Can’t afford a Hemingwrite? I have an idea…

Posted on December 12, 2014 by blogmywiki

I LOVE the idea of the Hemingwrite. It’s like a portable typewriter that allows you to write distraction-free whilst still saving your work electronically and backing it up online. It has a proper keyboard and – crucially – an eInk display (like Kindle or Nook electronic book reader) so you can use it outdoors in bright sunlight, and save power.

I love it. I want one so much it hurts, but I can’t afford one (though I did chuck $5 at their Kickstarter because I think it’s such an incredibly great idea). So I got thinking – how about making my own? Initially I thought – RaspberryPi. But eInk displays are hard to find – Adafruit’s are tiny and expensive for the size. Then I remembered my rooted Nook. This £29 e-reader can, it seems, be modded to work with a USB keyboard. I’ve not done it yet, but at the very least I could use this with an existing Android simple word processor. Or – and I know nothing at all about developing Android apps – a simple word-processor that backs up into the cloud… a cheap & cheerful British alternative to the Hemingwrite – the WoolfWrite!

Somebody has an even more cunning idea, however…

Posted in Android, computers, literature | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Zeros and Ones, episode 10 (or 2).

Posted on December 5, 2014 by blogmywiki

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Zeros and Ones

Posted on December 3, 2014 by blogmywiki

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Imitation Game vs Enigma

Posted on December 1, 2014 by blogmywiki

Bit late to this but finally saw The Imitation Game this weekend. Really rather disappointed – I think Enigma (also about breaking the same cipher in Bletchley Park in WW2) is the better film. I just wasn’t convinced by the awkward friendship between Turing and Keira Knightly’s character. The scene on the lawn where she says something like “I think you’ll find if you move those equations over here…” was worthy of Acorn Antiques at its cringiest. Although based on a work of fiction, rather than fact, Enigma‘s central relationship, also awkward, is more believable and just rings true.

Charles Dance’s cartoon commander could have marched up to Turing’s machine and said “I want that machine orf, and I want it orf now” in an homage to The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I can imagine one of Turing’s colleagues tearing off a strip of paper tape, turning to the camera and declaring “FORTY-TWO? We are going to get lynched…”

The real star of The Imitation Game is Alex Lawther. His portrayal of the schoolboy Turing was stunning. A great future surely lies ahead for this amazing young actor.

I understand why they skipped over the real electronic computer Colossus, built at Bletchley Park to break tougher German codes, but there’s a cracking story to be told about the unassuming Post Office Engineer Tommy Flowers who built it. He too can claim to be the father of the digital computer.

And finally, the last word on Charles Dance:

Posted in cinema, computers | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Cheese

Posted on November 27, 2014 by blogmywiki

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a fundamental thing you learn when you learn about learning (or so I learned). It goes from fundamental human needs (food, water, air) and rises up through safety, love, belonging and up to self-esteem and realising your potential. The needs get more sophisticated as they reach the top; in lectures at the Institute of Education, the hierarchy always reminded me of this excerpt from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams:

The history of every major galactic civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question ‘How can we eat?’ the second by the question ‘Why do we eat?’ and the third by the question ‘Where shall we have lunch?’

So, apropos of nothing at all, I present Maslow’s Hierarchy of Cheese. We all need cheddar. We can but aspire to Pont l’Eveque.

Hierarchy of Cheese

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment