Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Sagor & Swing

Published
by
Sal
on September 30, 2007
in Interesting
. 0 Comments

I want them to play this song as the theme tune for the epic biopic about my life, or alternativly at my funeral (whichever comes first - I dont mind). This organ-funk jazz freak-out came in as a hot-tip from my free-music Guru, Marvin Suicide whose taste is always impeccable and whose hunger for fresh sounds never seems to diminish.

Sagor & Swing

The tune is by a Swedish beat combo called “Sagor and Swing” - according to Wikipedia they’ve split up a few years ago, but their sweet sounds are only just starting to reach the rest of Europe. If you appreciate this hyper-organ funk sound then you can download a few more of their tracks for free courtesy of their record label.

Reunited with my bike

Published
by
Sal
on September 27, 2007
in Cycling
. 0 Comments

After a painful couple of days without my trusty bicycle I am now re-united with it, courtesy of Mosquito Bikes of Islington (just round the corner from Essex Road station).

They transformed my creaky wreck into a gleaming, silent speed-machine. Their deluxe service is expensive, but the bike feels better than it did when it was brand-new, which means it was money well-spent. For what it’s worth, they have my seal of approval and my short-term gratitude, until I manage to wreck my bike again.

Ian Dale’s Top 100 Liberal Democrat Blogs is nothing but Link-bait

Published
by
Sal
on September 26, 2007
in General
. 1 Comment

It came as some surprise to see my own site linked to from Ian Dale’s political mega-hub, particularly as I’ve not published one even vaguely political story this year. So I’m unable to glean quite how I achieved a rank of #75 in the lib-dem chart, and a higher rank than the official blog of the Liberal Democrat party leader.

Ian states that his rankings are a reflection of ‘votes’ cast by his panel. All I can say is that this sort of voting reminds me of the kind they have in Florida where the actual number of votes cast have an estranged relationship with the results. Perhaps a few of those “hanging-chads” got mis-counted as votes for Stodge.org?

I’m certain that none of the Lib-Dem supporters would have singled out my site for a vote. I never solicited anybody to vote for me, nor was I aware that this competition existed until I was mysteriously revealed to be 75th best in the land. I never got involved with the debates on the other LibDem blogger’s sites, in short I made no effort and did not actually deserve to be on any ranking.

I can be pretty certain that any votes allegedly cast for Stodge.org are either accidental or imaginary - and almost certainly below the threshold of what is statistically meaningful when compiling a ranking.

If I was feeling charitable, I’d say his methodology is dubious - at at worst entirely bogus. Would it be fair to conclude that the whole affair is link-bait, intended to persuade the gullible and eager for publicity to link back to Mr Dale’s blog and thus boost his profile in the web-o-sphere?

Apple’s iPhone is a public relations disaster

Published
by
Sal
on September 24, 2007
in Gadget Reviews
. 0 Comments

Marketing types are usually quick to point out how Apple, alone in the I.T. world “get” their customers, and how other companies (usually Microsoft) fall short of Apple’s shining example. It seems that this time Apple have out microsofted Microsoft with their lamentable iPhone, perhaps the most over-hyped and disappointing  device in the history of technology.

I cannot think of a more effective way to annoy customers off than to perpetrate a monumental bait and switch campaign: Simply tease your most loyal, avid customers with the prospect of owning the most powerful and capable phone and then deliver it with ties to unfair contracts and surreal restrictions, and a promise that attempting to take-back your iPhone will result in exclusion from Apple’s fun-club. All you have to do is sufficiently annoy these customers and they will start telling all their friends how much they hate your products… and that is exactly what Apple just did.

Apple’s biggest crime is to threaten anybody who has unlocked their phones with the possibility that their iPhone might be rendered incompatible with future updates, or at worst completely “bricked“. Concerned by the popularity of the iPhone unlocks, Apple are clearly trying to frighten people into not unlocking their phones. And why are people so obsessed with ‘unlocking’ - it’s simply a means to restore the level of functionality we expect from any smartphone to Apple’s artificially restricted device.

We should also mention the fact that Apple also made their new devices artificially incompatible with play-list managers other than iTunes and don’t even try to use your previous generation of iPod accessories.

All the features that customers have been trying to hack back into the iPhone have been standard on mid-range Nokia phones for almost a year. Unlike Apple, Nokia provide multiple SDKs in and support for a wide range of open-source languages. While the Nokia apps may sometimes lack Apple’s bling, Nokia benefits from a wider range of applications that mostly do what you’d expect. My personal favorite is Nokia Podcasting which downloads all the audio I need without ever needing to sync to a PC. Somehow I doubt apple will ever want to do that, as it would mean revealing just how redundant iTunes has become.

I suggest Nokia should take advantage of this situation - they should let the world know what a disaster the iPhone is becoming long ahead of it’s launch in the UK. And at the same time they should remind potential customers that the they already give away for free the exact features that Apple do not want their customers to enjoy.

The DRM train-wreck continues

Published
by
Sal
on September 24, 2007
in Music
. 0 Comments

The Register are reporting that Virgin Media are shutting down their music download service, which theoretically was once a competitor to Apple’s iTunes, but failed to capture a significant market.

Unfortunately this has the unintended consequence of rendering every download from the Virgin site unplayable. This is because every single file ever sold by Virgin Media contains “DRM”, a technology designed to limit how files can be played.

In this case every time a media-player wishes to play a download the player-software must first contact an authorizing server for ‘permission’ to play. If the server is switched-off then there is nobody to ask, and so the audio can never be played again.  An entire music collection could be rendered unplayable.

Music-fans will realize that the files they get for free and do not contain any DRM are  much better deal: Customers who buy from Virgin or Apple are paying a premium for an intangible product which is built to self-destruct at the whim of a corporate oligarch. Pirated audio and DRM free audio will last until you decided to delete it.

The BBFC are killing games retail

Published
by
Sal
on September 19, 2007
in Games
. 0 Comments

Imagine spending $20+ million on a high-profile video game only to find that puritanical film-industry censors deny you the ability to market your product, even to consenting adults.

A couple of months ago, The British Board of Film Classification, the organisation who put those age-certificates at the start of home-videos and movies decided not to award a certificate to Manhunt 2, effectively banning this product from both the retail and rental markets. This week, the British government has publicly backed the BBFC’s position on Manunt 2.

Rockstar have two options - either modify their game such that it is compatible with the BBFC’s hazy standards, or seek an alternative channel to sell their game. My hunch is that they will go for the latter.

Ultimately, the people who will be most hurt are the shops that sell games. Only this week Richard Branson offloaded his last-remaining shares in Virgin Megastore. HMV have been reportedly close to bankruptcy for a long time, and with the exception of Blockbuster, the stores that sell and rent video games are becoming rare on our high-streets.

These are painful times for games-retailers, and now the government is denying them the right to retail what would almost certainly have been a popular title.

RockStar will take the BBFC decision as a strong hint that if they want to keep both their creative freedom and their freedom to sell products they will need a new distribution channel: One that is entirely free of influence of the censors and politicians who like to meddle with the market.

Selling games directly, online is the obvious solution, simply because there is no effective means of censoring sales of software online, and given the international nature of the Internet, no one country will be able to enforce it’s moral-standards globally.

If retailers had any sense they would be petitioning the BBFC to get out of their way and let them sell the games that people want. Unfortunately I fear this will not happen since retailers are afraid of offending the “family values” groups that have lobbied for video game censorship.

In the long-term the games industry will win - retailers and the BBFC will no longer be relevant, and the games producers will have their own mature distribution systems which connect directly with the customer, free of government and censor’s interference.

Entertainment Blitz

Published
by
Sal
on September 13, 2007
in General
. 0 Comments

I took this photo in the Sainsbury’s off Green Lanes in Haringy. There were a whole bunch of these “Entertainment Blitz” free-standing units in the “Seasonal Goods” isle.

As I was busy loading my basket, it occurred to me that Sainsbury’s plan to do for “entertainment” what the blitz did for London. Careful scrutiny of the titles available in these stands confirms that this is indeed the case.