131 - Karate is back!

Had Karate today. It was a great class. Tough and we learnt alot of our new kata Bassai Dai.

130 - Its Sunday! Lets go to the movies!

We went into town today, into Galway to treat the girls somewhat. Also Lindas brother John was going home back to Spain. So we met John and Linda parents in the morning and the kids had a chance to say goodbye to John properly.

Then we set off to the cinema. We saw Frozen. It was really good. The animation, the graphics, are amazing. The songs were great, it was a well written story, I cared for the characters who all had strong personalities. I really can say not a whole lot of bad things about the film to tell the truth. Most of all. The kids loved it :)

Another cracker from Disney - Frozen

Afterwards we had dinner with Linda parents in that place in Salthill, whats the name of it. Da Robertas.

Great day out!

129 - Saturday

Didn't do a whole lot. We watched films and waited for Linda to come home. When she did we put the kids to sleep and played a board game.

128 - The sound of silence.

No not the hippy duo of the 70's Simon & Garfunkel. I mean when the kids are in school. I am home sick. There are no radios, televisions or computers on. I walk over to the kitchen sink and get a glass of unhealthy drinking water and climatise to the room I am standing in.

It is then that I hear a recurring beep across the room. Everything is quiet and still and now this beep becomes an all encompassing siren by the television.

I look over to where the sound is coming from and see that in my haste attempting in vain to call my sister this morning I did not put the landline phone back on the hook properly. I do so now. And then....

...silence, my old friend.

127 - Irish Man Going To Mars

For once I can link something useful from that national propaganda rag known as The Irish Times.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/life-on-mars-irish-man-signs-up-for-colony-mission-1.1648449

This link is worth watching even if you know about Joseph Roche - one of the people short(ish) listed to go to Mars, the red planet.

Mars One is a not-for-profit foundation that aims to get human civilization set up on the planet Mars. All this will be expensive and since most government on Earth have war, hunger and ignorance (politics) to deal with this Dutch foundation has basically set about doing it itself - the setting up of humanity on another planet that is.

So there is a guy, Joseph Roche, who simply applied to be one of the future Martians and the big news that came out today is that he made it past the first round. Pretty cool. Now with that said, I did hear on the news that he was one of 3 Irish people selected but there is no talk of these other people. Hmm, I guess that they are not actually resident in Ireland or that the news looked at the other 2 and realized that Mr Roche is the more likely candidate.

I would definately go. Mars One

Roche is an astrophysicist who works at the Science Gallery in Dublin and realistically knows what he is getting into better than most other people. 

So you gotta ask yourself the question. Would you go up to Mars. Most people I have asked so far have said no. Thing is, I would say no too, but that is because I have responsibilities here that I cannot avoid. But lets say, for an arm chair philosophy kinda question - had you NO responsibilities would you go? Roche admits that he believes it is a one way ticket. As in, they will go to Mars and not alone will they not return but because of the radiation levels on the planet they have a shorter life expectancy. 

The people I have spoken to said "imagine never seeing grass again, imagine never seeing the sky again". On Mars you will see a different landscape, a different sky. There is no meaning at all in anything except that which you give it yourself. 

I can tell you now - if I did not have any responsibilities here on Earth I would certainly, definitely, absolutely go. That is... if they would take me!

126 - Metal Ant Colony

Here is something strangely interesting I came across today. Extra interesting because I find ants cool but I hate the sight of them. I like the way to you can see ants looking at this happening... thinking "ehhh, whats going on?"

Ha ha ha ha ha....

Not so tough in your little nest now are you little ant. See how man can wreck your home the same way you wreck mans.

125 - Windows 8.1

I was working on a computer today and it had Windows 8.1 on it. Boy oh boy. 8.1. One might think that 8.1 is an improvement on 8.0. I have not used Windows 8, and I hate to think how bad it was. At least 8.1 had the Windows key added? I was pressing the Windows key on the keyboard but it was not bringing up anything. The person who owned the 8.1 machine said that it was really easy to use once you got used to it, but you should not need to get used to it. It is simply not intuitive. I tried to uninstall Norton off the machine but I could not for the life of me find an add/remove option for it. I did find an add remove option for an app that was in the new interface at the front end but not to get rid of the full application that was installed.

Windows 8.1 Terrible user experience. 

My question is, who exactly did Microsoft talk to when they were wondering if this was an intuitive system? No messing around. I found it really really horribly bad to use! With Apple OS sales holding, mobile phone use on the rise to the point where people are not getting even laptops anymore because their phone can do what they need and the likes of Steam OS on the way you gotta ask yourself, what are Microsoft thinking. 

Rather, are they thinking?