Grand Theft Auto IV

Much has been written about the 'seminal masterpiece' computer game grand theft auto iv which has just been released. In this game a person plays the role of a criminal in a virtual city. One of the key attractions of the game is its 'sandbox' gameplay; if you choose you can ignore the missions and just hang out in the city. You can watch TV, eat chicken ignore stop signs and red lights. You can also go on a murderous rampage with a baseball bat or fill innocent bystanders with lead. Defenders of this say that it is just tongue in cheek fun and a bit of stress relief. Any sane person can distinguish the game from reality. Why should we all be denied access to something fun just because there are a few vulnerable and suggestive people out there?

Which is exactly the same argument the pro-gun lobby make in the USA.

New Orleans vs Sichuan

The chinese government, with its appaling human rights record, has done more to help the victims of the Sichuan earthquake than the US government did to help the victims of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It might be that the Olympics and the world spotlight have forced China to act but the fact that China has acted so swiftly and that New Orleans is still in pieces should surely put Bush to shame. But it doesn't seem to have.

Microsoft and children in the developing world

The makers of the $100 laptop designed to give thousands of kids from the developing world access to a vital learning tool have announced that the Microsoft Windows XP operating system will now be supplied with the laptop alongside the free (and in my experience, far superior) Linux operating system. Users will be able to choose which operating system they want to use just after they switch on the laptop. The cost of the laptop has risen to $188 because the company involved can't demand that a country order a minimum number of laptops. With Windows XP the cost of the laptop has risen by a further $10 to $198, double the initial cost which means half as many kids will get their laptop. The project has also suffered delays because it has taken 1 year to adapt Windows XP to go on the machine. Even so the user interface doesn't work on Windows XP and the networking software that lets users talk to one another and share data also doesn't work. Scandal and shame.

Why are they letting big business in to profit from such a beautiful and altruistic NOT-FOR-PROFIT scheme? Because the users want it. The number of orders placed since Windows XP was made available has increased. I wonder how much pressure was placed on the governments of the countries placing orders. Of course, we all know that MS aren't in this because of education. They want to make sure their operating system and their software becomes dominant in the new markets in the developing world. This situation is akin to the companies who distribute free powdered milk to mothers in the developing world and then stop the free samples when the mothers natural milk dries up, forcing them to pay for the milk. Microsoft will raise a generation of children on Windows and then when they are adults they will be forced to use it and pay for it (out of familiarity, the same reason Windows is till dominant everywhere else), instead of taking advantages of all the goodness of FREE open source software.

Sainsburys beware

The UK supermarket Sainsburys has reported a 28% increase in its profits this year. Now, I know they are one of the big nasty supermarket chains but I'm quite pleased about this. I was, for many years a Tesco customer partly out of laziness and partly because of the clubcard. But I got fed up of sub-standard fruit and veg and awful meat (see my post from almost a year ago). So I switched to Sainsburys. I travelled the extra few miles to their store and paid a few pence extra and got less of a reward for my loyalty (nectar points aren't as valuable as clubcard points). It was worth it for the better food. And I'm delighted and surprised that lots of other people have made the switch in a time when food prices have been rising fast. Sainsburys concentrate mainly on food but they have decided to reinvest the profits in the non-food side of the business. Boo. Concentrate on maintaining the quality of your food and you will maintain your profit margins (and your customers). Tesco took their eye off the ball and started selling crap food a year and a half ago so they could concentrate on their USA operations and their non-food lines and look what happened. I said it a year ago for Tesco and I'll repeat it again today; Sainsburys beware.

Apropos of not much really...

The Popular project (over on Freaky Trigger), which is reviewing all UK number 1 singles in order, is on great form at the moment. It's just hit September 1976, with the number 1 in question being Dancing Queen which has earned a big fat 10 out of 10.

I like Dancing Queen, but I like Chiquitita better. It's a song that stops and then starts again, which are always ace, and it features Bjorn playing the piano with great gusto. I have no idea what it's about but it sounds sad, in a kind of European melodramatic way (see also Fernando). So here's a lovely snowy video for it.



Niczilla xx