The Two Problems with Computers - Part Two: Three Years On

In 2009 I wrote a blog post on the problems with computers. The first problem is one of human interface, the second to do with binary computing. Maybe in another three years we will be discussing the latter of the two, but today the first problem is fixed.

What my argument came down to was that the process of point-and-click was not as simple as that; in reality what you do is move-finger-on-touch-pad-which-moves-a-cursor-on-a-screen-to-where-you-want-to-click-and-click. Well no longer. Today heralds a new day for my interface with the computer - a touch screen laptop.

Touch screens are now so embedded into our lives, we barely think about them any more - the mobile industry has taken up the idea with gusto and now hardware buttons seem so archaic to the point of barbarity. The computing industry seems to be taken by surprise by this and has only just woken up to the notion that this may be a good idea.

The laptop in question is a Sony Vaio E14 with touch-screen running Windows 8. When ordering the laptop I was in two minds whether to spend the extra dosh on the, what seemed like, indulgence of being able to poke the screen but I figured I'd regret not getting it what with Windows 8 (which was compulsory) being geared towards the tablet acquainted consumer. So opt for the screen I did and my first impressions are positive; I've found myself barely using the touch pad and instead favoring the more natural poke-at-what-you-want approach. 

My main gripes with the experience are mainly to do with becoming so accustomed to using a touch screen phone - many of the subtle gestures one uses on an Android phone are non existent on Windows 8. For example, to move an icon on a home screen on Android, one presses and holds the icon until it pops-up and then allows you to drag; the equivalent action on Windows 8, moving a tile on the Start screen requires you to press-hold-drag-up-drag-to-the-side which is not as intuitive I feel.

All in all Windows 8 works well with the more human human interface device and apart from the learning curve of getting used to the split user interface of having "Desktop" as an application in the new screen style formally known as Metro seems like a reasonably logical evolution of Windows 7.

Tough luck, Nintendo

Today will be remembered as the day that Microsoft killed Nintendo.

You may have heard of the Nintendo Wii U, the Wii's older brother. Basically it is a souped up Wii console. The main USP of the U is that they have ditched the USP of the Wii. Gone is the Wiimote, the wand like controller that magically filled Nintendo's pockets and rudely poked a stick into the game console world's side.

Wii(ll)U buy it?

The Wiimote has done something to the games culture that Nintendo have become adept at - making games fun. Microsoft were releasing their next round of Halo and more Gears of War were churning out; the serious gamers had their clawed hands full and their bank accounts empty. The Wii brought a greatly under appreciated demographic into the mix - children. And more importantly their parents. The Wii's approachable Miis and the pure fun of swinging a plastic stick and seeing your avatar swing a tennis racket were a concoction for success. Success that Microsoft and Sony wanted a piece of.

Sony released their blatant 'oh shit why did we not think of that' Play station Move, effectively a Wiimote with a big glowy ball on top, along with their Sixaxis controller - a standard looking PS controller but with accelerometers in.

Microsoft at least upped the ante with their laser ranging, voice identifying, Kinect. Although extremely novel and pretty damn cool, the Kinect falls down on the games for it - development houses have yet to come up with a kind of game that feels a natural use for the (lack of) controller. So even though it might be one of the most impressive bits of kit in the games market, there isn't really a market for the games.
So if it's not the Kinect that will kill Nintendo, what is it?

Well let's go back to the Wii U. So it's a console with greater specs that than the original Wii, that isn't hard as the Wii had very low specs comparatively to its competitors, and in fact the U is still no wower in that department. The USP is the 'second screen' of the controller. Obviously this isn't a new concept, if you care to think back to the Sega Dreamcast. The idea is that the game you are playing on your big screen will have augmented fun on the handheld little touch screen. From maps for your RPG to throwing frisbees and the like. Nintendo have spent a lot of money developing a controller which has a large touch screen, accelerometers and gyroscopes.

What Microsoft have done is realise that you have one of these already.

Some kind of singing game. Each to their own.

Today Microsoft release SmartGlass.

SmartGlass is an application for your phone or tablet which turns it into a second screen for your Xbox. Nintendo's USP just became a SP.
Your average "smart" phone contains a touch screen, accelerometers , gyroscopes, magnetometers, bluetooth, WiFi... the list goes on, so luckily for Microsoft, they haven't had to spend a penny (/dollar/yen) on hardware development.

So as Nintendo are fast in production for their November release date, Microsoft have already jumped the gun and released a product which is better than the Wii U in most ways, without having to actually release a new product. And the best thing is, you don't have to buy a new phone, tablet or console.
Tough luck, Nintendo.

AZ: The Complete Guide to Insufficiency by David Thomas Broughton

36 weeks late...

C: The Complete Guide to Insufficiency by David Thomas Broughton
As suggested by Chris Sparrow

This is not your normal album. This album was not recorded in a studio with thousands of pounds of equipment. This album was not mixed, adding layers of instruments over each other, compressed, mastered. This album was recorded in a church. This album was recorded in one take. This album is what it is and what it is is simplicity.

This album has a very slightly out of tune guitar.

When Chris offered up this album to the failed fortnightly (not biweekly) A-Z project, he described this album as “mostly just eccentric mumblings over looped acoustic guitar”. And to be honest I cannot add much more to that description.

There isn't much to this review. Then again there isn't much to this album. Sometimes you don't need much for perfection (... the album’s alright too).

6/10
Serving suggestion:
Do not listen to this album if you are yearning for intricate lyrics painting grand vistas or odysseys but more if you are looking for some beautiful music as bed to your evening, before you go to bed or as you stay up into the wee hours of the evening.

AZ: Bows + Arrows by The Walkmen

B: Bows + Arrows by The Walkmen
As suggested by Beth Ward

I find this album a little hit and miss. The first track, What's in it for me is a perfect example; first it's a miss - there's not a lot going on musically and it's just a bit dull, hit - the lyrics are great, they're an orginal telling of the standard lyrical theme, break-ups.
Second song - hit, third - miss, fourth - hit, you get the picture.

So what are you looking forward to when listening to this album? Well if you like the musical stylings of Bob Dylan, Pavement or The Smiths then I urge you to give it a try. Imagine a smush of all of the above with the overdrive turned up high and the temperature turned down low.

So all in all, the lyrics and general feel of Bows + Arrows is really enjoyable but at times the drones and lack of much musical diversity can cause a bit of tedium, which is probably why it's taken me four months to write this piece. Or maybe the reason is that I've just been waiting for the right weather to suit the album.


5/10
Serving suggestion:
Stick it on on a sunny summer's day whilst sipping on that cool beer and lie back and drift into that pre-sun-stroke daze.

Big Tent

As I was perusing Google+ on Wednesday, I stumbled upon this post by the keen G+ advocate, Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge). He wrote:

I was going to attend the Google Big Tent event tomorrow up in Watford, then different commitments crop up and now I can't make it.

As it so happens I was planning on visiting my parents, not 15mins drive from Watford. This seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Now I had not heard anything about this Big Tent event, it had not been advertised at all and seemed to be an invite-only do, however, after a little Googling, I found a registration page.
Seeing as this was the day of the event and that it was still probably invite-only, I thought of it as a bit of harmless fun to fill out the form. So fill I did and to my surprise immediately received a confirmation email claiming to be looking forward to seeing me on the big day.
Again, I thought this was too good to be true and that some automated thing had messed up and I'd get to the event and be turned away by a big burly bouncer looking up and down on a list which didn't have my name on it. But 15mins drive is nothing so it was worth a try, eh?

The event was being held at The Grove. Upon pulling into the grounds of the massive hotel I was sure something had gone wrong. There were no signs of any Google-life anywhere. So myself and my dad (who I had conscripted to accompany me for some company in the likely event that everything went tits-up) drove around for a bit being slightly perplexed as to where to go. A young lad working for the golf course pointed us in the right direction of, unsurprisingly, a big tent.

The tent itself was in a walled area and after parking, we walked up to the entrance where the afore-prophesied big burly bouncer stood. Tentatively we approached and I asked where we pick up our IDs (hey, you gotta pretend you belong, eh?). After a second of being ignored, the bouncer apologised for being dazed by the heat and pointed us in the direction of the welcome desk.

The welcome desk along with punters splayed across various sofas, pool tables, buffet tables, scantily-clad Coca-cola-serving ladies, was contained in a huge temporary green house. 

The Green-house

Pool and air-hockey tables

So after giving our names and, unsurprisingly, the ladies at the desk looking up and down the ID cards to come to the conclusion ours were not there. No problem - a handy printer was at the welcome desk for such an occasion, and within minutes we were the proud owners of Big Tent IDs.

I pretended to be part of my dad's company, so what?

After a spot of lunch (couscous and some little bread things with cream cheese and chutney), we headed into the lecture-tent a little early and sat in the second row. Due to our late arrival, we had missed the morning session (in which the official hash-tag had to be changed from #BigTentUK to #BigTentUK12 due to a porn-spam-hash-tag-hijack (which was ironic/coincidental/appropriate due to the mornings topic being on porn)) but here we were, awaiting the arrival of the man himself, Eric Schmidt (executive chairman, Google).

An empty stage

Introduced and informally interviewed by Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy, "5 Billion Voices: Eric Schmidt in conversation" gave an interesting insight into Google's perspective on getting mobile devices to citizens of growing countries as both communicational and educational devices. He also criticized Britain for not keeping up with our computing heritage, although welcoming the changes in the national curriculum regarding computer science he said that there is still a lot of work to be done. 

On the subject of censorship, specifically David Cameron's Iron-Porn-Firewall, Schmidt was very careful not to voice too much of his own opinion, saying that it's up to governments to make their own policies, however, that these policies must be clear cut and easily implementable.

Under questions from Guru-Murthy and the audience, Schmidt kept his cool and gave, if not practised, very informed responses. Regarding accusations that Google's search results prefer Google products his response seemed evasive, rather than going on record to say that they don't (or do) he asked whether it was illegal if they did do it. Schmidt seemed very happy when asked whether Google+ has been a failure (especially when compared to the behemoth, Facebook) citing that Facebook has had many years to get it's user base and that 150MUsers in the time Google+ has been active is an extremely good result.

Eric and Krishnan

Next on the agenda were three presentations by journalists from the Guardian, Burum Media and the Huffington Post about the use of modern technology in journalism followed by a discussion and Q&A. Although journalism is not really my field (as you can tell by reading this!) this was extremely interesting, specifically the talk by The Guardian's Simon Rogers on how they used data to better understand what was happening during the riots.

Following a short break, in which I had some liquid nitrogen made, Eton mess flavoured ice-cream, was presentations and then a debate by two authors, under the title "Good or Evil: has the social revolution enhanced or diminished our society?" First up was Andrew Keen, author of #digitalvertigo: How today's online social revolution is dividing, diminishing, and disorienting us, followed by Nick Harkaway; The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World. Both authors were concerned about how to retain humanity under the ever increasing influence of people who are fully immersed in the online experience. This, however, was the sum total of their agreement.

Harkaway took an optimistic view of the whole scenario and I look forward to reading his book (copies of both books were given away free at the end). Keen on the other hand came across extremely pessimistic, ignorant and frankly just a grumpy old man who wants things to go back to the way they were. We all know the famous saying "if you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold" and Keen is of the opinion that in the future people will pay for the premium of having their privacy protected. This is an interesting concept but as it stands, this is not the way the trend seems to be going. His arguments stood some ground throughout the Q&A until he came out with this humdinger:

Free services like Wikipedia I don't think benefit anyone.

 ...away crumbles a large chunk respect I have for the man. I'd bet good money that he has not known something and proceeded to look it up on Wikipedia and has benefited from it! I could vent on this subject for a while but I feel my coherence may be marred by my frustration so I'll stop here!

Overall, Big Tent 2012 was an extremely engaging event with anybody that you sit down next to being friendly and talkative. The most interesting points raised were that of privacy - people are willing to give up some for the benefit of the service provided, and you can't erase the past on the internet, and that of what comes after "The Social Web".

So all there is left to do is to thank Robert Llewellyn for "letting the cat out of the Google sack" and that I look forward hopefully sneaking myself in again next year.

I bought a suit the other day

This post is done in a Richard Herring, Me1 vs. Me2, style. I've never actually listened to his multiple personality podcast, however, he tweets enough about it...


Me 1: So David, back in January you made a commitment didn't you? Could you please comment on that a little?
Me 2: Ah yes. Back in January, I made the claim that I would write 26 album reviews corresponding to every fortnight in the year and every letter of the alphabet.
1: ...and what happened to that?
2: Well my first post was a little late, "no matter," I thought; it was easy enough to write and a fair bit of fun. The second album, however, I ran into some difficulty - the words just weren't coming. So I put it off a little. And then a little more. In the mean time, I moved home, which took up a bit of time, and started working more, which took up even more time.
1: So you just kept putting it off?
2: That's right, and now I'm ten albums behind schedule.
1: Will you ever do it?
2: Honestly, I don't know. I can try catching up, but the fact is that I may not ever get round to it.
1: So that's it then, no more blogs?
2: Not at all! The purpose of the A-Z project was to give myself practice writing as apparently it's a useful skill. I'm going to try keep doing some writing on things that more interest me at the time. Not such a long term commitment but maybe it will make the A-Z project come easier in the future.
1: The title of this post is "I bought a suit the other day", care to expand on that?
2: Well with my friend Sam's wedding coming up and a meeting in Italy at the start of next month, it was time for a new one.
1: Can we see it?
2:

Waistcoat FTW  

AZ: After Murder Park by The Auteurs

So here it, albeit at least two weeks late: the first A to Z review. I must have sat down at my laptop half a dozen times with the aim of writing this; putting on Spotify and queuing up the album, writing a couple of sentences and then getting distracted and promptly doing something easier. I guess I've just not been in the mood for this whole writing thing, WHICH COMPLETELY NEGATES THE POINT OF THIS EXERCISE! The idea was to force myself into writing regularly and I scuppered my own chances before I even started. In theory I should have A and B written by now and here I am just ranting about not having written anything!
Best get started then as I have some catching up to do:



A: After Murder Park by The Auteurs
As suggested by Alex Spencer

My first impression was to comment on how fresh sounding this album is. But then I checked on Wikipedia and it turns out it After Murder Park was released in 1996! Well that just goes to show what kind of musical rock I've been under for the past eight years. So if it is not fresh, then I'll say it has aged extremely well - songs such as Unsolved Child Murder and the title track at close of the album are very musically relevant today, with the use of light distortion and strings sections which I feel has become more popular the past few years (see Arcade Fire, I Am Kloot, et al.). Having said that, I do think child-murders have gone slightly out of fashion.

There are a few musical inspirations I picked out on this album; whether these were intentional, real inspirations or just a happy connection made by my mind is a moot point. The first track in particular, Light Aircraft On Fire, has elements of Pearl Jam-esque grunge. I particularly enjoy the extremely well placed atonal moments that keep you on edge, longing for tonality to return. It's strange that this was the track that initially sparked my 'this album has a new feel to it' theory and now here I am comparing it to an even older band!
Buddah seems to me to ape late 70s Pink Floyd a little and every now and then I get a small taste of a PF drum-riff. I'm probably just going mad and hearing what I want to though.
Finally there is some good old-fashioned rocking out to enjoy on most tracks, which could be attributed to a whole wealth of tributes. I'll let you decide on these for yourself. Listening to the album, I caught myself experiencing involuntary head-banging a fair few times. Notable bangover inducers being Land Lovers and Married to a Lazy Lover.


Overall I have to say an interesting album and well worth a listen to. Not the up-to-date album I first thought, but one of those albums which survives the test of time, perhaps because it has elements of some giants before it which still linger on in our music collections. It may not end up on my most-played list but I think it will pop up it's head every now and then. I look forward to introducing myself to some more of The Auteurs music, I just need to make sure I don't end up wanting to see them live as I have a habit to do with dead bands.

6/10
Serving suggestion:
One of those albums which should be played on the walk home after the pub, when your way is lit by the dull-orange glow of the town and you can take your time to tipsily enjoy the music.