Firstly, from a performance and utility perspective, there’s nothing between these phones. They all do everything you’d expect from a top-end smartphone, and they all do it screamingly fast. You will not be disappointed to own any of these phones.

Forced to pick their differences, here’s how I see it broken down in a few key areas:

Screen

When I first saw the Xperia Z (the first of these phones I laid eyes on), I was absolutely floored by its display. 1920×1080 pixels on these screen sizes is frankly bonkers: you cannot pick out an individual pixel, and the huge space for rendering browser content is wonderful. But. But but but. Compared to the HTC One and Galaxy S4, the Z is just missing something. Slightly washed out perhaps? Poor viewing angles? Not a showstopper, but enough that you can easily feel the difference.

The Galaxy S4 screen isn’t without fault either: it’s incredibly bright and punchy, to the point of being offensive. If you get one I highly recommend going into the display settings and changing the display to “Movie” mode. Colours in that mode are more realistic and the screen becomes more comfortable to look at.

Out of the box, the HTC One’s screen is the best of the bunch in my opinion.

Apps and Launchers

All of these phones run Android 4 and have the Google Play store available to download any apps you may desire. However: they take different approaches to the out-of-box experience. The Xperia Z is the most “vanilla”, with a standard-ish Android launcher populated with a few specialist Sony apps.

HTC goes a bit further with their Flipboard-esque Blinkfeed homepage, from which you can swipe to get at, again, a standard Android icon based app launcher. Blinkfeed looks nice, but I think if I was to use the HTC One as my main phone, I’d replace the launcher with something more standard and fill it with the widgets I’d like to use, rather than having stuff pushed at me.

Samsung’s launcher is fairly vanilla, but it comes out of the box packed to the gunnels with … crap. I’m sorry but there’s no other way to put it. I understand Samsungs intentions here: they see that a large number of Android users don’t really install apps or use widgets, so they’re lending a helping hand: here’s your fitness app, and your photo gallery app, and here’s a voice thing, and a translator, oh and a note thing, and … and.

For a user who doesn’t know that the Play Store exists, this might be useful. For readers of this article, and most experienced Android users, this just means removing widgets and uninstalling Samsung crapware until you can make some space and install the decent apps you need. It reminds me, in a bad way, of the crapware that comes loaded on Windows PCs.

Camera

I want to love HTC’s approach to the camera on the One. The science nerd inside me says that having fewer pixels on a small sensor means bigger “photosites”, less noise, and better response in low light. However, the comparison posts that have popped up seem to show that the Galaxy S4 camera blows pretty much everything else out of the water in all but the crappiest lighting conditions.

As with other aspects, the HTC One and Xperia Z cameras are perfectly fine, and will serve you ok for quick snaps, but if you want the best photos out of your smartphone, then the S4 is the way to go.

Physical Design

Physically, the Galaxy S4 is just shit. The first experience out of the box has you removing the flimsy, bendy back cover to insert a battery. The feel of that cover just gives me no confidence in the build quality of the phone. Once on, it also feels sweaty and slippery. Compared to the HTC One and the Xperia Z, the Galaxy’s physical look and feel just fall well short of what we’ve come to expect of a modern flagship smartphone.

If looks and build quality don’t matter to you, this is not a problem. But even considering the S4′s other fantastic qualities, the physical feel of the phone is almost enough to put me off.

In comparison, the HTC One is probably the best looking and feeling phone of this size that I’ve laid hands on. The weight is fantastic, and the feel in the hand is just right. It’s solid enough to give you confidence while not being chunky, and the blend of curves and hard edges make for a great hand-feel.

Likewise, the Xperia Z looks stunning. An obsidian-black monolith, sealed all around with milspec waterproofing, the thing just wants to be touched. The water resistance is a welcome addition: being able to rinse a phone under running water is not something I expected to like, but after doing it a few times I wish I could do it to every phone I’ve owned.

Unfortunately the convenience of a washable phone comes with downsides: every time you want to charge the Z or plug your headphones in, you have to fiddle with the (thankfully well-engineered) port flaps. I’m not positive if the waterproofing remains in effect with the flaps open, but I’d guess not.

If I had to pick one of these three phones purely on looks, it would be the HTC One. If I was a tradesman or regular watersports participant, I’d go with the Xperia Z.

Conclusion

It’s bloody hard to pick a winner from this bunch. They each have their upsides and some very minor downs. The HTC One camera is a disappointment but it looks smashing; the Samsung feels cheesy but is incredibly light and has a fantastic camera; and the waterproof Z could come in very handy, while Sony have also done amazing things with the modding community.

Forced at gunpoint to pick a phone, I’d take the HTC One, but I’d not be at all upset to take home any of the three.

As usual, I’m happy to answer any specific questions in the comments below.

I said last week that there’s no way I could build a school payroll system without error. Neither could you. Together though, we could get pretty damn close.

The elephant thing is funny, but strikes at the root of the issue: we need to ignore the elephant. Please excuse me while I flog a dead metaphor for a little while:

• We had a pretty cool elephant. It was big and hairy, occasionally left giant steaming turds around the place, and was really handy at moving logs around. 
• Someone decided the elephant was a bit old, even though it still got the jobs done.
• A replacement elephant was created, but the creators thought the trunk was for squirting water, not shifting logs, so it wasn’t strong enough to do the jobs we need it to do.  They then set about engineering a cybernetic augmented trunk system to strengthen the trunk.

A key issue with Novopay, and the school payroll system in general, along with many other huge black-box IT projects (yeah, I’m looking at you, $1.5bn+ IRD replacement system), is the approach of replacing the system as a whole. Forget about the elephant, let’s look for a system of interconnected components that – as a whole – gets us to where we need to be. Perhaps they end up looking like an elephant, or maybe a forklift, but that’s irrelevant.

In the case of Novopay, what are the core problems that need to be solved? Rather than tender for a complete system, we would be much better off if the Ministry of Education tendered for a “Teacher’s Payroll Calculation Component”. This would be defined as taking a set of inputs (tenure, contract details, tax period, hours worked), and emitting outputs (gross and net pay, tax, Kiwisaver, holidays accrued). The inputs and outputs of course have to be implemented in a transparent, open manner: REST would make developer’s lives easiest, but as long as it’s well-defined and not some proprietary binary format, who cares?

Those of you immunised against pragmatism will be having convulsions right now. “But, but, where does the data come from? Where is it stored? What about security and archiving? This is only a tiny piece of the problem!”.

I’m not saying calculating a single pay run is an easy task. On the contrary it sounds incredibly complex. But by breaking this one component out separately we can do so many things:

• TEST this component against the existing systems. Throw some really hairy combinations at it and make sure the outputs are correct and identical to the existing system. Create those as automated test cases that we run daily and verify output.
• INTEGRATE with this component in any way we think is appropriate. Let 1,000 data entry systems bloom. Want to write a pay calculation front-end for Palm Pilot? Here’s the API and security model, go to town.
• SECURE this component by ensuring that only teachers and schools (and other components of the larger system) with appropriate access can get at it.
• IMPLEMENT this component against the existing system by delegating the single task of calculation to this component using its API. Ding! You’ve just removed a dependency on the huge project.
• REPLACE this component if it sucks. You know the API, you have the test cases you need to achieve: if you think you can do better, go write me a new one.

But wait! I hear you saying, what about storing teacher details, historical pay runs, transferring money to bank accounts? Ben! You’re lying to us. We need to spend more money on Big IT!

It’s ok, just relax and keep slicing away at that elephant. Contract to build a “Teacher Information Storage System”. Define the fields you need to store, the security with which it needs to be stored, and the interfaces it needs to expose (surprise! one of those probably matches perfectly with the payroll calculation inputs).

The other obvious upside is you can approach each component as a best-of-breed system. Rather than using fucking Oracle Forms for user input, you could contract the front-end data entry to a talented web development studio, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be out of their depth having to code payroll calculation.

What’s more, if one particular implementation (or implementer) really sucks (ahem Talent2), then the damage is limited to the one component they are working on, not the entire system.

You get my drift? At no stage have I said this will save money. It probably will, but even if it doesn’t the end result is a well-defined set of interconnected components, all of which could be replaced individually.

There is of course a gigantic problem with my approach: everyone working on the systems, teachers, the Ministry, all the way down to coders, would need to collaborate openly and honestly. Bummer.

This post attempts to cut through some of the veiled (albeit admirably blunt as far as political documents go) language in the Novopay Technical Review (heretofore known as the NTR)

Bear in mind: the NTR is focussed specifically on the current situation and how to get out of it, not how we got here. However based on the findings, it’s pretty easy to see some of the how.

So, let’s run through the “key findings” and break those out:

1. In some areas system functionality does not adequately support the business processes.

The system, as built, does not do what it was meant to do. This could be because the requirements were poorly documented from the outset (probably), but also because the system is an “off the shelf” system that has been “customised” to meet the requirements.

At some point, a decision would have been made that the “off the shelf” software was an 80% (or 70% or 90%) fit for requirements, and the rest could be built as customisations. Hold that thought and read on.

2. Usability issues and lack of data input validations contribute to processing errors.

To me, this is the most egregious finding. As I understand it, the entire purpose (or at least a key selling point) of Novopay was to reduce costs by moving from Datacom’s human-intensive workflow to a system whereby schools do all the data entry, and the “system” just needs to calculate pay.

For a system like this to work, a massive amount of time and focus has to go into usability of the front-end system. Later on in the review there are comments about tab keys not working properly, and links between pages of the same input form not working. This is fundamental stuff, and points to Talent2 and ALESCO not giving a flying shit about end-users.

This, while fairly typical of an “enterprise” system build on Oracle Forms, is completely unacceptable if it’s so utterly important that data is entered correctly and quickly. It is an absolute core failure of a system intended to be user-driven.

As an aside: this is what “enterprise” software users work with every day. Usability and User Experience are pretty much dirty words, with SAP and Oracle making their money from systems that are actively hostile to end users.

3. School management visibility and control is limited by reports that are sometimes poorly presented or inconsistent.

See above.

4. Data quality has been affected by system issues, raising the risk of future errors.

Shit’s gone bad, which makes future shit worse. There’s a comment later in the report that data integrity is often managed by code, rather than by database constraints. Not inherently evil when done for the right reasons, but this sort of code approach more often than not points to coders that don’t understand the underlying system.

Think about a situation where your pay has been calculated incorrectly, then fixed up by a manual adjustment, what happens when the pay calculation is fixed? Does your tax liability for the year include the adjustment?

10 points if you answered “I have no fucking idea”. Perhaps we just cross our fingers? With no test suite there’s no way to know.

5. Quality controls on data entry have not adequately prevented errors.

Too much reliance on the computers, not enough overview by experts.

6. A high degree of customisation in high-impact areas has made on-going development more difficult.

This is another one that really sets my alarm bells ringing. Talent 2 sold Novopay to the government as an ALESCO system with some customisation (see point 1). This is the dirty not-so-secret of any “out of box” enterprise software installation: the base system is next to useless without massive amount of customisation.

More often than not, when you add up the cost of an “out of box” solution PLUS the required “customisation”, a greenfield development fine-tuned to your own requirements becomes a much more comparable solution.

In the case of Novopay, the core system itself has been “customised”, which makes a complete mockery of the “out of box” solution. Expect upgrades to come with significant pain. Also expect ALESCO to wash their hands of any errors because the system is no longer “as-sold”.

7. Aspects of the application architecture make customisation difficult.

See above.

8. Service support processes have struggled to manage the volume of issues.

Shit’s gone so bad that Talent2 don’t have the people or expertise to get it under control. Expect the costs to continue to escalate while the government throws money at a solution.

Conclusion

Like I said on Twitter: Novopay appears to be the wrong solution sold by people with a poor understanding of the problem, implemented with the typically lax approach of enterprise software development.

In other words, pretty much business as usual for Enterprise IT.

If you think this thing has run its course, you’re kidding yourself. I’ve seen Oracle systems quoted as costing $6m run up $30m of cost before being completely scrapped – as in yes, uninstalled and reverted to the system they were meant to be replacing, completely wiped away. Or there’s the  $1bn spend for “no significant capability” on a US Airforce SAP system.

How do we fix this?

Come back next week and see me get on my high-horse with a real solution =)

We heard about the new technical specs, which were larger where they were meant to be and smaller elsewhere. Of course they were. I’m genuinely interested to see where this all ends up. Do we stop at 4K screens and 8-core processors in our phones, or just keep on going?

So there was nothing in the announcement of the phone itself that really surprised me. I’m sure it will be  a lovely device, but there’s valid criticism in the fact that Samsung haven’t really gone for a super-premium look and feel in the way that Sony and HTC have done with their recent phones.

Then there were the software features: S Travel, S Voice Drive, S Health, S Everything. The feedback from my circle of nerds was that most of these S Things are already S available as S downloadable apps from the S Play S Store.

We also had, by my count, just one single mention of Android during the entire launch, and this was to mention that the device is running the latest 4.2.2 release of Android.

Thoughts

My take from the entire event was this: Samsung is filling in all the gaps they need to fill to make Android irrelevant to GALAXY (and therefore Samsung).

You see, the availability of apps to make a HTC One or Xperia Z perform like a GALAXY 4 is utterly irrelevant to 90% of Android phone buyers. My mum doesn’t buy apps, so if she wants a translator or a voice-operated car mode, then Samsung will make damn sure there will be a S Thing for her in the S GALAXY S 4.

The Samsung DA-E750 is a beast, which ever way you look at it. It’s 450mm wide and weighs almost 10kgs. I’m not sure if this heft comes from the heavy wooden case, the 100W faux vacuum tube amp, or the woven-glass speaker system. Any way you look at it, this thing is the very definition of super-premium – right down to the retail price: $899 (although JB HiFi will sell you one for $650).

Thankfully the sound generated from the Samsung is super-premium too. It packs a serious punch for something that’s not a full-blown stereo system. Plenty enough power for partying, my only complaint being that it’s a touch too bass-heavy when the volume is low.

Connectivity abounds with the DA-E750. You can connect it to your network via wireless or wired ethernet, and it will turn up as an Apple AirPlay and/or DLNA receiver. Otherwise just use Bluetooth to connect to the dock, or plug your iPhone in directly via the nifty pop-out plug dock. That same dock also has a standard micro USB charging plug, so any phone with a plug on the bottom should fit. My Nokia Lumia 920 sat there happily.

Somewhat down the other end of the scale sits the Logitech UE Boombox. Weighing in at a svelte 2kg and priced at $349, the UE Boombox supports Bluetooth as a single connection option, and doesn’t have any form of physical dock.

The Logitech is designed to be portable, sporting a 6-hour battery and the ability to pair to 8 different devices and connect to 3 simultaneously. In practice it seems that the last device to play gets priority, so it can result in a bit of a war over audio if multiple phones are trying to play at the same time.

The sound from the Logitech is never going to compete with the Samsung, but it does a wonderful job for what it is. I can imagine it would be a winner with the kids on the beach.

These devices are definitely aimed at different markets and uses, but for me personally (not being a Lotto winner), the Logitech would be my choice if I was forced to select between the two. It’s easily portable, simple to use, and I kinda like the retro-cool styling.

However, if I did have a library with walnut shelving, deep-button leather couch, and a cigar humidor, the Samsung would absolutely take pride of place.

@maupuia hire intelligent people, bury them in process, then use that process to charge millions. Also: lots and lots and lots of writing.

— nzben (@nzben) March 3, 2013

Consulting companies make their money by selling themselves as unbiased, unimpeachable, process-driven companies who can work with all parties to resolve questions. In relation to software and web development, those questions might include:

• Which software should we buy, and how much should it cost?
• Which partner firm should we engage in for a tender?
• What do we actually need in the first place, and how much can we afford?
• Can you help us manage the implementation using an approved process framework?
• What went wrong and who is to blame?

In a lot of cases, the way that consultancies go about answering these questions are pretty brainless, and designed to ensure that no one can be blamed for missing the important bits. An uncharitable way to describe this would be ass-covering.

These processes might range from simply undertaking deep business requirements analysis (i.e. asking everyone what they want and then writing it down so that each need/want has a reference number), through to writing RFPs and tender documents, scoring systems for procurement, SWOT analyses, risk matrices, and all the other stuff that anyone involved in “Enterprise IT” will be familiar with.

None of this is particularly scandalous. You could argue that the amount of money spent on consulting firms does not account for the value gained, but that’s a different debate.

What I do find vexing is the fact that software procurement, development, and maintenance is (or should be) an absolute core requirement of almost any modern government department. As such, the trend to outsource all aspects of the process bother me greatly. What we end up with is a world where all of the enterprise IT expertise is centralised in these consulting firms, who in turn can extract near-monopoly rents from the government because each department is forced to use the consultancies to cover their asses.

You see, if you did not use a consultancy in your procurement of a system (e.g. Novopay), when the shit hits the fan, you have no one to point the finger at.

Another issue is that current consultancy culture is inextricably tied to Big IT. The outputs of the consultancy engagements are almost without fail gigantic tomes with massive requirement lists that can only be fully covered by Oracle, SAP, and their ilk. [Ed: Which as Norm points out below, are in turn implemented by the same consultancies who help with the procurement.]

And lastly, the trend toward consultancy by-default means that Enterprise IT skills are sucked directly into consultancy companies, meaning the skills required to manage these projects in-house are unavailable – especially at the salaries paid by government departments. So yes, as of right now, these consultancy firms are “necessary”.

In a perfect world (well, my perfect world at least), the money spent on consultancy should be directed into hiring and training public servants to understand the nuances of large project governance in a way that means the day-to-day users of the software are deeply engaged in the procurement and development of said software. It would also be better spent on breaking down large software implementations (and “Enterprise Transformation Projects“) into bite-sized chunks that can be implemented in isolation.

This in turn would give smaller local IT firms a look-in. It’s a win-win-win: we get public servants who are educated and engaged in IT process; better opportunities for local IT companies; and direct accountability.

Which is why this will never happen.

It’s almost like Google putting a Google Search box front-and-centre on every Android phone.

I’m trying to interpret his recent opinion piece on ZDNet, in which he lambastes Microsoft for a flawed approach with Windows Phone, because among other things “Everything on Windows Phone feels bent and skewed towards Microsoft’s point of view“. I agree, how atrocious. It’s appallingly similar to the way iOS doesn’t let you uninstall NewsStand, and forcibly replaced Google Maps with the unquestionably inferior Apple Maps (for which they had to apologise to users). It’s almost like Google putting a Google Search box front-and-centre on every Android phone. Shocking stuff.

He then goes on to complain that the hugely customisable start screen “feels like game of shuffling Microsoft blocks around in a Microsoft landscape”. I suppose it would if you never installed any apps. Personally I don’t have any Microsoft apps pinned to my start screen, unless you count the dialler, contacts, email and the like. I do have Reddit, MyFitnessPal, Twitter, and a few other different apps pinned.

All very Microsoft-centric I suppose. Let me out of this Microsoft cage on my Microsoft Phone you Microsoft Monsters! Even their advertising (at left) doesn’t show Office for fucks sake.

What’s more, Matt got to the point where he ”could no longer trust Microsoft to look after [his] career“. I presume that was the moment where they removed support for C# and VB from the platform and demanded that all former .NET developers switch to COBOL?

The career part in particular confuses me deeply. You see I work for a company* dedicated solely to building software for Windows Phone and Windows 8. We are having trouble keeping up with the amount of work flooding in, are hiring as fast as we can, and are landing deals to build software for these platforms every single week. We’re doing work out of New Zealand for clients in the USA, UK, Australia and elsewhere. Can I suggest, humbly, that Mr Baxter-Reynolds is simply not trying hard enough?

This stuff isn’t going to fall in your plate. Just like in the early days of iOS and Android, when they too had single-digit market share, you didn’t see developers complaining about it being too difficult. Microsoft developers have a massive opportunity here to use their existing skills on a new platform, where iOS and Android developers had to learn from scratch (Java skills notwithstanding).

All of Matt’s complaints would be wonderfully relevant if it weren’t for the fact that Windows Phone has accelerating market share around the world, all the while battling against a headwind of installed iOS and Android brand and market, which iOS never (nor Android arguably), had to fight against.

However, there is one truism buried in Matt’s post that I will agree with (but which he unfortunately did not elaborate on particularly clearly): the upgrade from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8 was less than it could have been, and is almost entirely due to internal Microsoft “strategy tax”. The move to an NT kernel was not necessary, and now puts Windows Phone under the crushing weight of the Windows Team. What’s more, we can only expect the move from 8 to 9 to be burdened by more of this tax as Microsoft moves to align WinRT and Windows Phone.

Personally, if I were at the top of Microsoft (because god knows the product managers have probably already tried to articulate this), I’d leave the Windows Phone team to get on with adding features to what is a fantastically fast, productive and customisable phone operating system. iOS is not OSX, for good reason

Oh, and if your friend gives you a plate of locusts, just say “bro, I don’t like locusts!”

*Of course this post is my own opinion, but hey, I’ll stand by it in my day job too.

When I read “Police use drones to catch criminals“, I know it’s intended as a scary headline, but I just can’t get worked up about it.

You need to decipher a little jargon in the categories at Hobby King. RTF / PNF / ARF? It makes more sense if you know these mean “Ready to Fly”, “Plug-n-Fly” and “Almost Ready to Fly”. For example, this category lists the various multi-rotor vehicles that require only a few minutes of work to be up and flying.

The copters on that page range from tiny toys that have nowhere near the grunt to lift any sort of camera, through to this beast:

Perhaps more interesting is this feature: Click any point on the Google Earth map on your ground station based smartphone or tablet and the YS-X6 will get your multi-rotor there.

Click any point on the Google Earth map on your ground station based smartphone or tablet and the YS-X6 will get your [drone] there.

The point I’m making is that this “scary drone” functionality is within reach of anyone with a small amount of cash. The US$1999 price is steep, but with a bit of research and coding you could build a similar platform for half the price. Is this a problem? Maybe.

I’ve been flying RC aircraft for more than 10 years. I presumed it was a highly technical hobby, requiring hours of practice at special clubs, official memberships, and arcane technical knowledge. Then I met a bunch of nice guys throwing cheap foam planes off Mt Wellington, here in Auckland. Over the next few months I learnt all the basics of RC flying, and – with an initial input of about $500 – was up and flying with my own glider.

Fast forward 10 years, add a huge amount of innovation in battery technology (yay Lithium Polymer!), electric motors (yay brushless!), and now I can send $100 to China and have a brand new electric model plane on my doorstep in a week. These planes are small, agile, and flyable in your local park.

With costs this low and technology moving so fast, it was inevitable that hobbyists would take it to the next level. It started with sticking small, cheap cameras on their planes. Perhaps to record the flight and grab some aerial shots of your house. The next step was a down-link from that camera, with cheap 2.4GHz wireless video links boosted by amplifiers and large antennas.

Now we are firmly in the age of the “FPV” or “First Person View” hobby flying. Yes, Hobby King has a category for that too.

The question is, where do you draw the line between “hobby” and “omfg that’s scary”? Take this video for example. Is that Afghanistan or Iraq? Neither, it’s just some guys testing the range of their FPV hobby plane out to 7.4 km. It only looks sinister because we’ve been trained that the grainy view with an information overlay means we’re about to see an explosion and bodies flying.

The only real issue here is whether the fliers know their local airspace and laws, have a working air-band radio to listen to nearby planes, and have an autopilot and recovery plan if things go wrong. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the proliferation of long-range FPV flying means there are guaranteed to be some cowboys.

When I read “Police use drones to catch criminals“, I know it’s intended as a scary headline, but I just can’t get worked up about it. The use of hobby aircraft as described is just a logical evolution of technology. It’s no different to Police using their full sized helicopter to watch a drugs bust, or the local council using aerial photography to help with their surveys.

What do you think? Are you ok with police using drones in their work? What about some random guys flying out of your local cricket ground?

I don’t mean that Ev came and smashed my server with a hammer. But because my inspiration and unique thoughts go straight on to twitter without the chance of elaboration (most often to the detriment of society – sorry), I feel no compulsion to come here and write. As I type this I’m finding it difficult to drag these thoughts out of my head, and the very act of writing long-form is alien.

Is this wrong, or just new?

I was gutted, as is usual, to not attend Webstock this year, but didn’t stop me getting inspiration from the event. One suggestion I heard remotely was for creators to write 500 words each day before reading any, as an antidote to the antidata happening online – the trivialisation of news, the sound-biting of thoughts, and the selection of high-fructose corn syrup* entertainment news over the hard-news broccoli.

So this is me, steaming some fresh broccoli for you. Open wide, here comes the aeroplane!

I’ve been an Android hater for many years now. Back in the bad old days of 2.3 I was like the worst kind of Atheist: ranting against the stupid majority for blindly following their Google God; desperately explaining my stance to an unending stream of believers with closed ears. I still say that early Android was trash. Nothing more than a cheap, poorly designed, user-hostile land grab by Google.

Lately, I’ve been playing with Android 4 variants, and last night I got to take a look at the new Sony Xperia Z (both phone and tablet). Wow! Android: you’ve come a long way baby.

From the outside, the phone is perfect. Some tech blogs are saying the screen is not the most fantastic and the camera needs work. I suggest you take a fucking step back for a minute and just look at the thing:

• 1080p 5″ screen in a ultra-slim black rectangle
• Quad-core 1.5 GHz (jesus christ!) processor
• LTE radio
• 13MP main camera
• 2MP front camera supporting 1080p30 video
• Completely waterproof to 1m for up to 30 minutes

In what world is that not holy-fucking-shit awesome? In what world do you pick this apart and say that the screen looks a fraction washed-out when you view it off-angle? In person the phone is outstanding. The screen looks like paper: you cannot see a single pixel, while its Android 4.1.2 OS – thankfully largely untouched by Sony – is massively fast and smooth. And a quad-core 1.5GHz processor? Son, in my day that was a kick-ass gaming PC. None of my complaints about old Android stand true here.

One of my other complaints about Android has been the shocking treatment of upgrades, with carriers and OEMs leaving customers out to dry on horribly insecure versions. Sony have mostly solved this by cosying up to the modding community, to the point that they were named XDA-Dev’s OEM of the year. One of the comments on that post grumbles that Sony aren’t releasing new versions and have left support to XDA-dev. That’s the point my man! The one thing us nerds have been asking for is the ability to upgrade our own phones, and Sony appears to give us that by default, rather than grudgingly producing a root unlock down the line when they deign it appropriate.

I started watching Burn Notice last night on the recommendation of a friend. I’m talking S01E01 old-school. I had to check IMDB because the program was recorded in 4:3 ratio and the main character was rocking a Motorola RAZR. Take a guess at the production date.

2007. In 2007 the state of the art was a Motorola RAZR. Today it’s that thing up there. I’m going to get all Matchbox Twenty up in here: Let’s See How Far We’ve Come.

*Apparently the actual analogy was pizza-vs-brocolli. My analogy is better.

Back when I voted ACT, my reasoning was that everyone should be able to bootstrap themselves. Just get the government out of the way and people will succeed. Anyone who didn’t was just lazy. A lot has changed since then, both in my own philosophy and in the world. You’d be mad not to see that hands-off government leads to a raft of issues from leaky buildings to fucked-up banking behaviour collapsing entire economies.

Also, the dirty secret is that at a macro level, “left” vs “right” policies make little or no difference to the performance of a country over the long term. Countries have performed exceedingly well under high tax loads (and poorly under low). What this tells me is that business will thrive in pretty much any market condition.

To my mind, the difference between left and right lie solely in two areas: regulation and social justice. Regulation means holding people to account for the true cost of their behaviour, whether that be using the wrong building materials, building unsafe vehicles, letting their cows shit in streams, or their use of diminishing resources. Social justice is an understanding that we cannot exist as individuals, rather that we owe our well-being and prosperity to this larger organism we call society, in all its glorious, smelly miasma.

I’ve never been a member of a political party. I’ve voted in every election, and in my time have voted for ACT (yes, really), National, Labour and The Greens. I’m what you might call a swing voter. Although to be fair, I’m more of a “trajectory voter”, having swung from ACT to Green. I don’t see myself swinging back.

I’ve had enough of this hands-off “market knows best” bullshit. It’s utterly bankrupt and a pile of lies. John Key’s pointless, wandering 2013 opening speech was the straw that finally made my camel lose its shit. As a result, I’m signing up as a member of The Green Party. You should too.