Saturday 1 January 2011

Happy New Year

Well posting has been sporadic , greatly due to facebook , and for the last couple of weeks due to some kind of 'flu. This meant I actually slept through New Year Celebrations , missed all the Christmas Parties , saw no one and was generally miserable , but on the sort of plus side ended up losing weight.

Anyway this morning is grey , rainy , miserable and I can't believe shops are open today!! Still pursuit of the greenbacks is all to some people.

One of the things that brightened my day is the "Rolling Stones Monopoly"!! They also have their own "Trivial Pursuit" as well!!. Just waiting for a "Cradle of Filth" edition now.....

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Snow


Well it's December and we've had the worst snow since I moved here. However could be worse , Scotland have it really bad. Though God knows what will happen when the thaw sets in!!. Worcester's Victorian Christmas Fair didnt seem to suffer too much , though it was very cold.

Still we shall see what the rest of the week brings!!

Sunday 7 November 2010

Sony Capitulation


This post really came about because Mojo carries advertisements for the Brennan Jukebox system , which enables you to have "all your CDs that you never play" in a single box that can be held in one hand , so really it's a sophisticates MP3 hard disc player m, excelpt with graphic or video capability. The Brennan website is here and I thinks it's a worthy but flawed system falling between the stools of convenience and minimalism. The photography and the site are certainly both enticing.


I decided to track the box down , but all Amazon gave me were Sony MP3 (I assume) jukeboxes . The thing that then struck is that most Sony Music Players these days have an iPod dock . iPod is Apple not Sony and it's proprietary (ie not standard). In fact the iPod dock is becoming ubiquitous , with televisions , CD players , cars all having a slot for the damn things. So have Sony given in and have Apple won? It sure looks that way!!

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Micro De-Socialising


It seems I've been neglecting the blog of late . Whether this is pure laziness or something else , I'm not sure.

One of the possible reasons is that I can post opinions and links on Facebook and get the things noticed there . though the blog does give me more flexibility.

A worrying (or maybe not) development is the proliferation of personal tracking methods that Apple and Facebook between them have created . It's ironic that people were up in arms about id Cards and invasion of personal privacy under the last (and probably this) government, by use of CCTV and electronic snooping methods , yet are happy to let Facebook / Apple track and publish their every move. If the government really want to keep tabs on people give them an iPhone and a Facebook account and thats the problem solved!!

Monday 11 October 2010

Oswaldkirk 2010

Amazingly nothing has recently caught my eye , but have used Picassa to keep abreast of holiday photos such as the baleful cat to the right. See the full gallery here

Friday 17 September 2010

Can You Believe They Put A Man On The Moon?



Always regarded myself as a knowledgeable Pink Floyd fan so was surpised when my friend Mark Johnson asked me if I had a copy of "Moonhead" by them . I assumed it was a bootleg or something but was a commissioned piece for a 1969 broadcast of Omnibus on the BBC. The piece is reminiscent of stuff like "Set The Contols For The Heart Of The Sun" and "Careful With That Axe Eugene" driven by a descending Roger Waters bass riff.

It is amazing how the net allows us access to so much material we thought was lost forever , or in this case we didnt even know it existed!!

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Church of Mobile

Walked on to an industrial estate the other day and was greeted by the sight on the right. If JG Ballard were still alive this would be the new religion. The cross , totem , centre of worship replaced by the mobile phone mast , which is taller than a lot of church steeples.

Theres even places to sit so its an open air church of sorts , and how many people do you know who dont have a mobile phone? Theres far more mobile phone users than attend any regulare religious ceremony. And their mobile often dictateds their lifestyle.

Itn the early nineties on mobile phone executive was expecting to maybe hit 20% mobile phone ownership. Today the figure is approximately 130%!! The mobile is ubiquitous.

It started out with voice , with text as an , extra which progressed to data and pictures , and now there fiull blown interenet access and most handsets are fully fledged personal computers.

Telecommunications is an industry than is almost universally beneficial , seldom causing any problems , apart from maybe the siting of some of their masts, but it has musch vaster benefits than bad side effects.

Anyway just people watch and see if your can spot the person who doesnt have a mobile phone!!