Interesting thought

No matter how impure Thoreau’s experiment in simple living may have been, there was something undeniable in his suggestion that we often have to strip convenience from our lives to feel alive…

Epicentre memorabilia – the 1st newsletter!

Going through my stuff and what should I find but a copy of Epicentre’s first newsletter. Those were the days in SW11!

Epicentre Newsletter no 1. Feb 96

Leeds follows Chester with a night church sort of thing

Not often we are ahead of the game here in Chester. The Lightproject has been blazing the trail since last December.

Leeds answer to our Anina?

Amazing what you can do with a mobile phone – - – - – a 100ft crane, a beach and a whole lot of people

Trial and Error and the God complex

Love this at 12.43

I will admit trial and error is obvious when schools start to teach children that there isn’t necessarily a correct answer…..

 

Global capitalism : is the left right?

Charles Moore of the Telegraph is becoming a very interesting columnist. Love this remark in this recent piece.

The global banking system is an adventure playground for the participants, complete with spongy, health-and-safety approved flooring so that they bounce when they fall off. The role of the rest of us is simply to pay.

 

Tour de France : were you hooked too?

Wow – what a great TDF. Someone finally sat down with me and explained the rules and once you know what is going on it is fascinating to watch tactics and strategies being played out in ultra gruelling competitive conditions with the backdrop of one of the most (if not the most) beautiful countries in the world.

Hoogerland after the crash- shorts cut to ribbons by the barbed wire (click for full set)

A particular highlight was seeing Johnny Hoogerland get back on his bike after being catapulted through a barbed wire fence at 40mph by a maniac driving a TV car. Another cyclist Juan Antonio Flecha also was taken down and got back up. Hoogerland was lucky to be alive and had multiple deep lacerations across his body. The amazing thing is he got back on his bike and finished the race. That is tenacity, courage and desire not to let his team mates down and I don’t know of any sport where they are tougher. They should force every football player who writhes around in mock agony to watch a clip of the crash and then see Hoogerland get back on his bike. And then he gave the most magnanimous and sportsman like interview at the end of the race. While most of our sporting “heroes” would be spitting blood and retribution he was generosity itself. Hoogerland you are my sporting hero.

Andy Schlek - Click for a full set of pictures

Interesting article in the Harvard BR

How should we live in a new world of shrinking resources and increasing population?

http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/05/is_a_well_lived_live_worth_anything.html?cm_sp=blog_flyout-_-haque-_-is_a_well_lived_live_worth_anything

Nokia’s difficulties….

Elop is turning into a disaster. If you need the details of why read this devastating post. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/06/will-the-real-stephen-elop-please-stand-up.html

The authors theory of what has happened to Nokia can be summarised as;
1) Start of 2010 Nokia was struggling to bring out S^3 and previous iterations of Symbian were not competitive on touchscreen phones.
2) Nokia looked for a new CEO – Elop looked at what was going on and decided that they should stop throwing good after bad and end of life Symbian (this is before he got the job). He gets the job.
3) Symbian^3 comes out on N8 – to the surprise of neutrals in the industry (and evidently Elop) – although late (by a year) it is actually competitive (not withstanding TR’s pre-written review etc) and starts to give Nokia momentum.
4) Sales of N8 are great – for the first time in years Nokia has a hit smart phone. Nokia’s average selling price rises by 15% – which is unprecedented for them in recent times.
5) Elop sees it soon becoming impossible to go through with his original plan due to the N8 success. And here he makes his fundamental error (and why will be debated for some time I guess). In the notorious Feb 11 press conference he announces the end of life of Symbian 12 months before he has a successor WP7 phone. Quite naturally all momentum is stopped dead in its tracks and Symbian sales nose dive. Elops burning platform indeed occurs due to his “Ratner” moment. Nokia sales tank (look at their Q2 results) and they lose 50% share value.
6) MS then buys Skype which sends the carriers even further against Nokia (deep integration of Skype? Unless you’re 3 no thanks very much!) WP7 now looks less attractive (to carriers which is the most important customer base)
7) He is now back tracking furiously (Symbian goes onto 2016, N9 is announced, Qt is for S40 etc) but has he managed to completely trash Europe’s once proud flag bearer of hi-tech equipment?

Sad fact is he should have re-assessed what was going on and hedged his bets. No plans survives contact with the enemy etc. Announce intention to build a WP7 by all means on Feb 11, many manufacturers have multiple phone OS products – but you have a hit on your hands with N8 and Ovi store has been growing steadily. A developer evolution to Meego with QT was credible and compelling. If come the time you actually have a WP7 phone that is well received – and perhaps Symbian/Ovi/QT is not developing as an eco system – kill it then. But NOT before you have an alternative product to sell. That is business school 1.01 and no doubt it will be an interesting case study in the future. MS paid Nokia a lot to go “all in” on WP7 but did they pay them the $6bn of lost smartphone sales (estimated in the above post) in the past 2 quarters??

I confess interest in that I have a N8 and I am delighted by it. It is definitely a competitive touch screen OS – in some ways it is miles ahead, in others it could be better – so I am not saying it is the best OS – but it is (was) competitive. So I find Elops decision on Feb 11 very strange and did not recognise his memo for the truth (at the time – it is of course true now). I suppose only Elop really knows and I doubt he will ever really confront the real reasons as to why because it will be too painful but it is a fascinating story for those who take an interest in why people do the things they do.

Please vote Yes to AV on May 5th

Hi friends, as you may know I am pretty keen on a move to AV. As a friend, I would really appreciate it if you would give me a couple of minutes to let me tell you why I think it is a good move. There’s a good old saying: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But: BRITISH POLITICS is BROKEN. Our electoral system is unfit for purpose. It was designed for a two-Party system: it can’t cope with a multi-Party system. We need to fix it: Ergo, it’s time for electoral reform. It’s time to vote Yes to fairer votes. It’s time to vote Yes2AV. AV [The ‘Alternative Vote’] is the change we’ve been offered and we need to take it.

How is our current system ‘broken’? Because being able only to crudely put an ‘X’ in one box just doesn’t work when you have 3 or more serious candidates standing for election – as in virtually all elections nowadays we do. In the 1950s, 97% of people voted Labour or Conservative. That figure keeps dropping and dropping every year, with the presence on the scene of the LibDems but also the dramatic rise of new Parties such as the Green Party, UKIP, Scottish Nationalists etc. . We need a system that allows you to list your preferences, from 1 all the way down, so that you can vote FOR those who you support AND AGAINST those who you oppose. AV is voting for who you really want to vote for, and being able to stop those you really don’t. AV is for getting rid of tactical voting where you need to 2nd guess others voting intentions.

There has been a lot of nonsense been written and said on both sides of the argument (Babies, Bullet proof vests, BNP bogeymen, fictitious gazillion costs, making MPs work harder, it’s too complicated for our simple British brains etc ) but what will a vote for AV mean? Essentially there will be more marginal constituencies and for UK politics I believe that is a good thing. The number of seats which can swing either way (ooh er missus) has declined in recent decades which means that general elections are fought more and more with a small number of people in mind who live in those declining marginals and not for the British nation as a whole. AV will reverse that trend by creating more marginals which means the government will need to take more account of the whole country and not just the minority in marginals who voted for them.

I assume you all know how FPTP works – it is simple to explain which is one of it’s strengths. AV works essentially by the same way the X-factor voting works. You keep voting people off until the winner emerges (Matt Cardle, the winner in 2010, take your bow). Obviously you can’t keep asking people to come to the polls every Thursday for a month so you fast forward the process by asking people’s preferences so that if their favourite is voted off you assume they vote for the next favourite on offer. That is why claims that people who vote for mainstream parties are disadvantaged is nonsense. It is like they vote for Matt Cardle in every round. They have the same say as everyone else in every round. For more on this analogy see here.

AV will not solve all the UK’s problems, it will not turn UK politics into a bed of roses, it will not stop MPs on the make but it is an improvement and I for one want to see the country move forward. Please join me in voting YES.

If you prefer videos etc take a look at some I’ve collected here. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=188970C85BB305E7 This includes my own efforts (one of which has 20k+ views and the other is the Jackson 5 and Jo duetting for AV!).

Thanks for reading to the bottom of this and if you still vote NO – fair enough – I would love to debate with you the reasons why!