Simple linoleum floored kitchens with laminate worktops and maybe a blender or a fridge and if you where lucky a freezer. As the Monty Python Yorkshire man might have said “Luxury! We used to dream of having a kitchen”

The bottom line is a generation or two ago people owned less. Poverty wasn’t just the reason. We own more because manufacture and the rise of media and electronic advertising has a lot to do with it as well.

Fact is that in the West we ain’t never had it so good.  Disagree?  How many albums have you got in your mp3 collection?  National average in the UK is 178. Did your parents (or grandparents if you where born in the eighties or later) have 178 vinyl records lying about? Did they spend that much cash on entertainment?

Lets look at income, more specifically the disposable part. In the 1960s people spent sizable portions of their money on necessities such as housing, food and had relatively little disposable income.

Modern production techniques not only mean that a wider variety of food has become more plentiful, it has also become cheaper in comparison to incomes. There is this nifty tool called the CPI, consumer price index. We can use it like this:

In the sixties a chicken in the US cost 60c. In 2007 a chicken per lb cost $1.03. However if we inflation adjusted the price from the 60s it should in 2007 have cost $4.74 – three times as much.

If all food where like that, and they are, what would be left over from your income if you spent three times more on food?

See what I mean with you ain’t never had it so good?

So why don’t you feel like it? Why do you feel relatively worse of when you are actually relatively better off?

Mind mistakes.

More specifically syllogistic errors of reasoning.  In the advertisers toolkit there are many ways of convincing you to buy something. None so insidious as the mind mistakes, which address your logic and make you confuse your needs with your wants.

Many people say “Its logical” when what they actually mean is something seems self-evident to them. Logic has rules and structures and one of them is the syllogism.

How does it work?

Well I have two statements and that leads me to infer a conclusion.

An old Greek example.

• Statement: Man is mortal.
• Statement: The king is a man.
• Our conclusion: The king is mortal and will one day die.

Now on to that little mistake.

• Statement: All Cape Townians are chilled.
• Statement: Joe is from Cape Town.
• Our inferred conclusion: Joe is chilled.

We cannot make any valid conclusion from this. The error is that the first statement is not correct. We cannot state ALL Cape Townians are chilled. (only SOME).

But the structure and form is there – and copy writers use this everyday.

“This car is the best there is because you can get it on low instalment payments.”

These mistakes work by leading the consumer to think through what appears to be sound or true reasoning to a certain predetermined conclusion.

The series of connected ideas however are seemingly stated correctly but have slight underlying flaws.

And so you take that disposable income and worry about wrinkles you have not yet got and that only a specific cream will prevent. All the while being told by  a genetically good looking actor /actress that you need it because “Your worth it”.

Man in the moon, Ballyhoo.
http://media.roets.co.uk/sa/man-in-the-moon.mp3
Johnny calls the Chemist, Fallin Mirror
http://media.roets.co.uk/sa/chemist.mp3

Die tema lied vir Misdaad.

http://media.roets.co.uk/misdaad/misdaad.mp3

Die tema lied vir Derrick.

http://media.roets.co.uk/misdaad/derrick.mp3

Any more suggestions on good motorbiking soundtrack songs?

CGI doctored Franschoek

If you grew up in the seventies in the Boland in South Africa you may have thought it to be on a different planet. According to the BBC you where right. The flagship BBC sci-fi show, Outcasts was filmed in the Boland with some famous places, including Wemmershoek, standing in for a far off planet.

The basic premise of the show is very straightforward. 40 odd years in the future and the world is overpopulated. This leads to international tensions – sometimes with nuclear results. A worldwide volunteer organisation organisation sets up expeditionary settlements with ships filled with chosen settlers flying 5 to 10 years to habitable planets. The best and the brightest, that sort of thing – for the future of mankind.

One such outpost is Fort Haven, the main and only town on a planet called Carpathia. Strangely enough the vegetation and geography looked VERY familiar. That is because Carpathia is the Cape Boland and Fort Haven is Franschoek, (with the help of a CGI tweaking including a gigantic spaceship placed in the middle of the town).

The show was a bit of a hit-and-miss, doing some things right but some bits where just plain off. There are also all to obvious similarities with Galactica, the Emmy award winning US series.

Galactica, the first time around in the seventies, was an action serial. Week one the end of the world, week two pilots all have some fun adventures in a casino! The second time around it got serious – sci-fi used as a tool to allow for topics such as philosophy, morality and politics. So far it is the only series, which looked into and portrayed suicide bombing and its causes, by placing the protagonists in a situation where it seems their only logical opportunity to fight back! – Hence the critical acclaim for the drama.

There are a lot of character similarities and even a shared actor with Jamie Bamber, Galactica’s Lee Adama, also make an appearance.

Main Protagonists:
Politicians; President and Security chief. (Same as in Galactica but sexes are reversed)
Military; 2 Male and a female (Same as in Galactica)

Main Antagonists:
Human creation becoming a deadly enemy: ACs, genetically modified humans, as opposed to deadly robots in Galactica.
Traitor; Julius Berger instead of Galactica’s Gaius Baltar . ( Same as in Galactica they even have a shared Caesar’s name)
These two characters are superficially very similar. However Berger in Outcasts is a straight forward villain while James Callis acting in Galactica put layer on layer of vary human traits together to make one of the most interesting characters on television in decades. He did bad things but you still loved his character, flaws and all. You also never knew if you wouldn’t do exactly what he would do (would you sign an execution warrant if someone out a gun to your head?)

Topics are similar spiritual and philosophical questions connected to morality of survival and pressures on relationships in extreme conditions.
In short major elements felt like a watered down copy rather than something new and if we are going to be seeing a second series remains to be seen. This is a pity as the actors as a whole deserved a better vehicle.

If you live out there send me a mail if they are filming again?

Franschoek mountains

Wemmershoek dam

New Honda Cross Tourer

http://media.roets.co.uk/bike/motorcycle.mp3

(Page soundtrack included: Press play button above)

The market for the Adventure Tourer is booming. Honda has now eyed it and the heavyweight is moving in with a their new Crossover.

The bike is built around their V4 800CC engine (782cc V4 liquid-cooled engine – a successor to the engine that powered the VFR800) and has been shown as a ‘concept’ at Milan – however they admit they can have it on the road in time for ’12 spring season so they must be a long way toward production already.

There are several reasons for this move but the main one is the market segment of this class has really grown in the last few years.

Many avowed speed freaks, like my friends Albie, Neel and myself have, through circumstance, landed up with bikes in this class and I believe I speak for all three of us, that we would now not consider any other type of bike.

Whats in it?

Firstly it is definitely the Charlie and Ewan effect. I know that I can go on a long journey to exotic locations. (Believe you me you seem some exotic things in Scotland.)  These are also all-weather, all-terrain bikes and are, by their very nature, built to last.

The Suzuki VStrom 1000 GT - the model I ride

Then for me the most important factor:

This bike may look sedate but it is the most fun I had on a bike in decades. My specific model has the engine of a 1000cc racer and you can definitely feel it.

Following on from that the ride itself lasts so much longer. On a racer you ride at a maximum of 2-hour increments. More than that and you are facing muscle aches and strains.The adventure touring class has been designed to sit upright and comfortably and the bike can tick over happily for hours. (Witness the 14 and half hour single session trip I did up to Scotland earlier this.)

This hasn’t gone unnoticed with manufacturers.

BMW has made a fortune in sales with the GS1200 (and had the added resultant bounce in life style marketing) since “The Long Way Round”.  KTM who was first choice but backed out must still be kicking themselves.

The current market has a few contenders other than the omnipresent GS. On the one end of the scale is my bike, the Suzuki VSTROM 1000 – less off-road than the GS but with similar performance on other levels. However it comes in at literally half the price (and its smaller 650CC stablemate even more so).

In the middle of this range are Triumph Tiger, KTM Adventure, Aprillia Caponord, Ducati Multistrada and if you are a US biker the Harley powered Buell  Ulysses.

The reality is that most people like myself (my SA friends excluded because they have the terrain) will do 95% of their riding and touring on road  - albeit windy Scottish single lane roads.  So in a sense this market is booming at the cost of other classes such as sports tourers and street bikes.

There is a whole brace of bikes coming from other manufacturers.

Triumph is copying Suzuki and has created a second smaller Tiger model with a mid-sized engine while Aprillia has been testing the new Tuareg.

However the exciting one, the potential game changer, is the Crossover. Having owned a VFR this is going to force me into some hard decisions in two years time…

An example of performance of existing bikes in this class was done by MotorcycleUSA.com where my model came in tops.

The same B and B as last year and had already pre-booked our stay a year ago on our last visit.

Musicport is pretty eclectic. Not in your cliched “Oh my music taste are eclectic” kind of way – but proper different. It ranged form Indo Jazz fusion from Leeds, Samay performing with this year with a school form Hull through to Japanese Dub and some Brel and Piaf mixed in for good measure.

Art work was supplied by David Owen with a English folk with an iconic twist: http://theinkcorporation.co.uk/5000-morris-dancers-2/

Friday night highlight was Richard Hawley of Long Pigs and Pulp fame – and producer of Lisa Marie Presley’s new album.

Anarchic punk poetry was supplied by John Cooper Clark http://www.johncooperclarke.com/ I especially liked his take on “Urban City Living” marketing of the last few years.

He did his classic poem Beasley Street and then gave it an Urban Splash redevelopment and re-read it as Beasley Boulevard, cappuccinos and all – excellent.

A Brummy reggae band – Xova (pronounced crossover) doing UB40 style big brass reggae – checkout their cover of Gangster Paradise.

Lastly Sunday had a few highlights but the best for me was Jah Wobble (ex Public Image Ltd) teaming up with Keith Levene (The Clash) and some traditional Japanese musicians to do reggae and dub mixed with Taiko drums etc.

Videos to follow on FBook

Here are two artists / groups, Goldfrapp and Leftfield I would personally like to see. Its not Rock, more Dance but definitley not of the fluffy variety. These acts have been known to be artist’s artists and highly influential.

Goldfrapp

Goldfrapp

1. Oh la la
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/oohlala.mp3
2. Lovely Head
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/lovelyhead.mp3
3. Ride a white horse
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/rideawhitehorse.mp3

Leftfield

Leftfield

1. Phat Planet
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/phatplanet.mp3
2. Open up
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/openup.mp3
3. Afro Left
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/afroleft.mp3

Tron Legacy

Tron, the original visionary movie that brought us the future of moviemaking is finally receiving a sequel.

The big idea is one again center stage. In the first Tron it introduced the audience to the then novel concept of virtual worlds and digital animation. This was something that left most of the audience nonplussed but made it an instant classic with a part of Generation X.

This time around the big idea is much more subtle. The virtual world is evolving toward naturalism away from digital simplicity with its own weather patterns and complexity of architecture.

Jeff Bridges plays two versions of himself and the one version has been digitally ‘youthened’.

A computer re-modeled younger Jeff Bridges

The real Jeff Bridges

In Avatar the computer generated imagery was used to create aliens, albeit very realistic and recognizable ones – but as much as you can see Sigourney Weaver it is still a blue skinned, broad nosed, 10 foot alien non the less.

In Tron we have an established actor being in effect ‘animated’; motion captured and then digitally re-modeled.

What does this mean?

After the first movie some people laboured under the misconceived idea that the computer ‘did’ the effects instead of it just being a tool.

In this film a existing tool is used in a different way. In the future, effectively now, you will still have actors, this method can only happen when someone has acted and has been motion captured. However in post-production the actors can then be digitally re-modeled to be younger or even look like someone else.

It is about the acting and not how someone looks. Think of it as digital make-up.

The big implication though is that they can be made to look like someone else.

Ever wanted to see Marilyn Monroe and Steve McQueen headlining again? In effect nothing is stopping that from happening any more.

Go watch the trailer to see all the more realistic pieces than the quick snapshot I got here.

Ubuntu is the Linux distro run by Mark Shuttleworth the South African entrepreneur under the ubuntu philsopy.

My server was in bad need of updating; I’ve been running Fedora 8 for al long time and the current Fedora release is already version 13. The upgrade path, version for version and doing it piecemeal was just to much.

I re-imaged the server to run on the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. The whole process was really quick thanks to the way my hosting company www.bytemark.co.uk has set up their server farm.

A quick admin login, choosing a new OS, re-image, copy of the /var/www and some permission jiggery pokery and we where away.

A few years ago this would have been a major pain to do now it was done in minutes. this is some times a benchmark not really looked at, how common tasks get sped up by the progression of technology as opposed to the cutting edge and new product launches which garner most of the press’s time.