gareth bouch :: stuff & things

Frog malformed by pollution – lifted from The Guardian.

There’s a really good programme on Radio4 weekdays at 9.45am – “A History of the World in 100 Objects” – a superb series that’s following the development of civilization by analysing historical artefacts.
They reflect all kinds of aspects of humanity – intellectual, artistic, cultural, economic… and are done an object a day. Do listen.
Or of course you can catch up with what you’ve missed on the Radio4 website here, as part of the overall “History of the World” section of the site.
You can also catch up and follow the series by subscribing to the podcasts here on iTunes

Formula One car liveries haven’t been up to much in recent years. They’ve barely improved – if at all – since Motormouth’s 2006 review, and certainly the Brawn GP livery; last year’s championship winner let’s remember, was a shocker. Absolutely pitiful.

Some good signs as we head into 2010 however, with Red Bull (one of the honourable exceptions usually) and McLaren joined by a beautifully warm yellow Renault (nodding right back to their first days in F1 in the late 70s and early 80s – although it’s also strangely reminiscent of the Jordan B&H “Buzzin Hornets” livery), a definitely more attractive Ferrari, and a return to the grid for “British Racing Green” all over the bodywork of new entrants Lotus (although there’s a certain degree of irony here as the team’s Malaysian owned).
Have a look at the pics, they’re very reassuring… cleaner, leaner bodywork, simpler colour schemes, and more differeniated branding.

Let’s hope the racing is of the same quality…

I always knew that the allegations that James Cameron’s “Avatar” was lifted from some Russian sci-fi was a load of old tosh.
Now, as the attached image clearly shows, it is put beyond argument that those allegations are completely false.
Thanks to Rob for forwarding.

I could have written something on the day of the iPad launch but I couldn’t really be arsed.
I was busy, everyone was talking about it anyway, and most of the talk was either pro or anti hysteria.
My thoughts at the time haven’t really changed though, and reflecting on how things are gradually moving ahead with the iPad, I thought I should get round to writing them down…

The hype – there was a lot. Seriously. Rolling news channels, all kinds of online sites, newspapers and magazines. And offline. Someone was going to be disappointed. Lots of people actually. Mainly those who were either daft enough to expect something impossibly miraculous, or those who were cynical enough to want the launch to be an anti-climax.
Was there too much hype? Yep – certainly in terms of justifying the actual specific product as it stood on the day. HOWEVER, and it’s a very big however – I can’t help but think that in a few short years that hype *will* be felt to be justified. And everybody will have forgotten about the exact iPad on the launch day. The hype won’t be justified by what the iPad was on that day but by what it became over the following months and years.
And there’s a very good parallel / precedent.
Two in fact…

Say hello to the iPod and the iPhone…
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