London Rants

There’s a massive ongoing discussion about the massive bonuses of bankers. Its gone as far as Primer Minister Brown being ‘very angry’ about bonuses. Generally I don’t have a problem with bonuses, I don’t even really have an issue with large bonuses. The problem I have is with cash bonuses. Traditionally a large bonus haven’t been cashed based but rather share options. The idea behind this is that a bonus is provided as options that after a period of time become fully franked shares in the company in which the person works. The reason these are good is because if a month after the bonus is awarded, like in the case of Lehman Brothers, the company goes down the toilet due to the decisions that the the people that received the bonus had made the person is also impacted. So if a company goes broke a year or so later the person basically gets nothing, but if the company continues to grow the person does well. This should especially be the case for all member of the boards of directors in companies and the various CxO people. That way the bonus actually reflects their performance over a period of time. Very simple and the way it use to be, if PM Brown gets his way its the way it will be once again!

I need to get myself a new laptop computer. Well to be honest I actually need to get myself any laptop. Surprisingly, as an IT person, it’s been four years since I’ve owned one! In the time since I last had one I’ve been backpacking and in the three plus years I’ve been living in London I have always had a work provided one. While the work one has always been good it’s never been ideal as it’s never felt a safe place to store photos music and other such personal things.

So finally the time has come to bite the bullet and get one. The question I have been trying to answer for a while is what type? I’ve narrowed it down to two classes of machine. The first being a full spec 13 to 14 inch laptop such as the Dell XPS m1330. The second category is a new category as invented by the Asus called a NetBook. They are a smaller, lighter sub notebook in the 7 to 10 inch screen size with lower power processors, smaller solid state storage and come with a memory card slot and a webcam as standard but no CD-ROM. The first real NetBook which invented the category was the Asus eeePC Surf. Its a small white low power NetBook with a 7 inch screen and originally 2Gb solid state storage, and it took the world by storm. The reason why was that it was small, light and cheap. People didn’t seem to care that it didn’t run Windows (did I mention the vast majority of NetBooks run Linux), or even run iTunes. It allowed them to login to facebook, hotmail, gmail as well as upload photos, chat with their friends on MSN Messenger/AIM/Yahoo or what ever instant messenger they wanted as well as video chat or talk on Skype. There are now dozens of NetBooks out there. Asus has a huge amount of eeePCs including the eepc 701 (replacement to the original), eeePC 901 (9 inch screen, 20Gb SSD - the one I’m considering) and the eeePC 1001. There’s also the Acer Aspire One, the HP mininote 2133, Dell is bringing one out sometime this month amoung others (amazon link to category).

So I’ve got as far as deciding that if I go the real laptop I’ll get the Dell XPS m1330 or if I go the NetBook route I’ll get an Asus eeePC 901. I think I’ve got a couple of weeks before I have to make up my mind as the Dell XPS is due for a refresh and the eeePC 901 isn’t due in the UK until later this month. So what are the pros/cons for each type of machine. Well I’ll lay them out:

Full size laptop:
- Large 13.3 inch screen
- Lots of storage - 250Gb HDD
- Inbuilt 3G card
- Full size keyboard
- DVD Drive

Netbook:
- Small and light form factor. Take it anywhere
- No hard disk (12Gb Solid State Disk)
- No moving parts

The both have the following:
- Webcam
- Memory card reader - SD etc
- 802.11 wifi
- Bluetooth

R.I.P. 7th July 2005. Where has the three years gone since the 07/07 London Bombings. May all the people who died in vain Rest In Peace. I can remember exactly where I was when the bombings occurred. The company I worked for at the time had their offices overlooking Edgeware Road Underground Station where one of the bombings occurred. I also at the time lived in Islington. I routinely had three different routes I took to work. The first two which were via the tube went via Kings Cross Station, one of those was on the Piccadilly line, both possible routes ended at Edgeware Road. The other alternative route was via the Number 30 bus that took me from Highbury and Islington through to Baker St. The chances of me actually being on any of the trains at 09:00 was pretty unlikely as I was normally in the office by that time but either way the possibility still rings. Either way I will never forget where I was on 07/07/2005 and I suspect it will be a long time before the vivid details fade. I also remember where I was on the second attempted attack. On a BA flight from London to Stockholm.

R.I.P.

Well like half the world seems to do I’m cleaning out all the excesses of my life onto eBay. I’ve only been in the UK a little over three years and in that time I’ve moved three times so I don’t have an overly large amount of stuff but even so I rarely throw away anything that’s still useful. I give it away or store it away. Being in the technology industry I tend to acquire various bits of equipment and books. Whether that be through stuff I buy, I’m given or receive through training or various other means. Over time you either end up using them regularly, not actually ever needed or they are superseded.

So when I last moved almost six months ago I started putting things aside into a plastic crate that was labelled eBay. Ever since then I’ve been meaning to get around to put the various stuff up on the site. I’ve slowly got myself organised by signing up for an account as well as a paypal account, photo documented all the items and listed them in a file so I knew all the things I had to sell. The list kept growing, the crate filled and started being piled up on top but still I never got around to actually putting things up for sale. I had to get organised! After all tech devices (not that it all was) tend not to appreciate in value while sitting around gathering dust. The next thing on the list was to google how to optimise my returns. More procrastination!

So the week before last I actually did finally get off my proverbial butt and start to put some items onto the site that has been made famous world over. I decided not to put everything on at once but to slowly add things and use some of the items of less value to experiment with. Oh so much stuff to fill in. You have to decide on categories, photos but worst of all postage… how much to charge, what type. First class or second class. Argh!

I eventually got it all sorted, items listed and now just had to sit back and wait and watch the cash flow in. Well over all I didn’t do too badly for first attempt. Some of the items sold, some didn’t but overall it wasn’t too bad. I won’t be giving up the day job though! I do wonder about some people and things at auctions. I got a free prepay mobile phone from when I moved carriers. When I listed it on the site the vendors price was £25, mine sold for £31. I’m not sure if that was the rush of adrenaline of sitting at a computer, the fact it was out of stock or discontinued or something else but you’d think people would do some research (I might prove myself and idiot by being shown up for not doing my research and finding the carrier has replaced the phone since.

Since the first round of sales I’ve discovered and read about some other tips for selling on eBay. The first was list your items on Thursday night between 17:00 and 20:00 for a ten day auction. That way the auction ends between 17:00 and 20:00 on a Sunday night. Apparently when everyone is browsing the net dreading going back to work the following day. Monday is apparently good with everyone at work browsing the net with Mondayitis.

The other sort of similar site that seems to be taking of is FreeCycle. What I don’t sell might well end up on there.

Anyway I have to go and search through the next cupboard and find more things to sell. I’m might just be getting addicted!

I love the BBC, it offers a great service with reporters distributed all over the world and some of their research units are developing leading edge technologies to do with video technologies, music and all sorts of things to do with broadcast, HD TV, DVB as well as IPTV (such as BBC iPlayer and the list goes on. The TV License is one of the few taxes that I don’t actually mind paying. For those that are interested in the new technologies that the BBC is playing with I recommend reading the BBC Internet Blog.

One of the cool new features they are developing a new beta product called Sound Index. Details about exactly what it does can be found on the site here. In very basic terms it takes information from various music sites around the net such as iTunes, Amazon, MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, lastFM, and more, they then apply an algorithm which creates a ranking of the top 1000 songs and artists online. Very cool and very interesting!

Mozilla Firefox 3 has finally been released. It has massive speed and security improvements as well as hundreds of general improvements and new features. The only other thing I need to say is get it now as its much more secure and faster for all your facebook and email stuff!

Spring has to be my most hated season of the year. This hatred actually ends up being a hatred of one to two weeks of the season when all the grass is in full flower and the pollen is in full swing. I end up dosing myself up on antihistamine tablets for a couple of weeks to stop my eyes and nose from running and sneezing my head off. The grass seed and Plane tree pollen seem to be the ones that set me off, the later is hell as it makes my throat seriously itchy too and the antihistamine doesn’t seem to have an effect on that.

The hell kicked off over the weekend, lets hope its a short peroid of hell this year! Also lets hope its followed by a nice warm, dry European summer

I watched the late night news on the night of the UEFA Champions League final with slight bemusement but not surprise due to some of the antics that the Chelsea fans were getting up to just down the road in Fulham. My house mate on his arrival home also told the story of a group of Chelsea fans getting stuck into one another on a Tube train. They may be one of the richest clubs in the league but it doesn’t mean a lot of their fans are generally much more than thugs. Chelsea wasn’t always a rich club, prior to the current owner pumping in millions of pounds I believe (and actually don’t care) it was actually quite a poor club.

There’s a quote that floats around and gets pulled out by various people and media on occasion that goes something like this “Football: a game for thugs played by gentleman, Rugby: a game for gentlemen played by thugs”. I’m not sure who originally said it, a quick google revealed nothing concrete. How true! I mean how many sports do fellow fans belt each other up. I can vaguely understand the supporters of opposing teams belting each other up, but its incredible that they beat each other up.

The other thing that has provided amusement to me is the little girl that is John Terry. Apparently he was crying for hours after the game. Why? Its only a fucking game! Its not like he’s lost a close family member or is crying for all the death and despair in China and Burma. His team mate Frank Lampard sums up my thoughts perfectly with his quote “I can probably speak better than anyone at the moment that it’s just a game of football and there are more important things in life” (he recently lost his mother to pneumonia). Terry deserves all the jokes that are getting published about him. The Telegraph has some choice ones here. Maybe he’s crying for the despicable behaviour of his fans or the fact that the loss of the game means a loss of money for the club and London where they’re based to the tune of £35 million pounds in prize money, tourism and promotions. Damn, he probably won’t get a pay rise this year, after all with inflation and the price of fuel £110,000 a week probably doesn’t cut it.

Don’t get me wrong, I like watching a good game, not necessarily football, and have no problems what so ever with celebration or commiseration except when it hurts others… which it seems invariably happens most of the time that Chelsea win or lose.

Most Londoners have a love hate relationship with the Tube. I love it most of the time except when I have to travel during peak hour and when its horribly hot in the midst of summer. One of the things that I enjoy is the amusment that some of the TFL employees come out with to make your daily commute that little bit more amusing. Whether it be a funny annoucment on a train or platform or the occasional poem. This is what I saw today at Kings Cross - St Pancras underground.

As seen in Tate Modern:

“My intention was always to get away from myself, though I knew perfectly well that I was using myself. Call it a little game between “I” and “me”.” - Marcel Duchamp, 1960

Sums up my feeling quite well this afternoon.