Sony Vaio P

Look here.

If the question is "Sexier than the Eee girl?", then the answer is surely yes!

Congratulations James!

Congratulations to my hugely talented brother James who has just been appointed as the Executive Producer at the Donmar Warehouse. (See also here and here.) To quote Micheal Grandage:

James has been the most wonderful collaborator and a great spokesman for the Donmar since he joined us. He is, without doubt, one of the most exciting new producers to emerge in recent years. His expertise, energy and enthusiasm are a wonderful addition to the Donmar’s core Executive, and I’m thrilled he has been offered the post as we look ahead to the next few years of our development.

I'm very proud. (As one of my colleagues put it: "So he's the successful one then".)

Functional Programming - Tipping point

Has functional programming finally reached the tipping point? I don't know but here's a good sign: it is on the front cover of Dr Dobbs this month. [Slightly strange that the first language they mention is Scala. However they do discuss my current preferred language, F#; and God's own language: Haskell.]

MSR Products

Microsoft Research has recently started selling some of its research software as real products. One of the first was AutoCollage that was developed by guys here in MSR Cambridge. This is a very nice tool - I have a collage of the girls on my office wall generated by the beta version.

The latest product is SongSmith. This is a very cute app that automatically generates musical accompaniment to a vocal line (supplied by you!). The demo video is very neat. The girls would love this!

Both are available at credit-crunch-prices (TM): $19 for AutoCollage and $29 for SongSmith (although the website wouldn't let me buy SongSmith five minutes ago - probably still being updated...).

Zune bug

Turns out that the problem that froze everyone's Zune 30 is down to a schoolboy programming bug :-(

My colleague, Byron Cook's terminator tool would have found this bug. Shame more people aren't using it!

Dinner party

Last night we went to a lovely dinner party at Lucy (winner of the Ian Charleson Award in 1996) and David's. The highlights were:

• The food! Starter: Spicy prawns and spring rolls. Main: Meat and Vegetarian chilli with salad and garlic bread. Desert: Pavlova and Chocolate and Chestnut Torte. Yum!
• Judith's confession that she got in trouble with her headmaster for mis-behaving on Songs of Praise.
• The Kennedys are on youtube!
• The amazing details associated with sexual hygiene products.
• The best business card job title: "R&D, toilet products - solids and liquids".

A great evening.

Worst film ever

Whilst in Slovenia, we tend to watch whatever film is on that's in English. It's a bit of a lottery: this trip I enjoyed Matchstick Men. However, I think I did watch the Worst Film Ever (TM): Meet the Santas. Unspeakably awful...