“I’m sorry, it’s never done that before.”

Yes, from the mighty Space Truckers, where Charles Dance plays a delightfully over the top cyborg Space Pirate and the important parts of his male anatomy have been replaced by a chainsaw engine. Unfortunatly he’s been in space a while, and no matter how many times he pulls the ripcord to start the engine, it never catches. And at that point, he looks at the damsel in distress on his king sized bed and utter the immortal line.

And now every time the RSC trained Dance comes on the screen, I can’t forget his inability to get started over Debi Mazar.

In the end I did take it, partly as a massive file storage for TV episodes and films to watch (via the PSP) and so I’d have a full editing suite if I decided to do any recording. How many media files did I transfer? Three. How much editing did I do? None. Saying that, I was still happy I had the laptop with me, mainly because that far from home it provided a safety net and a bit more redundancy.

But will I need that in Paris at the Le Web conference? Nope. To be honest for the regular conference attendee and traveller there’s so much you can do with the smaller computers and netbooks that are available that I’ve no hesitation in turning towards by Ubuntu powered Asus Netbook for the Parisian distraction. It’s good for blogging and Twitter interaction, plus a touch of web browsing. If called on to do a presentation; Open Office will handle the slides; and with the spare battery I carry I know I can reach out to nine hours of operation with careful use of the processor throttle and intermittent Wi-fi use. There may well be power and RJ45 supplied but I’d hate to rely on that (although given I’m one of many invited bloggers I think it’s safe to say Geraldine will be on top of that issue as well).

Actually forget all that. The perfect computer for Le Web would be an up-gunned ZX81 Psion Series 5mx running Firefox and a decent blogging client – ultra portable, long battery life, not too heavy or bulky to carry, discrete when in ‘walk and talk‘ conference mode, but a machine still able to do everything a super sized laptop could do.

Just a shame that a modern version doesn’t exist…

Throughout the event, as people coded little coffee cups, pretend musical bottles on iPhones and bluetooth powered orchestras, by the stage was the sound of hammering, sawing and general DIY noises with lots of wood, nails and curtain fabric. As I explained to everyone, the team (Leeky, Rachel, Joanna and myself) were building a Holodeck – but thanks to health and safety it had to be inside a Faraday Cage… hence the construction. You can read more on the construction and background on the project here.

Thanks to everyone for their advice on how to improve the holodeck projection, but also a huge thank you to Matthew Cashmore for the other health and safety bits, and Daniel Appelquist for trusting his instinct and giving us free reign to create a hack that needed a little more than 90 seconds to present it and a stage clear of everyone else.

So grab a coffee and put your feet up. This is the presentation that stunned the  #ota09 audience into seven minutes of Twitter silence… Project Holodeck!

This week, it’s the most recognisable Eurovision act in many a year…

Lordi monstered over the 2006 contest before they even won the Finnish National Final. From a country that had consistently sent folk songs and traditional music that never troubled the upper reaches of the scoring table, the latex mask, theatrical performance and unrestrained power chord charged energy that Lordi brought to the stage shocked traditional Eurovision fans back into their twirly Bucks Fizz skirts.

Meanwhile the Finnish metal fans had a mission. A secret mission. To vote harder, faster and stronger than everyone else in the Nordic country and get their music on stage in Greece.

The full review of the album is on Boom Bang a Blog, and you can buy Lordi’s "The Arockalypse" from Amazon.

Download audio file (tpn_psp_20091102_108.mp3)

MP3 File – Show Notes – RSS Feed – iTunes Link

So after a little bit longer than I expected (or hoped) it’s time for a hands on review of the Sony PSP Go. I’ve avoided many of the issues already discussed in the show and focussed on the hardware and what the PSP Go (or the PSP-N1000 if you trust the label) can actually do.

It’s a nice machine, but nice doesn’t always win the race. Listen to the show to find out my thoughts, and to get the latest news and views on the Sony Playstation Portable world.

Don’t forget to join The PSP Show’s Facebook Group, which can be found here) I’ll be drawing a raffle prize for one lucky member of the group when we pass 100 fans, so sign up now! Or you can listen and subscribe to the show in Apple’s iTunes – and leave your own review there as well.

Can your iPhone survive on the utterly massive 750MB/month that Orange will offer you?

O2 initially advertised the iPhone as being unlimited with a fair use cap on it, but before launch they sensibly changed their mind and said unlimited is unlimited, and we want iPhone users to use the device as intended, i.e. always connected.

The other UK network shave not been waiting patiently to get the iPhone, they know it’s a customer driver. But this is pretty  much the definition of fail from Orange. And i suspect they’ll pick up a lot of flak for this.

In the run up to the event, some of the video team behind Click and Tech-Know on the BBC started a conversation with me on getting some coverage from the event. That’s now been posted online over at the BBC News Technology section, along with some words from me on my favourite projects and the ethos behind the event.

Take as many mobile phone developers, hackers and builders that you can find; put them in The Great Hall at Imperial College; add a liberal helping of heavyweight companies talking about new tools, developer aids and techniques to program mobile phones during the day; then challenge them to come up with “something new”. Leave this to simmer as hackers work through the night and have everyone present their new programs to the rest of the conference the next day.
Read on at BBC News

I have to say I’m impressed with the video footage and what the team have done with it, but again it shows just how much work is needed to get multimedia out of an event in terms of set-up, lighting, sound, story and all the other bits and pieces they never tell beginers about! Anyway my video and the Project Holodeck presentation will be up sometime this week.

I was a big fan of this title when it arrived on the original N-Gage, so to have a mobile version again makes my heart skip along. Of course it’s on a different platform, so what happened Nokia? DId someone roll a seven and put the robber on your games catalogue? One for an AAS editorial in the near future I think.

After just one more game…

There’s not one thing that I want to bring to your attention. There’s not been one massive single incident that I can point and say that’s the tipping point (although I’m about to point out two or three areas). But let’s be honest here… British Airways really is sliding down the pan.

I’m sure that you’ll be able to point out some of the new innovations when this is put to you (such as the London City to JFK route on BA001 which I think is a lovely yet out of reach for me idea, or the re-opening of the Heathrow to Las Vegas route), but my experiences with BA over the last few years is like descending a new level with Dante every flight.

Let me tell you about my recent journey to Las Vegas. I flew BA from Edinburgh to Heathrow T5 before switching to your OneWorld partner American Airlines for the transatlantic and Domestic US portion. It was a similar story coming back. I’m not a businessman, I travel steerage, but I know how it all works, and I can retain OneWorld Sapphire each year – admittedly through American’s AAdvantage rather than BA’s Executive Club. You might wonder why I get more benefit from a US company’s Frequent Flyer program than yours, or why I deliberately choose to fly American on the transatlantic portion rather than your airline?

Simply because I don’t want to expose myself to BA any longer than I have to.

The A319 aircraft now flying the domestic route I use are cramped beyond belief. The seat pitch is smaller than almost any other regular carrier, and I’m pretty sure the headrest to headrest size is smaller still . Unlike any other carrier I feel like I’m squeezing into these seats and wearing the aircraft like a duffel coat that’s one size too small.

That’s of course if I’ve managed to avoid the “B” seats at the front of the plane – converting two business class seats into three economy seats and forcing 7% of the passengers per flight to essentially fly on a bicycle seat with some padding is going to make customers return.

Your new seating policy, the latest in the nickel and dime approach to trying to save money, is terrible. Putting out the average to poor seats on each aircraft for pre-reservation is a terrible way to squeeze cash out of customers. The fact that you seem to be holding back the “prime” seats for your very frequent flyers is just shallow and underhand.

While it’s nice to still have a cooked breakfast on the morning flight, the rest of the in-flight catering has lost whatever charm it had. A small bag of sesame seeds and the smallest can of juice possible? Really? And this is meant to retain and gain customers over the low cost carriers?

Your accountants can probably tell you how much these ancillary fees have brought in. Can they tell you how many customers, and how much they would spend, have been lost from your bottom line?

A few days before Terminal 5 opened at Heathrow I transferred from an American flight (from Los Angeles) arriving at Terminal 3, and connected to your Edinburgh flight in Terminal 1. Do you know how long it took me? Aircraft door to boarding gate, on foot, via security, no bus transfers, no queues, no silly multiple checks for passport, tickets, facial pictures and another ticket check?

19 minutes.

How long did last week’s T3 to T5 transfer take? Well with a queue for the bus transfer, a queue for a ticket check… then passport control… then a picture of my face… two more ticket checks and security?

Two and a half hours. Almost an order of magnitude longer!

Quick, pull out the average transfer time statistics, find a passenger satisfaction survey to show I’m wrong. The worst possible problem for BA is this… I’m expecting you to have numbers to be able to show that all is working well. I’m expecting it but I know from my own experiences that all is not well, that the service level is dropping, that the staff left are doing their best but are at their limits and yet management seems oblivious in a drive to become Ryanair.

At least I know what to expect from Ryanair, and they don’t hide how they operate.

Let me level with you Mr Walsh, I want to like British Airways again – but the communication from BA to the customer base is poor to non-existent. It’s a tough time for the airline industry but you need to keep the customer happy. You need them to want you to get through this. You want them on your side with all the changes you are pushing through. All of the above could be mitigated by good communication and explanation.

The modern world has a huge number of tools that will help you. Heck For the price of one of those seats on BA001 I could gather up four or five people and give you a crash course. Maybe then many of us will be happy to fly BA, rather than endure our time while in your staffs capable hands..