Whats worrying is that we’re creating the equilivant of digital illiteracy - over 20% of the adults in this country are functionally illiterate despite our “world class” education system.

Technology itself is not the answer there are much deeper problems, the attitude to technology being a key one. In ireland its superfical and vacuous like so much else

...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it" (Simon 1971, p. 40-41).

We find the promise of free things hard to resist (even when a little thinking reveals that the free-ness is illusory). So when with very little effort we can accumulate massive amounts of “free” stuff from various places on the internet, we can easily end up with 46 days (and counting) worth of unplayed music on a hard drive. We end up with a permanent 1,000+ unread posts in our RSS reader, and a lingering, unshakable feeling that we’ll never catch up, never be truly informed, never feel comfortable with what we’ve managed to take in, which is always in the process of being undermined by the free information feeds we’ve set up for ourselves. We end up haunted by the potential of the free stuff we accumulate, and our enjoyment of any of it becomes severely impinged.

The Porsche-VW Corner of 2008: Richard Milne in London: Volkswagen’s shares more than doubled on Monday after Porsche moved to cement its control of Europe’s biggest carmaker and hedge funds, rushing to cover short positions, were forced to buy stock from a shrinking pool of shares in free float. VW shares rose 147 per cent after Porsche unexpectedly disclosed that through the use of derivatives it had increased its stake in VW from 35 to 74.1 per cent, sparking outcry.... [T]he sudden disclosure meant there was a free float of only 5.8 per cent – the state of Lower Saxony owns 20.1 per cent – sparking panic among hedge funds. Many had bet on VW’s share price falling and the rise on Monday led to estimated losses among them of €10bn-€15bn.... “This was supposed to be a very low-risk trade and it’s a nuclear bomb which has gone off in people’s faces,” said one hedge fund manager. As of last Thursday, according to consultancy Data Explorers, 12.9 per cent of VW’s shares were on loan for investors to go short and bet on them falling – the highest percentage of any German company.

"The economy is fucked."

"How do you figure that out"

"The Breakfast rolls have gone down from 50 sold in a morning to 20 a morning"

Together with Issac Asimov he was one of my favourite authors when I was growing up. One of the reason's I'm a little suspicious of "childrens fiction" is I read adult fiction from the age of about 11. Together with Robert Heinlein he and Asimov were THE big 3 Science Fiction authors. Asimov and Clarke are the people who set fire to my imagination.

Quotable Quotes

• "Life is just one big banana. Science fiction allows us all to peel open the reality and discover the yellow truth inside."

Clarke's three laws:

1. "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
2. "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
3. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

 

I wanted 6x4 prints. Aldi don't do 6x4 but the others do. So I divided my 150 snaps in 3 and went ahead. The experience was interesting to say the least. Photobox and Snapfish use java tools to help you upload as well as a local tool you install. Aldi gets you to download an application. I found the Aldi application a pain. It was incredibly user unfriendly and I ended up downloading two differnet applications and visiting the site at least 3 times to figure out what was going on. That said once it was installed and running it seemed quite straighforward to use. Oh they offer a discount on the first set of orders but unlike the others the cupon comes via email after you register so I missed out on that for the first order. Like all of them it depends as to whether I will order again or not.

The process is very similar in the case of all three. Upload, review, order the size and go ahead.

Estimated 1-2 days to process and a few more days to deliver. Sounds OK. All confirmed the order and all confirmed the processing within 24 hours (one at 4am in the morning).

Anyway I was delighted to see the Snapfish envelope when I arrived home the other day. First through the door. Delighted until I opened the envelope. The first disappointment was the size. Not 6x4 as ordered but 5.something x4 and the slightly smaller size (which is what Aldi will deliver is not great). What was worse was the quality of the photos. They were universally dreadful. Lets be blunt. This is the worst set of photos I have ever received with a digital camera. They all had a terribly washed out look to them.  Its very hard to put my finger on but there is a serious quality problem. My wife agrees. They are not the same as the original digital prints and my only conclusion is that I will not be using Snapfish again. For comparison purposes I'm going to get the set of 50 reprinted using foto.com to see if there is a noticable difference (particularly as they both use Kodak paper).

So we await the Aldi and Photobox prints with baited breath.

The photos were created with a Canon Powershot S5IS in case anyone is interested

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"Pity the land that has no heroes," says Andrea, a pupil of Galileo. "Pity the land that needs heroes,"

Galileo, by Bertold Brecht, translated by Charles Laughton