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  • Liu Xiaobo Is Awarded Nobel Peace Prize …

    And the Chinese authorities are more than a little upset.

    “Good!” is my immediate reaction. Anyone who can irritate the Chinese authorities can’t be all bad, and it seems that Liu Xiaobo is doing more than his fair share. Which is why he got the prize of course.

    When you are young, you eventually realise that when accused of doing something wrong, it is usually less painful to admit to it straight away than come up with silly excuses that blame everyone else – “It was the cat” …

    The Chinese government is doing exactly that when it comes to Lui Xiaobo. It is claiming that he isn’t the sort of person who should be getting the Nobel Peace Prize. After all he is alleged to have broken Chinese law (so what?). Indeed they go on to criticise the Norwegian government for awarding this prize.

    Of course the Norwegian government is not involved in the decision making process as the Nobel prizes are awarded by a committee independently of the government. Perhaps the most withering description of attempted Chinese interference comes from the Norwegian government themselves who explain that the Nobel committee is independent, but that the Chinese government will find such independence incomprehensible.

  • Another Trip To Swanmore Lake

    I have been going to Swanmore Lake and the downs north of it for years now, and last week visited it again to see what images I could come up with :-

    Lurking Cloud

    I’ve made images of this little valley before, but this time I had the luck to have this little cloud trying to hide behind the trees – sorry cloud, but you need a bit of a diet to hide here properly!

  • Desktops, Laptops, Netbooks, and Slates

    It is always funny reading articles trying to gaze into the future of computing especially when they start trying to figure out the form factor of future computers. The “desktop is dead, long live the laptop”, the sudden emergence and roaring success of the netbook, the gradual improvement in specification and increase in price of the netbook to encroach on laptop territory.

    And of course the “new thing” – the slate (I refuse to call it the silly name that Applie chose).

    Everything we read leads us to believe that this is going to beat that and there is no market for this other thing. The truth of the matter is that there is no reason why there should not be a reasonable market for all the different form factors.

    For instance, I own and use :-

    • Two desktop machines (one dedicated to server duty)
    • A work-provided laptop for heavy duty work on the move.
    • A netbook for a portal “toolbox”.
    • An ‘all-in-one’ that sits on my coffee table and serves as a web browser for in front of the TV. Quite possibly to be replaced with a slate once decent 10″ Android slates start appearing.

    Now I’m an extreme example, and it is unlikely that normal people would want all that. But it is quite possible the average family might, or even more.

    But even more importantly, someone who has a desktop machine at home (and work) probably doesn’t need a powerful laptop, but may find a netbook useful. Or someone with a powerful laptop may not want a netbook, but may find a slate useful for random bits in front of the TV.

    Different people have different preferred ways of interacting with computers. And the market is now large enough to provide different environments. So whilst the slate may eat away at the market share of netbooks, as indeed laptops have taken market share from desktops, there is no ‘death of the netbook’ coming anytime soon.

  • Pulsating Pustules on the Pimply Bottom Of Humantity

    So for most of the summer we have had the following on Southsea Common entertaining both children and adults alike :-

    55388

    And of course along comes a crew of cretins and does this :-

    55500

    Undoubtedly those who did this think it was funny.

    Watching the reaction in various places has been interesting … it’s quite astonishing just how popular this misshapen dinosaur had become amongst the local residents. It would be nice to see some form of fight-back – perhaps build another one ?

  • Labour Leadership Vote – The Unions

    Yesterday we heard the news that the new leader of the Labour party is Ed Millband – and congratulations to him. Ever since then we have had the media rambling on with the same old theme – more or less “but … but … it was the undemocratic unions who voted him in”.

    So? It is not as if the Labour party has some sort of secret democratic process that changes every five minutes; the union vote was known well in advance, yet we heard no complaints before the result. Sometimes it feels as if the media look for any possible note of negativity in any news. Why not portray the news for once, and look at what difference Ed may make ?

    There are undoubtedly Labour party members a bit suspicious of the influence of the Unions – after all it is hardly every party that allows people outside the membership of the party to vote. But why not ? The Labour party is supposed to reflect the interests of the working man and woman, so shouldn’t their representatives have an influence on the leadership ?

    Sometimes the media gives us the impression that political parties need to have free and fair elections to select their leaders. Nothing could be further from the truth. A political party is effectively a private members club who put up their members for election whenever the opportunity presents itself (if funds and inclination are available).

    Excluding the Liberal Democrats who have had a more chaotic life over the last 50 years, the Tories had their first leadership election in 1965 (over 100 years after their first government), and the Labour party had their first leadership election in 1922 some time after their formation. Indeed the only voters at those elections were the MPs of the respective parties!

    The Labour party is unusual in allowing the unions to vote … or more accurately, the members of those unions. If they choose to do so, who are we (as non-members) to say it is wrong ? If you feel it is wrong, join the party and campaign for change.

    And lets have a few less curmudgeons in the media please!