It seems that Apple are announcing some sort of “thing” this evening. According to my “Mac Evangelist” (Yes – that’s what he called himself) flatmate, it’s going to fundamentally change computing forever. Or I suppose it could just as easily be an software update. I especially liked the one that enabled copy-and-paste. That really changed everything!
That sounds rather bitter. It’s not that I don’t like Apple. I’m typing this on a Mac Mini, and the iPod Touch is a brilliant piece of kit. I just don’t care! What annoys me is the incessant hype surrounding this thing. Nobody outside of Apple even knows what it is yet!
Someone once joked that Steve Jobs could crap in a white plastic box and the “Evangelists” would queue up to hand over their money. I’m starting to believe that. I guess it shows the strength of Apple’s marketing department though.
I wasn’t all that fond of Avatar. It was without a doubt the most visually impressive thing I’ve ever seen in a cinema, but I wouldn’t want to sit through it again.
Anyway, Jason has evidently been to see it over the last few days. For the most part we have the same opinion of it. However there is one exception. And since Jason hasn’t implemented any sort of commenting feature to his site yet, I’ll have a little rant about it here.
I have various other niggling complaints about the film overall, but we can now come to my biggest one. Unobtainium. Really? Fucking seriously? Unobtainium? Creative genius at work 
Yes. Unobtainium. It’s a joke. Not a very funny one, but a joke nonetheless. I thought it was fairly obvious, but I have had to explain it to a few people since seeing the film. Perhaps I just read too much science-fiction? It doesn’t matter what the company was mining for. It could just have easily been gold or oil without affecting the plot in any major way.
Actually calling the substance “Unobtainium” might not seem very creative, but the film has far bigger problems than that. For example, I got the impression that the big floating mountains contained quite a lot of this Unobtainium stuff. Why not just mine them rather than fighting the big blue aliens?
There’s something about this image that I find really pleasing. Possibly because I’m inside and warm.
From the BBC.
I sat my dreaded forensic science exam was this afternoon, so I’m getting back to some degree of normality now. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t just quite what I expected. The questions were really quite general, which didn’t suit me particularly well. Still I think I’ve probably done well enough to pass, and if not, at least I know how to test for drugs and body fluids!
I only have one exam this semester, but I have a fairly sizable report due at the end of next week which I need to get working on. There are a few topics to choose from, but I’m leaning toward a comparison of forensic analysis of Windows vs. Linux systems. I had been hoping to do Windows vs. OS X, as OS X is something I’m not so familiar with, but I’d also been hoping to get the report started before Christmas rather than getting bogged down in forensic science revision, so Windows vs. Linux it is!
Another thing I need to start thinking about is my Masters dissertation (assuming that today’s exam was a success, of course!). I had been thinking about proposing an analysis of one of the current-generation game consoles, most likely the PlayStation 3, but only because that’s the console I’m most familiar with. Instead, I’ve applied for a placement with a company who want to investigate the forensic analysis of the Nintendo Wii. It’ll probably be a few weeks yet before I hear anything more about it, but I’m hoping that goes well because it looks really cool!
Anyway, I was back up north for Christmas and across to Edinburgh for New Year’s Eve. I’d never been to Edinburgh over Hogmanay before, but despite being cold the street party was great craic. I wasn’t too sure about the big blue man on New Year’s Day though. Still, it was probably better to do something vaguely cultural than sit in my friend’s flat and watch an entire day of Mythbusters!
