Monthly Archives: September 2006

Predictive text and strange headlines

There’s an article on the BBC with the headline “Billionaires rule US richest list”. Well duh! Isn’t that kind of obvious? You would expect billionaires to top a rich list because, well, they have the most money 🙂

And finally, why is it that the predicitive text feature on my mobile phone doesn’t recognise the word “damn” but it has no problems predicting the word “git”? Answers on a postcard please.

An interview with Carmen Maura

On Saturday evening I attended “An interview with Carmen Maura” at the Institut Francais. Carmen Maura is one of Spain’s most famous actresses – she has appeared in several of Pedro Almodovar’s film. She’s the one in the middle of the photograph below.

a picture of carmen maura

The interview was part of the Spanish film festival that has just recently finished here in London – don’t ask why it was held in the French institute. The interview was quite interesting. She talked about some of her films and she came across as very down to earth and quite funny – normal. At one point she was asked by the interviewer why she had decided to take a particular role in a film – I can’t remember the role or the film – and she replied in Spanish, “Because it was a fucking good role”. It made the translator’s job more interesting at least.

I decided that it would be a good time to try out the camera on my mobile phone. As you can tell from the quality of the photograph I haven’t quite mastered the camera settings yet. You would think the picture would have come out pretty good when you consider that I was sitting in the third row from the front but alas no. I won’t be giving up my day job to become a photographer just yet!

I never thought I’d say this but …

Aeron chairs really aren’t that great! When I used to work for Arsdigita, Aeron chairs came as standard and I remember thinking how great they were – it was a long time ago. A few years ago I was looking around to buy a decent chair for myself. I went to several “specialist” shops that sold ergonomic chairs and they all told me that Aerons are crap from an ergonomic perspective. At the time I didn’t believe them. In the end I opted to buy one of these because they were recommended and they cost about 500 quid less than an Aeron! Anyway, I have just recently moved into an office and have been using an Aeron for a couple of weeks now – there are more Aerons in the office than people – and I am surprised to say that having been using one for the last few weeks they really aren’t that great! I refrain from using the word “crap” because they are comfortable but give me my chair any day of the week! I think part of the problem is that the Aerons don’t have a forward tilt mechanism and my hips feel as though they are below the level of my knees – not a good thing!

One thing is for certain: the next time I feel like splashing out on an expensive chair, I certainly won’t be spending my hard-earned cash on an Aeron.