sleepinginmyhead

how high?

The Burj Dubai is a tall building, as this blog explains very eloquently. Hijacked from the post are the following images via Google Earth. The pic on the left is the view from the top of the Rockerfeller centre, the view on the right is the view you would get if the Burj was built in Manhattan. Hells teeth.

not so smart

I'm getting a little tired of software providers trying to second guess where I am by my server location. As centralised computing becomes more prevalent, the chances of me being located in the same building or even the same country as my servers is decreasing, as it makes sense to seat server centres in places with low electricity and rental costs. My servers are (so it seems) in Holland and Finland. As a result, google often shifts to Suomi or Dutch, and all of the advertising I hear on Spotify is in Finnish. This isn't smart, although it is entertaining, after all anything to reduce the penetration of ads is good. What is pretty poor is when legal stuff is shown to me in my assumed language, and there is no opportunity to change my location preferences, as happened this morning with an ipod update. Not smart, not helpful, probably not legal.

dixons - the last place you want to go

new ads by M&C saatchi for Dixons. Typographically not great, but thematically brilliant. 

USB -what happened there?

Years ago I remember, bemoaning the number of cables I had kicking around the studio, yet I never seemed to have quite the cable I needed. My reasoning seemed sound, why couldn't we have a single cable for everything, after all, it's just lengths of copper joining two things together. Then along came USB, the UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS!!! Everything seemed great, the future was here, everything could connect by USB, it was the answer! But not so. I still have a whole host of cables kicking around, and never seem to have the one I need. The problem is I viewed USB as a design solution "one cable for all", but developers viewed USB as a standardised transfer protocol, resulting in a whole host of different shaped plugs which ALL DO THE SAME THING, there's at least six main sizes to date, with countless 'specialised USB' variants. It all looked so rosy back in the nineties....

Lamb Curry

Judging by the number of times this video has been viewed, I guess I'm behind the wave, but who cares. 

There is so much wrong with this video it's hard to know where to start. Most obviously it's the incredible sight (and sound) of Jamie Oliver singing reggae about his curry. But more than that, it's in an auditorium. I mean what's going through the minds of the people who booked tickets to watch someone cook? Then comes the drumming, which thankfully isn't recorded, but finally comes the realisation that the track is available on itunes. Baffling.

UPDATE: this is just too 'knowing' if you ask me, but here's Jamie's 'Fish Stew' song. Altogether now "I wanna fish stew...". LINK.

cloudy futures....

I have so many different accounts storing so many bits of my data, it's ridiculous. Photos on flickr, music on various hard drives, not to mention my spotify playlists. Tweets on twitter, twhirl and tweetdeck, movies stored on my home mac, and let's not start with emails. I think this is common, but recently things have been getting interesting. It's impossible to move in techno-land without hearing 'cloud computing' being bandied about. For the uninitiated, here's the intro.

Your home computer, phone or whatever stores data on it's own memory.

This data is accessed by software which is also stored on your device.

Cloud computing means that all your data and your software is held on a central server somewhere else. This means that to access everything you own, you just need to connect to the internet, so all you need on any device is a browser (or similar). No more buying software, no more filling up your hard drive, no more updates. Sounds fantastic.

There are a few companies in the running at present, most notably apple and google. The visions of these companies is clearly centred around a cloud computing approach. Google has a few systems in place, accessed through their 'Chrome' browser, and Apple has services such as Mobile Me. On the surface, and indeed deep down, the future looks fantastic from a usability perspective. Imagine finally having everything in one place, all your calendars, films, music, email, bookmarks and documents in one place, accessible no matter where you are.

But here's the rub. Whilst I want everything in one place, that also means that I have to wholeheartedly trust the keepers of that place. Our legal system is also set up to be very wary of monopolies. Apple is a notoriously closed system, and whilst it recently opened up (a little) with spotify for iphone, it's still very closed. So much so, that the FCC has asked it some serious questions recently, which Apple has answered on their homepage.

How we move on from here isn't clear. If i spend the next couple of years centralising everything, what happens if they decide to start charging, or worse still, disappear entirely. Will I be held to ransom? Apple are notorious for their lack of legacy support, so will I be tied into a lifetime of paid browser upgrades? Will the government allow one corporation to dominate so much of our lives in this way? Where will competition come from? I guess only time will tell.

Interesting dynamic

For the last couple of days I've observed something which could make an interesting dynamic for a short story. There's a homeless guy who sits in the same place every day, directly opposite him a huge building is being demolished, and the contractors are putting up a luxury apartment block. I've seen the same builder chatting to him three times now. An interesting friendship eh?

Carnival

I've been going to Carnival since 1996, and I think I always will. Most of my friends don't go anymore, for a variety of reasons, but every year I strap on some old shoes, stick 30 quid in my pocket, meet jase by hammersmith tube and make my way into Westbourne park. If you forget all the negatives (and honestly, there are plenty), it's an amazing experience. There's a few photos on flickr to give you a taste.

disney and marvel

Today it was announced that Disney has bought Marvel comics for $4 billion. Cue fanboys worldwide crying into their boarded and bagged collection in their mum's loft. It's fair to say that it's been on the cards for some time now, with the majority of Marvel's money being made from film franchises, but I can't help feeling a little sad. Whilst Marvel is nothing like it used to be, and is clearly centred around 'good clean fun', they still had a few nice anti-heros on the books, something which Disney may find difficult to support with their mission statement of "family entertainment". I'm sure we'll be seeing much more of the Fantastic Four, and a lot less of the Punisher. I guess that's life, and I know there are countless edgy comic companies out there, but I think it's a shame that something so 'fringe' and the comic book has become part of the largest entertainment company in the world. No doubt Stu will disagree, but I like the idea that something can be outside of 'Get good, get big, get bought'.