This isn't a new genre of mind-melting music but the vision (in prototype) of Dutch designers/futurists showing how we might live in the next decade.
It's like Grand Designs meets Apple ihouse!
Anyway, this is one house that's right down my street! See it here.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Friday, 7 March 2008
Technology over practicality?
I love my car. Common - is such knowledge - among my friends.
It's jam-packed of technological wizardry. Largely unnecessary - but ultimately rewarding. At the weekend, however, a feature of this 'wizardry' became a bloody nuisance!
The computer highlighted that I had lost a significant pressure from a tyre and that I had possibly suffered a puncture. Great! one might think. No. The inordinately expensive tyres are "run-flats" meaning one can continue driving for ~100 miles even with a fully deflated tyre - therefore, none of the tyres exhibitted any physical external signs of deflation and the computer (in all its wisdom) is not sophisticated enough to point a finger at the offending tyre!
A trip to the garage ensued, whereupon the tyres were all re-inflated to their appropriate levels and the computer reset, with the disconcertingly vague instruction that I should "just keep driving on them and see if the warning re-appears". How reassuring.
I'll keep my comprehensive voice activation, active bolster sport seating, bluetooth connectivity, internet connection, Sat-Nav etc. but they can keep their tyre technology - I'll just have a tyre that's either flat or not. Simple.
It's jam-packed of technological wizardry. Largely unnecessary - but ultimately rewarding. At the weekend, however, a feature of this 'wizardry' became a bloody nuisance!
The computer highlighted that I had lost a significant pressure from a tyre and that I had possibly suffered a puncture. Great! one might think. No. The inordinately expensive tyres are "run-flats" meaning one can continue driving for ~100 miles even with a fully deflated tyre - therefore, none of the tyres exhibitted any physical external signs of deflation and the computer (in all its wisdom) is not sophisticated enough to point a finger at the offending tyre!
A trip to the garage ensued, whereupon the tyres were all re-inflated to their appropriate levels and the computer reset, with the disconcertingly vague instruction that I should "just keep driving on them and see if the warning re-appears". How reassuring.
I'll keep my comprehensive voice activation, active bolster sport seating, bluetooth connectivity, internet connection, Sat-Nav etc. but they can keep their tyre technology - I'll just have a tyre that's either flat or not. Simple.
Saturday, 19 January 2008
New PC and storage
*Geek warning*
I upgraded my PC this week. Not because it was terribly old but because a nagging issue with hard drives losing power was best resolved by a completely new system!
This should, one would think, be a fairly straightforward upgrade and migration.. if only! My problem is the copious volumes of divx films, series, etc that I store on HDD. My penchant for British comedy means I have 200gb of comedy series alone (including The Office, The Royle Family, The league of Gentlemen, Nighty Night, Black Books, Phoenix Nights, I'm Alan Partridge, etc etc).
There are two things regarding my excess of digital videos. First, that it's a complete nuisance to easily and efficiently move around between drives/disks, and second, that it was only a decade ago that I had a 4.2gb hard drive in a well-specified - at the time - PC. As I shuffle files around to enable the formatting of the cleared drives I find myself moaning that my USB HDD only has a mere 500gb storage capability!
Technology has a strange habit of advancing massively but subtly and throwing the end-user meted reminders, like mine today, of just how far things have come.
I upgraded my PC this week. Not because it was terribly old but because a nagging issue with hard drives losing power was best resolved by a completely new system!
This should, one would think, be a fairly straightforward upgrade and migration.. if only! My problem is the copious volumes of divx films, series, etc that I store on HDD. My penchant for British comedy means I have 200gb of comedy series alone (including The Office, The Royle Family, The league of Gentlemen, Nighty Night, Black Books, Phoenix Nights, I'm Alan Partridge, etc etc).
There are two things regarding my excess of digital videos. First, that it's a complete nuisance to easily and efficiently move around between drives/disks, and second, that it was only a decade ago that I had a 4.2gb hard drive in a well-specified - at the time - PC. As I shuffle files around to enable the formatting of the cleared drives I find myself moaning that my USB HDD only has a mere 500gb storage capability!
Technology has a strange habit of advancing massively but subtly and throwing the end-user meted reminders, like mine today, of just how far things have come.
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