I’ve just read the Eight Best Films Of 2009: According to Simon Dillon. Unfortunately, I’ve only seen 3 of them.

So, the following need to go on the must-see list: The Hurt Locker, Up and A Christmas Carol. And, if we can stomach the relentless depression of A Serious Man, or the sci-fi of District 9, those too.

Anyone reading this will be at least fairly familiar with the internet, and has learned to use wrestle with a computer. Some geeks like me are somewhat of a black belt at wrestling, and enjoy the experience. But most people aren’t like that.

They just want a computer to be invisible. They want the answers to their searches to be visible. They want to see all the photos they took on holiday last year. They don’t want to worry about files or viruses or updates or even the applications themselves.

Yes, the iPad is in some ways just a large iPod Touch. But the most intriguing part of the announcement to me was that Apple have ported the iWork suite to it. (For non-Apple types, that’s the equivalent of Word, Excel and Powerpoint.) These are real get-business-done applications, not ‘mere’ video players or music players, or tip calculators, or neat games. (I mean no disrespect here: several billion app downloads show they are entertaining and/or useful, but they’re not what most office or lab or creative types use in their work.)

From what little I could see from the on-stage demos, Apple have managed to do away with the ubiquitous File/Edit/View menus. And more importantly, it seems, even the concept of files and folders themselves. If I have this right, this is showing us a new paradigm of computing. One where we don’t need to wrestle with learning the black magic of precisely ‘where’ things are stored inside the computer. And then re-learning it for different applications, and re-learning it again when you have to upgrade something. This is a future where you need to know less about computers, and in some ways you can’t fiddle around as much. The geeks will lose out, but the ‘normal’ user will only gain.

Old World vs. New World Computing is a post that takes this same idea, and explains and expands on it very clearly.

2009 was made possible, or made more fun, with help from the following:

And, for the record, some numbers:

• 16,500 miles in the car, fuelled by CoffeeNation and Werthers Originals (for the drivers!)
• 1,100 miles walking Monty the dog (almost all by Martha)
• 110 miles running (Jonathan), helped by Nike+, and music from the iPod
• Jonathan was reading 120 different blogs that averaged 1,500 posts a month between them.
• Jonathan wrote 85 posts on this blog, and a similar number on his work blog with a much larger readership

Happy New Year 2010 (photo credit: ayeb at deviantart)

“Aim at nothing, and you’re sure to hit it.”

With that quote in mind, we’ve been thinking about what we want to be working towards in 2010. We thought we’d write them down to help make us more aware of them. And why not share them here, too?

Martha’s aims are

• read 50 books (not counting books of the Bible!)
• lose 3 stone in weight
• establish Parish Nursing in the Whadoon/Priors/Lynworth parts of Cheltenham
• arrange a Reunion for the nurses she trained with
• become more creative in her Card-Making
• walk 10,000 steps a day
• rejoin the library and stop buying so many novels
• start doing some Running again (perhaps!).

Jonathan’s aims are

• spend more time praying
• be more creative: doing more design work for voluntary organisations, or learning some metalwork
• continue his running, and take part in another race or two
• cycle to work much more
• bring down his cholesterol level, which is way too high, despite exercise
• play the piano a lot more this year, particularly working on jazz
• find at least 10 geocaches
• get back to doing some more preaching in the next academic year
• read all of the New Testament, most of the Old Testament, plus at least 6 secular fiction and 6 non-fiction books (easy to do if I finish all the books I have started in the last few years, ahem)

Together we want to continue seeing more of the family, reorganise our study/office space at home, do some decoration in the house, and continue laughing more.

We’ll post again to see how we did at the end of the year …

The rather amazing Information is Beautiful site has another great visualisation: this time on Climate Change Skeptics vs. The Scientific Consensus. It appears well researched and balanced, and partly answers the current controversy over the leaked emails from climate scientists.

Now that we’ve got Monty-the-dog, we don’t have space for a big real tree. So we thought we’d create one to hang on the wall. After a week of making, it’s now hanging in the lounge …

If people are interested I’ll post a description of how I made it, including photos along the way. But, as a hint, the main parts are acrylic paint, a 30″x20″ canvas, a string of fairy lights, a cardboard box and half a roll of sellotape. Enjoy!

The roundabout at the bottom of the road had a makeover a few months ago. We didn’t realise that the time, but the up-market Hotel on the Park a few blocks away then kindly decided to sponsor a large Christmas Tree on it. And add lots of bright red lights. It was a most lovely festive surprise. Best wishes to all at the Park for your thoughtfulness.

(You can see where they got the idea and colour scheme from … here’s a shot of the front of the Hotel.)

I’ve just had a great day off: started with full English breakfast with Mike in town, then doing some techy work on the video display system in church, then going to see Jo + John in Birmingham, seeing their new office, and then having lunch at good pub. Their Winter Tale dark ale was sweet and very drinkable. By the time we’d chatted after that we needed a latte/mocha on Harborne High St, before heading home. And the kids cooked for us, as we picked them up from the station.

The only slight disappointment was that we’d run out of time to visit Sharon McSwiney’s studio in Bransford, just off the M5 on the way home. We saw some of her decorative metalwork at the Cheltenham Craft Market on Saturday, and were keen to see more as we want to replace an old painting in the living room. I’ll need another day off …

(This pic is one of her recent creations. Wish I could create like that!)

Reading the Fairtrade Foundation’s newsletter, I noticed

All espresso-based drinks sold in Starbucks in the UK are Ireland are now Fairtrade.

Good news! I can now relax my boycott of Starbucks … though I still will prefer to find independent coffee shops, as the taste is likely to be better. Not that I’m often in a coffee shop other than the one at work.

It also notes that Morrisons’ ground and roast coffee is also all now Fairtrade. Good for them too, but there’s no Morrisons near us.

Looks strange so far, but see more pictures and the fully story at iconeye, and you’ll see its brilliance.