iPhone: Gruber has spoken. Well, typed

I’ve been taking the iPhone coverage so far with a big pinch of salt (does Walter Mossberg ever dislike anything Apple, btw? Not a slam, genuinely interested…) because Apple isn’t in the business of giving pre-launch review kit to anyone who’ll slag it off – and many of the first impressions pieces have been written by people who’ve camped out for days to get their hands on one, so they’re hardly unbiased observers either. So it’s interesting to see John Gruber’s take on it over at Daring Fireball: he says it’s 95% great, 5% not great. Of all the people wibbling about iPhones this weekend, he’s the one whose judgement I’m most likely to trust.

After reading his comments, I’m still convinced that I want one, and I’m equally convinced that I’ll wait – not just for the European launch, but for the arrival of a 3G model. My Blackberry does the internet-over-GPRS thing, and that sucks. It’s fine for push email and stuff like that, but for mobile internet access GPRS wants to party like it’s 1996.

Facebook: MySpace for grown-ups

Social networking site Facebook is the latest Next Big Thing, it seems, with various breathless stories about it in the papers. It seems like a kind of grown-up MySpace, and while I’m not sure whether it’s of any actual benefit (I’m on loads of these things and tend to stop logging in after the novelty wears off), I’ve signed up anyway.

Xbox 360 can bring your ancestors back from the dead

Well, not quite. But I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon.

As I’ve mentioned endlessly, my back problems returned with a vengeance in April: a slipped disc or discs resulting in pretty much constant sciatic pain in my leg and foot. Everything I do hurts: sitting at the computer, sitting downstairs with the laptop, watching TV, driving the car… you get the idea.

There’s one exception: playing Xbox. It’s not just that it doesn’t hurt; it’s that it seems to make my back better.

At the moment my daily routine goes a bit like this. I’ll wake up in pain at 5am or so, try to get back to sleep, doze off for a bit and finally admit defeat at 6, 6.30am. I’ll then shuffle about like an old man, drink coffee, read the papers and start work somewhere between 7am and 8. By 10am I’m sore, by noon I’m really sore, by mid-afternoon I’m in bloody agony. I’ll lie down for half an hour in a fruitless attempt to take the pressure of my back, do another bit of work, swearing all the time, then I’ll put dinner on. And that’s Xbox time – specifically, Crackdown.

I’ll play Crackdown for half an hour to an hour, and during that period my back isn’t sore at all. No back pain, no sciatica, no anything. And yet I’m sitting on the same sofa, in the same position, as when I watch TV or read a magazine. The latter two mean I constantly have to shift position because the sciatica gets worse, but when I’m blowing stuff up in Crackdown I don’t even have a twinge. The effect lasts for about 30 minutes after I’ve stopped playing, and then it’s back to the back pain.

I’m intrigued by this, because there’s got to be a reason for it. It’s not a one-off, a two-off or a three-off; it’s every single time I park my arse on the sofa and play Crackdown. So it’s one of two things: either the game is distracting me and taking my mind off things, so the pain is still there but my brain’s more interested in taking out an SUV full of Shai-Gen soldiers; or gaming’s releasing a bunch of happy drugs that do a better job than any painkillers, prescription or otherwise.

Anybody else experienced the same kind of thing, with gaming acting as a painkiller? Or does anyone have any idea why playing Crackdown’s considerably more effective than Co-Codamol? I’m really intrigued by this.

HMV to go Web 2.0

Earlier on today I blabbed in the .net magazine podcast along with Jason Walsh, whose article about building online communities is in the current issue of the magazine. I suspect we probably came across as cynics, because while Jason and I both sang the praises of good online communities we were quick to slag off sites that think they can attract a big audience by adding a few social networking features. As Jason put it (more eloquently than I’m writing here), there’s no point in building a photo sharing service, because Flickr beat you to it.

Which brings me to HMV’s brave new internet plans, as recounted by the excellent No Rock’N'Roll Fun:

Like many companies struggling to compete in the 21st century, it sees its salvation lying in Web 2.0, reports Paid Content:

”Delivering film, music and games-related content to its online community, our new site will allow users to create home pages, meet like-minded people and access film previews, behind-the-scenes footage and music performances.”

Which is a unique selling point shared only with every other website in the world. There’s no suggestion of anything that might be unique to the HMV site which might persuade people to do their social networking there rather than elsewhere; and we suspect that HMV haven’t got anything up their sleeves. Sure, they might be able to pull a couple of bands to do exclusive sessions for them alongside a physical in-store, but is that enough to make their site sticky enough to get people to stay and buy stuff?

They are going to off DRM-free downloads for sale – but only the same ones already available for purchase elsewhere, the EMI and some indies which make up the ‘enhanced’ iTunes offering; they could sell them for less, but don’t seem inclined to.

Maybe the coverage is unfair, but it does seem as if HMV’s guilty of the me-tooism that Jason and I were so cynical about. Why would The Kids hang around HMV when there’s myspace, last.fm, eurogamer, nme.com, blogs and no doubt dozens of online services I’m too old and unhip to know about?

I don’t doubt that whatever site HMV puts up will be technically and artistically good – I’ve been speaking to their web agency for another article and the team has brains the size of planets – but its digital download arm hasn’t dented iTunes because it’s another me-too venture, and I doubt a Web 2.0 HMV is going to be much more successful.

HMV’s other ideas don’t sound too great either. It reckons a big chunk – 13% – of its future income is going to be from selling iPods and other music hardware, but consumer electronics is largely an internet game now – which is why Dixon’s and the like have disappeared from high streets.

Part of me feels as if music and music retail is in a time warp. Back in 1999, HMV UK threw its toys out of the pram when David Bowie sold his “Hours” album as digital downloads in advance of release; now, entertainment retailers are throwing fits because Prince is apparently planning to give away his new album for free with a newspaper (possibly the famously funky Daily Mail, bizarrely enough). Over to No Rock’N'Roll Fun again, this time on the Entertainment Retailers Association’s threat to stop stocking Prince’s back catalogue:

It’s sadly hilarious, though, that as an artist finds a way to make money off his music that doesn’t involve record shops the record shop reaction is to throw the artist off their shelves. Because reducing your range even further is the way to tempt the customers in.

So what’s a music retailer to do when more CDs are given away by newspapers than are sold in the shops, when supermarkets undercut you on the big-selling releases, when specialists such as Fopp are going to the wall and when the hip young things are buying their tunes from Apple? I’ve no idea – and it does seem that HMV has no idea either.

When bloggers attack: The Silver Ring Thing

There’s been a lot of stramash over the English schoolgirl’s Silver Ring Thing lawsuit in the press. She says it’s freedom of expression, her school says it’s a breach of their uniform policy… but there’s more to this story than meets the eye. Much more.

Brilliant blogging from the Ministry of Truth [via Mr Eugenides].

A Digg user finds the flaw in the 9/11 conspiracies

As yet another “9/11 was an inside job” link hits social news site Digg.com, Red2600 spots the obvious flaw:

If the government truly did do it, I’m sure it would take a lot more than some morons on the internet to uncover it.

A.A. Gill explains how journalism works

From the intro to his most recent book, Previous Convictions:

The joy of being a hack is that there is a back room of people far cleverer, more experienced and adept than I working to make me look clever, experienced and adept. If on occasion I fail to do so, naturally it’s their fault.

Going to see your gran? Glasgow Council thinks you should pay

Glasgow Council has hit on a new wheeze to fight congestion: it wants to charge people to park everywhere. That means employers would charge their employees, leisure centres would charge their members and out-of-town shopping centres would charge their customers. And it also means that people would pay to park on residential streets they didn’t live in, such as those of their relatives.

If you’re thinking “hang on, surely out of town shopping centres are outwith Glasgow Council’s remit?” you’d be right. If you’re also thinking “okay then, if they bring this in in Glasgow surely it’ll mean everything moves out of Glasgow?” you’d be right too. Which is why the council is lobbying the executive to introduce legislation that will apply nationwide. They haven’t said this, but I imagine that’s because otherwise Glasgow will end up like Paisley, a once-thriving town whose excellent councillors decided to make Paisley as anti-car as possible at the same time as the nearby, out of town Braehead retail park opened. The result? Paisley’s a ghost town.

The vision is simple: councils will have responsibility not just for roadside parking, but for all parking, everywhere. By levying parking fees not just on roadside parking but on residential streets too, they’ll persuade everyone to take public transport and save the planet.

Only a cynic would point out that public transport outside the city centre (and inside it too, if you include the Subway’s wartime opening hours or have ever used the bus to travel home after a night out) is shite, and that any parking charges will have a disproportionate effect on the people who can least afford them.

As one commenter on The Herald newspaper site puts it:

Come on [councillor] Purcell, get the poor off the road. I purchased a large 4×4 which I sometimes find difficult to park in the city centre due to all the working class in their Clios and such like.

The roads should be reserved for the wealthy and councillors only. This measure is a good step in keeping the poor in their place and it should be applauded.

Just ’cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there

I haven’t been called a child killer for a while, so let’s talk about Killer Wi-Fi again, shall we?

Gary Robertson’s show on BBC Radio Scotland this morning was about mobile phone masts, although inevitably killer wi-fi featured in there too. Gary’s a decent bloke and I do wonder what he makes of some of the callers, but what struck me about this morning’s programme wasn’t the depressingly predictable range of opinions – “yeah, well, scientists say there’s no danger but they always say that, don’t they? I mean, they say alien abduction isn’t real but I was taken into space last week and anally probed” and all that crap – but the way the killer wi-fi “debate” is yet again being fuelled by crap reporting.

What I mean by that is: in addition to the usual stuff, several of the callers talked about the recent Panorama programme about killer wi-fi, which countless bloggers have debunked and which various concerned parties have filed formal complaints about (if you didn’t see it, here’s a two-word summary: scaremongering bollocks). The fact that a BBC TV programme has covered wi-fi and suggested it’s a killer, it seems, is proof: forget science, Panorama says it’s evil!

Yeah, and Panorama said that cricket coach was murdered too.

A quick quiz for Glaswegian drivers

What should you do if the traffic lights 200m in front of you turn red? Should you (a) slow down and stop? Or (b), accelerate hard, shoot the red light long after the pedestrians have started crossing and then panic-brake to a frightened halt mere inches in front of a pregnant woman?

If the answer is (b), you had a lucky escape this morning.  Unfortunately the various people who saw you screech to a halt a few inches from my wife were too worried about making sure she was okay to get your registration plate or drag you from your car by the testicles and give you the kicking you truly deserve.