Monday, 29 June 2009

iPhone

Well, as mentioned in my previous post, I now have joined the forces of light, and got my grubby paws on an iPhone,

I could witter on about it's good and bad points, I could give you a rundown of my experiences with it so far, but I think I'll leave it at this:

I'm writing this in my lunch break, on the phone, sitting in a park, with all the connectivity I could ever wish for, listening to a podcast of all the latest top songs from remix.nin.com

It seriously doesn't get better than this.

Monday, 22 June 2009

Ephemerae

And so the start of another week. This one, however, holds much in store, some of which I can tell you about, and some which I have to keep under wraps for now, but, as soon as I can, I shall certainly be shouting it from the rooftops.

One of the exciting things this week, is, due to pay day rolling round, I'm planning on getting my sticky paws on one of the new iPhone 3GS models. This signifies not only a new and rather shiny looking phone, but also a change in lots of aspects. First of which is the fact that it's caused me to end my ten year contract with Orange. After having been with them ever since I bought my very first brick phone while at university, it's become increasingly apparent that the tenet that I used to hold true, namely that, while Orange are one of the more expensive mobile companies in the UK, their service is worth the money, doesn't hold true any more. Dropped calls, annoying sales staff, and their lack of interesting handsets, sticking more with the Windows mobile and Blackberry brands, have caused me to think that staying with them may not be such a good idea. Plus, the iPhone will allow me to have a phone, mp3 and video player all in one, take better pictures, which you'll no doubt experience as I post them on this blog, and allow me to be continually connected without worrying about what I'm paying for such a privelage. I phoned up Orange yesterday to ask for the code to transfer my number earlier, and had to justify my decision to their customer relations department. The reasons the representative gave for staying were, frankly, rather sad. I actually thought he was going to burst into tears at one point. Sadly, it wasn't enough to get me to stay.

As a demonstration of my current camera phone - here are a few pictures I took over the weekend:

This weekend, I went to the Taste of London festival in Regents Park. This is actually a cup of tomato soup which, inexplicably, is white. The festival was really rather good, with lots of things to try, and I ended up quite full by the end of it.





This was also from the festival, but I'm not entirely sure I'm quite convinced by their suggestion....







And it appears the shop down the road from me is run by Bowser - quick, someone tell Mario!

Thursday, 18 June 2009

Interesting times

NP: Filter - Anthems for the Damned

Looking at the news these days, it's plain to see we live in interesting times. Much like the much misappropriated Chinese curse, this can be construed as both a condemnation and a boon. One prevalent catalyst of these changes is a phenomenon which affects us across the world - in the past twenty years, it's changed the way we work, the way we live, and the way we think. It connects people from different sides of the planet, and can provide elucidation, information, titillation and meaningless ephemera to all. Of course you know what I'm talking about here, it's the thing which is allowing me to write this and make it avaialbe across the world, and the thing which is allowing you to read this - the internet. So much more than a mere network of wiring (or, as some would have it a series of tubes), the internet has grown into such a massive force in today's world, you would have had to been living under a pretty seriously sized rock (and possibly one without even a 56k dialup modem) for a long time to not have heard of it, witnessed its brilliance and foolishness, and been sucked in by the sheer addictive quality of its connectivity. I'm sure that last word was used badly, and probably stolen from some Microsoft manual, but it's important you understand the point I'm trying to convey here - it's the force which makes the internet brilliant - it's the communication, the fascination, the sheer "people power", which makes it more, much more, than the aforementioned set of wires, and it's a central point to this discourse.

Much like the series of tubes speech by Senator Ted Stevens which was parodied in the link in the previous paragraph, one strata of society has been realising of late just how vitally important the internet is, and, if ignored, can become a destructive force against you. This group are those in charge - governments (elected, in the majority) corporations (not elected, but, on the other hand, could be seen as such, if you count spending power alongside political power, except they don't go away after eight years), and the various sorts of governing bodies in between. From the government in Iran realising that dissidents are using social networking sites to voice their protests, (with some amusing results), to the government in this country producing the Digital Britain report, to address issues such as getting the country connected, organsing how to adapt broadcasting to the internet, and the thorny topic of file-sharing, it's becoming increasingly apparent that those in charge are waking up to the fact that we are living in a digital world, and it's a much bigger picture than before.

One of the aspects of why the internet was created, namely as a military network that was too widespread and modular to be knocked out by a single strike, has become one of the biggest thorns in the side of these decision makers. Much like the mythical hydra - if you cut off one head, two grow in its place - the internet, with its decentralised nature, means that it's very hard to clamp down on those speaking or acting against you - once you close down one part, you find more rising up to replace it. This principle is the active ingredient which fuels several aspects of the internet, such as file-sharing, blogging and so on, which, at first seem like a perfectly good idea, and then those in charge feel they should step in and control. Don't believe me? Well, the case of the Nightjack blogger being ruled last week by the High Court that his identity was part of the public domain is a good example of this. We're meant to live in a country with free speech, and the internet is certainly meant to be a domain of such. Therefore, if a bobby (that's a copper, or policeman to those of you outside the UK), wishes to voice his dissent on the internet anonymously, surely that's his perogative? How long before every whistleblower (as in the informant kind, not the old-style policeman variety) has their identity laid bare to the recriminations of those they are trying to illuminate the misconduct of? It seems that those in power, once again, are trying their best to counteract the whole essence of the internet - true freedoms and actions, which end up becoming damaging to the governing power's interests - perhaps those in charge are becoming conscious of why exactly "governments should be afraid of their people", as George Washington once put it.

The thing is, to take a moment from this, I'm not actually trying to convey some impression of an "us versus them" situation here - not in the slightest. Politically, as in many other aspects of life, I'm actually an optimist, and would like nothing more than to see governments and their people getting along - I'm quite a fan of the idea of benevolent leadership (and not benevolent dictatorship). The problem here is the attitude which those in charge seem to take towards problems like this - they wish to become opposing forces, flying against everything which they find distateful, without taking a moment to look into it, how it works, and the reasons why people are doing it. I certainly think that, if a more understanding attitude was taken towards such issues, things may not seem so difficult - compare the difference between the Obama administration's attitude toward things, and that of the previous one, and you'll see what I mean. Listen, understand, adapt.

How will this play out? I hope it never will - I hope that the internet remains a place for free speech, where you can express an opinion on anything from John Woo's latest film to the actions of the Chinese Government without recrimination, and those in charge learn how to listen to those online, understand their reasoning, and adapt as best they can to accomodate their thinking.

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

To post, or not to post, that is the question?

And so starts the new blog. Welcome. Those of you who are viewing this in it's early days (hello to all the people I've directed here from Twitter!) will see that it's in a rather simple form. I've decided to use Blogger, as I've had a number of previous successes with creating blogs for corporate and private customers, and so am sticking with what I know for now. As time goes by, this whole site is going to turn into a portfolio of my work, with this blog as the front page in a much more attractive format once I get time to tinker with the CSS, keeping you updated on my thoughts regarding the design industry, London, DJing, music, events which take place, and anything else which might swim into my head. I can only hope that you enjoy my meanderings.

I've been a member of LiveJournal for some time now, and have built up a good number of friends there. However, despite the camaraderie, I do sometimes feel that it's something of a closed loop, and also some of the subject matter not necessarily suitable for general consumption, hence why this exists. I certainly won't be ignoring all of my friends back on LJ, and may well be cross posting if I think it's pertinent.

Those of you who know me on LJ will know I haven't posted in some time. This was due to the fact that I began to experience what I can only describe as "posting fear" - a sense that whatever I wrote wasn't really worth reading, the implications that it would have on those reading, and a rising sense of apathy about the whole affair. This has, strangely enough, been overcome recently by two sources of stimuli - firstly, the rather fantastic Twitter, which I joined a month ago, and provides an excellent, if not succinct way for one to jot down initial thoughts in 140 characters without having to think too deeply about the implications, cadence, or structure. This has re-awakened my wish to let people know what I'm up to, my opinions on various subjects, and keeps me interested on what is going on in the world. The second impetus is my resolution to actually get round to putting my work on-line. This has been a bone of contention with me for years, I must admit, and has always seemed something of a mountain to climb, all too often being overcome by other subjects, such as work, friends and general apathy, leading me straight back to square one. I can only hope that, perhaps this first step in creating this on-line presence will allow me to tend to the whole site, adding to it bit by bit, until it's a fully blown portfolio site that I can point friends, prospective employers and clients at, thereby hopefully showcasing what I can do. Here's hoping.

So, if you like this blog, you're interested in what I do, why not check back here soon? You can subscribe to my blog feed by pointing your readers at http://www.sableindustries.org/atom.xml or http://www.sableindustries.org/atom.xml, or, if you'd like to give feedback, comment below. I'd love to hear from you.