high brooms turf war

Why can't you do a little more for Jesus?

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:27:00 +0000

MUTEMATH are a band who I've always loved. They ooze creativity and energy and chaos. Their live shows are legendary - seriously, is this not one of the best live photos you've seen? No? How about this? (ok the photo's not great, but he's stage diving! Off a drum! Which is being crowd-surfed!).

Their videos are more fun than your average pop video - take Typical: not only did they film it backwards for the video, but then they did it backwards in one take LIVE for Jimmy Kemmel. They successfully sued their record label for trying to promote them in the lucrative CCM scene against their wishes.

Come on - I've been banging on about them for years!

They've got a new album out called Odd Soul, and it is a great album. It rather unexpectedly takes some trips off to prog-rock land but the electronica is there, sitting alongside the blues, resting up against the chilled out tones. What I really like about the album is some of the lyrical content.

Darren King is one of the most inventive, talented and inspirational drummers in my humble opinion. He gave this really interesting interview which I think was remarkably candid about his Christian background and the pressures and experiences that it sometimes garnered. He touches upon the burden put upon him as a teenager to change those around him to make them more like him (hence the blog title, a lyric from Blood Pressure), something that I feel sometimes characterises the evangelical church, and the struggles he has faced in coming to terms with this kind of thinking in his adult life. I think this is something that must resonate with a lot of people with similar backgrounds - certainly it does for me. To see this laid out in a music interview in the mainstream press is really encouraging - I wish the struggles and doubts of faith were more frequently seen and accepted as part of the journey of faith.

Reading exercises

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:26:00 +0000

I've always enjoyed a good book. In fact, when reading one I often devour it in a day or two. I love being captivated by a book and find reading a very rewarding thing to spend my time doing.

In spite of this, and up until a year ago, I rarely read books. I would take a book on holiday and that would constitute my annual foray into literature. Which is a bit of shame. When I returned home the time that I could read would be taken over with TV, films and the internet.

Over the past year that's changed. I've started reading books, and can truthfully say that over the past six months at least, I've had at least one book actively on the go. Reading is now a very important part of my life. I'm not sure what changed, but I've noticed the following:

Trashy novels are great at encouraging the habit of reading

This probably started with me reading pulp fiction by Chris Kuzneski - to me his novels are cod-religious conspiracies meeting Jack Bauer-esque guys with awful one-liners. The last sentence of one chapter usually informs you about the upcoming chapter - e.g. "Little did he know that in the next minute he would be dead.." etc. It is so fromage-filled but still quite compelling. Moreso - it's light, fluff that is enjoyable and easy to run through. You get to the end, think that was easy and pick up another novel.

In the past I have tended to try to read fiction-as-social-commentaries (I love Dougals Coupland) or non-fiction-as-in-depth-self-improvement (e.g. Bill Hybel's Courageous Leadership). These are all great but require a degree of commitment from the reader that can be result in a reticence or even guilt when trying to balance with the busy-ness of life. Trashy novels require none of that. And are fun to boot.

Book series can be great at encouraging ongoing reading.

I read through all the Harry Potter books in about 4 weeks last year. As soon as I'd finished one, I was left desperate to know what would happen in the next. In moving on from the trashy fare previously mentioned, I picked up a David Baldacci book (The Camel Club) and realised it was a series - it had great characters, thrilling plots and a continuity across books. I don't believe books need to be part of a series, and they run the risk of being bogged down in unnecessary explanation when they are (as with Kuzneski's books I feel), but a well written series rewards the reader with the promise of more as they finish a book. This must be a factor in encouraging regular, ongoing reading.

Books can be fun

Harry Potter may be repeatedly claimed the domain of kids, but it's fun. Trash novels are fun. Hell, I've even started reading Famous Five books with my son and they are fun. I'm not saying books shouldn't be fun, but I had a certain guilty feeling that such books were lowbrow, so to speak. I was a book snob - and it properly stopped me reading the things. Having said that, even super difficult material can be written in an enticing way. I have really enjoyed the way Simon Singh writes, and love The Code Book and Fermat's Last Theorem - the former eventually tackles quantum cryptography, the latter the solving of a centuries-long though unprovable mathematical formula.

Regular reading makes it easier to read more challenging material

You know the books that I previously found hard to read? Well, I'm rattling through those as well now. I'm reading books that tap into theological questions I've struggled with (I have really connected with the writing of Brian McLaren), that are unpicking philosophical and social conundrums and inspiring my though process around these things. I can also now quite happily keep 2 or 3 books on the go at a time - generally a mix of 1 fiction and 1 or 2 non-fiction - and enjoy flitting between them

Tracking things is motivational

I'm a bit of a sucker for acheivement unlocked things, but with reading I've appreciated ticking off one book while looking forward to a new one. I've joined Goodreads whose interface is fairly easy on the eye. If you join, befriend me...

Reading is relaxing

Lastly, but most importantly, I've discovered that reading is relaxing. More relaxing than being on the computer, watching video or TV. Those things are relaxing but reading offers something different - I'm not sure what it is, possibly a combination of focus and peace. Where I previously sat at my desk or mindlessly wander the streets at lunch, I take a book to a park or a coffee shop. I feel so refreshed getting back to work. I read before going to sleep. It's really relaxing.

I guess I would summarise the above by saying that reading exercises (me).

Twitter and death

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:28:00 +0000

You may have heard the sad news this week about the death of Dan Wheldon, who died in one of the most horrific motor racing crashes I've seen.

When I heard about it (via Twitter), I googled for news and came up with his Twitter stream. The last tweet had only been posted 3 hours before, and I was struck with the contrast that this gave with the reality of what had happened in just a matter of hours. A fellow racer, Dario Franchitti touched on this, saying how they had been joking and chatting previously that day.

Folks often talk about the shallowness of mediums like Twitter, citing a lack of real substance in what it conveys. I disagree: they project humanity in their content - both the mundanity and sometime extraordinary that make up our lives. Reading Dan Wheldon's Twitter stream brought me a much greater sense of sadness than, say, the horror of the footage of the crash itself.

I think in death these things emphasise humanity, they are modern relics.

Update: I came across this in-depth article on death and online presence, I'd recommend reading it: Cyberspace When You’re Dead (NYT)

iPhone4 vs HTC Desire HD

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:27:00 +0000

One of the side effects of my change of employment a few months back was that I had to give up my iPhone4. Presented with the need to get a new phone I comtemplated a replacement iPhone4, but then I saw the seemingly unique sales point mobile operators like to wrap iPhone4's up in: stump up a seriously stupid amount of money on top of the contract, regardless of the contract. Wow.

Maybe all smartphones will have the same up front costs. Well, truth be told some do, but nowhere near the iPhone4 amount. So I looked at what most mags had titled the iPhone4's nearest rival (at the time that is) - the HTC Desire HD. It has a decent processor, bigger screen and looks the business. Surely this would cost lots up front. No, not really at all. With the right operator, even cheap deals can be had with no upfront cost.

I now have an HTC Desire HD. Given that it was the poster boy for Android, I was rather excited about a change in phone experience. Don't get me wrong I loved my iPhone, but there were little niggles, and a change is always exciting for technophiles.

I haven't the stomach for a long review (you too?!) so here's a list of things about my phone:

The screen really is big. I like.
The camera is better MP-wise. but has an unintuitive snapshot mechanism that makes it feel like it's always delayed.
If you, like me, handed your life over to Google years ago, you will love the convergence.
It syncs contact profiles much better than the iPhone.
At first it has awful battery life - don't panic, geeky folks say that Android OS learns how to sort it out by magic - it may take a couple of weeks but it does sort it out. Turn off Auto Sync anbd don't install task killers, they worsen the situation. iPhone4 had better battery life (and that for me was its big win over the 3G).
I have an SD card slot in my phone, it's interchangeable and expandable - ha ha ha ha ha bloody ha Apple!
I can take my battery out and replace it. Don't need to, but come on Apple.
Google release their map features to Android first it seems.
I can see almost all websites the way that (web) nature intended, because I can view flash. Before you say that isn't a big thing, I had iPhones for well over 2 years, and you know what? It feels good to know that there's nothing really hidden from me. Apple say they took the technical high ground - I just feel like they cynically handicapped their phone to boost there app market.
There isn't the richness of Apps and you do feel like developers are ignoring you because you're the ugly younger brother. I want Instagram for Android, but that's not going to happen.
On the flipside there are many apps that Apple didn't seem to foster enthusiasm for that are the norm for Android:
- UPnP players - I can stream video from my media center to my phone. Try doing that on an iPhone without a Mac or some expensive piece of kit.
- Video players - I know Apple finally allowed VLC, but I have so much choice on Android.
- SMB, FTP, File manager apps - I could never find much in the way of these for iPhone, but hello Astro, AndSMB, AndFTP etc.
- I was going to say Swype, but it's been unofficially ported to iPhone now. Swype is awesome.
- Emulators - if like me you still have the games, then I have a Playstation emulator. Running from my phone. Gran Turismo 2. For real!
Apps are more expensive on the whole for Android, but somehow I feel like the pricing may be fairer to the developers. I think that's idealism on my part.
HTC Sense sucks donkey balls. Sorry but Apple and MobileMe wrap the user experience up so well. I probably should root my phone just to get rid of the HTC gumph.

So there you go. I've written more than I thought I would... There are subtler changes, and probably the most significant of these is that I play less games on my HTC - this may be partly due to the amount of games, but I think it's because Android does much better integration with social networking and better web browsing and all that shazam, and I'm using my phone as a workhorse and not just a pretty gaming accessory.

Foregone conclusion

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:42:00 +0000

I've been playing guitar for 17 years and playing in worship bands in churches on and off throughout that time, so it may seem somewhat odd that I have never owned an electro acoustic guitar (i.e. an acoustic guitar you plug in). Sure, I have an old knackered acoustic, but it is exactly that - old and knackered.

So, I have finally got round to buying myself a decent guitar. My main needs were for it to sound awesome through a PA and be good to play. I had a ballpark spend figure in mind and off I went to the guitar shop, with my more knowledgeable chum in tow. I tried lots of guitars in a couple of shops, weighing up the pros and cons, going back to try and retry them, asking said knowledgeable chum for his advice, and eventually I found this beauty: a Yamaha APX 900.

I've waited a long time and agonised over what guitar to get, but this is definitely the guitar that I've been wanting. So come last Sunday I finally get to lead a service with my own guitar. It was a good service, and the guitar sounded fantastic - result!

Afterwards a friend came up to me and the following conversation ensued:

Friend: "Nice guitar, is it new?"

Me: "Yes, thanks"

Friend: "Is it a Yamaha?"

Me (impressed at a non guitarist's knowledge): "Yep!"

Friend: "Yeah, thought so. Black Yamaha..."

Me (slightly confused): "What do you mean: Black Yamaha?"

Friend: "Well, it's the guitar of choice for worship leaders isn't it?"

Me: "Is it?"

Friend: "Yeah, Noel Richards, Martin Smith and Paul Oakley play them don't they?"

Me: "Do they?"

I got home and Auntie Google confirmed it: I have bought the guitar of choice for worship leaders through the nineties, and in the same flippin' colour!

I have no knowledge of what a worship leader guitars, I simply wanted a guitar that suited my needs and I have proved myself a foregone and somewhat dated conclusion (apparently Taylors and Martins are now all the rage)! Alternatively I could take comfort that those serious in their worship leading have the same impeccable taste. Either way, I am very glad for my guitar.

And it's not black. It's dark mocha brown.

It's sad saying goodbye...

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:10:00 +0000

I'm glad to go
I cannot tell a lie
I flit, I float
I fleetly flee, I fly

Goodbye old work, hello new work.

Bye Bye Spotify

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:32:00 +0000

On May 1, Spotify will significantly limit its free ad-littered service that I like to use in a rather distracted fashion , meaning that I will probably stop using it for my pursuit of increasingly random playlists throughout my workday.

On May 2, I will be starting a new job.

I think God may be trying to tell me something.

Random usability things

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:40:00 +0000

I've come across a couple of things on sites today that have made me think about how we make sites accessible.

If your site is providing a service consider making the copy subjective. I don't know if this a good thing to do, but I happened upon Medway Council's site today and couldn't miss the user centric search panel on the front page. The first sections are titled "I am...", "I want to..." and "Find my nearest..." with suitable options listed below each.

I love this - it attempts to help visitors find information on the site in different ways according to their reason for visiting. It says, we have tried to think about this site from your point of view and have worded it as such. If stats were taken on user interaction I hope that this approach would get a thumbs up.
Use plain English, not fluffy or overly complicated language. Again, the feature of the site above works because it is so plain.
If you don't need to explain the technical ins and outs of a feature, then don't. Not sure about this, but I do like Google Reader's sort options that include the enigmatic "Sort by magic". For real. And you know what? I just clicked it, and the items do appear to be sorted in the way I'd hoped. I need not know how, I'm happy and mildly amused by the mystery of it all!

I'm probably going to be reviewing some of my sites soon, and these points will definitely be at the forefront of my mind.

On Making Choices

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:18:00 +0000

And after all that about silence earlier, I do want to share something. I'm reading a few books at the mo, and by far and away the easiest, most accessible, and probably most useful of the lot is On Making Choices by Margaret Silf.

The book is aptly described in its title, and is intended to be the sort of book that you dip in and out of. I read the whole thing in a couple of lunch breaks and found it to be full of pragmatic advice at a time when I feel overwhelmed by the prospect of making decisions. Particularly helpful is the author's focus on really knowing the point from where you are making choices (Square One), not where you think you are making choices from.

I'd really recommend it. Most useful stocking present I've had. I get grown-up Christmas stockings nowadays...

Enjoy the silence

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:10:00 +0000

I haven't blogged in an age and I tend to go through these periods often. Is it because I don't have anything to write? I wouldn't say so. On the contrary, I've loads going on, but most of it is personal and just not right for me to put out there. I don't have any great desire to share deeply personal stuff here. I'm not like that Facebook friend who puts everything on there, all the time and you either put on your hide list, or follow them avidly like observing some sort of car crash in progress.

To be honest I think most people I know who blog don't blog about personal stuff - they have other focuses, or have an appropriately nondescript disclosure of more personal news. So I'm not atypical and will continue to embrace the silence as much as the noise.

As an aside I probably should change the blog description as I patently have a proven ability to contain my inner monologue.

Peace.

Comics and Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:00:00 +0000

I love this article from the BBC News site today about using comic books as philosophical discussion aids.

I studied philosophy as part of a theology A-level and I really enjoyed it, even if it did my head in sometimes. The problem with it was finding real world examples that could act as a springboard into deeper understanding - Kant's maxims are not the simplest of ideas to bandy about. The article looks at those who are trying to address this by using comics as an initial source - looking at questions such as why Batman never kills the Joker and does Dr Manhattan have a point in his belief that everything is determined by physics.

I think this is brilliant, and wholeheartedly agree with the supporters who point to the classic philosophers interests in contemporous analogy. For me, I see Jesus' parables as full of examples of first century middle eastern life. It's one of the things that makes reading ancient texts that bit more difficult or maybe less nuanced than for those who were able to hear or read them first hand. If Jesus came to earth today, I have no doubts that his parables would be situated in the situations of the times (maybe economic crisis, technological boom, a passing reference to Eastenders?!).

Have a read, if you have a mo.

What makes good web content

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:54:00 +0000

Unless the interwebs pixies took your broadband away, you can't have failed to come across the "girl quits her job via the medium of whiteboard" viral doing the rounds this week. I can't remember many virals blowing up this quickly. I retweeted Stephen Fry's link to it, and as I did so, I saw Facebook and e-mail inboxes flooded with the same thing.

The whole thing resonated so well that I even forgot my internet maxim of "everything on the internet is fake, unless you find otherwise". I think this is the greatest maxim with which you can approach the interwebs. It doesn't diminish your enjoyment, but it does manage your expectations, and possibly even magnify your enjoyment when you find out that it's not fake (see also, my post on skepticism).

Anyway, as I showed the viral to my wife and viewed it for a second time, that creeping doubt of hoax entered my mind - there were things about it that looked well planned, and indeed the next day the viral hosts, thechive, announced that it was a hoax.

What amazes me about all this is that somehow this got beyond my hoax filters almost immediately and I really don't recall questioning it as I first read it. I think this is because the viral did the following:

posed a real scenario, i.e. quitting your job
played the actor as an object of sympathy with everyman problems, i.e. a bad boss
produced an outcome that played to what the reader wants, i.e. boss gets comeuppance, without making it too sensational a response.

The writers produced an amazingly well balanced viral that made for supreme web content, and subsequently everyone was sucked in.

And you know what? Hoax or not, it was thoroughly enjoyable and I applaud them!

Which leaves me with this. Matthew Inman creator of one of my favourite blogs, The Oatmeal, was invited to speak for Ignite Show, which offers a format of a five minute presentation where the slides change every 15 seconds. He was speaking on what makes great web content. I think he hits many nails on heads!

I spy WiSpy

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:30:00 +0000

Just a quick note. I know that the Google wi-spy scandal is a major balls-up and raises a lot of questions about Google's integrity and practices, but have you seen this article where they accuse Google of snooping on US Congress members? The accusations are that information about national security may have been picked up and therefore perceived as wiretapping.

What's the first question that comes to your mind? Surely, what on earth are those with national security information doing with unsecured networks in the first place. The group that makes the accusations is so intent on bringing Google to answer for what it's done that they overlook the gaping hole of the US goverment's own security.

No wonder all those baddies in 24 got hold of senators' data easily for so many series.

And everyone else, for goodness' sake, secure your network.

Cynicism vs Skepticism

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:25:00 +0000

Recently I've pondered the world of cynicism. I used to think I was a cynic. I felt that unless there was good evidence or reasoning to something then it is fine to ask questions about it. What I have realised is that I am probably a skeptic, not a cynic. And I'm glad for this realisation.

You see I think a cynic is someone who inherently distrusts people or a specific group of people for no reason as primary as a personal one. They take delight in the shortcomings of those people because it reinforces their negative prejudgement of those folks. They also don't need evidence to back up their claims - their mere judgement will suffice. I've realised that being cynical is a rather selfish pursuit that hurts others.

A skeptic on the other hand is someone who, to my mind, questions something that is purported to be factual. They want to engage in critically addressing claims to satisfy themselves that the claims are true or accurate. They need evidence or critical thinking to bring their own reasoning to a satisfactory reasoning, which also implies that they don't look to their own judgement. Skepticism can be handled many ways, some of which border on the motives of cynicism, but I believe that there can be a place for positive skepticism. Oddly enough the lecture from uni that stays with me the most is the one about alternative hypotheses - i.e. what else could've caused this thing?

I have to say I don't feel skeptical, but I know I am at times. But equally I can happily state that I am not a cynic and I never want to be one.

Reviving older tech...

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:30:00 +0000

With the excitement of having a new iPhone, I'm actually a bit more excited about the revival of some of my slightly older tech.

I have a work laptop. Toshiba Satellite Pro A100 if you must know. Centrino Duo 1.66GHz, 60GB HDD and 1.5GB RAM. Nothing amazing and has been dutifully running XP for about 4 years.

I thought I might upgrade it to Windows 7. Becuase I like Windows 7. My inner skeptic was screaming NOOOOOOO!!!! because newer software's bloated machinations make old tech unusable. But I ploughed ahead. Because I like Windows 7. And because work have licenses. And it's a work machine. And our dev environment is IIS7 based. (Ok so a fair few reasons)

I thought I ought to give it a fighting chance to run, so for under £50 I got a 320GB HDD and a gig stick of RAM to max the laptop out to 2GB.

Do you know what? The machine runs seemingly as well as it did before with no problems. I know have a much cleaner interface, a much more user friendly way of working (sorry XP dinosaurs) and I am really pleased. Just to test it out I installed the trial suite of Adobe CS4, and it runs that quite happily. Okay I wasn't creating a hundred-layered Illustration but still!? CS4 on a min spec laptop. Hooray.

Windows 7 is genuinely nice OS. I have Vista on my home PC and I really like what it was trying to do, but it is bloated and imperfect (although nothing like ME and yes, I had that on a home PC many moons ago). In Windows 7, Microsoft have refined their vision for what Vista hadn't been and it's good.

My only frustration is that I have no upgrade path from Vista OEM (on my home PC), and it is prohibitively expensive to justify a new OS in a matter of 2 years. Bugger.

Eye Fone Fore

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:30:00 +0000

So I have an iPhone4. Thanks to my generous employers and a upgrade policy from O2 that left us cash in hand after trading in our 3Gs, I have garnered some tech props for the moments.

So what have I discovered so far (about it and iOS4)?

It's a lot faster than my 3G, which is great.
The signal does indeed disappear when held in a certain way. More annoyingly it notifies you (can't seem to remove the notification), which means it's going to happen a lot when you hold it sideways (say, when you watch a film or play a game or write a text or do most things). What an unbelievable fail from Apple, and I have to say one that I think seemed rather predictable when they first annouced the integrated antenna.
It feels nice and solid.
I have missed having a video camera in my phone.
Folders are the bestest thing for the finger weary app collector.
Multitasking is a bit meh - I'm sure there'll be something that happens when i realise how super duper it really is, but so far, so meh.

General complaint, nothing to do with the 4 in particular. iPod needs a better way of displaying movies - at least a scrolling title or a portrait view. See my point below.

Given all the iPhone4 hating that has emerged, I thought it might be worth referring to this video which makes the point that iPhone's are not the only smartphone with problems (caution: fairly sweary vid)

Harry Potter

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:30:00 +0000

Up until a few months ago I'd never read a Harry Potter book, and I'd only ever seen the first film. In fact the only thing I really knew about the Harry potter universe is that some lady likes to write under the fan-fiction name Ali Granger, pretending to be Hermione's sister. Who isn't actually in the books. That's fan fic for you I guess... For a while I could assume a happy anonymity to anything actually connected to me through Google.

Anyway i digress. I love fantasy fiction. My favourite reads and films would be the Lord of the Rings saga. I loved reading Narnia and Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea novels totally transfixed me as a young teenager. So it's probably a bit odd that I'd not reconnected with the fantasy fic fan inside me with the HP series.

Well, that's now rectified. In the space of four weeks, I read all seven books, and then in roughly a week I watched all six films. While this primarily highlights how obsessed I can get when reading (see also anything Douglas Coupland, Stephen Fry or trashy cod-religious-conspiracy based) and goes some way to explain why I don't read much (my sleep patterns can't take the lack of self-pacing), I can't get over how good the novels themselves are and what an utterly talented author JKR is.

For me her skill is in developing and growing the characters over seven years; it genuinely feels like you grow with the characters (which I guess acutally was the case for the books' release schedules and the school year based scope of each novel). The darker tone that the books gradually take (a point that puts some folks off) seems to match the progression of the characters growth. I was taken by her managing to make key plot points from a previous book in the series without making it appear shoehorned into the plot. Clever girl and critical adulation is deserved.

Films aren't too shabby either. Fitting such verbose stories into two and a bit hours is going to be tough, and on the whole I think whoever curates the HP film series is getting it right.

So all in all a post about how I haven't much to say! Looking forward to the final films...

Another reason to dislike ITV

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:15:00 +0000

The best thing about the World Cup coverage is that internet TV is fully fledged, so we can have a match on in the background at work happily streaming from BBC's iPlayer or ITV's erm ITV Player.

What is less fun is ITV's player which is inexplicably rubbish. Frequent cut outs, video lag, no video, reloads which involve sitting through ads again and streaming error messages make it one of the most frustrating viewing experiences I've ever encountered. The BBC's iPlayer on the other hand has streamed almost flawlessly, even offering alternative commentaries with no lag.

C'mon ITV: sort it out.

To blog or not to blog

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:16:00 +0000

I've feel like the year's been busy and one of those things that suffers is my desire to blog. I guess most people who start to blog run out of steam or desire or interest quite quickly, and I am no exception.

I ponder whether to keep a blog given the infrequency of post but then I know folks in a similar position and I love their occasional infrequent posts, even those of just a few words. I think there are genuinely good blogs that have a genuinely consistent focus of interest, whether it be the church or tech etc.

The rest of us are probably blogging to self, a somewhat cathartic process, albeit with a small audience peering over us, but I don't think this is a bad thing, so I'll probably keep blogging in a consistently erratic fashion, and really, so should you.

Missing the convergence boat...

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:02:00 +0000

Every once in a while I check out Google Chrome. Given that I've placed most of my life in Google's hands - including only using Google Bookmarks - I thought Chrome would be yet another seamless blend into existing services. Today I tried to sync Chrome's bookmarks with my Google Bookmarks. The prompts were all very helpful until it told me that I'd successfully synced my Chrome bookmarks to Google Docs! What on earth???? Obviously the most natural place to sync Chrome's bookmarks is Google Docs and not Google Bookmarks. What a weird and uncharacteristcally non-convergent decision.

Either way, I'll be sticking with Firefox for now.

Proselytising

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:31:00 +0000

Today is Safer Internet Day which is great - I wish the issues around internet safety had more prominence and that parents and children would instinctively feel that they know what to do or how to access resources.

What did catch my eye was someone tweeting in response to a question "what can you do to stay safe online?" with the answer "buy a Mac". I guess there may have been an aspect of tongue in cheek about it, but it felt out of place and as such completely misses the point.

I avoid the Mac vs Pc brigade because it tends to occupied by really narrow minded evangelists that fuel their respective smugness with each new revelation about the failing of the other. I love PCs. I love Macs. I know what I prefer about one to the other and vice versa.

What annoyed me about the reply above was that it was Mac proselytising. It was all about the Mac. It was saying Mac's are more secure online *smugness* because they're less susceptible to viruses etc. *smugness*. Fine, a point well made (although always failing to mention the vastly smaller proportion of Mac owners also makes them less appealing as a target, which is a pro, but also questions the susceptibility to viruses argument). The problem is my kids can still access the less salubrious entities of the internet with a Mac. Kiddy grooming, donkey porn* and phishing scams are all still factors in the world of Mac. Safer Internet Day is predominantly about educating and working with children and parents to help them understand the risks of surfing and knwo how to respond. It's not about viruses and spyware (although a factor), and it certinaly never mentions getting a Mac.

This is a problem with proselytising in general. It's so blind in its ambition that it loses context because the ambition is key. This made me think about my faith, because many times I can see that I and those with similar beliefs often proselytise. We have a belief, a cause, a raison d'etre and, understandably, we are eager to promote it to others, not stopping to observe others. There's a great joke about a kid in Sunday School being asked "what's furry, eats nuts, and has a big bushy tail?" and the kid, with a degree of uncertainty answers "Jesus?". I hope and pray that I'm not so blind in my ambition and belief that I can't see the reality or thrust of a situation for my preconception that there's a single, simple answer to that situation. I probably am, and I hope that I can work through that.

*probably does exist, I've never Googled it, and neither should you.

Fives: Bands that I was not into this time last year.

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0000

I was just looking at my last.fm profile, and I noticed that there were a few bands/artists that I've only really got into in the last year. These are the five I've listened to the most.

Sufjan Stevens
He has been on my radar for a while and something that I saw someone tweet finally gave me the interest to go and find out what he's like; and, oh my goodness, do I absolutely love his music. I like the term multi-instrumentalist, because it often means that you are going to find a cornucopia of sounds and styles within an album. Anyone who can write about supercomputers, secularism and Nietzsche in one song is legendary in my world.
TV on the Radio
Mainly it's been one album (Dear Science), and then out of that, one track (Dancin' Choose) but they have an infectious tone and again, diversity within their repetoire.
Jamie Cullum
The jazz charms of the piano pixie have never appealed to me, and then I heard The Pursuit. Or rather, my entire family singing I'm All Over It Now incessantly, and then I realised that Mr. Cullum writes fantastic pop (the aforementioned IAOIN was co-written with Deacon Blue's Ricky Ross). His songs are really, really catchy and I sense that this album is more adventurous than previous affairs, with discoesque basslines (Music is Through) or songs with a more epic scale (Mixtape). I like pop. I like a good songwriter. I now like Jamie Cullum. I really am Radio 2 fodder (which I now almost exclusively listen to, oh the rot has set in).
Them Crooked Vultures
I don't care what the naysayers say, if you put the personnel of Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters and Led Zepellin together, how on earth can it not be Genius³? Some of the tunes are so fierce with properly meaty gear changes (Elephants), and odl school LedZepalongs that it's a fairly permanent fixture on my iPod.
Pomplamoose
From an ingenius video advertising a guitar effects pedal I discovered videosongs - the brainchild concept of Jack Conte, who with his girlfriend Nataly Dawn comprise Pomplamoose. Their covers are sublime (check out Beat It) and free to download, which act as a platform to their self-penned material. Nataly Dawn's voice is so unique, almost haunting, and they've captured a complete niche with the whole videosongs.

So there you go - if you're interested check them out.

LEGO in the real world

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:06:00 +0000

If you liked any of James May's TV series Toy Stories, which included building a real scale house out of LEGO, then you'll love this BBC News clip about building models with LEGO and how engineers actually use it to prototype real world concepts.

Brilliant - I always knew that there were people who could take the cable car station and system that I built as a kid beyond the bedroom!

Incidentally, the only games I've played in the past few months is LEGO Star Wars II, which is possibly the perfect father and son game...

Framerater

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:43:00 +0000

I love films - doesn't everyone?! I came across Framerater a few months ago. It's a fairly simple website that allows you to tick off what films you've seen from a selection of top XX lists, most notably IMDB's Top 250 list.

I guess this might appeal to some sort of cultural IQ point-scoring smugness in folks (oh yes, Smultronstället was fabulous...) , but where it really comes into it's own is in suggesting quality films for you to watch. I'd really like to see some of the films that everyone else rates, and this is a perfect companion for my quest. Over Christmas I sat down with the Radio Times, my PVR control and recorded shed loads of films. It's been brilliant! I've finally seen Once Upon A Time In The West (which I loved), The Nightmare Before Christmas, Momento and Chinatown, and I'm looking forward to watching The Third Man and others when I get the chance.

I heartily recommend Framerater. If you sign up, add me (alergy).

Kids Rock

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:39:00 +0000

I love this video - the guy behind it is Tim Hawkins. It's not new and the video isn't anything but oh my, the material is absolute genius.