After a magical but busy weekend away, it was back to reality with a bump with an equally busy – but somewhat less magical business trip to humid Durban by the sea.
Now in the airport lounge, sipping a beer, things are looking better as I contemplate the trip home to family.
Photos from the weekend will probably be up tomorrow evening after footy: it’s been a whirlwind few days.
Meanwhile, this offering from the BA ‘Slow’ lounge.
Testing the newly-reinstalled WordPress app on my Xperia X10.
This post will disappear very shortly.
If it even appears in the first place.
Aaaaand go.
UPDATE: Actually, I might leave this here. Why not?
Not too long ago, we brought you the insane video of three French blokes doing pull-ups from the boom of a crane in Paris. And if that wasn’t enough of an adrenalin rush for you, while I was out at dinner with in the same restaurant as Matthew Booth last night, The Cement Man told us about this video.
My favourite line:
At the beginning of wingsuit Base jumping, we were trying to get as far from the wall as possible, basically clearing out the whole thing. And now it’s getting boring so we play around.
Watch this.
It all looks very cool, but it’s not for me.
And while it seems very controlled and almost serene when you’re watching from their “onboard” cameras, the shot from the road just after 3:20 shows you exactly how fast they are going.
Ridiculous.
Thanks Huge
A techie post on 6000 miles…? Surely not?
But yes – and I have my reasons. Read on.
I’m loving my Android-powered Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 phone: it’s fun, it’s useful, it’s damn good looking and Android is very stable compared with previous operating systems I have used.
However, I recently discovered an issue with the Android Market which manifested with the error: “Download Unsuccessful”.
I still don’t know what caused it, but it not only meant that I couldn’t add new applications to my flock (what is the collective noun for applications?), but also that I couldn’t update the applications I already had.
This was a problem.
I searched the internet for a solution and found several hundred, none of which actually worked. Running out of ideas and a full on, no holds barred, stick that in your pipe and smoke it factory reset seemed to be my only option.
However, through cleverly managing to stick two failed suggestions together I seem to have come up with a simple fix for the download unsuccessful problem, which I’m putting on here to help others and also so I can go back to it when this happens again.
Which it might.
Obviously, this worked on my X10, but I think that these are fairly basic/standard functions for Android phones, so I see no reason it shouldn’t work on yours as well.
If you use this fix – whether it works for you or not – please leave a comment with your phone details so others can learn from your experience.
I originally posted this here, but beneath a bit about the football that meant that many non-footballing people never actually got to read it.
The interest that it has generated, together with the ongoing news over the Taiji dolphin hunt has made me think that it deserves a post of its own. I am doing this here.
Comments on the original post can be found here.
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Secondly: dolphins, The Cove and the internet.
Now, I like dolphins as much as the next man (as long as the next man isn’t Alan Cooper – I don’t like them that much). But I’m also one of those enquiring people who never takes things at face value and likes to look at both sides of a story. The annual dolphin killings at Taiji in Japan is one of those stories. It’s been in the news again recently, because the time for the annual kill has come around again and much reference has been made to the overly subjective film The Cove, which was released last year, documenting the 2009 kill and telling us that the water turned red with the blood of the dolphins.
Isn’t that dramatic? What do they think the floor of a slaughterhouse looks like?
Now, environmentalists want this annual practice banned – no matter that it’s been going on for over 300 years and there are still plenty of dolphins to be caught. And that’s ok, because everyone is entitled to their views on this and when you are a greenie, you have to protest about something – it’s what you do. And dolphins are the most awesome thing to protest about because they’re dolphins. And dolphins and pandas are top of the list when it comes to poking the human conscience. Them and puppies.
But what about humans? Because Taiji isn’t some oil-rich, gold-laden glittering city. Taiji is a small town with no industry or income other than that of the fishing (and for fishing, you can read “whaling”). So when you take away what they are their ancestors have been doing for centuries because it doesn’t fit with your Western beliefs, what’s left for those people?
Imagine Jeffery’s Bay without the surfing, imagine Boulders Beach without the penguins: there’s suddenly no support for those people; poverty ensues and the settlement – there for hundreds of years – is ruined because of the views of some activists 1000’s of miles away who refuse to look beyond the “plight of the dolphins”.
And then the people who support them without considering the reasons why they are doing it. Why?
Dolphin, panda, puppy – must protect.
It’s a trendy, ill-thought through, kneejerk, bandwagon-jumping response.
What gives you the right to decide how others should live?
I don’t like the thought of dolphins being killed either, but it’s a necessary part of life for the people of Taiji. The dolphin catch provides food (albeit potentially unhealthy food, but beggars can’t be choosers) and income for the town.
Imagine if your only sources of food and income were taken away from you because someone in America didn’t like the way you lived your life?
That’s no more braais, because they don’t agree with the way your lamb is slaughtered or the ingredients in your boerewors were sourced. They’re stopping your income as well, because they don’t like the way you make your money. Of course, they have no legal powers to do this – but actually, they’ll even go as far as breaking the laws of your own country to make your hard life even harder.
What happens to the people of Taiji if the dolphin catch doesn’t happen? Have you even considered that?
No, of course not: because it’s about dolphins and pandas and puppies.