The free iPhone WordPress application in the app store is an indispensible tool in the war on blog posting.
(No?not a war against posting – the war to getting around to posting. Anytime, anywhere. )
There’s a new version out that adds the ability to moderate comments and edit pages. Now, if they could just make entering HTML formatting a little easier…
Still, if you have an iPhone and a WordPress blog, this is a fun tool.
For once, my kids undertook a “project” that resulted in exactly what they said they were going to do.
They said there were going to turn James’ room into a zoo…
Primeval returns for a third series!
Synopsis
The episode starts with a new member of the military (Captain Becker) being added to the ARC team. His job, keep them from getting killed like poor ol’ Steven.
Meanwhile, at the British Museum, an anomaly appears and a prehistoric crocodilian (Pristichampsus) kills one of the employees. Cutter’s team arrives and meets the new woman on the team, Dr. Sarah Page, who works at the museum. The croc escapes to the Thames with Cutter and Abby in hot pursuit.
Lester has got his hands full, too. He’s got a new… boss… or liason… or something at the Home Office, named Christine Johnson. He doesn’t like her and there’s even a hint it might once have been romantic. She’s got some secret military stuff going on with fighting the future bat creatures, and a mysterious artifact that they failed to retrieve.
Conner and Dr. Page investigate the anomaly, which is sealed inside a magnetite Egyptian statue. Not only do they discover that magnetite can somehow trap an anomaly (and move it) but that electricity can somehow “lock” the anomaly down for a period of time.
After some heroics, the croc returns to the anomaly to go home. For a few moments, it looks like there’s going to be bloodshed, but then Page suggests that they all bow, like the Egyptians would have, and the creature leaves peaceably.
Cutter realizes that some mythology may have been influenced by anomalies and so Page joins the team to research past anomalies.
As the episode ends, we learn that Helen Cutter is still out to cause problems, and that she and her crew of clone soldiers retrieved the mysterious artifact and now posses it… even though she doesn’t know what it is. It’s further revealed that the British soldiers that had been trying to retrieve the artifact were operating through an anomaly, somewhere in the future.
Analysis
It’s good to have Primeval back on the air. This is a show that a both absolutely love the premise and detest some of the gross gaps in logic in the screenplay. The second series was an absolute train-wreck of illogical plot lines.
In this, the first episode of series three, there wasn’t much plot, really, and so there wasn’t much to pick on. I’m not sure if I’m pleased or disappointed.
I do have a few observations: Even if she’s still Jennifer Lewis, it’s good to see the character now back to looking, dressing and acting like the first series’ Claudia Brown. It seems like they might even being trying to bring back Cutter’s romance with her, but of course, work got in the way in this episode. It seems that now she knows about Claudia Brown, whereas in series two, even though Cutter tried telling people, they kept acting like he’d never told them.
Cutter seriously needs a haircut this year. Perhaps he can lend some to Abby who needs to grow some back.
It’s good to see that Helen Cutter finally changed her clothes. That half-torn, bust-augmenting jungle gear just didn’t make sense when she’d be back in our time driving cars and such.
I suppose when they started searching the British Museum at night there was a good reason that Job One wasn’t to turn on the lights? Can’t think of one, though. Most people search for things better in bright light rather than flashlights.
I’m a little disappointed that, knowing the anomalies are magnetic, they hadn’t tested their responses to simple magnets.
Conner’s plan to “block off” the anomaly using all those boxes or artifacts at the British Museum was a little cavalier with things which we no doubt fragile and potentially priceless. I can’t see the military tossing them around and stacking them up as the did.
The dumbest idea may actually have the most interesting concept. Page demonstrates that the Egyptians thought the crocs coming from the anomaly were the god Ammut. The dumb part is that she convinces everyone to bow to the croc because they are no doubt used to being worshipped by the Egyptians. It works, and it leaves them alone. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
What’s interesting about that idea is the notion that time does not run parallel on either side of the anomaly. It’s been over 3,000 years since the Egyptians were worshipping Ammut, so if time ran parallel 3,000 years would also have elapsed in the Paleocene, too. If that were the case, the crocs wouldn’t be conditioned to people bowing. Of course, that’s no real surprise. We already knew that the “back ends” of the anomalies weren’t fixed, since revealed in Cutter’s first series, non-linear excursions into the Permian era demonstrated.
Still… it’s good that it back on the air. It’s something to do for the next few weeks.
I just watched the Apple presentation on the iPhone OS 3.0 and I was amazed at how lame the reaction of the crowd was.
While they oohed and aahed over cut-and-paste, the practically slept through the most significant change to the iPhone and maybe even computing as we know it.
With iPhone OS 3.0, you can attach an iPhone to a third-party device via cable (and other means) and read and control data from it! You know have an actual field computer that can acquire data. Yes, the examples given were a pair of speakers that you can control the equalizer with, a blood pressure measure that tracks you blood pressure and a blood sugar meter for diabetics, and those were rather yawn-inducing.
But the fact that you can extract data and control a device opens up a whole new universe for the iPhone.
I’m sure there’ll be limitations, like Apple-approved cables only, but there are so many potential implications where someone could simply “dock” their iPhone with a device for a few moments, collect all the data it has, perhaps update it, do calculations – you know, all the things you can do with a computer.
The first thought that comes to mind are reading the data ports on automobiles. Yes, you can buy a device that does that already, and you have to buy the right one for you car, and it reads diagnostic codes, extracts MPG performance, emissions and other information.
Of course, there are data cables to attach that to a laptop, too. But isn’t that technology oh-so-much more accessible on your cell phone?
It’s a game changer. It’s absolutely the biggest new feature in iPhones OS 3.0
This weekend is the Aloha Festival and, unlike previous years, this year it is being held at the so-called Tempe Beach Park. (Definition of Tempe Beach: a huge cement slab positioned near a horrid man-made lake.)
Still, the park itself is green, if lacking shade, and large, which easily accompdated the large crowds.
The park is also a block or so from the Light Rail, which makes it convenient if you want to ride rather than park in downtown Tempe.
The downside is that it was 53 minutes there from the 19th Ave & Camelback station.
I like the train, but that is too long on those hard-as-nails seats.
The festival is alright, but mostly an excuse to get vilovilo chicken, so I’ll just say the chicken was really good and leave it at that.
It was my first time to disembark at the Mill & 3rd station in Tempe. They need to do some work on that one. Traffic is brought completely to a stop in all directions and yet somehow pedestrians are left stranded on the train platform. This happened both when we arrived and when we were departing.
By and large the vast majority of people tired of waiting and crossed illegally. The strange part is: there was just no way traffic could have interacted with them, so why the No Walk signal?
The ride back was worse because I got to stand for nearly the whole trip. Almost made me long for the harder-than-nails seats.
Perhaps a trip to Tempe is just a bit too far. Next time we’ll use it for a trip to Heritage Square for the Asian Festival. That’s only 27 minutes from station to station.
Addendum: (3/14/2009) – One advantage to the train ride was I had time to write and publish that post entirely on the train while standing there. But something happened when we arrived at the departure station that makes me ask, “how am I supposed to teach my young children traffic safety when the train seems hellbent on forcing me not to?”
I mentioned that at the Tempe stop, the lights for the pedestrians were so grossly screwed up that most everyone just jaywalked across the street. It was completely safe, and, had I not had my kids there, I would have crossed and thought nothing more than, “man, what lousy traffic lights.”
The same happened again at 19th an Camelback. (See illustration, which is, sadly, so out-of-date that neither the park and ride nor the train station are visible.)
Like most of the stations, it is positioned in the middle of two-way traffic, just off to one side of a major intersection. Access is via the existing crosswalk at the intersection. I’d hazard to say that most of the others have no access at the far end of the station. This station; however, is different because of the park-and-ride. It has a one-side-of-the-street-only crosswalk to get you into the park and ride. The crosswalk has a light to stop traffic – only activated when someone hits the button.
We got off the train, and several people headed with us towards this backside crosswalk. I was there first, and hit the button. There was no traffic. The light didn’t change. East-bound traffic was completely blocked by the light at the intersection. There was no way traffic could enter the street between the intersection and the crosswalk. Still it didn’t change. More people arrived, they waited a few, observed the situation and walked across the street anyway. I can hardly blame them, but I’m trying to teach my children to obey the traffic laws. (When they’re older, they need to learn a certain amount of discretion, but for now, I want them to err on the side of caution.)
Still the light didn’t change. More people crossed. This time a couple with a baby in a stroller. We stood at this light fully 4-5 minutes. I watched them walk to their car, pack up their stroller and prepare to leave. Then, the east-bound intersection light changed to green and traffic began to flow.
Just as it reached the crosswalk, the light turned red and let us cross.
Whoever setup that traffic light, is an idiot.
