HMS Daring - Portsmouth

The first Type 45 was handed over this week from sea trials. The first new ship into the Royal Navy this century - this says a lot. They are only due to build 6 of these ships (down from the original 12), they sound very capable - but time will tell.

Portsmouth out of the FA cup

Beaten 2-0 at home by Swansea City. The holders are out of the cup, what a difference a year can make.

Trident Replacement

An interesting discussion in the week about the point of replacing the British nuclear deterrent. Some ex-service chiefs have come out and said the weapon of last resort, would in fact never be used as a last resort so what is the point in spending the money to replace it? Also the fact that we could never truly use it independently and we would only do so with the combined action of America.

The best argument I heard for keeping it was that the money saved is in fact a small percentage of the defence budget over the many years the investment would be made (it gets quoted at about £18bn). Hence the money saved would unlikely be reinvested into more urgent forms of defence by the government of the day. The other argument are weaker, and are based around "seats at the high table" - which in today's world is nonsense.

I think there is a case for scaling down, 4 submarines all of which do not have any other role other than to sit in dock and wait out at sea is probably too much. Why not 4 submarines, two fitted for the role, and two fitted with something we would more likely use like a cruise missle boat - the extra two could be converted back in a world of a higher nuclear threat.

CES Keynote

I watched the keynote last year from Microsoft. I thought I should watch this year with the arrival of Ballmer in place of the stepped down Gates. They both sound extremely similar, a rather high pitched voice - maybe that is a trait of where they are from.

The presentation was all about the convergence of PC, mobile, and TV. A common theme in recent years and everyone in the industry is probably dreading the day that Microsoft finally gets it right.

There are some signs of that, but also some signs of a misfiring monolith. The highlights I could see were:

1. Windows Live - a demo of the new desktop, to us this is Vista when they should have shipped it, but of course it is touted as all new.
2. Touch interface, maybe this will be big - it looked a bit clumsy in demo (small icons, needing precise fingers) and the globe application shown is probably one of the few that would benefit.
3. Server did not get a mention, replaced by the ubiquitous "cloud" phrase - they really could do with disowning this!
4. Easier Home networking, if they've done this right it is not a moment too soon.
5. A rather enlightened data, application, device mantra. Not like them at all, but I don't believe I'll get my data if I stop using their application!
6. Some strange stats on usage of things. Zune 2 million, 10 million unique media centre downloads per month. Only 20 million Windows phones sold. MediaRoom only 2.5 million worldwide. This all sounds lightweight.
7. Xbox 360 makes up for this, 28 million units, now at the right price point, live service doing well - they have got this right and will reap the rewards.

All in all not a bad presentation, but just at the end as Ballmer began to talk about Moore's law turning from processor speed to number of cores and a shift in how software was written - my Silverlight plugin stopped working! Let's not get ahead of ourselves Microsoft.

Insurance - the quoting game

I had to renew by buildings and contents cover for another year. Of course the existing insurer had written to me with their "offer". This offer seemed very expensive (doesn't it always?) - so I went direct to who they were insuring from and got an offer £200 cheaper.

In the past the original insurer would ring up and ask why I was not renewing. When I say I got a cheaper offer they would say "we could have done cheaper".

What a racket! I would make it law that the quote an insurer makes cannot change once it has been issued - so essentially their first quote must be their best quote right from the start!

There's bound to be some Freakonomics problem to this, but it would cut down blatant profiteering.

Return to Guildford Dec 2008

First post of this year, but something I did in December last year. I studied in Guildford and have returned infrequently. I always forget the last time that I have, mainly because the time between visits is years.

So a bit of Christmas shopping and a walk over campus to the cathedral. Most famous for appearing in "The Omen", but for me the place I had my graduation.

Some things had changed, some things were very familiar - it was a nice trip.

I even took a camera phone picture of the catherdral, of the steep steps I used to walk up of a Sunday night when returning for a week of work.