Smartphone

I’m finally retiring my Nokia 6510 handset, which I’ve had as my main phone for six years this autumn. Excellent tactile design. Only now it’s starting to give. The menu button produces no clicks or double-clicks. Compliment to the engineers and designers who created 6510, it has been a fantastic product – and not quite matched by Nokia’s current offering.

Some statistics from the phone’s call counters:

Dialled calls’ duration 80:20:46

Received calls’ duration 240:10:49

All calls’ duration 320:31:34

Last call duration 00:14:42

That’s almost a fortnight on the phone.

The 6510 worked fine on the presumption that mobile phone is good for phone calls and texting. Now that you’re supposed to be able to do all kinds of smart things with your mobile, it seems it’s the iPhone that finally delivers those promises.

Angry Dave

Just finished installing a new computer. The one I’m still typing this with, served three years pretty ok. There was only one wipeout hard disk failure.

It is a well-unknown fact that there’s a secret program hidden in every computer. Its purpose is to make the computer slower and slower so that in three years it becomes practically useless. That program is called Angry Dave.

Mis-cited Moore’s law states that computing power doubles every 18 months. Angry Dave counteracts that by halving the computing power every three years. It’s been put in place by a luddite conspiracy to hinder us reaching technological singularity.

“Daisy Bell” (or “Bicycle Built for Two”)