Terabyte Labs

On October 22nd, 2009, Nationwide, perhaps the only bank in the UK to support it, disabled OFX reports and with it support for hundreds of different financial tools including Microsoft Money, Wesabe, Moneydance and even my own OFX client. According to their support page, this was due to the burden put on their customer services in fielding questions about Microsoft Money and the lack of in-kind support from Microsoft who stopped selling Money earlier this year.

What Nationwide don’t seem to realise is that it costs them nothing to quietly leave OFX support enabled for use by the hundreds of other programs out there that are not Microsoft Money. If customer service calls were costing too much then they should end the customer support rather than the technical support. Why punish all of us who were happily using the Nationwide OFX service and putting no burden on their support staff?

If someone can recommend a decent UK bank that supports the OFX protocol to access transaction data, I would seriously consider moving my money away from Nationwide. They may believe they are saving money by disabling OFX support but from the comments I’ve been receiving, I’d wager they’ll lose even more if all of us Wesabe, Moneydance and Money users were to go elsewhere.

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I thought I’d make a list of some projects and tasks that I’d like to complete sometime in the future. It seems that right now I don’t have much more free time than I need to shop, cook, eat and sleep but if I write something down here hopefully it will give me a better idea of how to organise my time.

Website

• Create a new front page of the site and move the blog to the sub page. done
• Add more projects and content to the site. done
• Integrate my photo gallery to the site and upload all my digital photos. in progress
• Add a personal section including a CV.

Projects

• Finish Shyguy’s Cave of Death. done
• Finish the Word Dissociation Game.
• Start on a new Slick based project (maybe a multi-player rpg of some kind).
• Learn C++ by creating a Project Euler solution compendium. in progress

Other

• Sort out my finances.
• Save enough money to buy a PC.
• Tidy my room.

I’m sure there are more but I think that’s more than enough to get me started.

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Recently we’ve been hearing about new classes of stimulant drugs such as Modafinil which supposedly promote wakefulness rather than hyperactivity or euphoria. These kinds of drugs appear to be very effective at reducing sleepiness and improving concentration and memory without affecting sleep or having any side effects from withdrawal.

Modafinil and other drugs in its class are sold to help sufferers of Narcolepsy or ADHD but are widely used by people with no such conditions as a way of simply enhancing their general brain functions. Millions of us could benefit from holding better concentration while at work or at school. Or remembering things such as timetables or doing mental arithmetic.

There are few other non-medicinal self enhancement drugs that offer so much potential benefit to such a wide range of people. Caffeine seems to be the nation’s current brain fuel of choice but most people who take it regularly end up simply using it to abate the withdrawal symptoms of the caffeine taken the day before. The question therefore becomes, should people take drugs simply to better themselves? Should people be allowed to use them while taking or revising for exams? Should people be allowed to use them to gain advantages over colleagues at work? Why shouldn’t people be able to function at a higher level than they would naturally? After realising how much better they can be, why would anyone want to live a drug free life?

Personally I find it very difficult to concentrate throughout the day unless I’ve had at least 8 hours’ sleep. My job requires a high level of concentration and logical processing for which I need the highest level of alertness I can get. I would love to try a Modafinil some day just to see how much more code I can churn out in a day. What I’m not so sure about is do I want to need to take the drug every day in order to maintain the same productivity at work? Even if there’s no danger of physical or psychological dependence would I develop a functional dependence such that the drug effectively becomes a medicine rather than a self enhancement?

My theory is that if Modafinil came in a hot drink form, it would so conveniently replace coffee and tea that people would reject any attempts to limit its use by the government. Also it would probably need to be bitter in taste enough to discourage children from becoming dependent on it. Hmm I guess this is how consumption of caffeine and alcohol has worked for centuries. Isn’t it convenient to have traditional beverages to mask our widespread drug taking customs?

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I’m normally pretty good with taking care of my stuff. In fact I don’t think I lost anything more valuable than a pen until a few months ago. I guess it started with potentially my most valuable possession of all – my wallet. I was returning on the train slightly dazed and weary and must have not made the effort to place my wallet back into my pocket after taking it out to put my train ticket in it. I got off the train without my wallet and didn’t realise until that evening. I canceled my debit card and requested a replacement the following morning. Fortunately no one had tried to charge anything on the card before then. I’m incredibly bad at getting things done (the number of things I’m putting off by writing this is testament to that) so I didn’t bother to replace my driver’s license, young person’s railcard or the wallet itself. The only thing I replaced was the oyster card which is pretty essential if you’re traveling around London all the time. About two weeks later I got a letter saying that my wallet was at Berko station. I picked it up and the only thing missing from it was the oyster card.

Next I was on a bus and left a carrier bag containing the lease for my house and my empty lunch container. Again nothing valuable lost.

Then I managed to leave my bag at the pub (my nice back rucksack this time) containing my trainers and a hat. Rang the pub later that night and a very unhelpful woman wasn’t even able to tell me whether they had it or not. A few days later at work the people I was with told they had it so again fortunately nothing valuable lost.

Next I managed to lose my rear bike light after using it exactly one time. Guess that fell out my coat pocket.

Next exactly one week after losing my bag at the pub I lost my bag at the pub again. This time I was well aware that I might lose but still left it unattended by the stairs at the pub and it had disappeared by the time I wanted to leave. This time the bag contained a hat, a book (a damn good one at that) and my front bike light which I’d used exactly zero times.

I really don’t know what’s changed in the past few months. I’m obviously not the kind of person to trust with keeping things safe but somehow this flaw of mine hasn’t been a problem at all in the past. I guess up till now I’ve just been incredibly lucky to find things where I expect them to be.

I’ve now got so many things to replace and it is going to be a pain to get them back. This isn’t just from losing things but replacing broken things or new things required for my house. On top of that I’ve been spending way too much money recently. I have to keep within the budget of my salary which isn’t easy when half of it is already taken up by rent. Anyway that’s for another post. Before then I still need to break down my outgoings to find out exactly what I’m spending on what.

PS: This rant may seem rather trivial given that I haven’t really lost anything of great value. Yesterday I learnt that the British teacher who was found dead in a bath tub in a Japanese apartment was actually the girlfriend of one of the editors of Bit-Tech (a site I visit often) and for some reason decreasing the degree of separation between yourself and someone else increases the empathy you feel for that person. I don’t expect anyone to feel any empathy for my losing my bag but still, at least it gives me something to blog about.

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Well this looks like it’s the first post of my new blog. For some reason I’ve been really reluctant to start a blog of my own. Probably because I don’t consider my everyday endevaours worthy of the great melting pot of filth that is the Internet. Still it’s a new year so changes are abound.

It took a long time to find the blog software I’m using. Most of the software out there just doesn’t agree with my host for one reason or another, or is just simply plain ugly. I think a blog should be nice to look at. If nothing else it amuses your readership while they trawl through the random crap that usually permeates your average blog.

Oh dear, it didn’t take me long to rant about something did it? I wonder how many bloggers rant about blogs in their first blog.

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If, like me, you like to read, you’ll know how expensive books can become. I get through perhaps 5-10 books a year which means I probably spend about £50-£70 a year on books. Once I’m finished they just find their place on my bookshelf.

That was until I discovered ReadItSwapIt which is a free service that allows you to swap your books for books that other members of the site have. You just have to upload a list of books you want to swap along with a description of their condition, make a request to swap with another member and if that person likes the look of one of your books, you proceed with the swap.

This is a great way to recycle books and get the most out of them while also saving money on your new books. Another great use of power of the internet.

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For some reason round numbers seem to be more attractive to governments and organisations when setting their various future targets. It makes you wonder whether they really think about the date they are setting or if they just choose a date that sounds far enough away for them to feel comfortable. I keep hearing these targets on the news and it makes me wonder just how many things will be achieved by the year 2010? Will the world suddenly become a better place? Here’s a list of the more interesting things that will supposedly take place by the year 2010:

• The EU will increase use of renewable energy to 12% of total energy consumption in the EU.
• The UK will increase use of renewable energy to 10% of total energy consumption in the UK.
• The UK will increase use of renewable transport fuel (e.g. ethanol, biofuel) to 5%.
• The UK government will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% of 1990 levels.
• India will provide free, compulsory, high quality education for all children aged between 6-14.
• The Swedish government will phase out nuclear power entirely.
• The 8 member states of the G8 summit held in 2005 will pledge US$50 billion in aid to developing countries.
• The G8 members will ensure universal access to anti-HIV drugs in Africa.
• The International Space Station will be completed.
• The Space Shuttle Program will be discontinued.
• Canada will become the world’s top sporting nation.
• The United States football team will become a legitimate threat to win the 2010 world cup.
• Members of the Convention on Biological Diversity will have made a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level.
• The United Nations Population Fund will have reduced global levels of infection of HIV by 25% from 1999 levels.
• The world population will reach 7 billion.
• General Motors will release the Hy-wire: an electronically controlled hydrogen fuel cell powered car.
• Japanese robots will be available to commercial households.
• Governor Schwarzenegger of California will make hydrogen fuel available along all Californian highways.
• The Galileo Positioning System will become operational.
• Russia’s GLONASS positioning system will be back to working order.
• In England, 13 million or 30% of the population will be obese.

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Here’s an idea for a power saving feature that currently no digital camera has:

There should be an option to turn off the screen of the camera until you press the shutter button down half way. At this point you’re ready to take a photo so the screen would turn on to show you the photo you are about to take. If you let go of the shutter button the screen should remain on for about 5 seconds. After you have taken a photo the screen should display your photo for a couple of seconds and then turn off.

Why have this feature? Well it would allow you to take photos perhaps once a minute without worrying about turning the camera off to save battery or turning it on to take the photo. It allows the fastest response time between wanting to take a photo and taking it while allowing minimum power to be consumed when the camera is not being used.

Why doesn’t any camera have this feature? I don’t know. Some cameras have a sleep mode where the screen will turn off after a minute or two but this is too long to make it worthwhile. If you are taking a photo on average once a minute the screen will remain on pretty much all the time. Why have the screen on when you’re not looking at it?

Of course this feature would not be useful all the time. If for example you’re taking lots of photos of people one after the other you’d want the screen on all the time so you can always make sure you get the right shot. However I have found that in my experience the vast majority of the time I decide to take a photo about 1 or 2 seconds before arriving at the point in time I want to take the photo. If my camera is not ready then it will often be too late. If I’m waiting around with my camera ready without seeing a shot I want to take then I’m unnecessarily wasting battery.

Why is battery life so important? Well it’s not that important provided you have the ability to recharge your batteries every day and you’re camera has the ability to last a whole day. But that’s not the point. The question you should be asking is what reason do manufacturers have for not including this feature in their cameras?

Just as a final note, when I last used my camera I noticed it was showing the low battery icon as soon as I started to use it that day. Normally my camera will only allow you to take 5-10 photos when the low battery icon is showing before turning itself off. As I had lots of photos to take I turned the screen off entirely and resorted to using the viewfinder instead. That day I was able to take over 100 photos and I’m sure I could have taken a few more. It just got me thinking just how much power the screen was using and how 90% of the time this power goes to waste.

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I was at a friend of mine’s. We were all there to witness the big event; his house gave the best view from the top of the hill. The event was to take place somewhere over Birmingham that night, we just didn’t know exactly when.

All of us waiting, the tension was mounting when someone shouted look!”. Through the trees at the end of the garden there was a glow. I moved round to get a better look. A small mushroom cloud fireball was rising slowly into the sky. Then came the flash, so blinding that it hurt even with my hands over my eyes. Then a terrible noise as if air was filled with buzzing electricity. I looked back round again and the glow through the trees was getting bigger. The wind was getting stronger. Suddenly everything was blasted away by a hot, fiery wind. Flaming wreckage rained from the sky. Everything was on fire. I looked up, the back part of the house was crumbled away and fire consuming the rest. The last thing I remember was running…

At least that’s what I thought I remembered. When I woke up I was back in Cardiff. I couldn’t possibly have been at my friend’s house. Besides why would they do a nuclear testing over Birmingham? And how would the blast cause so much damage over 100 miles away? Those were some of the questions that made me realise it was just a massively vivid dream. A pretty cool dream though all the same.

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Got an hour to waste? Have a look at this huge animated gif.

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I was recently pointed to some awesome simulations involving galaxies and what might happen when they collide. The simulations were created on a super computer and enable us to view what might happen within the period of several billion years in just a few minutes. A particularly interesting one shows the mergence of the Milky Way with the Andromeda galaxy which is predicted to start to occur in the next 3-4 billion years or so. Some of the other simulations involve hundreds of galaxies interacting with each other. The movies are pretty big so you’ll need a decent internet connection to download them.

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