The iPad - Why?

Unless you've been living under a rock or somewhere that doesn't have internet then you would have heard that Apple have just announced their latest product the iPad - www.apple.com/ipad

The iPad is supposed to deliver everything people love about the iPhone/iPod touch to a bigger screen and thats exactly what it is. A less portable, iPod touch. Now, i have an iPhone 3GS, a MacBook 13-inch and a Time Capsule. I'm an apple nerd but when i saw the iPad, i was like "Is that it?" the answer is yes. While it may be better for watching movies due to the bigger screen and with the new iBooks, possibly good for reading books but these are the only things that it has going for it.

There are several e-readers out there and whilst they can't surf the web, play movies, music and games on them or even have colour pictures, most of the e-readers today are paper like i.e. they are not back-lit so they don't strain the eyes and you can read them in bright sunlight. They are just easier to read.

As for the video player, well its as good as the iPhone and iPod touch and can play almost HD movies/tv shows. I don't tend to watch movies on my iPhone and i'm wondering where i might watch it, at a friends house, on the train/tube/bus/plane. The one drawback for the video player is that the iPad doesn't have an HDMI outlet for hooking it up to the TV, usb or firewire for watching or storing videos from an external drive. I have an external hard drive with loads of videos on and to be able to watch them on the move i'll have to hook the hard drive up to my MacBook, import to iTunes and if they are not mp4 i'll have to convert them and then download them onto my iPad. Yeah, thats real user-friendly. Even my videos on my time capsule even though they both have wifi i'm guessing that the iPad won't like anything other than mp4 just like the iPhone and iPod touch because its the same OS. Again, i'll have to do it the long way round.

I have no idea what apple thinks the market for the iPad is, presumably the same as the iPod touch/iPhone market but to anyone considering an iPad, i'd either suggest the iPod touch/iPhone for the portability or a MacBook but if you want a 10-inch screen go for a netbook, its more powerful than the iPad. If you want an e-reader i'd go for kindle or the Sony. Kindle 2 is half the price of the iPad.

Another thing the iPad is lacking is a camera, even the iPod Nano's have camera's. So you can't do a video conference call or for all the vloggers out there - you can't do a vlog on the fly. If you love your home movies you can't make a movie on the go but you have to remember your camera whether it be on any one of the other portable Apple devices or one of those small camera's like the flip.

The iPad is sitting in the middle of digital nowhere land. Its not quite as good as a computer, not quite as easy to read as the kindle/sony e-readers, not quite as portable as the iPhone/iPod touch where you can have the internet in your pocket. Not quite as user-friendly as Apple likes to think it is.

Will i be getting an iPad? No, thanks. I'll stick to my MacBook, iPhone & Books thanks.

I just wonder how this got passed Apple's cooldar.

Andy Murray following Henman being sponsored by adidas?

Andy Murray has been playing tennis this week in the Hopman Cup. He is playing in team Britain with the young Brit Laura Robson. I have seen thanks to BBC that Murray seems to have a new clothing sponsorship with Adidas. It looks like he has left Fred Perry, the last British male to win Wimbledon clothing line and follow Tim henman and being sponsored by Adidas.

All images courtesy of the BBC. The adidas logo can clearly be seen on the above pictures. Andy Murray's website www.andymurray.com is still saying he is sponsored by Fred Perry. Is this a one off? i guess only time will tell for now.

A Theory

So I've had a theory for a little while that i'd like to share otherwise it'll drive me crazy.

Two years ago a lecturer at my Uni was discussing with me complex numbers. Complex numbers for those of you who don't know are a set of numbers beyond that of the normal number line or the real number set. Complex numbers allow you to take a number, square it and get a negative number as a result. Or vice versa, take the square root of a negative number. Now this number set allows you to take the number line and rotate it in a 2D plane. These numbers were originally considered so beyond comprehension that they were called imaginary.

Well his idea was that perhaps there was another number set which would allow you to rotate the number line not just into 2 dimensions but into 3 dimensions. This is an interesting concept & as much as i now firmly believe in this extra number set (what these numbers are i don't know possibly division by 0? It has to be something we think is impossible in mathematics today.)

Last year, i started thinking that a lot of things in the Universe come in three. There are the 3 spatial dimensions, there is body, mind and soul, the son, the father and the holy spirit etc.

Now there are physicists in the world today trying to unite the 4 forces in the world - gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces. Scientists have managed to link 3 of these forces but gravity is not wanting to play ball.

I believe there is a lot more to gravity than being a force. We perceive it as a force but i think there is a lot more to it. I believe gravity belongs with time and space and not the forces. If you think of a 3D graph, time, space and gravity take up the x, y, z axis on one and on another the strong nuclear, weak nuclear and electromagnetic forces take up the x, y,z.

With our graph of time, space and gravity well it got me into thinking which is probably a bad thing but it got me thinking that since space is 3 dimensional perhaps time and gravity also have three dimensions and that's possibly why scientists think they've worked out the universe has x more dimensions.

I also want to add that Plato (i think) thought that there was the material world, the physical world and then the world of ideas. I don't think he was entirely wrong. There is the "real" world which we know and can sense around us, the "imaginary" world which i believe is the world of our mind and the "?" world which is possibly the world of the soul/spirit.

Now i could be completely wrong about all of this but for some reason i think its too beautiful an idea not to be right. I could be wrong or misunderstood some things entirely which is very very possible. i'm going to try harder now to try and research this.

Big Brother State!

Have you ever felt like you're being watched? That you are following a script that you've not been allowed to read.

I have.

I feel compelled to resist. To act outside the parameters of the box I'm stuck in. 

Even now, though I'm writing this now and have no idea where I am going, I feel its already been written, that I'm not actually thinking what I'm writing but merely copying what is already written.

Being watched is a very common idea in our society and the likelihood is that you are. There will be some footage somewhere of you going about your daily business, maybe doing something that you are not supposed to. 

While this is wrong on a number of different levels, my feeling of being watched goes much deeper than that and even with no camera'a around me in my room, I feel I am being observed. 

Most people would probably call it God that is watching but I feel really uneasy about it, something more like the Matrix in the respect that a computer programme represents my feelings and frustrations of being watched and controlled. 

I feel compelled to resist because i don't want my ambitions to be limited, my freedom squashed (for some reason, that doesn't feel like the word i should put). 

I don't want to be the person that gets up, goes to work, eats and sleeps. I don't want to be the person who sits at home and twiddles their thumbs.

I want something more. Something freer.

Red Nose Day - Good or Bad?

Another note from me today. I was just watching a documentary about Red Nose Day, comic relief. This made me want to right this blog.

Is Comic Relief really a good thing? I know it does amazing work both in the Uk and Africa in changing peoples lives for the better. Thats the point i'm trying to make though, it changes individuals lives but possibly not the world, it is possibly detrimental to the world. We are saving people without the consequences of those actions other than the short term.

We are striving for an ideal world in which justice and poverty no longer exist, in essence we are striving for a perfect world, which will never work. 

I'm sure every species in the land wished it wouldn't get eaten or killed by other species, every species looks out for its own. I'm pretty sure every species on the planet would like us all to live in a peaceful world where we didn't fight or kill each other and we all saved each other but that's not how the world works. 

I know the people in Africa really struggle to get through a day but they need to feel that to know happiness just like in the developed world we have to feel pain, fear and horror just as much as those in the developing countries and probably to the exact same extent to feel the happiness. 

Everyone keeps complaining about the HIV/Aids problem but we wouldn't have a problem if we let them die. I know people will think i have a cold heart when they read that but its true and it may help with the overpopulation of the planet. 

I know nobody likes to think about death and its instinct to survive but its something that has to happen. If everyone lived forever then we'd be in a much bigger crisis than we are now. There wouldn't be enough money, food to go around, all the natural resources would be used up already. We'd be facing certain death anyway. 

If we keep saving people, the planet will most probably die because it just won't be able to handle us or more likely it will kill us all. 

The question is, is a million lives worth all of ours? 

Eating Disorders

Long time no speak but i've not had anything worth mentioning.

I was playing Basketball last night and somehow the topic of eating came up and i mentioned my troubles with food which are few.

First, when i was very young I would overeat, overeat so much that i'd puke up after the meal. I didn't hide it, everyone in my family new i ate so much that I vomited.  I actually remember my mother telling me to go to the sink to be sick after a bowl of tomato soup.

I grew out of overeating, well not overeating but overeating that much. I eventually replaced it with an addiction to milk or rather an intolerance to the evil milk. I would drink like 2-4 pints a day. 

I would drink so much that I'd get headaches, my vision would blur and then once more it'd be too the toilet while i was sick. For many years i didn't know why i was sick but then realised it was the evil milk but when i didn't know then i'd get sent home from school when essentially all i had done was detox myself from the milk.

Now i have an eating disorder in that i eat all the bad stuff when i know my body doesn't need it or want it.

Are eating disorders really that bad? I have had my problems with food and still have but are they honestly really that bad. I know things like anorexia and bulimia are bad but they are done for the wrong reasons and its more a case of their own personal issues with themselves. I think its bad that they have to hide it but i think there are a lot of people out there with eating disorders or disorders in the past but it hasn't adversely affected them, it is only when it goes to the absolute extremes that it is a problem.

Education!

Now there were two things i wanted to discuss or rather rant about. That has been reduced to one. It is the education system.

First though, i have been watching the Australian Open, tennis for those of you who don't know. There have been some fantastic matches. I'm looking forward to the Andrew Murray match tomorrow morning.

Also, i have had a change of location, i'm now currently in my home town of Ayr on the west coast of Scotland. It is also the Burns weekend. Burns or Robert Burns was from a little village called Alloway, just outside Ayr. Robert Burns was the national poet of Scotland and every year at new year we sing one of his most famous songs, "Auld Lang Syne". Well, it's the Bard's 250th birthday on Sunday.

On to today's topic of discussion.

The only time that I really struggle is when I have an idea that takes hold of me and possesses my mind. The idea and the thoughts that it inspires is the only things that i can think about. The only thing wrong with this is the feeling that it is wrong to think about it because when you have an idea, there are always the mundane things like school and Uni projects that need to be done or perhaps your older and it has now progressed into work.

You can't develop the idea that is eating you from the inside out because you have like 1001 and things to do, that are now no longer of any interest. if you've never felt like this, i feel sorry for you.

Now, you're wondering how all this relates to the education system, but i feel school should allow you to develop in any ideas you have further. You needn't worry about failing or grades or paying the bills. It is a great way to learn as well because you have to be able to communicate your ideas across successfully and lets face it as a little kid the amount of time you dream of traveling across the stars or flying or traveling so fast no one can see you etc. will lead many kids into the marvelous area of science and the possibilities it holds.

I have many ideas early in my school career and i told them to an adult and they treated me like an idiot rather than discussing it and delving into the subject with me so i can learn not only how to make the idea a reality but the subject which could have spawned more ideas which would have made me learn more. 

For a long time, i felt that I was an idiot and that none of my ideas were ever good even though some of them were.

I think Britain needs a more positive outlook and a more let's try it and that needs to be instilled in school because lessons learned at an early age can last a lifetime.