The beauty of aging football coaches

Courtesy of inveterate newsreader Tim Marsh:

Legendary NCAA Division III  football coach John Gagliardi, 82, (St. John's University) to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, about his job security:

"The monks give me a lifetime contract because they figure I can't last much longer. But there's a clause in there that if we start losing games, they can give me the last sacraments and declare me dead."

-- Spokane Spokesman-Review

Why most newspapers will fade away

Newspapers are clearly in trouble as we move deeper into economic recession. This causes me particular pain as I am a former newspaper journalist. I worked in the industry for about 20 years altogether and loved almost every minute of it.

I left in 1986 because the world was changing and it was clear to me that newspapers were no longer keeping up with the times, particularly in the technology arena. But, mostly the career opportunity was limited and uninspiring. Many newspapers were poorly managed, setting the stage for their failure to understand and recognize the threat the Internet was to pose in another 10 years. They thought they were in the newspaper business when in fact they were in the information communications business. The printed newspaper was merely a means for presenting and transporting information. When the Internet came along and everyone got computers and high-speed connections, it solved the delivery problem. When the Internet improved, it solved the presentation problem. In fact, the Internet ultimately was able to vastly outpace the capability of the printed page in delivering vast amounts of content.

Now, it’s the combination of the Internet and the economy that is putting the double whammy on newspapers. Many will not survive the current economic times. But they would be doomed even if the economy was fine. It would just take longer. Newspapers for the most part don’t get it and haven’t gotten it for a long time. They should have seen this coming, but they either didn’t or chose not to heed all the warning signs.

Now it’s probably too late. People are changing their habits. No one buys the local paper for its classified ads, the cash cow of yesterday. They go to Craig’s List, which is free and produces instant, interactive results. Quality publications with truly unique content will probably survive. But, I’m sceptical that local news will keep them in the game. TV stations stand an excellent chance to win that battle for the same reason that the Internet has won.

For years, newspapers have had web sites. But, many have been squandered efforts. They apparently thought that merely having a web presence was sufficient, but that it didn’t matter what was on the web site. Well those days have passed. Consumers are too savvy.

So, the world will change again. I was once hopeful that newspapers would merely morph into online sites. I don’t think that’s going to happen in most instances. For many newspapers, it’s just too late and they will slowly fade away. Perhaps they will hang on in some online guise for a time, but they’ve already lost that economic battle.

We still subscribe to a newspaper, but it’s published in New York, has unique global content, is printed at a satellite printing plant and has a great web site.

Dumb as we wanna be

I don’t want to go on forever about this because Thomas Friedman does it so much better.

I occasionally get emails from a dear friend, an educated guy who has lived all over the world, who just happens to be in with the wrong political crowd. He’s as intellectual and bright as anyone I’ve know in my life, but he still clings to the conservative right mantra and parrots back the same old crap about freedom, taxes and guns. His friends would rather talk about Clinton pardons than America’s standing in the world, our ruined economy and two failed wars. He also sends out emails to a list of his friends – most of whom are not of my persuasion on political issues or worldview. It’s the usual whistling-by-the-graveyard stuff , poking fun at the people who think before they email.

Well, he sent out an email yesterday about how he’d take his guns and freedom and the rest of us could have our change. I pointed out that change is coming and there’s nothing the head-in-sand crowd can do about it. It’s already started with the election of Mr. Obama and the increased majority of the Democrats in Congress. The American people have voted for change and new perspectives. It was clearly a mandate – something George Bush could not achieve in eight years.

His son, who is in the midst of his doctoral program (in law enforcement even) at Florida State University, responded to the mail politely suggesting that everyone read Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded. For those who haven’t read it, this should be your New Year’s resolution. If you want a taste, read Friedman’s column on the subject from this week’s New York Times.

A chill-out kind of Christmas

Now that we’re through Christmas, and the snow is finally melting away, I have to say this was one of the strangest Christmases ever. Given the current economic dilemma, I have to wonder if this wasn’t all meant to be.

What was different? Of course there was the backdrop of the economy, but this year it was the weather – our worst snowfall in decades, about four to be exact. That kept us housebound for most of the 10 days or so leading up to Christmas and cut down dramatically on the amount of spending. When you can’t get out to the stores and restaurants, you can’t spend money.

This all is going to hit the local merchants quite a whack, but it’s probably a lot more in line with what people need to do and I want to do. We have a lot to be thankful for and we had a great Christmas. It was small, affordable and for family even though we didn’t get out to see a lot of family. We also weren’t rushing around at the last minute, feeling guilty because we hadn’t bought enough presents or gotten enough baking, etc. done. It was just a low-key, chill-out kind of Christmas.

Really, this may indeed be the model for Christmases (if not life) going forward even thought we don’t expect to see this kind of weather again for a long time, if ever.

A bigger deal than I thought

Last week, we had our repatriation training. It was something generously provided by my company to help us adjust to moving back to the US after living overseas for more than two years. At first, I was inclined to pass it up. After all, it costs money and weren't we moving back to a country that we knew well and had lived in most of our lives.

The more I reflect on the training, the more valuable it becomes. We certainly don't see the US as a foreign land, but between missing our former surroundings and friends and being puzzled by why we are feeling the way we are about some things here, this was invaluable. We realized how much we've changed, some of it in very subtle ways. We also realize that our families and friends have different expectations of us than we have of ourselves.We lived a different lifestyle in London -- not better, just different. Two years was enough time to make some significant changes on how we view the world and some of that is at odds with the common wisdom here.

Nothing's changed and yet everything has changed. We are not living in our house because it's still rented. The government is about to change dramatically (something we welcome). And then there's the economy, which adds all kinds of additional tension. But there are other little things. We've been more reluctant to jump back into things with friends. We find ourselves craving time by ourselves. We miss the long walks and time together we had in London. Why? I think it had a lot to do with the two of us taking on a new experience in a foreign land two years ago. Now, we need some time to readjust. We didn't own a car for two years and rarely drove. Now, we have two cars. We've both been more tired. All part of the adjustment, we were told.

Just to be sure, we are moving on with our lives and we are adjusting. There are, of course, many, many things we love about living back in the US, but we now realize that our feelings are normal and that it'll take some time for us to re-enter. The training will help us cope with this and more than that perhaps help our friends and families understand that there is a re-entry process and it's normal and natural. As we were told and realize, we are changed forever.

Whites on the move in Oregon

This is a wine comment. The other night we went out to Newberg for the First Friday Artwalk. It's really more of a winewalk than artwalk. We didn't find much art, but a decent amount of wine.

One thing that struck me was the prevalence and quality of some of the whites we tasted. Oregon, of course, is known for its pinot noir and we are big fans. But, some are making a big bet on whites. Bill Stoller of Stoller Vineyards is among them. He planted a significant portion of his acreage in chardonnay. Harry Peterson-Nedry, winemaker and co-owner of Chehalem Vineyards is betting on Riesling. Harry once told me that if you can't make Riesling, you can't make wine. Then there's pinot gris, a wine I'd given up on a couple of years ago, but some of the pinot gris being turned out in Oregon is distinctive and interesting. Chehalem has a barrel fermented gris and Scott Shull at Raptor Ridge has been making a great gris for year.

While living overseas, we became big fans of white burgundies, especially meursault. We had a Coral Creek Chardonnay the other night that reminded us of the meursaults we liked in Europe. On the Riesling side, Lemelson's has always been our favorite. It's crisp, lemony taste is driven by an acidity that makes it ideal for laying down for a few years.

Living small

We are living in an 1,125 sq. ft. condo near our 2,500 sq. ft. house in Beaverton and we'll be here for at least another 5 months. It's about the same size as our flat in north London though not as well arranged. But, we've found ourselves saying to each other that we actually kind of like this small living.

More than anything else, living small has a huge impact on your accumulation of stuff. We can barely fit our two cars in the garage and one of them is a Mini Cooper. We have more furniture than we know what to do with. We have limited cupboard space in the kitchen. But, we have what we need, even a reasonably sized balcony where we can barbecue and get some fresh air and sun. It's more than adequate.


One of the ways that we've changed since moving back is our view on stuff. We don't need nearly as much as we accumulate. And, we're trying really hard to fall back into this trap. When our house is available next year, I'm sure we'll move back in and not sell it to take up permanent residence in the condo. But for now, this is doing us just fine.

Begich takes lead over Stevens

According to 538:

The Alaska Board of Elections has finally
updated (pdf). With 17,728 votes counted since the previous update,
Democrat
Mark Begich has the lead over Republican Ted Stevens, 132,196 to
131,382.More
votes to be counted tomorrow and possibly Friday.As we've pointed
out and has been pointed out elsewhere,
the remaining votes come from Begich-friendly districts. Mark Begich is now
an
overwhelming favorite to win the Alaska Senate seat.

Taking the blog out of cold storage

Either I wasn't persistent enough or no one seemed to care much about my blog during our two years in London. I started it as a way to stay in touch primarily with family, but also friends. Family turned out to lack the tech savvy to follow a blog and friends probably didn't really care all that much. After all, aren't we really writing these blogs for our own self satisfaction? The chance to just say something or make a comment occasionally.

The origins of this blog were to write about one of my passions, wine. And, now that I'm back on my home wine turf, I hope to be doing that again. Not that European wines weren't wonderful and provided a big new adventure. But, I like the Oregon wine industry and I'm a lot more familiar with its characters. Already, I've put together a wine tasting for a friend on Nov. 22 at four of my favorite wineries -- Chehalem, Lange, Lemelson and Stoller. I've also been in touch with Scott Shull, the founder and winemaker at burgeoning Raport Ridge. In the two years I've been gone, RR has grown out of the facility next to his house in Scholls and into a proper winery in Carlton.

We've been back in the country two weeks now. We're still adjusting. A lot has changed beyond even the current economic crunch. But, America is a great country and you can only appreciate that after you've been gone for awhile. It is the land of opportunity even when times are tough as they are now.

So, I hope to be writing more regularly and commenting more broadly beyond the wine industry.

How Apple blew it

After 10 days with the iPhone, I dropped by the Apple store on Regent Street over the weekend to take a one-hour workshop. I learned some really valuable tips that make it more usable. The store, as usual, was jam packed.

Best tip was how the auto complete works with text. Basically, just type away as fast as you like and it will almost always correct your typos caused from hitting an adjacent key. Also learned that by holding down on the text you've already created, you can magnify it and move the cursor exactly where you want it for editing.

Also learned that you can sync with both a PC and a Mac even if you're using Exchange. Since Exchange syncs over the air, there are no worries about corrupting your iCal or Address Book with contacts and appointments from your work calendar and contact list. AND, if you keep your music and photos on the Mac, like I do, you can also sync those to the iPod. I was completely surprised when I found out it worked this well.

But, on to the main topic. Beause Apple has done such a miserable job with MobileMe, and because you can dual sync, there is certainly a much diminished potential that new iPhone owners will run out and buy Macs. In fact, I'm even happier with my PC and I might just junk the Mac over time and get a home PC! I discovered, for instance, that you can create a separate home calendar in Outlook that will also sync. You can show it with your work calendar or separately. And, of course, this is all made possible because MobileMe doesn't work. I can't get it to sync anything outside of e-mail. Calendar, Contacts and Photos don't work properly. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. And, the app itself is flaky.

Apple is working on fixing MM, but in the meantime, they've made me feel right at home with my PC and Exchange mail.

I got an iPhone

Ever since I bought my first PDA probably 20 years ago, I've been obsessed with these little (they weren't always that way) pocket wonders. And that was even before the dawn of the smart phone era. Probably the most memorable devices were my first Palm -- so small and slim. I also loved the Psion, a British invention. (I recently saw a guy pull one out in a pub.) They've since been discontinued and the last one was produced at least 10 years ago. I still have mine around somewhere.

Then there were the early Windows CE devices. Clunky, black and white screens, quirky, ugly, etc. Then Windows Mobile and now the iPhone.

The iPhone is a good device and definitely the coolest PDA/phone I've ever used. It's just so darned slick and intuitive. Still, it's not perfect. But, it does touch so much better than anything else on the market. I wouldn't even bother looking at the competitors. They don't even begin to measure up. If you don't like the iPhone's touch inerface, then I'd get a good keyboard device.

The Nokia e71 is my current envy, but the e90 is an amazing though slightly larger device. A colleague has it and loves it. Nokia make well built phones and the little known secret is that the e-series works remarkably well with Microsoft's Exchange server as they have licensed the activesync technology. I've used the more compact, but super well executed e51 and loved it for a very small pocket device.

But, I digress. I've had the iPhone for a week. I figured I owed it to myself to at least try it. Some things are annoying. There is a lag in some of the apps though I'm told this is to be fixed in the 2.0.1 upgrade which is out, but I've not been able to download yet. I'm also having trouble with my calendar as it seems to want me to confirm or decline a ton of appointments that I've already confirmed or declined on my computer.

The battery is what it is, but easily gets me through a day and I get a lot of e-mail. I don't surf the web as much as some may. I get spotty 3G coverage and the Edge service is really not acceptable for web surfing. The WiFi works great and I love that it just pops on once you've established a connnection. Ditto with the Bluetooth. I also like how easy it is to delete SMS messages and e-mail. I wish it would allow you to put each e-mail account under a separate icon on the home screen. The e-mail setup is amazing and so much easier than any other phone I've ever used. No complex menus and arcane techie questions you have to answer (or guess at).

Still, there's a lot I've not played with yet. Overall, the phone has worked well for me, but I still have some questions so am taking a free Apple workshop to better understand the features, tips and tricks. The big question is will I get one when I come home? I would say the jury is out since there are some many phones and I'm a bit addicted to keyboard phones. However, nothing -- nothing -- even comes close to the iPhone's cool factor. And, in the end, isn't that what it's all about?

New iPhone, MobileMe off to rocky start

Apple may have released its long awaited iPhone 2.0 yesterday around the world, but the initial reports are far from encouraging. Yes, they went like hotcakes, but is anyone connected, yet? I dropped into my local O2 store this morning and and they were all sold out. Didn't even have any samples though they dig one up just to show me. Nice looking, of course, and a slight improvement on No. 1 from the design and coolness factor.

Apparently all the set-up issues related back to software problems and Apple's infrastructure (or lack of it). The same was true with the new MobileMe service, which is still balky today. Contacts not connecting to e-mail. Calendar sync problems. Slow. Crashy behaviour. Photos don't upload altogether satisfactorily or at all.

All in all, a pretty sorry showing for Apple and another reason to question Apple's ability to scale on a truly massive scale when it comes to linking everything together. For all its faults, you have to give Microsoft credit for getting this bit down. And Google and Yahoo! for that matter. They all know how to roll out large online SW deployments and have them work.

IMO, the big mistake Apple made was letting their arrogance get in the way of common sense. Why did they wait until the day before launch to roll out MobileMe? They should have had it up at least a week before so they could work out the inevitable bugs with existing .Mac users. As it was, they not only pissed off existing customers, but their new customers. What a stroke of marketing genius.

Apple usually does things right and has a nice winning streak. It just could be that all this success and press adoration is going to their heads. At Apple where hardware and design are king, someone needs to wake up the boys on the SW side.

UK retail numbers stun experts

UK economists are scratching their heads today over a shocking rise in retail sales recorded during May. After all, we're supposed to be in the midst of a slowdown, recession, stagflation, etc. Depends on what day you read the papers. If you took all this to heart, you'd think we should all just pack it in.

But the numbers, released Friday by the government, seem to have taken all the economic "know-it-alls" for a loop. Some are saying the numbers can't possibly be right and are making the assumption that some fatal flaw will be discovered to discredit the numbers shortly.

The month on month rise of 3.5% is also a record since this data was first tallied and bests the 3.2% rise recorded in 1991. Sales were up 8.2 percent from last May. The rise was led by a 9.2% month-to-month increase in clothing and shoes, which was attributed to stocking up on seasonal items.

Day at the races

Saturday, we went to the Epsom Derby. That would be us along with 140,000 other crazy Europeans! We thought we were letting ourselves in for a day at the races, but it turned out to be the second leg of Britian's equivalent to the triple crown (who knows, maybe they invented it first, like a lot of things.)

We went on a coach (bus to those in the US) along with a contingent of about 25 from our local (pub), the Duke of Hamilton ("The Duke), which is literally situated 50 steps from the front of our apartment building. It's a little bit famous because an episode of the British version of the Apprentice was shot there recently.

Richard, the young and fun proprietor of the Duke, was our host. We got off to a bit of a rocky start because as my dad would say, he "overtrained" the night before. Or, as they say here, Richard was royally pissed on Friday night. We dropped over to say hello and by 9pm he was well on his way.

We were promised champagne and bacon rolls on the coach, but alas the coach driver informed us that not only did we have to wear our seat belts under penalty of law, but there was no eating or drinking on the coach.

So, we were all very hungry by the time we arrived at Epsom around noon, well before post time for the first race at 13:40. The place was a madhouse. Cars, coaches, people everywhere. The stands are quite small, but the track is huge -- about a 2-mile horseshoe with people encamped everywhere. Literally one massive tailgate party! The people watching was amazing.

The betting was also interesting. Not only is there state sanctioned betting at portable trailers parked all over the place, but there are also private bookies who make their own odds and have slightly different rules than the Totes. The lines are shorter at the bookies, though.

The Queen arrived before the first race and one of the Epsom flags was lowered and the royal standard replaced it. (The standard is to be raised in 21 seconds from bottom to top once the Queen has arrived in the building.) We didn't see her, but saw the balcony she was standing on.

The food Richard and his mates prepared was wonderful. People had a good time. Only one fight broke out in our group, but it ended quickly. We made many rest stops on the way home and ended the long day at 21:30. Oh, yes, by hitting a £45 winner in the second race, we came home even.

Is Gordon gonsky?

Will Britain get a new Prime Minister? That's certainly the talk of London this bank holiday weekend. Gordon Brown's year old administration has fallen on hard times. His Labour Party lost big in the recent elections which included a Tory victory in the London mayorial race.

Then this week, the Tories took a conservative seat in a by-election. The seat had been held by Labour for decades prior to this week.

So, the tom toms are out and it's Gordon's head that may be on the line. I'm, however, more in agreement with the lead editorial in today's Financial Times, which urges Brown to hang in there and fix what's wrong. Labour doesn't have to call an election until the spring of 2010, so there is time to fix the mess and hopefully for the economy to recover.

A year ago, Brown was flying so high Labour was considering calling an election last autumn. Now, the party's poll numbers are the lowest they've been since Margaret Thatcher called No. 10 her home.

Personally, I think Gordon remains the PM until he has to call an election.

Ah, Provence

Just returned from a week in lovely Provence -- our first visit. We stayed with another couple in a three-unit house just east of Avignon near Carpentras. I just uploaded our photos to Smugmug, my preferred method for storing and sharing photos online.  If you've not tried it, I highly recommend. It stores your whole photo at full resolution and not just a portion. It also creates a URL for all of your albums (galleries), making it very easy to share them without sending your friends one of those obnoxious invites.

We had a car, so we spent all of our time driving around the countryside visiting the little villages and taking in the local culture. We did some wineries, but only a few. Our favourite was Domaine de Mourchon at Sugeret. We had an excellent tasting there and ate out lunch under a grape arbor in the front of the tasting room while being entertained by the vineyard dog Rudy (see photos). 

I was impressed by the quality of the wine and how inexpensive it was. We drank a lot of wine during the week and most of it was priced under 10 Euros. We discovered Provence roses. My previous brushed with rose wine hasn't been good. Because it's relatively high in sugar, it tends to give me a headache. The fine Provence roses were different and we loved them.

It's not hard to see why France is the largest wine producing region in the world, more than twice the production of the US. Everywhere we drove, the ground was covered with vines. There are 14 varietals they are allowed to grow in Provence, but most of the wine is grenache and shiraz. We did have some excellent viogniers, though. 

One of the fun things we did was got to St. Remy to watch the annual (every may 12) running of the sheep when the sheep are moved from the low land to the mountains. It's quite a festival day in St. Remy and brings out many locals. We also had a delightful day in Roussillon, a quaint little village in the ocra hills east of Avignon. 

It was a very restful week. We cooked most of our meals, buying our meat in local butcher shops or the hyper marche in Carpentras. We definitely felt the impact of the strong Euro, but the price of the local wine helped temper that. 

Breaking news

Boris Johnson, the recently elected mayor of London today issued his first new order since taking office at the first of the week. He is banning open alcohol containers and alcohol consumption on public transportation.

I was somewhat shocked when I came here and learned that it was fine to have a nip (or more) on the train. This has never been a problem for me (I don't mean it quite that way). I've never had any trouble with anyone abusing alcohol on the tube. However, one Saturday morning I did run into a couple of very loud and annoying East Europeans downing cans of beer on the tube.

I found it a bit like Las Vegas where you can drink just about anywhere. This really seems to make sense. Johnson, a Tory, is starting to put his more conservative stamp on London by issuing the ban on drinking from June 1.

What have we here?

When I stepped outside the office today to pick up a sandwich for lunch (at my favourite sandwich shop -- EAT) there was an electric car parked in front of the building. Now, I know what that post with the blue lights on top is for. It's where the car is plugged in.

This may be the first electric car I've ever seen. Small and orange, it's called the Mega City and has a price tag of £10,498, including batteries. It has a range of 40 miles and a top speed of 40mph, which would make it fine as a London commuter. You don't have to pay the dreaded congestion tax (£8 per day) or the road tax (vehicle registration tax), either, so it's even practical to drive into town. It even includes free parking in Westminster or the City. According to Nice's website, all this will save you £7,000 a year.

We've gotten on here for nearly two eyars without a car and we don't intend to get one now, but this is very tempting. I could even drive to work! I've been teasing L about what kind of car she's going to get when we return to the States. I may have to point her to the Mega City.

Americans "shocked" into smaller cars

As most of you who have followed my ramblings know, I no longer own a car and haven't for almost two years. But, eventually we will return to the US where a car (more likely two) will be a necessity. Unfortunately public transport where I live is not what it is in London.

We've been giving this a lot of thought and are being influenced for several issues: the rocketing price of gasoline, the building environmental crisis, the power of the oil-producing nations and the kinds of cars we see people driving here.

Friends of ours just bought a Prius, but this was after they bought an Audi A4 only a few months earlier. Now, this had to be a money losing proposition since they traded the Audi in on the Prius. But, it also demonstrates the mindset that is taking hold in the US as the price of gas zeroes in on the $4 mark (here, it's closer to $10 per gallon). The dealer where the bought the Prius is no longer taking SUVs as trade ins. They had 41 Priuses on April 1 and sold the last one yesterday.

This is exactly what Americans need -- to be shocked into taking drastic steps to counter what is undoubtedly a looming crisis with potentially dire consequences for all of us. It's long puzzled me why more people don't opt for hybrids or at least high mileage small cars. We may finally be at that point. And, I say, hooray for the high price of oil is what will drive us out of our lethargy and put US consumers back in the drivers seat.

An article in toay's New York Times comments on the rising sales of small cars in April:

“It’s easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here,” said George Pipas, chief sales analyst for the Ford Motor Company.

If the vast majority of Americans opted for small, fuel efficient or hybrid vehicles, we could solve the oil crisis overnight. And, the result would be a dramatic decline in the price of gasoline. It's all about supply and demand.

So, what about my next car? Well, my wife wants a small SUV like the Ford Escape hybrid. I'm pretty sure mine will be a Prius. And our current conversation is about just buying two Priuses. Time will tell, but I would predict that in two more years, the US will have dramatically refitted its auto fleet to smaller cars and this will have started having an effect in the price of oil. We may even be seeing the high water mark now. In a way I hope not because more shock treatment is needed. This is not just a consumer issue. It's a defense issue as well.

The real chippper

Last night, we went to an art show at the Royal Arts Academy in Piccadilly after work and found ourselves looking for a place to eat when I remembered we weren't far from The Golden Hind. But, we'd never been there to eat since we came here to live almost two years ago.

On our first trip to London in 1985, we went there for dinner. It was recommended to us as Princess Diana's favourite. And, we weren't disappointed. Since coming here, we've tried a number of chippers around London and some have been very good. The most recent was Nautilus in West Hampstead.

But, I have to say that The Golden Hind on Marylebone Lane, just north of Oxford Street beats them all hands down. The restaurant is tiny and if it's full which it is most of the time, the queue is on the sidewalk outside. No beer or wine, but you can bring your own (even better). If you want to buy your drink afte ryou get there, there is a Tesco and two wine shops just around the corner. We both had haddock and chips and it was great. Perfectly cooked to a golden colour. Cirspy on the outside and perfect on the inside.

The place has had five owners since 1914 when it first opened. They are listed on a board in the restaurant. The first three were Italian and the last two have been Greek. If you come to London, don't miss this place. They do take reservations, but their hours are tricky, so check before showing up.

Will iPhone crush Android?

Some interesting speculation here as to why Android, Google's upcoming mobile platform, won't stand a chance against Apple's iPhone, rumored to be readying a 3G version of the phone to go along with its 2.0 software upgrade release scheduled for June.

According to this piece on the Android Guys blog, Google is not establishing any parameters with developers or carriers when it comes to software developed for the new platform. While the open source community will love this, it could wreck havoc on with ordinary consumers who just want a phone to work and aren't part of the tech elite. Those ordinary consumers could end up with dodgy software that could cause them all kinds of problems.

If this is true, one has to wonder what Google are thinking in terms of what they may be unleashing on the very customers who have placed such high trust in their products.

The Kindle

Does anyone have one of these? Being in London, it doesn't make any sense beause the wireless aspect wouldn't work over here and that's the whole benefit right now. But with the number od commutes every day on public transport, it seems like an obviously lucrative market.

If anyone who reads this has one, please drop a comment about how you like it. I have to assume they're selling quite well as they've been out of stock for some time and Amazon only recently got them back in. If I lived in the US, not sure I'd be all that interested. I do be more reading done here because a) I have an hour commute daily (both ways) and b) there is more time to read (TV isn't as good IMO).

Anybody's who into gadgets would have to like the concept. I especially like the idea of getting the newspapers every day. That's very clever.

iPhone not the hit carriers expected?

There are indications that the iPhone has not been the smash hit in Europe that carriers first expected. Carriers apparently overbought on inventory and are now dumping the 8BG handsets to clear the way for the new 3G models expected in June.

T-mobile in Germany, O2 and Carphone Warehouse in the UK have all discounted the handsets. Orange, the exclusive carrier in France, may be next to offer steep price cuts. In the UK, the price of the 8GB model was slashed more than a third to £169. This new price is only in effect until June 1, however. A spokesperson for O2 denied that the price reduction has anything to do with bloated inventory of the devices.

This is interesting as Europe is a very sophisticated market for mobile phones and has traditionally led the rest of the world in sophistication. The 3G network, for instance, is well built out here and most new multi-function or smartphones offer 3G. Thus, one of the reasons speculated why the iPhone might not have done as well as some expected. Because of its great web connectivity, the iPhone craves for fast connections. When you go to a store to play with one, they are always connected to a local WiFi network, not the cell network.

This is a good article in the Times outlining what may be coming with the iPhone, including some radical changes in form factor when the new models are expected to be announced June 8.

Google's stunning success

Google is the largest advertising company in the world and the largest seller of advertising in Britain. This is an American company, mind you, that recently passed ITV as the largest purveyor of advertising here.

Estimates are that Google ad sales worldwide will reach $21.9 billion this year. Concludes Saul Hansell of the New York Times:

We don’t know what effect this will have. Google will argue that it is making the world of marketing more efficient and thus better for everyone. Many in the media business are not so sure that this efficiency helps them.

When is winter going to end?

When is this f'ing cold weather going to end? Here it is halfway through April and a month into Spring and we're still suffering through freezing temperatures. On top of that, I got a dandy of a cold this week that is just beginning get better. It's the worst cold I've had in years.

This really does seem like bizarre weather. Just a week ago, we had several inches of snow! Then to add insult to injury, London was engulfed in terrible smelling air being dubbed Der Stink. Apparently freak weather conditions are causing the wind to blow foul smelling air over from Germany. So, the wind is making it cold and smelly.

By this time last year, we were all romping around in shorts and sandals. So, my question: Is this part of global warming? I thought it was supposed to get warmer, not colder. I'm confused. I'd really like to just get warm again and get over this damned cold.