Wednesday 21 April 2010

Dude, Where's My Top Secret Next-Generation IPhone?

Everyone makes mistakes - but if I were making Apple's policy I would dictate that the prototype phone should not have been allowed out in public - and only booked out for job specific needs - such as to show to other related business leaders. This would not include using it out of work for personal use.I don't know the actual policy - or the level of trust and responsibility that the worker was employed to fulfil.
As for who gives a flying hoot about the rapid and currently unfolding development of an emerging mobile connectivity that is far beyond 'a phone' - well - HELLO? - or who gives a moment to a such a predicament as this hapless worker's, regardless of the interest or not in the content of the disclosures?

Personally I would forgive anyone who repents of an act made in error - but that doesn't mean I would continue to support a mentality that is liable to error. Mistakes are great - if humiliating - ways to learn how better to live. Blame and shame is a refusal to learn anything except a righteous disregard for a greater perspective than one's own.

Industrial consumerism has encouraged a mentality of identifying with or against products and brands that is a mere vanity and the manipulation of such consumers is a way of milking the herd, and the competition to be in a position of what is effectively mind control - is fiercely contested.

However, even through such a seemingly chaotic process - the new technology unfolds and extends for better and for worse - changing the way we live and - I believe - the way we perceive the world.

It is not in Apple's interest generally to have such leaks and Apple - does - push the development of technology even if it may not maintain dominance once the market develops.

Tuesday 20 April 2010

"Do Liberal Democrat policies represent change?"

The nature of the changes that I feel are and will increasingly be called forth are not yet within the vision of any political movement, but there are steps that begin to open to that change just as there are steps that continue to act as if the past is still the present.
Policies are a starting point and some of the Lib Dem policies have merit - as have some of other parties policies.
What I would hope for from the Lib Dems is a willingness to bring some fresh air in the way in which politicians conduct business and the way in which they relate to the public - and to the media.
Whatever party is elected will have to engage an extremely difficult job and the best way to deal with it is not to bluff and bluster with spin and reviews and reports and targets and statistical outcomes that mean sweet nothing and delay and obstruct the functionality of many services from running well.
The best way is to engage in real and constructive communication with the spectrum of social and political perspectives and having assessed what steps are possible and positive - to take them without apology or fanfare and do so with a positive demeanour because they are steps we can actually take together.

The new ideas that can offer intelligent response to our many levelled crisis have to find channels of expression and begin to register as a real movement that aligns with life and not merely private gain at common cost. This is not currently feasible in the Labour or Conservative camps because they are locked into C20th politics which is largely an ineffectual front on a relatively powerless job in so many respects. Who and what really call the shots? Where is themoney and the power - and where is the voice that can speak without its master telling it what to say?

The loosening of our minds and the widening of our possibilities has to find a way to happen for creative change that isn't just change for its own sake or to make a mark,
There needs to be a sense that politics is possible for all kinds of approaches and ways of living together on this Earth - so that people across the spectrum engage in political and social change in common intent and endeavour.

I feel the Lib Dem vote is a vote for their desire to serve the trust that will be given them as best as they may- and to break the stranglhold of the two party system that has a diminishing credibility.

Will the Lib Dems live up to any of my hopes? Not if we have unrealistic expectations from a consumer-like dependency. It isn't the politicians who lead change - but Individuals working in society.
It may be that any party taking office is essentially told what it can and cant do amidst extreme constraint.
Lib Dems may be less likely to pretend they are actually in power and more willing to open conversations that we are not engaging and which must begin to engage.

They have my vote - and I reject the notion of being told to vote to keep the 'other lot' out.The Berlin Wall could never come down. But it did.

Sunday 18 April 2010

Volcano Cloud over Europe

Of course there are all sorts of immediate practical difficulties associated with this event, but I would encourage some comment that acknowledged the greater picture of our usually taken for granted dependencies on both man made and natural infrastructure. Not from a place of scaremongering or blame-dealing or news-selling but simply to take an occasion to acknowledge a proportional sense of humility and an appreciation of a  commonwealth which we all tend to neglect in a human busy ness.

Amidst such times of change - we need occasion to pause and consider a bigger picture than our immediate perceptions and reactions, for wisdom tends to proceed from an acknowledged humility.

There is a quiet, in the sky, and a quiet in our minds perhaps as well. This may be a disquiet relative to our sense of being in control - but is a condition in which life can touch us - just as when we are snowed in.

It also occurs to me that the actual dangers of jets flying may be litigational and of a mind that is increasingly risk averse. I don't mean that real danger should be disregarded - but that there is these days  increasingly a shutdown of function around degrees of danger that once would have been negotiated or reacted to in more flexible ways. In short, I say that we cripple our capacity to function due to worshipping false gods. At some point there must be a reclaiming of living life from the edicts of the mind that purports to save it.

I note test flights have been conducted to assess damage and I would appreciate further news of this - and acknowledgement of the UNDERLYING MENTALITIES that govern our perceptions and reactions.

Though it is a new and rare occurrence, there is nothing we can do to stop this condition from continuing on and off - any more that we can CONTROL the El Nino current etc.

If we were more honest about our actual state - would we live differently? Perhaps less frantically and more harmoniously?