The Medium and the Word

Cover via AmazonI decided to follow up re-reading John Le Carré's Little Drummer Girl (I wonder if he regrets it in hindsight) with a re-read of John Fowles' stunning The Magus, which I started yesterday. Fowles has updated the book, tidying up some of what he perceives to be its biggest flaws; the book was actually his first, although it was The Collector that brought him into print.

No bookshop in the UAE sells The Little Drummer Girl, which details a complex Mossad operation against a Palestinian bomber - and I looked for it in bookshops in the UK without success. I read it, of course, on the Kindle. My decision to re-read The Magus was taken ten minutes before I bought the book, which was delivered to me in seconds flat over Amazon's Whispernet.

Amazon has done a couple of things to help the Kindle seem a tad more analogue - the optional leather case is a tactile experience, although it packs a very handy LED reading light. And when the Kindle's switched off, the screen displays sketches of famous authors or woodcuts from frontispieces. It's incredibly readable, the text display is very stable indeed - although everyone, myself included, picks it up and initially tries to swipe the screen to turn a page. No touch screen on offer, though.

Many people I have spoken to have said how they couldn't stand reading on a tablet, how nothing beats the experience of curling up with a good book. I had some mild misgivings along these lines myself. But the argument actually misses the most fundamental point of all - reading fiction is all about the words, not the medium. It's not paper that transports you to other worlds or into other people's lives, it's the words that the author has written. Those words still have the same power to astonish, amaze, inspire, shock, delight and disgust they ever had on paper. Once you've started a book, the Kindle is secondary - it's just the medium.

The Kindle is good enough not to get in the way of the experience - its battery life is incredible and it has options for archiving your books and so on. Those little 'analogue' touches actually make a difference. I may never buy another 'book'... I'd certainly think twice before buying one rather than downloading it. I honestly had my doubts about the whole thing before I took the plunge - and now I'd recommend it to anyone.

GeekFest Ramallah

The incomparable Naeema Zarif, whose designs have lent so much to GeekFest's quirky identity, has done it again. This is the poster art for GeekFest Ramallah, neatly juxtaposing traditional Palestinian dress and an antiqued background with the nerdy glasses we all know and love...

GeekFest Ramallah is being UNorganised by blogger and volunteer worker Sara Refai, Bazinga!'s Mohammad Khatib and the man behind TEDx Ramallah, Ramzi Jaber.

You can connect with GeekFest Ramallah on Facebook here .

GeekFest 2011 - The Geek Rides Out

The first GeekFest Dubai of the new year will tantalise your tastebuds and satisfy your senses on the 20th January 2011 – as usual, taking place at The Shelter in Al Quoz.

We’ve got some pretty special GeekTalks lined up as well as some other bits and bobs. One thing we’ll be getting up to is the source of considerable excitement and was born out of our efforts last time around to help little Ola Abu Jarmous.

I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the first GeekFest Ramallah is to take place at startup nurturing space place Bazinga! on the 16th February. I’m hoping (passport renewal notwithstanding) to be there, which is another adventure entirely. One thing we’ll be doing on the 20th is recording your messages from GeekFest Dubai to Ramallah.

Following on from the Palestine theme, the first GeekFest Dubai Geektalk on the 20th will be given by Steve Sosebee, the founder and CEO of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and we’re hoping to have a really useful debate about social activism and social media, especially following the success of Ola’s life-saving appeal.

He’ll be followed by Emirati animator and composer Mohammad Fikree, who’s going to be giving a sneak preview of his new (and literally, just finished) animated short ‘The Girl & It’. Mohammad’s animation work is as delightful as the soundtracks he creates are innovative – what’s more, they’re catchy as hell!

We’re going to be welcoming Eros Group, the uber-retailers of electrical trickery and gadgetry, who will be holding a TechnoCase of superlative things that go tinkle, blip and boink. You can follow them on Twitter at @erosgroup or find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/erosgroup.

As before, back by popular demand in fact, nosh will be provided by The Lime Tree Café.

GeekFest2011 takes place at The Shelter in Al Quoz from 7.30pm on Thursday the 20th January 2011. There is no registration, no formality, no requirement of you other than to turn up and even that's optional. Other GeekFests have taken place in Cairo, Alexandria, Amman, Beirut and Damascus and there's talk of GeekFests to come in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

More details will undoubtedly emerge next week!

Dropping the WWW

Image by Max Braun via FlickrI heard a radio ad this morning that rather stopped me in my tracks, for no particularly good reason other than the fact it was promoting a website and went to the trouble of saying it out loud including the dubbleyewdubbleyewdubbleyew.

I found myself wondering whether we don't all just take that for granted these days? I'd just say 'go to alexandermcnabb dot com' rather than give the WWW. I mean, why not go the whole hog and say 'Aitch tee tee pee colon  forwardslash forwardslash dubbleyewdubbleyewdubbleyew'?

Perhaps interestingly, Tim Berners-Lee (the man that put the hole in the toilet seat that was the Internet by inventing the world wide web) recently apologised for the forwardslash forwardslash, which was a programming convention at the time but by no means necessary - if you can only imagine the tonnes of paper, the zillions of wasted electrons, the megagallons of printer ink that this little quirk has caused...

In fact, the reason it gave me pause was that it sounded somehow charmingly naive. Here they are struggling to breathlessley get all of their 'dare to dream' and 'an apostolic momentum of carborundum epistles for you!' in, and they're wasting a precious slice of their 30 seconds giving me a redundant dubbleyewdubbleyewdubbleyew.

(Another ad I heard the other day gave the name of the thing they were promoting and exhorted the listener to 'Google us!'. When you do, the website name is simple and based on the name of the thing. It would have been easier all round if they'd just said 'go to nameofthething dot com'.)

It's time to drop the WWW, methinks. We all know it's on the web, surely?

Sloganeers

Image by Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL) via FlickrI have always been fascinated by the Situationists, the revolutionary crypto-anarchic collective that sloganeered their way through the Paris student revolution of the late 1960s. My personal favourite is "Art is dead: do not consume its corpse." Now that's a slogan!

The Situationists were to have a seminal influence on the punk movement around which a deal of my adolescence was constructed. They were, as eny fule no, just dead cool.

There's a tremendous power to slogans, a way of condensing and simplifying thoughts that can become catchy, even thought-provoking. The wonderful world of advertising obviously became a very early adopter, two that I'll probably never shake (because they've been drummed into me through massive repetition), 'A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play' and, more recently, 'Al Futtaim Motors, we care and it shows'.

Do they? Does it? Doubt it, but the slogan's etched on what passes for my brain, for what it's worth...


BMW's advertisement on Dubai's Sheikh Zayed Road has a slogan. Oh yes. "Joy leads; others prosper" the advertisement thunders - like Situationist slogans, often deliberately provocative and wilfully obtuse, the advertisement attracts attention by its seeming simple meaning. Unlike the Situationists, it's actually not very clever.

It actually means absolutely nothing whatsoever. It's just mindless drivel constructed by mediocre intellects, an unwelcome flashback to the constant blare of 'Dare to Dream' dross that characterised the Dubai Property Boom (see yesterday's post). Does it intend to characterise Joy as the ownership of a BMW? I'd rather prosper, thanks. Or perhaps it's saying that other cars are Joy and BMW owners are prosperous. Perhaps someone called Joy has bought a BMW? But then who's prospering? The guy that sold it to her made commission, I suppose...

Yeah, I know I should drive past and ignore it. But it's like a grocer's apostrophe. It niggles...

Shiny Maintenance

Image via Wikipedia
"I've met some other people with Shinies and they're not happy either."
"Take no notice. They're just trouble makers and whingers. Stand for your individuality, that's what we say. In fact, it was one of our advertising slogans."
"You mean along with 'Dare to Dream', 'Live Life Lavishly' and 'Sequestrate Your Passions'?"
"Yeah, all that too."
"Well, fact of the matter is we want to form an association. What's so funny?"
"Ohh, wow, forgive me. Sorry, hang on a second. Just. Need. To. Regain. Control."
"I'm not joking, you know, so you can stop that laughing right now."
"Sorry, sorry. Just something caught in my throat. An association? You've got no right."
"Yes we do, under the Strata Law."
"Oh, that old hokum. Forget it, it'll never happen. Why do you want an association anyway? Far better to deal with us direct. I could do you a special discount, you know. As long as you don't tell the others."
"Discount? You've just put up the maintenance charges by over 100%! I never even knew when I bought my Shiny that I'd have to pay you through the nose - and whatever you arbitrarily decide to charge me, at that. Now the recession's cut down on revenue from new buildings, you're just gouging us to make up for it!"
"Hold it right there, hot-shot. You bought a Shiny from us fair and square and signed a contract to boot, so don't go saying we didn't tell you this or we didn't tell you that."
"You didn't tell us that when you said freehold it really meant youarefruct."
"Usufruct."
"Whatever. You didn't tell us that you were going to set what colour we had to paint our flats, what TV channels we could watch or what phone provider we had to have. And you didn't tell us you were going to charge us so much for maintentance, either. There's plenty more you didn't tell us, too. How about-"
":Look, is this going anywhere? You're constantly complaining about your Shiny, but there it is, good as new. And Shiny, too!"
"It's not Shiny anymore. Not since you painted it that Dubai Beige colour."
"Alright, alright. You can have your association, okay? Now can you just leave my office?"
"When?"
"As soon as possible. We'll start working on the paperwork right away."
"Really?"
"Really. Trust us. We won't let you down. Just leave your passport and we'll take care of things."
"Wow! Thanks!"
"Don't mention it."

(More info on today's GN story here!)

Groundhog Day

It's like groundhog day around here. The film, not the event.

The Central Bank has extended the deadline indefinitely for the implementation of the new Image Cheque Clearing System (ICCS), following problems implementing the system on January 1st 2011.

Meanwhile in unrelated news, the collective fat-headed nincompoopery that is my bank, HSBC, has once again seen fit to dishonour my rent cheque to my landlord. Which is precisely what they did in January last year.

On January 6th last year, I posted about both of these events. It's linked here. I pointed out the many problems people would face trying to present old cheques that lacked the security features mandated by the UAE Central Bank's implementation of the new automated cheque clearing system. I also pointed out what a communications disaster the whole thing had been. Of course there was little attempt to communicate the whole thing clearly and effectively and so, precisely a year later, the system has been once again delayed, withdrawn temporarily as everyone tries to work out how to go about honouring old cheques past the deadline set for them to be honoured.

The ICCS was first started as  project in 2005. Now, five years later, it still hasn't been implemented. Last year's confusion led to more delays and a new deadline (the original 'new cheques only' deadline was 1/1/2010) which has now been extended once again purely because nobody invested in effective communications.

Meanwhile, HSBC is saying, as it did last year, that my cheque has been dishonoured because of my signature. Last year I went to see the morons and we sat together and agreed that their scanner had squashed my signature, which is naturally some 5cm high. We rescanned my signature (I had, first, to try and copy the squashed signature, my 'old' signature before they'd scan my 'new' signature. Honest.) and then their scanner squashed my signature to look like the 'old' signature. In order to do this, of course, they required my passport copy - and wouldn't accept my National ID Card as proof of ID.

My signature is,  believe me, highly distinctive. I have been paying rent to my landlord for some ten years now. I write only two cheques every year - one to him, one to the post office. You'd have thought my bank could check the history or even telephone me before deciding to dishonour my cheque for tens of thousands of dirhams (obviously it would be an important transaction to me), but you'd think wrong. You'd assume some level of applied intelligence, care or (gasp!) initiative. And they are all sorely lacking. My bank has managed to make a mess of absolutely every aspect of banking, from issuing cards to making transfers, from providing a reliable, sensible and usable telephone and Internet banking service to honouring cheques. I am left dumbfounded as to how the hell they make money, but can only assume that totally ignoring the needs of your customers is the key to success.

You may want to suggest I find another bank. I am open to suggestions.

Karama Karma

Image via WikipediaHaving visitors over for the festive season meant an inevitable trip to Dubai's Karama district which, together with Satwa, remains one of the few wholly 'organic' communities in this city of zones and gated developments. It's a fantastic place to wander around, two long buildings either side of the road packed with shops selling, in the main, clothes, bags and watches. You'll never see so many shifty looking geezers in your life, a constant wash of voices jabbering:

"Here! Here! Genuine fakes!"

"Come and see! We have a secret room!"

"Gucci bags! Gucci bags!"

"Watches? You want watches? Rolex?"

"This way, please, this way. We have Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, all good price."

Karama has long been the home of the fake trade, the place to go if you want to wear big name brands for knock-down prices. I was amazed that, clampdown after crackdown, it's still not only there, but thriving in the open. There are phases to IP protection campaigns that recognise the trade starts in the open, reverts to being 'under the counter' and then, as the crackdowns really bite, in a third place. Karama's out there in the open, under the counter AND in a third place, which is pretty comprehensive!

My other surprise was that the goods on sale represented knockoffs of brands that are very much available in the malls - big players in Karama right now include Ed Hardy, Mulberry, Louboutin and Bulgari. I had always thought that Karama post-crackdown only dealt in brands that had no recourse to local authority because they're not represented in the region. Think again, then...

My third surprise was the quality of the fakes. I 'm not even sure they are 'fakes' in the true sense of the word, because the factories making these things across China are, these days, likely the self-same factories making the real thing.

Cloudbusting

Image by ♥Melu♥Rogi♥ via FlickrFor some reason this reminded me of this!

Etisalat Plans - Mickey Mouse?

Image via WikipediaThe HTC Desire is a cool device, I have to tell you. It does many things brilliantly, some very well and even manages to be a mildly functional telephone. Based on Google's Android operating system, it's almost scarily integrated into Google services, but it does a lot of cool stuff and is pretty intuitive.

I've spent a week or so now getting used to it - after over 20 years of loyalty to Nokia, I finally snapped and followed Symbian Guru by throwing my N86 against the wall. There have been inevitable frustrations in the transition process, but they're mostly harmless. Google's habit of defaulting everything to Arabic for anyone located in the Arab World can be a bit of a shock - and I really do not need an uninstallable azan reminder. But all in all, I'm glad I made the change. Well, I was until Etisalat sent me a message telling me they have blocked my mobile Internet access as I had exceeded the upper limit on my plan.

My plan? What plan? I just have mobile Internet. It was called 'Mubashir' because nobody knew what 3G was ("I don't understand what 3G is!" "No problem, take this! It's called Mubashir!" "What is it?" "3G"). Nobody ever told me they'd introduced things called plans.

Mine apparently gives me 10 Meg of downloads for a fixed monthly fee. And then it charges me. A wicked amount. Enough for me to have racked up Dhs1,200 worth of phone bill in 2-3 days of using an Android phone. Because if you're using your wireless network to download apps and you walk out of the wireless zone, it defaults to Etisalat and their Mickey Mouse packages. And, unlike my creaky old Symbian handset,  this mobile is always online, checking, updating and RSSing like a little Googledemon.

You'd have thought Etisalat would send you a text when you got to the 10Mb mark, wouldn't you? But that would be far too sensible. They'd rather bill their unsuspecting, arguably duped, customers for the lesson.

So don't do what I did, people. When you throw that Symbian mobile against the wall and storm off to get a funky Android phone, change your mobile data plan. You can get a 1Gb package for Dhs145 per month or 5GB for 295 per month. They also offer "unlimited" data for a whopping Dhs395 per month. Unlimited is sort of like freehold, by the way: by unlimited, Etisalat actually means a 'fair usage' 10Gb maximum. Out of plan extras cost 50 fils per meg, which is a bit less than the Dhs15 per meg they charge on the default 10Mb package. Yes, you heard right. Dhs15 (a tad over $4) per megabit.

Plans from 10Mb - 1Gb are categorised as 'mobile Internet' by Etisalat, while 1GB-10GB are 'mobile broadband' and come with a USB modem. Because nobody would want to use a mobile for downloading lots of data, would they? Positively archaic thinking from the telco that likes to say 'ugh'...

Hmm. I wonder what the view from Du is like these days?


PS: Happy New Year, folks!