Not So iPod Touch Heaven

This guy really needs to take a chill pil and take stock of things. Kill the arrogance and start listening to your customers. Says me, one definitely pissed customer right now.

Well there I was last weekend mosing around London town when I decided to pop into the Apple store on Regent street, just to see what the latest was. The guys in the genius bar told me they knew nothing about any upcoming plans for the Touch or iPhone, and they were geniuses! It said so on their t-shirts! They added that even when Lord Steve visits them they are not permitted in his presence, and they have to leave the store. I asked if he was God, they told me it seems so. In any case, they advised me to at least stick with my original plan and don't hack the device just yet, as this would void my warrantly and the new third party apps will require official certificates. I left somewhat a little bemused.

Anyway, a couple days later I check Google Reader to discover that a new update is available for the Touch. Entitled version 1.1.3, it enables movie and TV programme buying via the iTunes store for later viewing on the Touch. In addition you require this version in order to add the new mail and weather apps etc, but wait for it, at a fee of $20. That's £12.99 to us Brits. Yes I heard you gasp, so did many journalists at Apple's keynote speech when Jobsy announced it. Aparently, he still kept a straight face. It seems the price may have something to do with Apple's accounts reporting. Some complex Sarbanes-Oxley compliancy or whatever.

Well like all the other poor sods (sucker for the Yanks) out there I handed over the cash, only to get a few apps, and a customisable home screen that jiggles like jelly. You wonder why, well I still cherish that warranty, the only reason why I haven't hacked the damn thing yet. So I plan to persevere for the next few months until Steve shaft's me proper next time.

What you get? A pretty cool mail app that can support IMAP, but no landscape browsing or search. It's a shame as Google's mobile web offering is pretty cool now, with full optimisation for iPod Touch and iPhone screens. In consolation, the beauty of the Touch email client is that you can switch off the WiFi and still read email, which is a must as WiFi eats battery power like a cookie monster. So not that bad, but would have been much happier if it were free Steve!!!

Gion Matsuri Festival - Better late than never

A friend of mine Japan told me about this festival Gion Matsuri they celebrated way back July. I know I should have shared it before, but sometimes there is so much you simply forget.
The festival first originated as a purification festival to appease Gods thought to cause, flood, fire etc and is one of the most festivals in Japan. The streets downtown Kyoto are closed to traffic during three nights in July, but the festival spans the entire month.

Visions of the Future

BBC 4 is launching string theorist Dr. Michio Kaku's "Visions of the Future" this week in which he explores the possibilites that technology presents for humankind in the not so distant future.

Already technology has been altering our culture and behaviour, particularly through the mobile phone and internet, so just what impact will the technology of the future have on the way we live and interact with each other? This quote from Prof Rodney Brooks of Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the scariest in that the line between human and machine may become so blurred, who can tell whether the machine is more human than the person? Was that being born human or machine? Will we care?

"As a species, we are starting to put our information-processing technology inside our bodies – we're becoming a little more robotic. At the same time, our technologies are becoming more biological. Over the next 50 years, we'll see robots with more biological components and people with more electronic components"

Mobile Revolution in Africa

The mobile has been sweeping across the plains and towns of Africa for some time now. Mobile networks have been over taking stagnant infrastructure development and trailblazing how business, commerce and grass roots politics can be done. Much the same way as in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the world. Paul Mason from BBC's NewsNight explores the story of Africa's mobile revolution and how it's transforming people's lives.

May you live in interesting times

My how apt this ancient phrase feels these days. I've been enjoying a series of films and documentaries BBC's Newsnight has been showing recently on democracy around the world and China. All the programmes possess common themes of change, upheaval and uncertainty in what seems like a tumultuous world right now. Ironic that the BBC itself is facing dramatic upheaval as it shows the films with the threat of the axing of 2500 jobs in a revolutionary cost cutting move to haul the institution into the 21st century.

Watching one of the China films I can't help but appreciate my fortune by being born just a few years later in England so that I didn't have to wait back in Jamaica like my brother. Xiao Zhang's little girl doesn't fare so well as I did, as her mother follows the 150 million migrants to China's coastal boom towns to seek a new life for herself and her family.

China: White Horse Village

White Horse Village - part one

White Horse Village - part two

Return to White Horse Village

Villagers Fight Redevelopment


Why Democracy?

Why Democracy? Japan

Why Democracy? Bolivia

Vote for me: Democracy in a Chinese classroom [watch]

Why Democracy? Kenya

Why Democracy? Pakistan

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN BEFORE THE 80s

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a ute on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound,no cellphones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms.........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes, walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO
DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

PS -The big type is because your eyes are shot at your age

Courtesty of my mate Dave. And yes, I broke my arm flying backwards from a rusty old swing. Those were the days eh. ;)

Big up Bristol's own...

The Importance of spotting a genuine Banksy

Have always stopped to wonder at this self styled urban guerilla artist's work back in my hometown of Bristol. Back then my fellow streetwise friends would always marvel at how I showed appreciation for Banksy's clever approach.

Now he's gone on to bigger things, including a visit to Israel's West Bank. I wish I could have ripped a few of those original pieces down. Who was to know they would be worth half a mill'.

Why Captain America had to die

Why Captain America had to die

The Bush regime has now taken one of its most iconic casualities. Its only natural that a hero that represented the traditional American values of truth, justice, and liberty would perish under a climate fostered by Bush and the neo-conservatives. A damning indictment of George Bush's America?

Captain America R.I.P.

The age of Hyper-Reality & do dolphins really have bad breath?

Had a sudden scary moment the other day. I suddenly thought, man we really are hurtling into the future. Can't recall exactly why that thought came about, but maybe it was due to a discussion I was having about the negatives of civilisation or more accurately, modern society. An age of mistrust. The death of common courtesy, where nobody queues for the bus anymore. You need martial arts skills or be a rugby player to get on one these days. This is the lighter side (if you can call it that) of things. We've also had more young deaths from street shootings recently. This all must have led me to think, if we are racing into an age where families eat separately, increased disconnection between people, then maybe this really is the future, and unfortunately, we've finally arrived. Not quite a Gattica-esque reality, but not far from it.

It seems that author of the phrase 'Hyper-Reality', Jean Baudrillards death was quite timely. Maybe Jean was right about the impact of new media and postmodern consumerism was having on our societies, that he felt it was time to check out. I think he was onto something. And for the paranoid among us, Adam Curtis serves up another one of his well constructed pieces on the notion of a more narrow freedom today. BBC2 - Sun, 11 Mar, 9pm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2028464,00.html

On a totally separate note. My mate Dave recently came back from his first visit to Cuba. He really enjoyed it, but said that swimming with dolphins isn't all that. For one their breaths stink of fish. I was surprised, I thought they would smell of candy floss or honey and almonds. Oh well.

Well at least the abused ship workers off the Falklands, were in no position to complain. Many eye-witness reports claimed that after jumping ship to flee their task-masters, many men were saved by local dolphins. Validation of an old myth? Or do those dolphins know something we don't? Is it real? Did it really happen? Was it a Baudrillard simulation? In any case, it seems these dolphins haven't forgotten their common courtesies or their sense of humanity. Maybe we could learn something from our distant cousins. ;)

Bamako, Danny Glover, Ghana and world debt

Found another article on the new Bamako film in Time Out recently. Interesting premise, about the colonial powers being prosecuted for their crimes against Africa. Danny Glover is Executive Producer, and makes a strange cameo appearance in the film.

http://www.bamako-film.com/

Quite timely, as Ghana is currently celebrating its independence from colonial rule. The question is, when will Ghana and those African countries that followed with independence, stop being seen as an ex-colony?

Just a note. Channel 4, 8pm Sun Mar 11th, brings another interesting tale of discovery. As one man sets out to explore his African roots...