I was reading an article in a UK magazine about motorcycling Bike! which is actually making me hunger for Europe. Pages and pages of non cruisers, pages of people that don't think it's worth trusting the effectiveness of a t shirt as body armour. Bikes get me to work on occasion, hard to do with a toddler or would be daily, and I have to say there's one thing that I don't do consistently.

I don't get on a bike when not mentally aware,or fully awake with no pains, nagging or even arguments in mind. This is the frame of mind in which I do my best work yet this is the frame of mind that's really easy to lose , especially in an extreme environment such as Phoenix.

It's even worse in the UK though since for the most part people that live in Phoenix know how to dress, hydrate and generally survive the type of temperatures that our summer tosses out. Not so in the UK and hot days when they coincide with people wearing leathers and not drinking can get into trouble really fast.

Got me thinking though about the regimented lunch regimes in many companies and how much harm regulating people's metabolism en masse could be doing to the bottom line.

So off I went to get some research to see if anyone had worked out just how fast we tail off when we allow ourselves to be forced into a routine that's convenient for accounting systems but not for those of us that have to interact with and mostly what I have found is the detrimental effects of "skipping" lunch rather than the regimentation of them. Still looking but in the meantime it's a light snack for thought.




effects of lunch breaks on cognition - Google Search

        

Today I was going to be quiet and study some more flash  , alas  a couple of items appeared on my  reader in close proximity that  suggested that iPhone isn’t just a neat phone but it’s also the future of handheld gaming and the death of terrestrial radio.

It’s also the death of common sense least for  the current incarnation of the iPhone. Which network is going to have the ability to support that many real times streams?  If you don’t have immediacy it’s not radio.  Sure you can  DL the playlist  1st over night then just add in the  hosts  locally  may work, but  why bother  what are we trying to achieve here?   Replication of radio? Why? if it’s so bad would we want to?

Apples  target… 10 million  phones.

Yep that kills radio’s    more than 1 unit per person.   > 300 million.
that kills  Nintendo’s ( just one  companies) 20 million  DS base.

It doesn’t even kill XM/ Sirius  merge  with  17.3 million paying users.  It’s a bit late to walk by the  bleeding corpse of radio  and get your friend to take a picture of you standing with your foot on its chest.  That’s the perception of radio anyway.   Sadly it doesn’t jibe with these results.

Radio reaches more than 235 million listeners over the course of the week according to the RADAR 97 June 2008 Radio Listening Estimates. (link)

20 times more people than  Apple expect to sell phones to. Radio  Two controls,  no computer needed to keep it in sync  and oh battery life can be in weeks/ month range.

As to handheld gaming?  Would you  pay  $70 a month for your kid to play games on it?  Beggars belief really that it’s being seriously considered as a question. 

Can we start using the iPhone to do excellent iPhone  related things rather than trying to recreate the old world?

        

5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G - Free Software Foundation

Usually I am annoyed by the insistence that free and freedom when confused. Usually I defend companies and their right to offer whatever hare brained and insulting restrictions they think they can get away with , which in a fair market , e.g one that isn't regulated by the state, don't last too long. What I do like to do though is point out some fun holes in the arguments of both fan boy and detractors alike.

The 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:

* iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't be on everyone's phones.

No more annoying than most phone companies. While I can see were the principle comes from I am hard pressed to see how anyone could dev/ create an Iphone app and not have access to the cheapest part of the puzzle. You may as well bitch them out for not making free hardware while you are at it.

* iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.

Despite what that nice Mr Turtleneck said? I'm shocked really I'mm zzzzzzzzzzzz

* iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.

Same with any modern phone, inherently built into the system thanks to your masters and not an Apple exclusive.

* iPhone won't play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.

Most phones , hell most media players wont play OGG or Theora for the same reasons most vcrs were vhs. Heck apple won't even do flash so it's not a slight at free apps more a we have QT, our store is QT based and we want you to carry a mobile sales kiosk with you , and if you're really good we'll letyou make phone calls with it.

* iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don't spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software -- like the FreeRunner.

Oh yes, don't whine if you are not going to offer alternatives.. Oh come on how many people want terminal access on their phone? It's time to get a fricking grip with this idea that consumers , I do hate that term but in this case I need to conjure up the grazing accepting masses and humbly suggest that a phone that's 2x the cost of the iPhone won't work on the mass level. Now a phone co ( MVNO) that makes up a better platform, a company that creates and integrates a phone into their structure I totally get why this phone is cool but I can't for the life of me see where the non hacker is even remotely served by this.


While MR Ford's model T is a breakthrough in functionality and reliability for the common man we find that our oxy acetylene, bar stock and DIY bearing factory while be far more useful to the new driver.

        

It's so nice that Flix and MS are going to get together. Again for the first time I don't pay a Xbox live sub so the chance to pay to see movies via my xbox which I can already do via my current set up is not exciting me. As I've been saying most technology news fails to be anything other business news with shinier widgets.

Xbox 360: Turn Your Xbox 360 into a Streaming Netflix Player

        

I agree with most of this post  apart from the relative weight it places on each of the three problems that Apple’s competition faces.   Firstly any person that doesn’t evaluate a tool on what it can do for them, rather than what people think it does , has a problem.  For a great example of that hang around any  gun store on a Saturday afternoon

The second problem is that Apple's skill at PR has somehow turned into an excuse for reporters not to do their jobs. The implied message in the CNET article is, "if you don't put on a spectacle, the press will ignore your products." Excuse me, but isn't the press's job to dig out the real value and separate it from the hype? Don't we pay you (or sit through your ads) to look past the PR and fancy speeches and advise us on what really matters? If we just wanted someone to echo the latest hype, we could get all our news from blogs.

This should have been #1 reason . Technology “news” in the US should find another name which rhymes with shill. Press releases  are rarely news.

The technology filter/  tab  on most mainstream media sites could easily be called advance consumer warnings.  While stories about advances within the material sciences get a look in  it’s  unlikely that anything that’s not a breakthrough in  acronym cramming , or naming an inherent property of a device as a feature, will stick around long.  

So that the biggest problem ?  nope   wanting someone to tell you what really matters , the biggest conceit of the last 100 years of MSM , rather than being able to evaluate it for yourself.

 

   Mobile Opportunity: Hypenotized by Apple

        

        

I see dozens, possibly even three figures worth of new apps/ ideas and attempts to be cute daily. This one ,Posterous , a blogging by mail service ,has been one of the few worth it's own post.

Why ?

I can explain it to "normals*" in minutes and demonstrate it in even less. Having had the joy of trying to set up online tools for a group too busy to care or ,more often the case, willfully ignorant I wish I'd had this to fall back on.

It sounds silly to people that don't join 10 or more services a day but the setup was getting in the way of anything that the underlying tool had to offer. These "normals" are research scientists, attorneys, traders etc not the run of the mill apathetic, in other words ,but people with no time to help you with the info you, as in you the application developer, need to set up the account.

With regards to blogs/ forums "why can't I just mail this" came up time and time again. It's as if the people at Posterous hang out in the same crowd.


If you can mail :

your usual email, links are happily converted.
Add a photo , it shows up. add more than one and a gallery is created. resizing occurs automatically.
If you send a link from a supported video service it's embedded in a player.
If you send audio it gets it's own player.

All this from as familiar an interface as your mail client and all without jumping through set up hoops to gather info that most applications need just to make sense of their world. There are comments, there is a feed and there's nothing inherently micro , apart from effort, about this blogging tool, for normals

Want to get started?

Send a mail to post@posterous.com enjoy.


* People that don't hit Techcrunch from their Blackberry before leaving bed.

        

In a recent post What the Flix! Netflix decides that UGC can be destroyed without explanation I was , to say the least, rather upset that a fundamental feature was to be removed with no apparent thought for those that had maintained an account for a long time.   The good news today is that they have announced profiles will stay.

I'm glad to say  I don't have to find another provider in a few months.. Phew Thanks to all that wrote or called in on this.  Here's the letter.
 

        

When you audience have a Facebook profile / webpage, a  sculpture  created to "honour" your uptime then
 other than a stunning viral campaign for demotivators what's left to say about Twitter?  

That's not as interesting a question as where is it being said? 

        

BBC NEWS | Technology | Internet overhaul wins approval

It's often said about real estate that the inherent value rests in " god's not making any more land". Virtual real estate on the other hand isn't handicapped by such problems. Icann (internet gods ) are making more
"land" But .contain your dot self since the chance to be your very own tld .comes at .dotty high price. ( Ha in $US anyway may end up being a bargain for other countries ) Yep you will need $50k to $100k for your vanity URL effectively taking this out of the league of regular people. Now I need to find $50000 friends to help me claim . wtf



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