Rob Pearson

Top Gun

admin — Sun, 29 May 2011 01:10:54 +0000

Just watched Top Gun with the kids the other day. I must admit, it was quite enjoyable, if a little cheesy! I remember first watching it when it premiered in London’s Leicester Square.

What really got me thinking though, was that the movie is now 25 years old. Despite its age, it didn’t really look too dated. In fact, it could almost pass as a new release today (with a bit of tighter editing). The thing is, when I was 10 (the age of my son now), if I were to have watched a 25 year old movie at that age, it would have looked ancient! “Singin’ in the Rain” would never have passed as a new release in the late 70s!

So despite all the hype about how fast the world is supposed to be changing today, some things must have changed even faster for my parents generation.

Cindy – The Social Media Magazine

admin — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:02:59 +0000

I haven’t posted much here recently as I’ve been pretty busy building apps, including my current project Cindy on the iPad.

Cindy will be a Social Media Magazine for the iPad, incorporating RSS reading, Twitter and Facebook, all in the one app, presented as a beautiful glossy magazine. Check out the site for more details.

Americans deny Global Warming

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:59:13 +0000

A poll from last October found:

Only 57% of Americans think there is evidence of warming (down from 71% last year)

Just 36% think it’s because of human activity (down from 47%)

(Source : Time magazine, March 22)

Love Gmail

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:52:05 +0000

Got to love Gmail.

I just went to send an email that included an attachment, but (not for the first time), I forgot to actually attach anything.

Gmail very nicely suggested….

Darwin Weather

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:52:36 +0000

At least its consistent!

Double Tapping on Buttons

admin — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:11:21 +0000

Interesting approach to handling double tapping buttons on iPhone:

Dr Touch: Double Tapping on Buttons

60s turn 40

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:36:17 +0000

With the starting of a new decade, I just realised that all those born in the 1960s (including myself) have now turned 40.

Holland Under Water

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:23:17 +0000

In Holland, two thirds of the population lives below sea level. Some neighborhoods around Rotterdam are as much as 7m below sea level.

No wonder two Netherlands based companies control 40% of the global dredging business.

Forest Destruction

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:22:42 +0000

More interesting snippets from Time magazine.

Forest destruction accounts for 15% of global emissions by human activity, far outranking the total from vehicles and aircraft combined.

Forests are disappearing so fast in Indonesia that, incredibly, this developing country ranks third in emissions behind industrial giants China and the U.S.

How to increase the VM memory for IntelliJ IDEA on OSX

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:59:06 +0000

To change the VM memory settings from the default value of 256 MB, you should modify Info.plist found in:

/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 8.1.4.app/Contents/Info.plist

You have to change the VMOptions at the end of the file:

VMOptions
-Xms64m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xbootclasspath/a:../lib/boot.jar -ea