- The Cost of E-Voting – One of the many reasons that I am against e-voting machines: the cost. "The cost … increased 179 percent per voter on average." All that money for a less reliable system. Bargain!
- Change we can believe in – I didn't realise that we were in line for some new coins. They look surprisingly good, certainly much better than the new US notes. (Originally from daringfireball.net)
- Bali bombings: A sister's search for justice – I've always said that it's much easier to be against capital punishment when it's just an abstract idea. Here the sister of one of the Bali bombing's victims argues why she's still against it.
Tag Archives: history
My del.icio.us bookmarks for March 19th through March 26th
- Everything you ever wanted to know about "Rickrolling"… – The man who sang "Never gonna give you up," the classic Stock-Aitken-Waterman pop song, makes an unexpected come back. (What's wrong with Debbie Gibson by the way?!)
- Lies and Statistics – Most people in Britain believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Or do they…?
- Our Bad. Wired Had Some Tips For Apple — We Were Wrong. – Fascinating to see how much things have changed in the last ten years.
My del.icio.us bookmarks for January 21st through January 28th
- Fifty years of LEGO – Best. Toy. Ever. And still going strong.
- Polish IT worker calculates exact speed of snail mail – Apparently snail mail is actually slower than a snail.
- For those who thought that the MacBook Air had no use… – It’s odd that Steve Jobs didn’t mention any of these uses though.
Check-boxes
When was the last time that you came across a printer with only a parallel port? Have you ever used one of those two serial ports on the back of your PC?
Personally I don’t think I’ve used a parallel port for over five years and I don’t recall ever having used a serial port despite using computers for over twenty years. So why do many PC manufacturers still include them on new PCs? Would they not be better using the same space for more USB ports, a Firewire socket or even to save a few pounds by simply not including it?
I finally realised why they are there when I read “Heavier Than Air.” It, of course, has nothing to do with their utility — almost no-one has used either port for years — and everything to do with feature matrices.
Imagine the scene. The purchasing department ((I am reminded of a story I heard while working at a large telecoms company. My department ordered an upgraded CPU for one of the Macs used for DTP. The card they asked for would have nearly doubled the performance. The purchasing department, in an attempt to save money, instead ordered a cache card. Unfortunately this cost nearly as much as the replacement CPU but only increased performance by about 10%. It proved to be a waste of money rather than a wise investment.)) of a big company is defining what the corporate standard for PCs for the next year is going to be. How do they go about it? Do they sit down and exhaustively analyse the requirements for new PCs across the whole company? Do they talk to users, book meetings with the IT guys and negotiate with the facilities team?
Or do they just copy last years spec sheet and hope for the best?
It doesn’t take too many years of this to get back to the point where dedicated printer ports and serial lines were kind of useful for many users. But now they’re just left there on the check-list not because anyone needs them but because no-one has thought to remove them.
You’ll see this in action at the various manufacturer web sites. The business oriented machines, those intended to be purchased in their thousands by blue chips, have those superfluous ports but the consumer machines are more likely to have only USB.
In the grand scheme of things maybe it doesn’t matter why you get a few extra ports on every PC you buy but I do think that it’s interesting to discover why they keep giving us stuff that we don’t want.
Jordan: Kerak
Leaving Jerash around lunchtime, I head south towards Kerak, known variously as Karak and Al Karak, stopping briefly for a float in the Dead Sea and a distant view of Israel.
It’s already dark when I arrive making it difficult to see much of anything. I am assured that the building in front of me is the castle but it just looks like another hotel at this time of evening. I take dinner in a restaurant right next to the (alleged) castle. They are filming for something and there are eerie bright lights shining through the windows — slightly disconcerting when you know it’s dark out.
When I step out I experience what I first assume to be atmospheric mist created by a talented special effects team for the purposes of the video, but as my hair gets damp I slowly realise that it is, in fact, raining. And not just a light drizzle but enough to get quite wet on the short walk back to the hotel. Not exactly what I was expecting in Jordan, even though it is November.
The next morning I rise fairly early so I can see the castle without hoards of other tourists. For something that was started in the twelfth century, albeit enhanced subsequently and restored even more recently, it’s in pretty good shape. The walls are extensive and you can get a solid idea of the various rooms and even something about the physique of the inhabitants — judging by how often I had to duck down to pass through a door they weren’t very tall!
However the thing I remember most about Kerak is not the castle but the views from it. They valleys were surprisingly green (I guess that explains the rain) and looked pretty with the white houses scattered up and down the side. The rest of Kerak and presumably the bulk of its twenty thousand inhabitants could be found up-hill a short distance away.
I don’t spent a huge amount of time in Kerak because the next stop is Petra, one of the main reasons I came to this area. Let’s hope it lives up to the hype.
Jordan: Jerash
I remember when I was at school doing history I loved the Romans. They were so advanced and yet had these brutal elements, a combination that I found fascinating. Even now I continue to be amazed by Roman ruins. Nothing we build now seems to last more than a few decades yet this massive, two thousand year old empire still has buildings standing.
So I’m happy that the first major site of my trip through Jordan and Egypt is Jerash. If I’m honest, it’s not a site I’d heard of before I booked this tour. I’m pleased to say that it would have been a mistake to miss it, though.
I enter the site through a triumphal arch, which is located right next to the road and the rest of modern Jerash. It makes quite a contrast. The site is large, so eventually the sound of the traffic subsides.
Some parts, mainly those near the gates, have been reconstructed. They are, no doubt, authentic but looking fairly new it’s not really the look I was expecting. For similar reasons I didn’t feel inclined to hang around and see the jousting. I was more drawn to the paths lined with columns, piazza’s and mosaics. Not as pristine as the reconstruction but amazing in their own way.
Certainly the most surreal part of the whole time at Jerash is when I reach an amphitheatre, where three men entertain us with drums and… bagpipes. Yes, you read that right.
They play for about ten minutes, marching around the floor, saluting members of the audience and, generally, confusing the hell out of most of us. Bagpipes? Jordan?
Overall it’s an impressive site with much to see. But it’s only a fleeting stop as I next head south towards Kerak.