It’s probably worth noting at this point that I’ve had a long-held belief that penguins were always up to more than they were letting on- I mean, why would anything willingly live in such a cold environment unless they knew something we didn’t? Why would they favour swimming to such an extent that they effectively removed their ability to fly? (My answer - the Hollow Earth theory of an ancient civillisation inhabiting the inside of the planet is true - the Antarctic is the entrance to Paradise)

Seriously, I’ve bored people in pubs with this sort of chat.

(yes,  I know it’s fake. Happy April Fools and all that)

Although that last one is rather good.

Whatever it is, I’m rapidly shedding an unhealthy buildup of cynicsm that I grew over the winter months, and is something I really want to continue.

So. I’m going to start a regular thread of online videos that simply give me joy and set me up for the day.
Here’s the first chappie. I loves me some Sound of Music!

Yeah, I could just go around offering a million dollars to the first person I see - but let’s be honest here - if I’m the sort of chap that goes around giving away huge amounts of cash like this, then it follows that I’m also some sort of eccentric billionaire- bored with his hum-drum lifestyle of champagne, cocaine, high class hookers and jets. Someone who wants to bring something a little more to the lives of the ordinary people he’s spent years trampling over in his constant thirst for the filthy lucre. With this in mind, let’s get a little bit creative.

1. Stand in a busy street and offer members of the public £10 dollars for each genuinely nice thing they do to/for a person in the street today. It would have to be witnessed by me, and I would judge accordingly. Obviously, it would get a little busy with people doing good things to one another, all of whom in turn are trying to be nice. Effectively, I’d be forming a positive vibes feedback loop - people trying to out-’nice’ the people around them. Imagine that in Grand Central station… ah, glorious!
   But then again, the growing crowd of people would slow down people just trying to get on with their lives - missing their trains, appointments - business deals fall through, shops and businesses ultimately suffer in an order of magnitudes far greater than my paltry million dollars.
   No. That won’t do at all. Hm.
2. Okay, picture this: Huge tankers pull up to the ends of large business areas. There are people everywhere performing the daily drudge to work. Grey suits, sorry looking cups of coffee, absolutely no smiles, as they enter large faceless monoliths to spend the day sat in front of a monitor, pushing figures around.
   The tankers push a button and funnels come out of the sides. Another button and bubbles start to get pushed into the air. Gently at first, but faster and faster they come - floating into the air, up around the huge glass buildings, floating around newspaper sellers and commuters alike. The people start to notice - the gentle bubbles floating around trigger memories of their childhood, carefree times without the stresses and strains of later life. Smiles and giggles start to creep out - and for a bit - just a little bit of happiness is restored to these people as they continue onto their jobs and their days. Lovely.
   Unless the bubbles start to pop on expensive suits, in coffees, on newspapers - it all starts to get a bit soggy everywhere. People start to slip up on the bubble-residue soaked streets - back injuries, twisted ankles.. ooh it’ll be horrible.
   Right. Not that.
3. Pay for air-conditioning on the Subway? Hmm - but how will it be maintained after I’d bought it? Badly maintained air-con is a rampant breeding ground of legionnaires disease. Nah.
4. Become a masked vigilante and fight crime? Embody a symbol of the City - help people feel that someone is out there, trying to help in an otherwise corrupt world? But what about escalation? Nah.
5. Fund a cure for Cancer? One million dollars? Wouldn’t even make a dent..

Um.. “Excuse me sir. Would you like a million dollars?”

1. I shall perform 100 press-ups in the next 6 weeks
2. I can’t give blood - apparently going out with someone from SA is a big ol’ no-no in the world of blood donation. However, this shouldn’t stop others - if someone could pick up my slack in the plasma giving stakes, I’d appreciate it. For reals
3. People - Twitter the hell out of me - I’m funny as all hell and your life will be better with me in it. Plus I’m dead friendly. Mostly
4. This time next year, as me to show you my card trick - it’ll blow your mind
5. I shall be able to use the term own without wincing or feeling in any way like I’m far to old to be using it

In one years’ time - feel free to pick me up on these and see how I did.

I’ve got a couple of typical resolutions in mind; concentrate more on my friends and relationships, cook more food rather than buying in, no alcohol for the whole of January, give blood - the usual stuff. Plus, there are more specific goals I’m definately pushing for; a couple of websites I’m really looking forward to getting involved in, a few changes to this site to better reflect the direction I want to take it, and there’s a couple of personal aspects of my life that I’m definately looking forward to getting on with over the next year - if all goes well, you’ll be hearing a LOT about them over the next year!

I also plan to start doing some dedicated learning this year - the Simple Dollar has a great article on this very matter. It’s just a case of now deciding which two to choose! Here’s the shortlist so far:

• Playing the ukulele (comedy musical instruments have huge appeal)
• Improving my PHP skills (2008 was the year of .net languages for me and I relish the idea of change)
• Learn to cook more Japanese food at home (my Wagamamas trips need to be cut down!)
• Improve my javascripting (I worry I’m getting too reliant on frameworks and would like to keep my skills more focussed on the core language rather than, say, jQuery)
• Invest more time in Twittering (I finally got Twittering in 2008 and I plan use it a whole shed-load more over the next year.)
• Learn some sweet-ass card magic tricks really well.
• Rediscover my passion for Flash Actionscripting (it was the thing that got me into web-technologies in the first place, and I’m very aware that my skills in that arena have waned in the last year or so..)

I’m going to give it a few more days of thought before choosing my final two - but I’m going to aim for a balance between marketable career skills and something that can keep me entertained (and enable me to show off to others, obviously). In the meantime, if anyone has any thoughts on learning a skill I hadn’t considered and am possibly missing out on, let me know!

Actually, This makes me want to watch LotR (the uppercase is everso important) but avoid The Transformers: The Movie like the proverbial, on account of it not being as good as the trailer promises.

…so my point about the good cover track has been kind of trampled on.
Sorry about that.

LIFE IS CRUEL PEOPLE! (via Telegraph)

Warning: Contains images of a bunny harming nature..

In a month where Google Chrome was released to the rapturous cries of “why?” from people that were perfectly happy with Firefox and maybe not so au fait with the underlying ideas of market forces and innovation, there is definately a case where a wide choice is very obviously a good thing.

Mobile phones - sorry, I’ll clarify that - Mobile SuperWebCameraMP3ColdFusionReactor phones are possibly one of the few exceptions right now. There’s technically choice out there to compete with the IPhone, but no matter how much they may protest, anyone that has a Blackberry or Prada phone will find their eyes slipping across to watch the bloke sitting next to them on the Tube playing Monkeyball on his Jobs machine.
In the short term, Apple are sorted. There is nothing realistically out there to ITouch the IPhone in terms of pure desirability - and if something more technically adept comes along, it’s going to have a struggle against HMS Apple and her Great Marketing Armada. But then there’s Google’s upcoming Android.

The first potential genuine competition to Apple is coming along soon, and to my mind is looking goooood. It does all the things I personally want from a SuperWebCameraMP3C… modern phone (I can’t be the only one that spent most of my time thinking “why do I want that?” on the IPhone specification), it isn’t trying to compete with the IPhone directly, but modifying the better ideas and running with them in their own direction. And like Chrome, this bad boy’s open source - letting any Rod, Jane or Freddy have a muck about with it and see what they can bring to the party.

THIS is competition! One company chasing another doesn’t help - it just increases the chance of running down a technological cul-de-sac. Companies going in different directions with the same basic premise can only be a good thing - mistakes made, lessons learned, cross fertilisation of ideas blah-de-blah - the product type as a whole benefits.

The IPhone isn’t the perfect phone for all users, neither is Android - the knowledge that someone somewhere else could be just about to come up with something better is what drives the innovation onwards and make the next generation that little bit better. Is Google/the Open Handset Alliance** primarily out to take over the IPhone’s market? I don’t think so - just like I don’t think Google are trying to take over Firefox’s share of the browser market with Chrome - but they’re making the right people try harder, and that’s surely going to be to the benefit of us all.

I’ve ended posts like this before, but as much as I try to properly understand Google’s underlying long term strategy, the more I think that they genuinely are out to make the future the one with all the rocket packs, hover cars and robot man-servants.
Just before they crack out the 20-Foot Destruct-o-bots with the web enabled Death Rays…

^{*Zing!
**Anyone else hope these guys all meet up in a space station hovering about the planet all wearing capes?}

It was via these that I first experienced as wide ranging series of films starting from Aardman’s Creature Comforts, to Jan Svankmajer’s terrifying (to a youngling Archer, at least) Alice. After Fourmations came to a close, Channel 4 tried a few other animation initiatives, including Mesh (specifically for computer generated graphics) and my personal favourite - Dope Sheet - a late night showcase of the latest animated shorts.

Unfortunately, this all seemed to come to an end in 1999. Although C4 continued to encourage and help develop the British animation scene, the TV coverage diminished. Some people might argue that this coincidentally took place at the same time that Channel 4 invested heavily in Big Brother-all-night coverage, but then some people will look for any reason to slam Big Brother. Myself included.

Obviously, British animation as a whole hasn’t suffered, there is still a massive scene out there - but now Channel 4 are getting involved again, and settting up the 4mations.tv - a YouTube style site where people can view, review and upload their own films. Look at it as a more focussed YouTube channel with cash prizes. My little play about on the site so far has come up with some little gems already, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else there is to offer.