Those of you who follow the tech of F1 closely will be well aware of Craig Scarborough. Craig blogs a lot regarding modern F1 tech, and was the first to publish details about Mercedes’ 2012 DRS-activated blown front wing.

Craig’s writing is always clear and informative, with excellent accompanying technical drawings (sample below).

If you’re not so up on these terms or the ins and outs of modern F1 aero and systems, Craig has started authoring a series on gocar.gr with an excellent introduction into the world of F1 tech.

The first post is about the main components of F1 cars, and the second uncovers what happens inside the car under the covers. Well worth checking out.

Illustration by Scarbs

Passing through Google Reader I noticed some trashy blog post about when its appropriate to take pictures with your iPad (answer: never). This got me thinking.

Why would Apple put the decent quality camera on the back of the device? Why not the front?

I don’t have an iPad with a camera, but I’m pretty certain that if I did have one, I would make most use of the camera on the front – for video calls. Surely that would be a better reason for a nice quality camera? I would argue for no camera on the back, or an essentially useless camera on the back for those who absolutely need it.

There are a number of reasons Apple could have deemed this a bad idea (or the one engineer who thought it up never mentioned it). Firstly it would be larger, and hence would blight the front of the iPad with a horrendous circle (you could put it in the home button perhaps?). No camera on the back would basically be suicide for the device I imagine (but then the original iPad did OK without any camera). I suppose video calls could not have been that popular on iPhone / iPad – perhaps mostly because of stupid carrier restrictions on not using FaceTime™®© over 3G (its not us in the UK’s fault that US carriers decided to boost profits rather than boost network capacity and therefore couldn’t handle it – no such issues over here!). There is also the potential that the increased camera quality would not be translated into better video quality for some other reason (bandwidth / algorithms / processing power limit etc).

I love video calling over the web (over a mobile phone call not so much, mostly due to the stupid prices) so this would be a cool thing to add to improve that experience (especially with the better screen). Perhaps then I may consider switching (but I much prefer Android for now).

Having just got back from Silicon Valley (more on that another time), the inefficiencies and slow pace of just about everything in the UK has now become apparent.

One such example is in academia. Last night I sent some reasonably time critical emails around 6 (15 hours ago) and as of now (9am) they have yet to have a response.

Meanwhile emails from later in the evening have been replied to and resolved before I even woke up.

Note that this is not by any means a reflection on the people doing the emailing. More on the fundamental differences between the work ethics and approach to business between the UK academic / entrepreneurial scene and whats happening in the US.

Update following on from Shirley’s comment below.

I had not intended this post to be negative about one or the other cultures surrounding the work-life balance question that was raised – it was more intended as an interesting observation that I made. (The academic question I mentioned has since been answered, in work hours). As I say in my follow-up comment, work life balances will of course be different depending on where you go. However, as I noted this morning, it was particularly stark for me this morning having the experience in the UK (by all means not one that was unexpected) compared to what happened in the Valley.

It is also interesting how tech journalists in the UK are so quick to compare the UK scene with the Valley, but are not used to just how different the cultures are. In the valley, you don’t take a break – we had one entrepreneur who was running a business all day then came out for dinner with us from 7 to at least 11 two nights in 3 days – and they had a family at home. This rarely happens in the UK. Note this is not a criticism of the UK (or the Valley) – just an observation of their differences. Perhaps the tech journalists would like to work Valley hours, then perhaps they can comment on comparing the UK to the Valley.

Work-life balance is something that I have been, traditionally, absolutely atrocious at. That is not to say that I have not been working on it – for I have, and I feel that I have greatly improved in the past year or so. Still a long way to go though!

iTunes is the worst piece of software ever written (yes, worse than Windows ME).

It is slow. It is ugly. It is not fit for purpose. It makes it incomprehensibly complicated to anything other than the simplest possible action. It takes forever to start, forever to sync, forever to do anything.

I think the main problem is that iTunes was designed to be a music player. Over the years, the iTunes store, iPod syncing, iPad syncing, podcasts, books (Books?! In iTunes?!) apps, Genius, a social network (remember Ping? No, nobody else either), and various other things that should  never have existed in a media player have been bolted on and it’s become a bloated steaming pile of shit.

iTunes Sucks

If I copy a CD to my computer (as I do a lot, as I like buying CDs rather than digital downloads – but that’s another blog post entirely), to get it on my phone (Galaxy Nexus, ICS) I do the following:

• Copy CD to computer
• ???
• Music appears on phone

This is due to the wonder that is Google Music. Its uploader sits in the background on my PC, uploads it to the server, and as soon as it’s there it’s available to play on my phone straight away (or press the “Save for offline” button for use on a plane etc.).

To get it on to my iPad / iPod:

• Copy CD to computer
• Add the new folders to the library (even though I’ve told it where my music library is, because it’s not the default iTunes folder and iTunes did not rip the CD, it does not pick up new music automatically)
• Wait for it to add the files, with a popup box containing an unending progess bar, which stops me using iTunes for anything else at the time
• Dismiss all the duplicate notifications. Note there’s no skip all button if you accidentally try and replace in stuff you already have in the library – you have to click “Don’t replace” every single time.

Clicky clicky clicky....zzzzz

• Wait for it to load album artwork, which always ignores the existing downloaded album art and never seems to find the right album art.

Waiting to add files...

• Go through each album without album art. Right click to find album art. Mostly this works, when it doesn’t you have to find the art, copy it, right click on the album, hit Get Info, and then right click on the white square and paste the image in. Then press OK and wait for it to apply.

Waiting for the broken album art...

• Wait for it to analyse all of the tracks for gapless playback information, which seems to take an eternity. Pretty sure I also have that feature off.

Gapless, which should be off but takes forever

• Plug in iPad / iPod. You can’t choose what music goes on to the device until it is plugged in (WTF?). Clear warning about not having enough space. Take stuff off. Have too much space. Add stuff on.
• Try and sync. Sync fails, not enough space. A mysterious 1.5GB of “Other” has randomly appeared. Remove stuff. Sync.

This is by far the most annoying thing. Popup says not enough space, capacity bar says I've plenty.

• Punch things.

This is very very broken. Something needs to be done about it.

While I admire Apple’s hardware, their software has always been absolutely terrible. Quicktime – I need say no more. OS X is basically unusable.  iTunes isn’t fit for purpose. iOS is so slow it seems like it’s running on a steam engine.

Just had a phone call from a “London based head hunting agency”. Sounds dangerous.

They proceeded to ask me about my current work situation and whether they could help me find a job. I politely declined, telling them I am completely busy at the moment and I am perfectly capable of finding myself a job if I were to require one now or in the future.

Failing to take this hint, they enquired as to my current work situation, for the express purpose of potentially getting in touch later. I told them that they should do their research first: a simple Google search of my name would give you probably everything you needed to know and more about my work situation at the moment. I then told them (again) that I do not require their help. They hung up rudely.

They clearly took my advice: a few seconds later a LinkedIn invite appeared for someone from a London based head hunting agency. I reported it as spam.

Here are some tips for recruiters looking to get in touch:

• Read On Communication. It’s only short and will tell you that phoning me isn’t a great idea. I won’t call you back if you miss me and there is an overwhelming probability that you will interrupt me doing something important (contrary to popular belief I do not have the time or will to sit around doing nothing at any point in the day).
• Do your research. Here’s my LinkedIn. Here’s some search results for my name (if you can’t pick out the right person you’re in the wrong job). Congratulations, you’ve already found my website. If you’re going to interrupt me at least have a damned good idea who I am before you do it. If you have a good idea who I am (and you are capable of reading the previous bullet point) then you won’t call me to begin with.
• Don’t add me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn says: “Important: Only invite people you know well and who know you.” Note: a rude phone call interrupting me and trying to get information out of me that is already available online does not in any way constitute me knowing you. I will simply report you as spam. This will prevent you contacting me in the future, unless you can figure out my e-mail address (which is not rocket science either – if you can’t do that either you’re still in the wrong job).
• You can send me a LinkedIn message.

Thanks to the person that phoned me this morning for reminding me to write this post. No thanks to them for wasting 15 minutes of my time.

Update: It appears this person called at least one of the companies I do some work for and tried to talk to me using the age-old “I’m calling about a delivery”. If you try that I will never talk to you again and take great care to instruct everybody I possibly can to avoid you as much as possible.