Mockery is more than they deserve.

London Riots

Dark days are upon us.

6th August 2011: Violent and heavy rioting starts in Tottenham following a protest outside the police station regarding the, as yet unresolved, shooting of Mark Duggan. Half of Tottenham is decimated and shops are looted before being burned to cinders. Several people lose their homes, and many businesses trashed in an impoverished area of North London.

7th August 2011: Half way through the night of rioting, motives switch from mere anger at the police and society to mindless looting and vandalism. It spreads soon to Wood Green with phone shops and sports clothing shops being targeted in particular. Looting continues into the early morning without police intervention, and most stock has been stolen already. I drive through Wood Green slightly fearful just as its coming to an end.

7th August 2011: Tottenham smoulders. Wood Green glaziers make a killing putting in new glass in many shop fronts. Rumors on Twitter emerge over targeting Enfield at 8pm. Sure enough, on the scene reporters show quite a number of troublemakers trying to start a riot in Enfield, but police presence is strong enough to prevent this from happening properly. Some shops still damaged. New reports of movement to Edmonton Green retail later in the evening, then reports from various places all over London including Dalston, Islington, Holloway, Westfield and Brixton begin to emerge. Most are not too serious but Brixton requires serious policing and a Foot Locker is burnt to a crisp probably after being looted.

8th August 2011: London wakes up to another morning of mindless vandalism and theft. No excuses this time. Pure greed at work. Plenty of witty tweets sum up how useless many of this generation are.

Reports suggest social media, in particular Twitter was to blame for spread of looting last night. Thinking about it, and prompted by this article, its much more likely the actual looters spread word via BBM and texting, knowing the type of people out looting and the phones they’re likely to be carrying.

Ideas to stop more looting: much greater police presence with serious armoury and water cannons, none of this hold-the-line shit. Get Blackberry to shut down the BBM network for a night or too, sure it will probably infuriate people, but I’d guess it would slow a lot of communication and prevent widespread broadcasting from looters to their contacts to get involved.

Just seems all a bit unreal. Reading the Hunger Games at the same time hasn’t helped and it certainly feels a lot more like London has become a war zone rather than the relatively safe place I’d thought it had become in recent years. Just driving to pick up my mum 100m from some idiots trying to re-loot a JD sports in Wood Green last night has dropped my faith in a lot of these idiots.

How little life changes

So yes, I once again return with high hopes of maintaining a blog. For what reason…evidently none as blogs seemed to go out of fashion approximately 4 years ago, meaning I might be just in time for a retro resurgence of blogging once the twitter/facebook hoo-hah dies down.

So I’ll start with some small observations on how much and how little life has changed since last adding to this technological diary of my life.

• From 5 years ago now (wow, really, five years): But for now, I leave with my bags packed, nervous anticipation in my stomach and a readiness to delve into a fun, new, future…

Well luckily enough I’m in that position once again, bags are metaphorically nearly packed, a nervous anticipation of what lies ahead although with perhaps a greater forewarning than previously. The realisation that this is only the start of a massively long journey (hopefully), but just very glad that I’m finally on the road leading to where I really do want to be. I am incredibly lazy, and partially quite lucky and without that good fortune, I could easily have been contemplating a very difficult and different year and perhaps lifetime ahead of me.

Anyways, this newfound spark has prompted me to at least partially throw off my ways of reluctant learning, to push ahead with wanting to do the absolute best that I can do instead of just about doing enough. This is an amazing opportunity and if I screw it up, there is no one else left to blame but me. I am at least trying to read through and prepare the material they’ve sent, lets see how far this can really take me.

• So no ‘traditional’ holiday for me this time, perhaps even no holiday before what is certainly going to be one of the most academically and character-testing years of my life. Ohhh
• Addressing topics that seem cyclical that I brought up during ‘Internet Challenge Day’ (big booming voice):
• I was correct about the iPad, almost exactly. Well my guesses weren’t particularly extraordinary were they, and god knows, I (still) read enough Apple crap to be able to make a half decent guess about what they’re making.
• Celebrities die, young celebrities die. Amy Winehouse died. Did you know she lived just across the road from my sixth form? I knew Camden was always a bit cool. Its just a shame that in a few years, it’ll be much more likely that I remember Amy Winehouse died this year rather than the 90+ kids murdered by some right-wing nut in Norway.
• I love my Macbook Pro’s battery life, and for that matter my iPhone 4′s. But the battery on Gab’s iPad seems to drain away alarmingly quickly. +1 for not buying one, even though I spent a large proportion of my internet time today searching for buying a second had first gen iPad. I don’t know why, but I have an obsessive compulsion to buy stuff when I have money, then complain when I don’t realise why all my money’s gone.
• I no longer subscribe to Ray William Johnson because frankly he’s run out of steam and I waste enough time watching pointless Youtube videos without adding more to my time. I’m actually getting better at cutting off crap I no longer need both in my online and real lives.
• Having just re-listened to the Muse songs, my review of The Resistance was surprisingly accurate. Shame that there still is maybe only one ‘classic’ track on it for me, much less than their old stuff. Hmm, waiting on a new Killers album if Brandon Flowers ever decides to stop making mediocre music by himself and rejoin that moustached drummer guy.
• I can smell the tropical juice I forgot to finish after my dinner…which surprisingly consisted of liver again. Although I only ate two small pieces so hopefully my urine won’t turn green.
• I’m slightly disappointed with my writing skills at the moment. Hence why I’m doing this, and maybe that I should read more. Read more fiction (yes you girl who played with fire and hunger games), read more non-fiction (science and news), read much less technology (my slight dreams of being an Engadget writer ended within about 5 minutes of considering applying to be their London writer when they had a position open last year).
• HDTV’s are really quite cheap now. Not cheap enough for me just to be throwing down cash on one just cause I want one. And certainly not cheap enough for us to buy if my mum quits her shithole, customer fake-complaining job, but still, cheaper than I thought
• Lion is…fine. No earth-shattering improvements. Maybe a few things that at the moment I’m still getting used to but in the long run might become very natural and require a few days of readjustment when it changes again. ‘Natural’ scrolling is not one of those things.

So what will I learn? Hopefully to be a good caring doctor. But first I must fully engage in the spirit of university and truly appreciate  Tooting and all it offers. Ha!

 

 

PSP Go (…suck itself apparently)

Ok, so there’s been very little praise for the new PSP Go with quite a few reviewers pointing out the obvious downsides to the new Sony console, however, here’s an extract from the brilliant Ars Technica review:

In other words, this system is for people who don’t mind rebuying all their content, never buy used games, and don’t mind paying more for less. If you’re agoraphobic and the idea of driving to a physical store to buy a game is terrifying, this system is for you. So we’re looking for a gamer who is both wealthy and frighteningly antisocial.

The rest of us will stick with our current hardware, thanks. If you sell a system that takes hours of setup, downloading, and charging before you can see what a game looks like on the screen, you have failed pretty spectacularly. I absolutely love my PSP, but this new iteration of the platform is what would happen if a facepalm was turned into a piece of hardware.

Entire Amsterdam pics

They’re not amazing, sorry.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/01jamcon/sets/72157622463764118/show/

Amsterdam in 140 characters or less

Ok, I kid, sadly for you dear reader. Its gonna be a bit more than 140 characters, but in the style of tweets, based on the texts I wrote while on holiday, because data usage is a bit of an ass-rape anywhere outside the UK on an iPhone.

We’re in Amsterdam getting charged a fortune in a taxi. Oh well. I need to make a poo too.

I hate going on holiday with my parents, they take so long to do anything and my mum is still annoying about everything. And I feel really awkward because my dad keeps talking about visiting the red light district. Allow.”

And there’s so many bloody bikes with 2 bike lanes on every road to check before you cross.

At least the weed smells purer here, not like that strong skunk shit you find people smoking in London.

Days not bad actually, went on the boat cruise. then the Van Gogh museum. The hotel beds are comfy and the tv is big and clear.

My parents are crazy about bloody postcards and the Dutch have plenty of coffee-shops, aka cannabis shops.

Tired. Been walking a lot today. Seen a lot though. Its weird. Amsterdam has loads of similarities to London in terms of how places look and where they are.

Haha, we’re in the Red Light District now, its not that bad during the day, but I just saw a pervy old man walk out of a porno cinema. cliched but true.

It’s just a bit sad actually, the women in the windows just look sad and bored and the fat ones will never get laid/paid. (Btw, my dad took that photo!)

After Chinatown I dunno where we’re going.

Today was nice, but of course I’m happier cause I just had a nice Thai meal, cheaper than a lot of other places too!

On our way to the Rembrandt museum but my mums checking out these shit market clothes. Again.

Oh boy, jay jay tired now. wants a bed. (sent at 2 in the afternoon)

Jay jays back, wooo! Haha, I funny. (usually I don’t actually talk about myself in the third person, fyi)

T-Mobile Pulse preview

The T-Mobile Pulse offers the first foray into Pay As You Go Android handsets here in the UK. Not quite available on the T-Mobile website yet, it’s set to retail for £180, however, it will require a sideline £5 per month “Internet Booster” add on allowing ‘unlimited browsing and data’ (1gb fair use policy).

Pros:

• It has a 3.5 inch multi-touch screen as well as a trackball underneath for more precise navigation.
• The User Interface is a slightly-tweaked version of Android, so not the full-blown beauty of the Sense UI as found on the HTC Hero (aka G2 Touch), which means that it might not have all the coolest gizmos but it might run a bit smoother and faster than the Hero, despite having a more underpowered processing chip. The UI used has a few nice touches such as widgets displaying photos, and a cover-flow styled contact list.
• Has 2gb of internal storage which can be expanded upon with microSD cards.
• Has Wi-Fi, GPS and the fastest form of 3G available here, HSPA, so all-round good connectivity.
• Has a 3.2mp stills and video camera (no flash though).
• Has 3 types of text input available in both portrait or landscape modes; full Qwerty, compressed Qwerty (a la Blackberry Pearl style) and alphanumeric (aka normal mobile keypad).

Cons:

• Its apparently crap at actual phone calls, with dropped calls and long waits for connections to be made. While not exclusively a problem found only on this smartphone, it is one of the worst performers in this department.
• The keyboard is slow, probably due to the slower processor, causing text to be missed when trying to type at full speed. Irritating.
• The build quality is creaky. This is no HTC “teflon-coated” Hero, instead being manufactured by Huawei for T-Mobile using cheaper plastics.

A quick word on Google’s Android platform; as one of the major competitors to the iPhone OS, it has gradually grown with the backing of the monolithic Google. There are plenty of quality (and free) apps available on Android,  covering most of the smart phone basics including Twitter, Facebook and mapping apps. It is really the Android OS that helps set the Pulse apart from those Samsung/LG pretenders, making this a real smartphone alternative to the iPhone for the more budget-conscious buyer.

Motorola Dext

Have to mention the upcoming Android based smartphone being released by the almost-dead Motorola next month. Like the HTC Hero before it, Motorola have added the funnily named Motoblur interface that focuses on integrating your social networks. Aka, they added some stuff to make it all fancy and compatible with Facebook/Twitter etc. (starting to see a pattern anyone?) Also available is the chance to manage your phone online, including over-the-air backups, useful in case you ever lose it. Has the standard features expected of a smartphone these days; 5mp camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, digital compass, 2gb microSD card and headphone jack. Supposedly snappy and responsive with comfortable slide out keyboard. CNET UK video review.