Yesterday I had a good walk in the sun - cool but pleasant - down to John for our coffee. We had not had a coffee for a few weeks, so this was a coffee renewal so to speak. We explored the in and outs of various tablet types, net books seems to be off the menu, while some tablets are too restricted.
Apple can’t connect to the outside world with a buss, while only the pro version of Microsoft lets me load the software that I use. These are what I call ‘designer fundamentalisms’, which I recognise from my time at Space Optic (1970-73) in Bells Corners, ON .
There I ran into this attitude of how things ought to be and to which users just had to adept, like it or not. When designers don’t want to do something, they will blackmail you a bit with ‘it won’t work properly’ and ‘don’t hold it against me’.
Enough said, John gave me a net reference to look up some of the ins and outs on tablets and I’ll stop by for a look at London drugs, where I have to buy some printer ink anyway.
On my walk home from coffee yesterday I stopped at ShelfLifeBooks, where I seduced myself into buying Ian Buruma’s book “Year Zero”. As a practiced historian he tells about the politics, human experiences and shenanigans that went on in the year 1945 from the time of surrender to that year’s end.
And … since he has/had a Dutch father, there are little details in the book that are of special interest to me, as I lived through that year zero being nine years old myself. An example of little known detail regards the battle for Arnhem‘s bridge over the Rhine river, where Montgomery proceeded knowing German tanks were waiting for the paratroopers at the North bridge head!