Let's Keep Things Simple

4 Fuks Saké

This blog has moved and changed names.

Please head to 4 Fuks Saké for more of the same.

Goodnight and God bless.

Chinese Facebooks

No Facebook yet in China, and it may be some time. Its pronunciation in Chinese sounds like 'Doomed To Die." Not to worry - in the country where there's a caring and sharing approach to idea generation, you can sign up to whichever clone you like. Mobinode points out U.discuz.net, Xiaonei or Yeejee which look comfortably familiar to a pair of Western middle class social networking eyes.

More importantly, kop a load of a bunch more 'China's massive' stats. In the last 6 months, 48 million more people tucked into the Internet, report Kaiser and China Web 2.0 Review. That means we're now up to a total of 210 million users - primarily well educated and city-based. However, 40% of that new 48 million are living out in the sticks. You can find a meaningless stat about China every day - but that's a significant one. Greater access to education and information is coming to the masses.

Why Viewing Loftus Road from 5,000 Feet Is So Important

I'm such a sad fuck. I can't seem to take my eyes off maps, things to do with travelling, journeys, countries and stuff.

I can gently and warmly spin a globe for ages, thinking about flights, time zones, terrains, climates and the restaurants I'll find when I get there.

I log onto Google Earth to look into sporting stadia  from the sky. 

I get mildly irritated if the Flight Tracker thing isn't working on the plane.

I'm genuinely interested when I ask people  what roads or trains they've taken on a journey, just to see if I could have done better.

That's why I love these.... With Dopplr, I can tell the world where I'm travelling to. With Plazes I can point you to a map and tell you exactly where I am and what I'm doing right now. On Facebook I blatantly show off all the countries I've visited. With OSX Planet my Mac desktop updates every 2 minutes with a live satellite shot of the whole fucking big blue planet.

No-one gives a fuck, but that doesn't matter. It just makes me feel 5% warmer inside.

A Few Things

Thinking is hard work on Saturday mornings, so here's a load of people who've done it for me already.

The music industry is on fire if you look in the right places, say Chris Anderson. Sales are up everywhere except for CDs. Stats and article here....

Everyone's talking about it. Nokia's doing it, by making a few quid in the developing world. Read all about it in the New York Times.

Here's my own flag. Make your own flag here.

This man was a genius.

I'm going for some more coffee and Soccer AM.

Text Me If I'm Fat

And in Japan, Digitalworldtokyo again gives us another example of how Japan is leading the world in mobile phone applications.

Japanese foodies, stressed about calories can now turn to their mobile for dietary advice. You can simply photograph your food and send it off to a team of nutritionists who will analyse it, and tell you to put the Big Mac back.

For once there's a flaw. It takes three days for the pics to be analysed and feedback given. By my reckoning that works out as a 'meal lag' of an estimated 6,000 calories?

Hey Grandad, can I have your digits?

Japan continues to get older. NTT DoCoMo brings us a mobile phone for old people. According to Digital World Tokyo, the Raku-Raku phone includes things like a "slow voice" feature, slowing down the barking of younger siblings on the other end of the line.

The phone also uses a voice to read all the text-based messages for you. I don't think anyone over 60 can take a mobile keyboard off CAPS SHIFT or use punctuation. I hope they don't all think they're shouting at each other. And what happens when they discover text sex?