Is the recession saving lives?

The recession means there are fewer shark attacks. Of course it’s mainly because people are taking fewer expensive beach holidays.

1 comment | February 25th, 2009

Do we really think Bush was that dumb?

It’s easy to hate George Bush – he took the world into a war that seems pointless and on his watch the economic stability we built our lives on vanished in months.
Though I’ve always had this feeling that he couldn’t be that stupid. He may have made the wrong decisions, but I never bought into the “Bush as idiot” type thinking. Nor could I buy the “He’s just in it for the oil” factors.
So reading the Iraq war as Poker article was strangely comforting. Though it presents a sensible theory of Bush betting the world on his theory and risk analysis – it somehow seems structured if not sensible. Read it yourself and see if you can see a theory of why the man did what he did. It’s trivial to monday morning quarterback him and god knows we’re better off with Obama, but we can’t dismiss him as completely as we have.

Add comment | February 7th, 2009

Just do the right thing

Apple at some point must have seriously taken to heart the design mantra of “Never surprise the user”. The Mac delights because whenever you’re not sure how to do something, almost always the first thing you try works.
I’ve just had the same experience on my iPhone – with version 2.2 of the software you can download podcasts over the air instead of having to sync via your Mac. I did this and accrued a set of execrable Jimmy Carr type content (more on why he’s annoying at some point) which I simply couldn’t get rid of.
Principal of least surprise to the rescue – turns out you simply swipe across the episodes in exactly the way you delete mail – problem solved.
I contrast this with my new Blackberry Bold. Truly a great piece of design compared to my old blackberry, but they’ve simply forgotten entirely about how people will actually use the thing. It’s email is really pretty good (though it too has many annoying processes). The rest of the phone is horrible. Everything seems to take about 20 clicks and rolls on that weird little ball in the centre of the keyboard. Applications don’t seem to remember what you were doing last or remember in excruciating detail. Example:

• The solitaire game included on the phone remembers the state of your game, but when you go back in, it makes you start by selecting a language and then choose to resume your game! Did they assume that my language would change in some way? That I’d want to do anything but resume playing? The contrast is my free iPhone solitaire game which simply returns you to exactly where you were last time in about 3 seconds.
• The contacts application remembers exactly who you were last looking at – except the use case is never that you want to look at that person again – you look up a name to call them or e-mail them. The next time you go into contacts you want to find someone else! Again, the iPhone takes you back to the list of people, though with the name of the last person you looked at front and centre and it’s a simple tap to return to their details (Something I do in about 5% of the cases)

Add comment | January 23rd, 2009

Disintermediation and the enemy of the good

Voltaire said “The perfect is the enemy of the good” and this is the trap Telcos still fall into.

Continue Reading Add comment | December 29th, 2008

What Recession?

This is the scene on Oxford Street yesterday in the midst of the worst financial crisis the UK has had in living memory – it was, once again, impossible to move for the crush of people buying things.

The crush of recession hit shoppers...

Add comment | December 24th, 2008

Funniest Sentence I read today

From Harpers weekly digest:

Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, denied saying that Barack Obama’s relatives were
cannibals who ate Polish missionaries. “Mr. Sikorski did not tell a racist joke,” said a spokesman. “He was only giving an example of unpalatable and racist jokes.”

Add comment | November 25th, 2008

I got my money back!

What seems like years but in fact was only 7 weeks or so, Icesave went bankrupt and a pile of money I had in there seemed to vanish. As of this morning I have every pence back – the FSCS did a really excellent job of getting this sorted in short order and kept me really well informed. English institutions really do work well sometimes.

Add comment | November 24th, 2008

First impressions of the Blackberry Storm

Ever since I heard about the tactile feedback on the storm keyboard I’ve been intrigued. While I love my iPhone, my old blackberry was still the best email device I ever used. The storm looks lovely and I had this vague feeling that I might be tempted to shift over.
Of course once I got my hands on one all illusions were shattered in seconds.
The screen does have tactile, clickly feedback – but it’s horrible. The entire screen is a button in effect – the touch sensors figure out where you’re touching and the click is the activation. But you need significant effort to actually click the thing and there’s no button like feeling – you feel like you’re pushing on the whole screen.
Also it’s slow – not dog horrible slow – but slow compared to the iPhone swooshy graphics that appear the instant you touch something. I know the iPhone isn’t that fast actually, but they fool you well enough that you think it’s quick.

Add comment | November 24th, 2008

The Auto bailout

Fred Wilson, my current favourite VC chats about how he’d like to see the auto companies broken up. I have some sympathy for this view but I take issue with his, and many other people’s statement that ‘We can’t afford to let the entire auto industry supply chain go bankrupt”.
The US 3 (no longer the Big 3 since GM is no worth less than Apple turns over in iPods) employ some 150-200k people directly. Their supply chain partners employ another 100-150K people and then there are the dealers. Auto is the largest retail employer in the country. Sounds like a disaster if this 1m+ collection of people went bankrupt right?
Well no – first off, does anyone really think this would be a vanishing act? When a bank goes, it’s fundamental structure does not exist any more – GM, Ford and Chrysler would still own plants, plans, facilities, land – they’ll re-appear in some guise, just smaller. Yes we’ll see 100k+ job losses but in reality these guys are making stuff no-one wants and there’s no indication that this will change.
We saved the banks because they really are all tied in to each other and if they vanish, society as we know it is screwed. It’s also possible the rest of the world would have gone down in flames with the USA. If the auto makers vanished, there would be an unemployment issue, sure – but Toyota and Nissan and a whole set of actual well run car companies would take over those dealers, buy the plants and in 2 years all the cars would be just fine – expect that they’d be cheap, good and actually sell.
The auto industry is saying “Hey, we’re really important” though they’re not. They also saying “We screwed up every single decision possible even while publicly stating we knew the right way to go, but this time it will be different” – I find this difficult to believe.

Add comment | November 13th, 2008

My continuing obsession with celebrity death

Michael Critchton Died of cancer at 66.

Add comment | November 8th, 2008