side and the iPad sitting comfortable in landscape mode, seems a touch less precarious. Obviously, there’s a Bluetooth Apple keyboard that sings to me in my dreams, waiting to be picked up so that I can dispense with all of these wires.
The stand is solid, heavy and minimalistic. I like it, but for one thing. It looks like plastic. It’s not, it’s metal as metal gets, but the finish on it looks like something out of the Jetsons. It’s like metal pretending not to be metal. I like my metal metallic.
So apart from feeling a bit ripped off at the plastic and a bit disappointed with the cheap looking finish of the BookArc stand, I’m very pleased with my purchases. Why? Because this post was written entirely in Simplenote on an iPad using the setup in the video, captured and uploaded with an iPhone 4. The whole setup feels gloriously magical. Now excuse me while I put all of this childishness aside and go play on my PS3 on my HD Sony Bravia.
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Akismet is badly broken
May 21, 2010I have never understood why WordPress catches so many of my regular commenters in its “Akismet” spam filter. Pretty much every decent comment gets trapped. Why can’t I whitelist certain names? If not for direct publishing, at least so that they go to the moderation queue. There’s definitely some kind of Schröedinger thing going on [...]