whup

partially posted elsewhere
xci. pulse, julian barnes

overall i would rate it as merely 'ok', there were a lot of words and the writing was pretty loose for short stories. there was a lot of continuous conversation quoting and no female inner voices to speak of, in either 1st or 2nd person. needless to say i do not really approve.

not posted elsewhere

xcii. men without women, ernest hemingway

seriously misleading title, not without women at all. in fact not much to do with men as 'men' or men 'without women' at all. in fact i would have read this collection much earlier if not for the title. good though, what's new? this is true succinctness of word, my friends.

return to regular scheduling

lxxxix. lost japan, alex kerr

very very interesting book about japan, the culture in different areas, and the interplay of history and western influence and the modern japanese psyche. 

xc. this book will save your life, a.m. homes

i guess this book was ok, the lack of chapters actually made quite an impact in a continuous storyline way and also because i don't like it when authors feel they have to end each chapter on a witty/shocking conclusion. i thought it would be a stereotypical story about a rich white guy's mid-life crisis but some characters as satire and some characters as extremely real make up for it.

a few more things then i'll shut up

the iphone has a better screen auto-brightness than the desire, definitely.
the hold-down button function on android is essentially a right-click for options, but nooo apple doesn't do right-click, does it. this explains everything.
safari may have unlimited browser windows but it's probably because it's like a normal web browser on a computer that you have to manually close each tab. the default android browser opens pages in new tabs and then on going back will auto-close the tab leaving you back at the original page, so you don't have 5 pages open at the same time.
i also take it back partially about the lack of finesse in scrolling, because speed makes a difference in the contact list. why not in safari as well. speaking of which..
goddamn why doesn't iOS allow copying new contacts onto the sim card from the phone? it makes no sense. what does apple get out of making it hard for me to access my contacts? and i don't want to connect it to itunes and sync and all that shit.

day 2, further iphone observations

- in safari, one can only scroll a specific distance with one flick regardless of speed. with android, a faster flick leads to continuous scrolling down with gradual attenuation, while a slow little flick will only scroll a little. more room for error, but more room for flexibility and developing scrolling finesse.

- another thing that the iOS likes to brag about (see screen orientation) - opening links in new windows in safari. no, it won't just open a new window right away. it has to retract to the window overview screen so you can see that there is another window opening, and then go into the new window. i can't tell whether it wastes time prior to starting the page load but that's the impression i get and it's annoying.

- one advantage to safari is that there are (so far) unlimited new windows to tab between, whereas the default android browser has a max of 5 or something.

- the customisation of icons on home screens is really annoying on iOS, what with having to move them to the common bar at the bottom before they can be transferred between home screens. compare this with android allowing icons to float in limbo while moving between home screens in the background.. no comparison.

- last thing is a hardware thing on the desire which is fantastic - the notification light. when i get a message or a missed phone call or my battery is running out, the light goes on in a colour of my choosing, so i don't have to turn the screen on to see if i need to turn the screen on.

android vs. iphone, the initial impression

so! my beloved htc desire decided to start shitting itself a few months ago, soon after i got the initial unstable release of 'words with friends'. on prolonged word manipulation it would get really hot and occasionally auto-shutdown and reboot. then it started happening when 3G coverage was spotty and taking a long time to load pages, with the bootup screen vibrating to life up to 10 times before it decided it was cool enough to proceed. in the past couple of weeks any time i used regular low-impact internet for more than 5 to 10 minutes the phone would auto-shutdown and try to reboot. finally yesterday i decided that the situation was untenable and required an intervention, before my warranty expires in august.

so i took it into the shop today and it will take 4-6 weeks (!) to be repaired. i hope to hell they do what needs to be done (replace the motherboard, apparently, according to 3 billion other people on the internet who have the same problem, and literally no other problem with this phone). and so i got a replacement phone for this period.. you guessed it an iphone 3GS. rather than being disappointed i have decided to really try and compare the two operating systems as objectively as possible.

impressions from the first day:

- the iOS is much more like a traditional mobile phone than the mobile computer that i came to regard my desire as. most obvious is the fact that all options are set in the phone's general settings, including importing contacts, notifications. there is no way to manage the settings for a particular program from within it, though this may be different with apps. the android system allows a lot deeper investigation into everything, and when it diverts you to settings to change something it will return you back to where you were! not so with iOS. leaving the impression that the iOS is nothing but a frontend, with many rounded square buttons to be sure, but a frontend nonetheless.

- keyboard - the iOS keyboard doesn't even compare with the old nokia keypads with the multiple characters per key, which is what swype is similar to with longer-hold keys. you have to press another key to toggle between letter/number/symbol keypads. also the spelling/autocorrect is pretty crap, no wonder fuckyouautocorrect.com exists. i much much much prefer tap-the-word-and-a-list-of-alternatives-appears on the android. NOT TO MENTION SWYPE WHICH I CAN NO LONGER LIVE WITHOUT, in which by 'live' i mean 'function at optimum efficiency'. so far on the iphone i haven't figured out how to insert the cursor mid-word to edit text.

- the picture of the clock app means that i have to tap the screen to open a large clock. this is where iOS can't compete - widgets. i like to have my agenda and to-do list open right on the home page, so i don't have to open the programs individually.

- iOS likes to show off that it can change screen orientation by slightly contracting the screen for 0.2 of a second during the process and therefore wasting my time! or it may just be slower. is the iphone 4 faster?

- iOS doesn't seem to have select-all as a function, whereas android has it everywhere that any kind of single or multiple selection can be made.

conclusion: so far i haven't found anything that iOS excels at over android. except that it stays on, but that's more a desire hardware problem than anything android-related. oh right, also probably 'words with friends', damn you.

recommendations from today: android phones could benefit from a physical mute button, a single hardware advantage of the iphone.

STAY TUNED, MORE RIVETING ANALYSIS TO COME!

lxxxvi. i was told there'd be cake, sloane crosley
i was told by the blurb that sloane crosley is the new david sedaris. not entirely accurate. over-advertising. still, she's on the right path with the funny anecdotes and witty turns of phrase. a little more dramatisation and recurring characters and she'd be there

lxxxvii. best australian essays 2010, ed. robert drewe
lxxxviii. best australian stories 2007, ed. robert drewe
surely we have enough writers and novelists and journalists that we can have different genres of writers pick short works for different genres of anthology? both of these were just ok, nothing fantastic jumped out at me.




lx. babies
quite interesting documentary, more to see differences between cultures and how parents raise their kids around the world

la laa laaa

just watched my sister play in the sydney uni symphony orchestra playing saint-saens' 3rd symphony, i.e where the theme from 'babe' comes from. good thing that particular variation on the main theme is only played once because i was on the verge of laughing/crying for those 30 seconds. man, that movie came out two-thirds of my life ago.

now looking at it that pig is kinda ugly.

xi. haunting handel - brandenburg orchestra with fiona campbell

well. overall it was ok. i paid like a third of the price for being one of very few 'under-30s' in the room, i'm not sure i would pay more. the program was half vivaldi and half handel, with a baroque oboe concerto and several arias. 1st mezzo performance with the brandenburg orch since their debut in 1990, apparently.

firstly the sound - i don't know whether it was the acoustics or my seat near the back of the stalls level (in a small hall) but the projection of both orchestra and voice was not loud enough. perhaps the sound rises into the cavernous ceiling of the city recital hall. perhaps i like my music louder.

baroque bows are not kind on one's posture or profile. the violinists appeared unattractively hulking and like they couldn't stretch their bowing arms out, which they couldn't. it totally explains the short last notes of the period's pieces though.

i was definitely not a fan of the orchestra's on-stage applause of the soloist after every single piece. they would finish playing, and then they would all start clapping! if there were two soloists they would applaud each other! so unprofessional. clearly this is a policy fully condoned from the top down. i disapprove. i want namesake bach-style strait-laced grandeur not living room recital.

now to fiona campbell. firstly, the costume changes! more outfits than a chinese mother-of-the-bride at a 10-course banquet reception. i don't know what the done thing is for trouser role arias normally because i don't know anything, but if you're going to change into a white tux (with the kind of pant leg that completely covers stilettoed foot) for Serse and Ruggiero (Alcina) then why sing Ariodante later in the program in a champagne frothy frock? whatever. it would have been better without the tux at all. also i don't like the inherent dress-up insinuation, if you're singing a trouser role you better damn well mean it regardless of what you are wearing.

secondly, as aforementioned, the projection was not great enough, and in the lower notes she could barely be heard above the orchestra, say below G₄ (G above middle C, i think that's how the notation works). maybe it was the tone or lack of edge in that range but it wasn't punchy enough. the high A (A5) was also forced on a few occasions. i will say her trills were good though and she didn't omit them as some do according to my education from youtube.

as a final note the audience demographics were very interesting to me because i would never be in their midst usually, but maybe this will change if i make a habit of attending these types of concerts.

for some reason i can't actually type in the text box, so here is my review of: lxxxv. the god of small things, arundhati roy. as you may have guessed from the preview it does not make my 'good indian literature' list. i think it tried to be epic by building and building up to a definitive event by imbuing each character with legend, but in the wider scheme of indian literature this would merely be a blip.

the probability that i am delirious is quite high

lxxxiv. the best australian stories 2010, ed. cate kennedy

really really great. there was not one story that i did not like.

i am reading arundhati roy's 'the god of small things' and so far am not impressed by the rushdie-like compound words and magic realism. i will give props for select imagery and back-history scene switching.

opera update: i now know enough to judge that anne sofie von otter generally does good handel and has better musicality and precision than most other mezzos, but that paula rasmussen is a better 'serse'. would i be correct however in assuming that most people would not enjoy listening to opera as general background music? i.e. can i listen to it at work without alienating everybody? serious question. i can't really tell anymore.