Twenty20: The Poor Man’s Baseball

As some of you may already know, Justin Langer, the former opening batsman for the Australians, who, together with Matthew Hayden, formed a partnership that even rivalled the great Greenidge and Haynes (although I still personally believe that the West Indians were better) writes a cricket column for the BBC. I’ve always loved reading cricketers columns because, unlike footballers, who either seem to write stuff that furthers their own agendas or come across as incredibly unintelligent, cricketers seem to write so well about the game. Their columns are generally very well thought-out, well written (presumably because unlike football, which is a working class game, cricket is a middle-class one) and incredibly insightful, not to mention downright interesting to read.

Its Here

Today could mark an Earth-shattering day in the history of technology. Or it could be yet another in a long line of flopped technologies that includes digital audio tapes, Virtual Reality, the Dreamcast, mini-discs (whatever happened to those being the future?), and Apple’s very own Lisa and Newton. This will not come as groundbreaking news to most of you reading this but today Apple’s iPhone went on sale for the very first time. Although the price tag has been criticised ($499 for the 4GB, $599 for the 8GB) this is hardly new territory for Apple whose products are often criticised for being overly expensive. The big question is, will Apple’s latest toy, the iPhone, be like Macs, and prove to be both pretty and pretty useless, or rather the iPod, which has pretty much revolutionised the entire culture of listening to your music?

From what I’ve seen and read it doesn’t seem to be anything other than an immensely gorgeous (and it is that, but then, so are Macs and they’re useless) smartphone, and not a particularly great one at that. Strip away the branding and the product has been criticised for slow download speeds, the inability to send instant messages, its overreliance on the touchscreen, the poor camera spec compared to its rivals, the fact it’s larger than most other smartphones on the market, doesn’t support 3G or even something as basic as choosing your own ringtone beyond the 25 presets, something even simple handsets allow you to do. It remains to be seen whether the iPhone will have Nokia, Samsung and Sony-Ericsson quaking in their boots or laughing until the cows come home.

Edit: For another perspective you might enjoy reading this.

Lost, Found, Lost Again.

Police in Japan had a bike stolen from their custody not once, but twice. The bicycle had been stolen from a train station only to be dumped by the thieves, so the police decided to leave it where it had been dumped in the hopes that it might act as bait to lure out the unsuspecting thieves. This plan seemed to work when the bike was stolen again, but unfortunately for the Kasama police they lacked the manpower to keep 24 hour surveillance on the bike and as soon as the day shift went off duty (and presumably before the night shift came on) the bike was stolen again. Thankfully for the police they managed to locate the bike again, and following that old maxim “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again”, they decided to try another stakeover. Sure enough, just hours later, the bike had disappeared again, only this time they’ve been unable to locate it, or the thieves. So there’s a poor 21 year old girl from Kasama just wanting her $146 bike back. Maybe she can ride me to make herself feel better? I’m game.

Death Becomes You

Ever wondered how long you’re going to live? Don’t lie, I know you have, it’s only natural. Human beings spend our lives obsessed by death until we die, by which point it’s a bit late to start taking it easy. With every new sunrise comes another exotic and exciting way to pass off this mortal coil, and with that comes even more questions. Now it’s not “How long am I going to live?” but “Will I die peacefully or in pain?”. Why not save yourself a lot of soul searching? Find out exactly how long you’re going to live and what you’re going to die of. If only it were that easy, right? Well, thanks to new advances in technology, now it is!

Attack Of The Killer Mobile Phones

I’ve always been a big supporter of teachers rights, something I’ve even been very vocal about on here. These people put up with far too much from other people’s kids and but for them, our society would be even more illiterate and undereducated than it already is. More and more people are coming out of the school system without basic skills, and people are quick to blame the teachers, but what about the pupils themselves? They’re disruptive, largely down to the poor excuse for parenting they receive at home. Teachers can’t concentrate on educating if they’re spending all their time on discipline, an issue that should be taken care of by parents. but since too many people don’t raise their children properly, I fully agree teachers need more powers over discipline to substitute for the parents. Otherwise society goes to the dogs.