Fresh from the “interesting but pointless facts” desk comes this little kernel (I apologise!) of truth:

In 2002, the British Film Institute depicted popcorn as “the most profitable substance on the planet, more than heroin, more than plutonium”. Typically, the popcorn we eat costs less to produce than the very container it comes in. - Foodie World

Further research indicates that isn’t quite true - antimatter is the most expensive substance in the world. But for a common, everyday item, it’s very expensive indeed. There’s a lot less risk in production then Heroin and a lot bigger market the Plutonium, for instance.

I’ve recently undergone a tonsillectomy - the process of removing the lymph node tissue hanging idly at the back of your throat. I know I write mainly technology articles, but I thought a departure was warranted from the usual faire.

My main takeaway from having it done is twofold: it’s not as bad as you think and it’s as bad as you think. They seem like contradictory statements, so I’ll need to explain myself right? Okay.

I’ve seen an article by Miguel de Icaza, a great developer oft criticised for his love of Microsoft technologies on Linux. His latest piece is about his love for Mac OS X as a desktop and how he used to feel guilty about it (given his very impressive open source credentials).

I used to feel the same also. Android even as a platform more closely follows my ideals, yet I am exclusively an avid iOS user at this point. But as I’ve learned more, the importance of pragmatism is clear. I use my personal iOS devices for countless hours a day and I really just want them to work. I want them to work in the way they were designed to do: quickly check email, browse the web, make calls, check messages and so forth.

I recently finished reading Steve Jobs, the biography by Walter Isaacson. I can’t add much more then the extensive coverage that it has recieved in the press to date. Instead I paraphrase really badly a friend of mine, Noel Hudson:

All that book thought me was dropping acid and treating people really badly works as a life strategy.

While that’s not entirely true it is a humourous look at the books tone. It has a grain of truth, Walter Issacson really focuses on the warts and all representation of Steve Jobs. He defines him very much in terms of how other people percieved him, whether that should have been the mainstay of the book is up for debate. Overall it’s a good book, what I liked most is the history lessons of the creation of the mac and how the Disney/Pixar relationship went down before the merger. I also felt Walter Issacson left it hanging at the end and that he knows much more that he can’t publish due to Apple’s corporate strategy being tied to Jobs so much (like the comment he made about cracking the UI for a TV).

I recently read an article that posed the question “Does your dock reflect your priorities?” - which is an interesting question. Further breaking that idea down leads to:

• What apps do I need the most?
• What apps should be next (or be higher priority)?

iPhone dock

• Phone app: pretty self explanatory
• Safari: Still the best mobile browser I think (though if Google ever gets going on a proper Chrome browser for Android that may change)
• Tweetbot: I like Twitter the most of the social networks and tweetbot is the Swiss army knife if twitter clients
• Music (aka. iPod app) : I use my iPhone in my car and sometimes at work to listen to music

iPad dock

• Safari: Safari on iPad is not as good as the iPhone version - it can be more full featured I think!
• Mail app: E-mail on the iPad is one of the most popular uses, it’s got just the right amount of screen real-estate to do it justice
• Photography folder: I don’t know why I mistook myself as being interested in photography, but here’s a folder I almost never use (bar camera app)
• Music: I like it uses the screen real-estate better then the iPhone version and it’s much nicer to browse music on
• Tweetbot: Tweetbot for iPad is the best Twitter client for iPad hands down (on the iPhone it’s more contested) and sync with Tweetmarker makes it much easier moving between iPhone and iPad versions.

Final thoughts

I guess I’ve learned I make pretty bad use of the dock on both devices. Evernote or Lastpass should probably be in the dock on either device - probably with a feed reader as a close run after that (Reeder or Mr. Reader). These apps feature on either home screen as you can see from the screenshots above. Food for thought I guess!

A great essay on why programming is hard:

It’s harder than you think. Right now you’re probably underestimating the amount of frustration and discomfort you’re about to experience, without realizing that by doing so you’re creating all sorts of subtle barriers to obtaining a deep understanding of programming.

Language does matter

I find this part extremely true: my first language is Java. Every programming language I’ve tried since has been through comparing it to Java. I’ve had criticism of each different language based on my assumptions. Scripting languages being prone to bad coding because they are not strictly typed, having to do tedious work with languages that require memory management (my time is too valuable!).

I spend a lot of my day in heavy development tools such as Eclipse¹, but often for editing simple XML I just want a quick tool to make fast changes. If I use the CLI (or Linux) it’ll be Vim, if I’m on Mac it’ll be Textmate but on Windows it’s Notepad++. I haven’t found an editor on Windows as clean as Notepad++ (if you use a tool professionally, you get to know it’s quirks pretty fast) for editing text of any kind.

As I’ve mentioned before¹, I regularly watch technology podcasts and I’ve had a subscription to sites like Lynda.com. Between those and Youtube, I’ve watched an awful lot of technology how-to videos and 90% of them are quite poor in terms of editing, sound and being coherent/properly scripted. Sometimes though it’s a joy to genuinely learn something new in a short, concise and to the point video.

This haktip is right up there with being among the best: short, concise, to the point and about a utility that will be super-useful to me. In work I’m in an agile software development team and I spend a lot of time on the command line. I like the command line, but many don’t (personal preference I guess). As part of being agile, we produce a lot of video demos to stakeholders. Increasingly though the demos we produce are just as useful for the team - you can’t be every team member at once and this provides huge visibility to the team of progress. Our software is a Unix product, but we develop on Windows - so Camtasia is usually used - which is fine for GUI demos. This handy utility will be great to demo CLI stuff we do.

Ikea the TV Business? Who would have forseen the day. After looking at their video I must say I can see the reasons quite clearly: TV’s look awkward in almost everyones home. They don’t fit in our units, the cables are in awkward positions and you can never find the remote¹. I’m a fan of all things cheap and Ikea I must confess, so I’ll be watching this development with great interest!

Our fifth slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired the third Monday in March 2012 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.

Topics Covered:

• iPad 3 Launch
• Netflix vs. Lovefilm
• Online TV: RTE Player, AERtv, 3Player, Filmon

In this episode Patrick and Neil discuss the most popular streaming video on the market and the launch of the iPad 3.

Subscribe: