So the project that absolutetly had to be finished for today isn't. No great surprises there, but we're sooooo close. I hate this part of a project, where you can taste the end but it just keeps escaping you. My bugs list has been hovering at the 70-80 mark for over a week now, but it seems slightly more under control, although that might be because there's not much testing going on at the moment.

So I continue to work, distracting myself a little with news about the NASA Mars missions and Bush's announcement that man will return to the Moon and then go onto Mars by 2020. The geek in me is loving this and really wants it to happen, but then the realist kicks in and I have to wonder if it will come to pass. Remember that Bush Sr said much the same thing. I think this new proposal is more sensible in that Bush Jr isn't asking for pots of cach from Congress which would never happen. The first Moon race being a product of a time that, hopefully, will never return.

I don't hold with all these people who say that too much money is spent on Space and that it could be better diverted. That's just so much bollocks. It's just unfortunate that the benefits of Space activities can in no way be seen as originating from it.

Besides all the rational arguments there's the emotional argument that humans are natural explorers. Whether from curiosity or the innate survival instinct the fact remains. We will one day travel to other planets either because of proposals such as this or due to private enterprise seeing it as profitable.

One thing that people who are debating the latest proposals have not mentioned is X-prize, the competition for the first privately funded, sustainable human launch capability that is looking likely to be won this year or very early next year. Okay this is a small start, most of the projects only shooting for very low ballistic trajectories and not for orbit. But 2020 is a long way away, and once one team wins then someone will start making money from this stuff, then the expansion of the industry will rocket (pun intended)!

So by the end of the year we may have a viable private industry human launch capability, let us think what could private industry accomplish in 15/16 years. Well look at what the computer industry managed to do in it's first 15 years. From laboratory to desktop. The world is an extremely fast moving place at the best (or worst depending on who you are and how you look at such things), but when there is a major new, and untapped, industry to exploit things move fucking fast.

Personally I don't care how it all happens, just so long as I get to go into orbit at the least before I die...

BBC - Radio 1 - Chart

So sitting here at work, on a Sunday again. Been in all weekend. Listening to the above, been a long time since I listener to the chart, got some work experience 16 year old presenting it now, or something.

Just me in the office all weekend, going stir-crazy, but Craig is about to drag me out for a quick drink to give me a break. Anyway, things are going quite well. I just tried to call the boss, let him know about the minor success I just had, but I got nothin'! Feeling a distinct lack of support from the company, which might not be totally unfair as it is me that's late on deivering, but it's not all my fault.

Ah well, guess I'll post more later.

Maestro Headquarters

This is geeky cool, a cut down version of the software that NASA use to look at the images from the Mars rover. You can get the first set of images with it and they will be updating the software over the coming months.

I'm a complete space geek, but I've let it slide over the last couple of years, so this has really energised me to get back into it.

In other news, the holidays went well, although I'm really not quite up for 2004 yet, still too much work stuff hanging over my head at the moment. One good thing thought it that me and the lads are off to the School of Rock premiere with Mr Jack Black himself in attendance, next Tuesday. Now if that's not a kick ass way to start the year I don't know what is! :)

The topic that my boss and I most often "discuss" when down the pub after work is that of digital rights management in the music industry. We are both of the opinion that this is impossible, that in the digital age you cannot fully protect music from being copied digitally. This will eventually also apply to movies which currently enjoy the protection of being too big to move around easily, at least for the majority of people.

Recently though I have been thinking about where the music industry should go with this in mind. Quite simple the actual music itself is right now a loss leader for the record labels, whether or not they will admit this even to themselves. They should take advantage of this.

In some ways the movie industry has the advantage over the record labels in that they have saw this happening to them with the advent of TV and video and have taken steps to rectify this. Already it is often the case that a film will make more from DVD sales than from it's release in cinemas.

I believe that the record labels should follow this approach. The should not be affraid of giving away the actual music, and then offering to consumers a product that they actually see value in, because right now people are seeing less and less value in the songs themselves. DVD singles should be the release format of choice, with high definition sound in both Dolby Digital and DVD-Audio MLP format, along with videos, features of the recording sessions, interviews, lyrics and more. All of this material is already created for most singles anyway, and DVD replication costs have come down enough to make this a feasible thing to do.

If the labels take this on board completely, as in the idea of the songs themselves as loss leaders, then they can pre-empt the illegal transfer of music by including mp3 versions of the songs in a DVD-ROM section of the disc. This would go a long way to winning over the hearts and minds of consumers.

Anyway, this is my theory, I'm sure a lot of other people have their own. What do you all think?

So here I am, back at work on a Sunday again. Still worrying about next year. Why is it that the changing of a year is sooo important to us all, just the the millenium. None of it should matter, it's just an arbitrary counting system which has been changed a lot of times over the years. But I guess it does matter somewhere deep inside the human consciousness.

I think we have to split up time into chunks just so that it doesn't all bleed into one, and once we measure things we attach meaning to those measurements, even if there is none.

So will next year be the one that changes everything for me? Probably not, yet I will hope. I already know how the year will start, more horrible deadlines at work, just like last year. Come March my nephew will be born, that will be a big change for the family, one for the better I think.

Supposedly one of my friends will finally escape from his parentle home make the move down to London, as he has been threatening to do for 3 years. If he does he will be staying with me for the first two months at least. So that much of next year is certain, but none of it seems too life altering for me. But then you never know do you....

So I'm sitting here at work on a Saturday reading Kieron's blog. I'm not a great blog reader, or in fact poster as you can tell, but Kieron is a mate and I found his blog by accident which makes it more fun to read.

Anyway he's been posting thoughts on the turn of the year and it's something that's always plays on my mind. I guess I'm far too fucking introspective for my own good, but then it's a hobby that you can do anytime, amyplace which is always nice. So how's this year been? Well....

... it's been the "Year of the Matt". Now don't get me wrong, it's not some massive ego trip, quite the opposite. The previous year had been soooo bad that I felt I had to do something big to turn things around. It all started last New Years Eve, I was trudging up a hill about to be very sick (you should know that I don't drinnk this was just from getting ill) looking back over a year where I split up from a fantastic girl because I'm crap at relationships and am affraid of commitment. A year where I'd thrown myself into my work, not spent anywhere near enough time with friends and family. A year where I'd simply lived day to day on a diet of junk food, and coffee. I was well on my way to a heart attack before 30.

So I decided to turn it around. I quit the junk food, no more burgers or chocolate or pizzas. Joined a gym, much to the ammusement of my friends and tried to generally get my shit together.

Has it worked? I hear you all cry, well I guess that's why I'm shit scared about next year. You see you can do all of this for yourself, and feel a lot better about it, but when it comes to getting out there and trying to be a better you with other people it's a whole other matter. I'm not sure if things are better or not, I guess next year will tell.

Top blog from a top guy

Kieron Gillen's workblog

I have seen the light, and it is XHTML 2.0. I have, for some time, been quite despondant about the future of the internet, especially with regards to the lack of forward motion from W3C and IETF about sorting things out. Now this may have stemmed from my dislike for RDF and the lack of a decent roadmap for the acceptance of IPv6, but there you go.

Anyway, I now know better and that the future is all about XHTML. This standard rocks my world. I've been annoying my workmates since I downloaded it, always saying things like "This will be so much easier when we get XHTML". This annoys them becuase they are, on the whole, far more sensible than me and know that it'll be a good 5 years before we can actually build sites using this stuff. But I am still a happy bunny, because I can now relax in the knowledge that the right people are working towards the right goals. If you have any interest in websites then you should check this out right now, while there is still a call for public comment.

p.s. I have to admit that a small part of me, honestly a very small part, likes this because I know how much it's going to freak out web designers! :)

Interesting site, talks about standard parameter names for forms IETF ECML (Electronic Commerce Modelling Language).

Apple had $4.53 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments on its balance sheet at the end of the most recent quarter.

from http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=582&ncid=582&e=3&u=/nm/20030424/wr_nm/tech_apple_dc ... quite shocking.