bumptop is no more

For those who do not know about it, Bumptop is software to create a three dimensional desktop on your computer. There are windows and mac versions, well there were. At the start of May the company was bought by Google and the software has now been withdrawn and is no longer being supported.

The mac version lets me lasso together files into piles, pin up material on virtual cubicle walls, and employs a physics engine so that items 'bump' into each other. Though I have never found the 'bump' effect to be particularly noticeable.

There was a ted talk on bumptop, and they have clearly had a lot of venture capital funding as they have been working away for a while now, with only a discretionary charge for the pro version.

Bumptop is a marmite product. You either love it or hate it. It will inevitably slow down your computer and it is just a metaphor on top of the desktop metaphor. It only applies to the very top-most desktop, so you don't actually see or work with it much. Personally I find it a useful way to organise my desktop and to date have been happy to live with the inevitable slowing of initial boot-ups.

It is difficult to figure out what Google have bought, presumably they are not going to keep Bumptop going as the same sort of product, a desktop enhancement, but it seems unlikely that any existing patents would be so wide ranging as to cover entirely new devices on which it could be installed. Even if Google think it is the best thing since sliced bread, why buy it when you could just copy it.

In any event a lot of mac users hate it, and mac users are far more attracted to eye-candy than PC users, perhaps Google think that this is the way to add an iPhone like tactile appeal to their devices?

Anyway, I am sorry that Bumptop is no longer being supported, I enjoy using it, and would have liked to see it develop further.

The girl who kicked the hornets' nest by Stieg Larsson

The third and probably the final book in this sequence of books.

Of all the books it was probably the hardest to get into, I was struggling to get caught up in it, but the plot hit me a curve-ball and I was hooked. As before this is an unconventional thriller, which takes an unusually uncynical view of those in high office. As soon as many of these senior politicians have the circumstances explained to them, they immediately agree that the rights of a girl cannot be infringed thereby joining the side of the good and smug.

Probably not quite as overpoweringly smug as the second book, but once against Blomkvist proves sexually irrestistable to women, while Salander effortlessly hacks and fights her way through a ruthless set of conspirators.

Having said all that, it is good escapist fun, well enough written not to be annoying and plotted with all the precision of a swiss watch.

I will miss Salander, she is an engaging heroine.

The girl who played with fire by Stieg Larsson

Book two out of three in this series. Incredibly readable, one of those books that is hard to put down, so it seems to just read itself. A slightly different beast from the first book, the story develops itself while remaining true to the earlier one.

I would not defend this is the greatest book ever written, it is shallow and at times incredibly smug, the lead characters never seem to doubt themselves or let anyone down. For me the end dragged a bit, oddly I was most gripped when the least seemed to be happening. Also you really do need to read these books in sequence.

Highly recommended despite all these caveats, though judging by the bookshops and all the people with copies, there cannot be many folk left who have not read it. Also by far the best cover of the series!

9 basic principles of biomimicry

credited to http://www.fontshop.com/blog/?p=2286

garden

The sun finally came out late afternoon, so I started off watering all my plants in pots, and ended up spending an hour or two in the garden. I really did not make too much impact on the garden last year, so there is a lot to be done this year. The usual garden stuff like weeding, a lot of outdoors maintenance like painting stuff, and putting some more felt on a shed roof. I'd also like to plant up some bits, some bits are still empty, or underused, and some are newly vacated due to winter fatalities or I've just got fed up with them.

After the winter, there does not seem much point in going for anything too exotic, and after a few years of gardening I am starting to get a feel for what will grow with thuggish vigour and what is far more delicate. I would like to get the garden to be as low maintenance as it can be, while offering plenty of edibles, while still being nature friendly and attractive.

Because the soil is such heavy clay, jobs that might be quite simple with a lighter soil, are an absolute fight with the clay. It also takes a long time to get the heavy clay broken up enough to give most plants much of a chance.

Managed a bit of weeding, ground elder is creeping in from one corner, and there is something with thick roots in the vegetable patch. The best defence against weeds just seems to be getting in, pulling them out, breaking up the soil and getting stuff planted. I might be tempted to take the nuclear option and put down some weedkiller and some membrane, both of which I have resisted to date.

I have a little hedge of sorts along one side, with a mix of different shrubs. This sounds like a good idea, but in practice some grow very quickly, like the laurel and broom, while others are more sedate. There was a poorly rhodendron at one end, and it failed completely leaving a gap. I've got a blackcurrent to fill the gap, so that went in this afternoon. Because of the lawn on one side, and tree stumps, the soil has never really been broken up properly, so it is always a bit of a lottery putting anything in. The risk being that it will just sit in a cold wet bucket of compost, surrounded on all sides by clammy clay that won't let it drain.

I've also been ripping out a little border at the front. It consists of a honeysuckle, some lavender, some bulbs, a dill that comes back every year and an awful lot of lesser celandine. It is really a woodland edge type of habitat, the lavender was not happy it was struggling to get out into the sun. I'll leave in the dill and honeysuckle and clear out everything else. Time to hit the books and figure out what would be happy there. Something scented would be nice, as it is under a window. Some ferns have seeded themselves, always a clue as to what wants to be there. I might go for some more ferns.

Part of the pleasure of occassional gardening is the sheer joy of pottering. Having a look round and seeing something you could do here, and something that you could do there. Doing something here or there. Nothing terribly organised or systematic. If I manage to spend some more time in my garden this year, and move it forward then this will be a good year.

boo hoo by Ernst Malmsten, Erik Potanger, and Charles Drazin

This is the story of boo the internet fashion retailer that grew and crashed in the 18 months to May 2000. I vaguely remember boo, I went to their website once out of curiosity. It featured virtual sales assistant, but mainly I remember that it took an age to download and was too glitchy to use

This is one of the most purely entertaining books I have read recently. In breathless prose Malmsten describes working up the idea, the rounds of finding capital investors, and burning through £135 million. He had the misfortune of setting out to raise capital in a rising market where getting investors was easy, with the market shifting to one that remembered what fundamentals were.

These were the self styled brightest and the best. Where did they go wrong?

Difficult to say, it depends on how reliable a narrator Malmsten is, I suspect that he was more flaky than he makes out, they all worked long hours, but that is not the same as working effectively. They did all get blindsided by a large number of obvious problems, technical problems, too fast a burn rate on their capital, lack of leadership and strategic decision making. On the other hand they seem to have been effective in addressing issues, able to create and harness enthusiasm, able to cope with considerable complexity.

Maybe he was too caught up in the celebrity culture, knocking back endless vodka and grapefruits, turning up drunk to one too many meetings, too reactive when he should have been proactive.

When I finished the book I checked things out on Google, what had Malmsten done since, helping out someone selling handbags, the short interview mentioned how much he likes to party. There was website set up by an aggreived supplier who never got paid. And an archived version of the website,

it took ages to load the first page, it was quite pretty,

the second page was still loading when I gave up on it

mopping up

I'll try and mop up a few things with this blog posting.

Why don't they get the people who make film trailers make the whole film. I've been sorely dissappointed by pretty much every recent film I've seen. The trailers have been superb. But the films, long, dull, poor endings. All the best stuff crammed into two minutes of trailer, and everything else in the film is pretty much inferior.

Maybe this worked in the past when you only saw a trailer once, so you did not really remember it, but now you can watch a trailer any number of times, so you are well familiar with it by the time that you see the film.

Fortunately there seem to be a plethora of classic films coming out on DVD at the moment, so I'm ordering some cult films for my viewing pleasure. Recently seen Ghost Dog, and Kings of the Road.

The sun is out, at last. Time to get back out into the garden. Creeping ground elder is taking over one corner of my garden, so I might need to disregard my principles and apply weedkiller to avoid the whole place being taken over with it. I'm also stepping down from some community work. I've done it for three years, and at about half a day a week, it is really too much to fit in. The garden has been sorely neglected for a few years now, and it would be nice to just free up a bit of time at the weekends. Lately things have been an awful dash.

I've been doing my best to be organised, and I'm making progress on things, but there just seem to be too few hours in the day to get everything done.