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iPhone - Jan 4, 2007

Yes, the weather has been very windy. I am very intrigued by the iPhone! Will iPhone be as successful as the Ipod? Will consumers abandon buying separate MP3 Players and phones for a device that fulfils both functions? Time will. By the way hopefully the weather will get better. Vic

I found today quite entertaining. I went out and noticed that it was a little windy. Later on, I was heading towards the student bar only to find that it was closed due to windows being blown in. “Oh well”, I thought “time to do something different”. I walked across the street, the name given to the path in the middle of our university, and looked up to the screens, “ship abandoned”, train delays, tiles off roofs, and more. [caption id=“attachment_5829” align=“alignleft” width=“225”] Due to various trees on the line[/caption] As if to provoke more problems for myself I decided to head into central London. There was a hilarious sign. “Because of various trees on track - severe delays on metropolitan line. It’s such a matter of fact, a casual way of saying there’s a problem. I went up the stairs to the platform ad caught a train limited to 30 mph due to the adverse weather conditions. That’s quite a bit slower than usual. We arrived near Wembley Park but the train remained blocked. Apparently they had to change driver and this was holding us up. So to recapitulate six trees on the line, heavy winds, severe delays, and to top it off delay due to the changing of a driver. Don’t they have enough problems as it is? I went to the world’s biggest apple store but there’s nothing new, no apple tv, no iPhone, nothing I haven’t seen already. The trek back was fun in itself. Highly packed trains filled with commuters and masses of people trying to get back to Northwick park after going to Harrow on the hill because the trains were suffering from the weather conditions. I got out and walked home.

It’s fun to watch documentaries when you know that they spent at least two to three years in the making. I like the documentary because it’s an opera rather than a documentary. There is a minimum of comment and a maximum of shots. There are some sequences where you see things happening in front of the camera and it switches to a second camera. That’s because for sequences like the penguins jumping out of the water they filmed it with one film camera and one pole. Doesn’t that make you wish you were studying a media BA. where part of your studies is television. Every field of studies has it’s advantages. One person I know is studying James Bond films, another is doing Disney cartoons. I’m doing underwater documentaries between France and England. Another is doing something related to social elements and zombies. One is doing special effects It’s a broad range and that should make it more interesting to those that have to read through all this content.

Today I got an e-mail which, if I agreed to would open a door to a number of events. I went for a fourty minute walk to think about things and my interior monologue brought me to the conclusion that by being stubborn I would gain nothing but regret whilst by agreeing to a small thing I would win back a freedom. I enjoyed the student life and for a moment by freedom was not as great threfore I found other occupations. Today I was at a comedy night and it was really amusing. I really enjoyed the evening. It’s great to watch comedians bring out the funny things in life for us to laugh at.

Student unions are one of the best places to meet people and make new contacts. It’s a place where drinks are cheap and normal rules no longer apply. At least that’s what they’d have you believe. The undercroft is one of the worst student bars in the United Kingdom for a number of reasons, firstly the prices, highest in the UK, secondly the location, a basement with rats scurrying about. thirdly poor management, the reason for which many of the staff quit the job. For over two months now I’ve been unable to go due to the management, not the staff, taking a dislike to me. I went in today, not planning to get anything to drink because a friend wanted to drop down. The manager took a minute or two before he asked me to leave. I had not had the time to do anything of any sort. I’m disappointed because tonight is the first night that everyone is back from holiday and I can’t go to be with those I’ve studied and had fun with for two years. I enjoyed the convenience of that bar being so close. After tonight the bar is so empty there is no reason to go anyway but tonight could have been different. On the positive side, I’ve just started my six-day weekend and one friend in the same year is wondering what to do to occupy all our free time. Shall we find work, shall we live at home and commute only for the lessons? Shall we spend three or four days a week on dissertation work? I think so. I need to find work. I need to carry out phase two of the research, interviews, and discussion groups before starting phase three, the first draft, and subsequent copies. Last night I watched the Nile DVD and it’s interesting to see how different it is. It’s an anthropological documentary, taking time to speak first about the geography of the place, secondly about the people and thirdly about how they’re affecting the environment. It’s an interesting documentary that lasts about 100 minutes, 50 minutes per part. Already I’ve written notes about it and I’m getting closer to seeing how it’ll fit in as one of the case examples for what I’m talking about. I still need to read through the two dissertations I have. It’s going to be interesting to have so much time to work on one project. A documentary about the differences and similarities between the two documentary genre. Hours of fun as long as I organise my time so well as not to feel any pressure.

I hate slow connections, they force you to wait patiently whilst the content you desire shows itself. It forces you to select more carefully the content you are about to read. When the connection is fast you skim through the pages reading the first paragraph before jumping onto the next page until several hours have passed. In contrast with slow connections you look through articles of interest and start downloading them. As one arrives you read it without rushing. There’s no point. You’ve got time. Whilst I was in the southwest of England every Sunday I would go to a pub where I’d order a coke and find all the newspapers. I would have four or five papers and I would skim through each paper looking for articles of interest. On occasion I would read the entire article, learning new things as I went along. It allowed me to keep up to date with what was happening. It was a method of escape, of relaxation. There was no rush, nowhere to be. It was directed daydreaming rather than free. It was directed by the article. The eyes read the text and the mind translated it into pictures and thoughts, spreading and converging. Occasionally those daydreams meant that the eyes were reading the text but the mind was thinking of something else. That demonstrates that the article was not written as well as it should have.

I just ran a test and skype with my mobile phone works fine. It means that when in range of open wifi hotspots without restrictions I can take advantage of free phone calls.

I’m back in the northwest of London waiting for Monday to come when I can fall asleep in the first lecture of the week… In reality that’s probably not going to happen. Instead, it’s going to be the final three modules before the course is over. It’s going to be fun since I love the modules I need to do. The flight was good, enjoyed watching a film on my i-pod, and finally getting a proper opportunity to check my noise-canceling headphones out. They make quite a difference.

In Austria, there’s a pollen warning. Apparently the lack of frost has encouraged the trees and other plants to begin releasing pollen. That’s quite amusing. We have the same temperatures in central Europe as you’d expect to have down in the south Israel has seen snow but the resorts can’t open because of the lack. Where is winter? Is it hiding in the south? Should people go on skiing holidays with their bikes and hiking boots rather than snowboards and skies? On the Porte du Soleil ski pass you’ll see that they advertise their summer time activities like downhill mountain biking.