Democracy

I hold democracy as something of great importance, that somehow seems to be the 'right' way to do things.

What I don't know is whether that's just because I've always lived in a largely democratic society and, having been told it's the way to go, just generally accept that. Maybe it's like how one's native street signs or currency just seems right and everyone else's seems strange and not quite as it should be.

The problem with democracy is that just because the majority want something or agree with it, that doesn't make it the right thing to do.

I've recently been listening to archives of The Life Scientific from radio 4. Many scientists interviewed comment on the public's general ignorance or scientific matters. It strikes me that many great innovations and major progressions in our collective knowledge have been met with popular resistance (although I can't come up with good examples right now).

There are various ways the people at large can make their feelings known, with market forces being and example. How we behave with our spending habits can betray our preferences and prejudices. Even a big company can be brought down if enough people choose to avoid it.

But democracy is usually about government. Based on the idea that the majority gets their way (usually) it makes a lot of sense when it comes to selecting which political party or politician will be in power. But it is fallible.

Our idea of what is 'right' can so often be relative. When all was rosy in 1920s Germany the Nazi party didn't do well in elections. When the Great Depression hit and people were scared for their economic future, the hollow promises of Hitler became far more appealing, and you probably know where that ended up.

It's important to remember that just because the majority have voted for something, doesn't mean that same majority isn't basing their decision on completely the wrong criteria.

Take the recent UK parliament vote on redefining marriage. How many of those who voted no did so because they don't like change and have prejudices against those who are gay? How many of those who voted yes did so because it's trendy to support gay rights or perhaps because (most of them weren't Conservatives) it's a potential nail in the coffin of David Cameron's premiership. How many MPs really considered the people or the potential consequences behind their decision? Politics is rarely black and white.

There are issues in education, a policy area that for some reason most people think they have an opinion worthy of note, where education secretaries have usually failed to take heed of professionals (eg teachers) and pushed through policies based on personal agenda (and often scant academic research).

I still think democracy is a good way to do things and probably the best way to achieve the level of accountability necessary. But it's important we're not blind to the faults of any system and can call out those who try to gloss over the cracks.

I'm reminded of the fabulous clip of Sky TVs Kay Burley interviewing someone for the campaign group 38degrees and saying something along the lines of 'what right do you have to intervene in whether the lib dems go into coalition or not, people have voted for this!'. Of course nobody had voted for that and faced with such pathological stupidity and failure to understand the democratic process the poor man didn't know what to say.

The trouble with YouTube

YouTube is great. Any idiot can publish video in high quality with reliable streaming to an audience across the world. Chuffin' marvellous. But there's a frustrating problem for those wanting to make use of the videos...

Some would say this is a problem with the internet itself, and maybe that's so, but it's certainly a frustration with YouTube. The issue is related videos. You have no idea what you might be offered and whether it's in anyway appropriate to the audience.

Here's the example that's prompted this blog post

It's what comes up at the end of a video about the making of Disney's Paperman (worth watching btw). The top left video is a news story about android prostitutes. It's not really something appropriate to appear in front of a group of children interested in animation for example.

Separately there's an issue with adverts appearing. These can be annoying but are usually not inappropriate, although they can be amusing. I recall a pop up advert for Christian Dating appearing on a video being shown in church once.

It's for these reasons that I strongly advise against people showing YouTube clips in presentations whether they by in church, in a classroom or at a conference or even on your website.

For me the golden rule is that video in presentations should be downloaded and played locally. That takes away adverts and streaming issues.

If you want video online to embed in a website, I recommend Vimeo.com. Preferred by pretentious film maker types, it's a nicer website with better quality video than YouTube, but importantly you can buy a pro account which gives you far more control over how your videos appear, who can download them and what happens when they finish playing.

iPad mini vs Nexus 7

So far all comparison reviews I've seen looking at the iPad mini and Nexus 7 focus on the hardware. That's all well and good but rather misses the point.

Comparing hardware specs tells you nothing about the software and this is where, for me, the Nexus 7 is let down and the iPad mini shines.

I have used a Nexus 7 for a couple of months and really rather liked it. Excellent for casual web browsing and basic email. However there are significant shortcomings for anyone wanting to do some work with one.

Attempting to work with some not terribly large documents in quick office or google drive proved impossible. Each key press was followed by a long delay, when I could get the keyboard to appear at all.

Google's own Drive app would lock up and display a 'not responding' message when opening a 12 page tabled document. When it did eventually open, scrolling was jerky and unpredictable. Then, if you reoriented the tablet you were taken back to the top.

These same apps and documents on the iPad just work as you would expect.

I found it very hard to do email on the nexus as I use folders and google doesn't really do folders and the calendar app doesn't sync more than one calendar over activesync.

Again these just work perfectly on the apple.

I did find solutions to most of these issues but they were messy and required extra sync connectors. The real deal breaker was the failure to do documents properly. I genuinely couldn't find a single office app for android that worked right. The best was kingsoft office, but their WebDAV support is broken and google drive documents were not always uploaded after editing.

Media was disappointing too. Where the iPad has an implementation of BBC iPlayer that's smooth, high quality and allows downloads, android doesn't support the rights controls necessary to appease the media companies so the result is an adobe runtime based mess that's slow, low quality and crashes.

Where the iPad has GarageBand, nano studio, propellorhead's figure, Alchemy... Android has very few music apps of quality and nothing like twistedwave audio editor.

Things are not perfect with the iPad. The mini is essentially the ipad2 miniaturised. Same CPU, same screen resolution and that screen is ok but it isn't great. Though the nexus7 screen seemed a bit lacking in colour to me, the iPad's lower resolution is a disappointment. The locked down nature of iOS can be frustrating too. I don't like being told what I can and can't do by Apple.

Bottom line though is it doesn't matter how good the nexus screens are, how fast the OS runs and even how cheap they are... It's about the whole package, and that means the apps. Apple's App Store just has more high quality software on offer.

Google hasn't managed to foster the same creativity and quality in their play store. More than that though, while I don't expect Google to make other people's software work I do expect their own to work and it doesn't, not very well. I'm baffled as to why Google Drive is fine on iOS but poor on Android. The same goes for Quickoffice, which Google now own.

It could be iOS is just better with better APIs and easier to code for. It could be Google don't care about the details, whereas the Apple of recent years has been obsessively driven by the details. Perhaps Apple's head start is all it took. All I really know is Android disappoints.

The differences between Android and iOS are smaller than they were when I first encountered both on the iPhone 3G and the G1, back then Android felt like a developer release, but Android still lags behind.

I wanted my Nexus7 to do the job for me and I really tried to make it work but in the end I ran out of patience and took the easy way. After all I want this device to make my life easier.

So the nexus7 has gone and made way for the iPad mini I'm now using. It cost more and the screen is lower res and it probably makes me an Apple fanboy in some eyes, but it works and the apps work and that's what matters.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Why I don't love android

A few years ago I decided against the ever so fashionable iphone and bought the first Android offering, the G1. I quite liked it but the software available (ok... Apps) let it down. Google irritated me by not including some of the basics, taking an attitude of 'the community will provide this'. Trouble is that took too long.

So I went Apple and haven't looked back until now.

Recently I got a nexus 7 and, whilst it's a really nice piece of hardware, I still don't love android.

The trouble is despite android devices outnumbering humans on the planet, or something, nobody is making much seriously good software.

Apple have keynote, pages and Numbers whereas Google have... Actually they have quick office, which Google has bought up and is absolutely dreadful on my nexus 7.

Apple has garageband, which is superb. Google has... Nothing comparable.

And there are hundreds of third party, truly excellent products available for ios with no comparison for Android.

I don't know why, but it seems there isn't enough money in apps for Android... Either that or it's much harder to write software for Google's platform.

Either way, I'm disappointed by what's on offer. So much so that I think the nexus 7 may well have to make way for an ipad mini.

Apple's way of restricting their users often grates, but they've created by far the best eco system for portable devices and Google has simply failed to catch up, despite the number of Android devices sold.

Fundamentally it doesn't matter how good the android hardware is and how unrestricted the os if I can't do what I want with it.

Why does Google hate email folders?

I get a lot of email and its the primary way I do a lot of business communication. I use folders in my attempts to organise it all and keep my in box clear. It should be noted I usually fail.

I use my nexus 7 a lot. It's great to have something small enough to fit in my coat pocket (just) but large enough to work with effectively.

I just wish android's email client did folders. Nested folders to be precise. My lovely, and not terribly complex folder tree is always displayed flat. Because I often have sub folders called "filed" this makes quickly filing emails impossible.

I can do what I want effortlessly with ios so often reach for my iphone to file an email.

This is stupid. It's one of the things I disliked about Android when it was first released and partly why I rejected my android phone in favour of an iphone.

To still have the same frustration a few years later, despite all the bells and whistles added to jelly bean, is truly frustrating.

Beware the automated tweets of convenience

If you use timed tweets or an automated bot for twitter, be it for personal or business use, you want to be careful. Whilst they can be really useful, there's no substitute for actually posting things yourself and there are other pitfalls.

Asking: Why?

Where I work we have a monthly staff lunch at which there's usually a short talk from someone with something pertinent to share. We've so far heard from an architect, the HR director of a large multi-national company, the leader of a church in Leeds and there's more good stuff to come. Most recently the speaker had to pull out so we watched this TED talk instead.