Jared Evans

I know I promised a post about Raspberry PI, but I have something to say about the state of applications on our smartphones, or at least on the Android ecosystem.

Admittedly I have not published an application to any of the three major players in smartphone development, though I did start writing one for Android last year until personal events took over and I let it slip from my mind. I have not delved deeply enough into the systems of all three to really fully understand the possibilites of what I'm going to talk about.  If it is possible then why are we not taking advantage of it, and if it is not possible, how can we make it possible?

In my title, I used the term "connected apps", when you google this term it mainly finds results for  apps that use the login system of another. This is almost what I want to talk about, but not quite.

When I find myself reading through my twitter feed (@jarede), or flicking over facebook, I find myself hitting links that my friends or people/news orgs that I follow have posted. A lot of the time these links will open in the browser, more recently I get asked a choice of where I would like the link to open, this only occurs when I hit a link for an instagram photo.

This is the crux of what I am talking about.  In my opinion, I want to see every app I have doing this.  When I click a link for facebook, I would want the facebook application ask (if I have not defaulted it) whether I want the link to be opened in facebook or the browser; Same for links to Engadget stories or Guardian articles. I have these applications on my phone, I obviously prefer viewing the stories in the application as opposed to the browser so why not link into the system and ask the user if they would prefer the link they just clicked to appear in the dedicated app or on the browser. 

I am very surprised that this is not already happening more often.  I would of thought it would be in everyones best interests that dedicated applications are taking over from the browser (That though, I guess, is a whole different blog post) as a more tailored experience can be gotten from removing the browser.

I do have some opinions on the raspberry.pi, which I will let loose on to the world once I have strung it together in the usual fashion you, my dear readers, expect from me.

There has been a lot of blurb in said paper, about a ridiculous scheme the government has concocted to send 20 million tax payers a break down of what their income tax and national insurance is going towards. Many commentators seem to think this is a good idea, and then quibble over how to make it even better. This view flawed me.

I pay tax, I don't pay it begrudgingly, I pay it happily knowing that it makes society a better place for me to be part of. I don't pay tax so part of my money can be spent on some end of year report showing the break down of my contribution to society. Unless this is a cunning plan to save the Royal Mail, I would rather my money wasted on id card schemes.

God forbid if I were to get into the corridors of power, this is how I would make this stupid idea half sensible. I would write it as a web service that pay slip producers could hook into. That way instead of spending money mailing out jack, the payslip that people either get electronically or by hand would contain the breakdown.

In the meantime I'm going to have to find some frames so I can hang my contributions to society.

Did I tell you this blog was rated 18? Before we continue, I am a Liberal Democrat supporter... one of the few remaining ones.

If you're like me, you probably watch/listen a host of political shows and read political view points, anything from Question Time to Any Answers (BBC biased, moi?). Having watched the shows that I do, I see and feel a current theme running, probably one that has been running for a long while but I suppose I was less aware of it at a younger age. It's a question that David Dimbleby asks, one that Jeremy Paxman asks and something that David Mitchell brings up when he has someone of importance on 10 O'Clock Live.

The theme boils down to not taking responsibility and edging around the question. For the past 13 years we were under a Labour party rule after everyone got slightly fed up with their crazy schemes, and then couldn't really decide who they wanted to run the country, thus leaving us in a coalition that nobody really likes.

When I watch one of the aforementioned shows, and they have a guest from the Labour party on talking about some issue that the coalition is getting wrong or not doing/doing too much about, the question always comes up "well why didn't labour tackle it, in your 13 years of office". The answer is always the same... none. The Labour MP will normally continue talking about why the issue is really important and skirt around why Labour never managed to find time in 13 years of office for a sane issue while approving insane ideas.

So of course, why skirt around the issue and not admit "we fucked up". Because they don't have the guts, does anyone really have the guts to say they fucked up... maybe over a minor issue like putting sugar in a cup of tea, but to say they fucked up over policy, thats a big no. Sadly, if they did say "oops got this wrong", we would have a counter of how many times a party or an MP suggested they got something wrong and compare it against their shadow member.

The current system we have of the shadow govt blaming the current govt of not doing something, despite themselves having multiple years of power to get whichever issue sorted (unless in the event that such an issue was never an issue dring their reign), is not working. It doesn't push the political conversation forward. When I watch a Labour MP making a point, and they can't answer the question truthfully it really makes me feel that there is no viable alternative to the Liberal Democrats. Stop blaming the coalition when you had 13 years to move things forward and start taking responsibility.

I couldn't think of a better title for this post so I am invoking Occam's Razor. Hey, it's my blog, I can do as I want.

I am currently thinking about moving from a 15" behmoth of a laptop to a slicker, lighter notebook that I can carry around the tubes of London and international hotspots, that weighs as much as the winter clothes on my back. My chosen desire is a Samsung Series 9 notebook, a thing of beauty, possibly more so than the Apple Macbook Air. It seems that Samsung offer 3 versions of this series of notebooks, so I hit the site and chose to compare them. If you're too lazy to hit that link, you can view the included screenshot of the comparison.

Over the last few years I have noted that comparing items on OEM sites or even retail sites generally leaves a lot to be desired, for no good reason. I am not an Apple fan, I generally deride them, but the other competitors certainly look lacking against them. Check the Macbook comparison page to see why Samsung flags behind in the comparison stakes.

In the first section (headed: "What's Different") of the Samsung comparison, there are supossingly 8 differences; Spotting these differences is very much like a game. There are only 4 actual differences, the rest seem to just be missing or added wording and puctuation. Under "HDD" the difference seems to an added "-" in the second column, and an added "(SSD)" in the third column.

When you hit the section headed "Full Comparison", we seem to have a mish mash of technical details, none of which are very helpful to anyone. I can only assume missing values mean NO. Under the "Storage" section, for example, there are a bunch of missing values for "Intel Turbo Memory" and "ODD", what ODD actually means is a puzzle in itself.

It always amazes me that a company would allow such poor use of data to be held and posted on a website. The Series 9 is meant to be Samsungs flagship notebook, but the product comparison page shows that Samsung doesn't treat it's products with dignity and this makes me ask, why should I bother using or purchasing a Samsung product if they can't even be arsed to keep well recorded data on their own products.

Is it not about time that OEMs and retailers started grooming their sites and making sure they keep clear and concise product information available to consumers. When I am faced with a product comparison like Samsungs, I would rather purchase an Apple. I suppose, though, an ignorant consumer base is better than a well educated one. With an ignorant consumer base you can roll out 12 of the same products year after year and charge top buck for something that has barely changed since the last roll out. 

10 O'Clock Live is a show that I should love, but I find it very hard to get behind the show. I adore The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the show that Channel 4 aimed to imitate with 10 O'CLock Live and the show they reduced down to the global edition (a montage of the "best bits" from the shows that make up the week) to make way for their own home grown satirical look at the news.

10 O'Clock Live launched last year on a Thursday at the same time as the BBCs Question Time, an auspicious move that backfired for Channel 4 when audience numbers dropped to 600,000 towards the latter part of the series(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_O'Clock_Live#viewing_figures). This year it has decided that going up against Britians flagship political program with a half baked political satire, was not worth the viewing figure risk and went with a much softer launch on a Wednesday night, though still goes up against the start of newsnight on BBC 2.

Having criticised 10 O'Clock Live on Facebook, my friend retorted that it was better to have it on than off the air, and I tended to agree. After watching last weeks episode (15 Feb 2011) and tonights (22 Feb 2011) I might have to change my opinion.

After the show finished last year, the new head of Entertainment (though admittedly I am struggling to find the article) suggested that they would go back and re-evaluate to build upon the better parts of the show... I'm not 100% sure if they have succeeded in this endeavour. They have dropped the runtime to 45 minutes, which is no bad thing, The Daily Show does quite a bit with it's 20 minute slot. They also introduced more roundtables, which is what the first series lacked, but they still haven't got it finetuned in the new series.

The problem is that the show is aiming blindly and has lost a lot of credibility. The roundtable from the 15 Feb 2012, guests were George Galloway and Hugo Rifkind, last week Alistare Campbell and Clark Carlisle from the PFA. Now I'll make an exception for Alistare Campbell since he was at the gates of power for so many years; however, the fact remains that these guests are not the kind you want on a show dubbed between news and satire. Galloway is satire in himself and not a guest you'd find easily on Have I Got News For You (HIGNFY) (infact, only once in 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Have_I_Got_News_for_You_episodes).  When you compare to the first 3 episodes of season 1, it had 3 MP's, a Sir, a Dr and a Professor. I'll admit that titles do not equate to calibre, but it sure beats Matt Cardle and George Galloway.

Bringing up HIGNFY leads me into something that I think has become very apparent over the last few shows of 10 O'Clock Live... It lacks the wit and intelligence that Ian Hislop brings. Now I know that HIGNFY can fall into farce with Mertons surreal whimsy and the various 3rd round wheel of news/picture spin quiz/strength-o-meter of news type games, but what keeps it good and interesting to watch is Ian Hislop. HIGNFY is the show that my friend and I always wished would come back during the big political scandals that always seemed to occur in the show's downtime.

The comments that I have seen around the web about 10 O'Clock Live indicate that many people feel David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker are the liberals of the show while Jimmy Carr is politically ambiguous. This stems from the fact that Brooker and Mitchell are both writers for the Guardian, admittedly op-ed writers which while being rather un-fair to their talents, is no more than what I am doing on this blog. I find Brooker and Mitchell both very funny men, I also find Newswipe closer to what 10 O'Clock Live is trying to do closer to what it wants while still being off target of The Daily Show. However, none of them are living and breathing political satire everyday like Ian Hislop does where he edits Private Eye. This is why 10 O'Clock Live fails, it doesn't have someone who eats politics everyday for breakfast.

There is a deeper issue though that affects the 3 shows that aim to be a satire of UK politics and news - Have I Got News For You, Mock the Week and now 10 O'Clock Live. There are others but not quite in the same guise as these shows. The issue is thus: no extracts of Parliamentary proceedings may be used in any light entertainment programme or in a programme of political satire. This causes problems for such shows, because to understand whats going on in the UK political sphere you need to show what goes on in parliament. Without that access, it can be very hard to make the political spectrum funny and interesting. The Daily Show thrives on what happens in congress, and what politicians say... Which is another issue, our news networks are unbiased (supposedly) so op-ed pieces are few and far between to pick on.

The Daily Show leaves me feeling enlightened about American politics, though it has a lot of material to choose from. I can't say the same for 10 O'Clock Live, and the new series is leaving me more and more indifferent to whether I watch the next episode or not. I most likely will, but I won't worry if I miss an episode here and there.

tl;dr;

I am writing this blog to share ideas, to bounce them off the wall. I hope that the wall will sometimes respond in the comments section, but I guess it doesn't matter if it doesn't. I enjoyed keeping a blog while in university, it was fun and something for my friends to see. It went off piste at times, not exactly something I'd want an employer reading, which is probably why I'll never make it to a ministerial position. That blog is still out there for anyone to read if they really wanted to.

As you might have gathered from my last post A view from my spam folder, I don't always offer up practical, fully thought out solutions. Sometimes I will, I'll try and include code examples or other diagrams to show what I am attempting to get at. A lot of the time though, this will be an outlet for my thoughts about certain stories/news coverage or just general ideas with very little backbone.

It's likely that this blog will go off piste at times, but for the majority I will be trying to keep to the guided runs.

This is a view into my spam folder on Gmail; I have taken the time to use a crayon and highlight some inconsistencies in my spam folder.

I have long wondered how the algorithm for spam folders work, because in my experience there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why certain messages end up in the spam folder as opposed to the inbox. I have long noticed that googles algorithm for placing items in the spam folder seems less reliable than hotmails, though I think it may be unfair to compare the two as my gmail account is my main contact address as opposed to my hotmail which I barely use these days.

I understand the general principles of the spam algorithm, you're looking for words that are generally associated with spam: "viagra", "v1agra", "rich general", "dead banker from nigeria" and "my pharmacy". What I don't understand is how googles algorithm manages to use one of my filters, applies the label "don't stay in" and then sticks it in the spam box. I know my filter says "skip inbox" but I didn't mean for it to not collect £200 and go directly in to spam.

Another inconsistency I find, is that mail from people I read regularly (Mr Porter and Studio Homme in this example) still ends up in my spam folder. 80% of the time these mails will be found in my inbox and 70% of the time (if not more) will be read by myself. If the algorithm records this information, I do not know how, but in my mind this would and should be a vital component to how a spam filter works.  Many might find this approach an infringement of their privacy since your email provider would essentialy be keeping a list of what you read and who it's from; however, I haven't read up on what information email providers are already storing about you, it's likely that they already know this about you very well.

An approach to the spam problem that I have been considering for a while is the use of tiered spam folders. What I mean by this is having a setup similar to:

• Inbox
• • Spam?
  • Spam!

Whats missing from this example is the idea that there are actually 3 tiers of spam. The first tier would end up placing items in the Inbox, they may be highlighted to the user as mild spam, perhaps emails from Currys or other generally image intensive email senders would end up in here. The user would have an option to rate the email as to whether it was spam (causing the filter to place it in the Spam! folder) or a spam filter misfire (thus not highlighting the spam rating next time).

The next filter is the Spam? filter, this is where the filter is less sure of an item. An email from House of Fraser should go into the Inbox due to your reading habbits and the companies weighting. However, an email from a company less well known, perhaps the deli around the corner from your house, that sent emails with several hit words, would end up in this folder (this is a much harder category to define and probably the downfall of the whole idea). I also envisage the algorithm learning from this folder; items that land in this folder and stay unread would send the spam weighting of the item up and would direct it to the Spam! folder over time.

The Spam! folder should be much simpler to understand. This is where your normal spam goes, your everyday "enlarge your penis now" type items would go. This folder should never have to be visited by the user since the mild Spam? filter should pick up midweight spam items, and the Inbox should hold very very mild, very unlikely to be spam, items.

This whole idea does hang on a thread and depend on a lot of acceptance by users, along with some very very clever algorithm writing. People may argue that if you have to have 3 spam folders, you have failed, and they are probably correct. Though i think it is still a fail to be placing items of importance, and often read by the user, into the current spam folder setup.

Some background reading:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_spam_filtering

How was Christmas for everyone? It seems so long a go now, as I am writing this, it's already New Year's Eve. That said, I'm still munching my way through Christmas chocolates, some years they seem endless, others they're gone before Boxing day. This post is the first in a series about fashion, and eventually technology.

Christmas is a time for giving and receiving (so they say), and this year I received money to buy my own presents. I guess this was because my family realised that having helped me to move to London, there was little more that would fit into my one bedroom London abode. 

A week before Christmas, one of my good friends from Cardiff came to visit me. We met up outside Liberty of London where he had just been checking the menswear out and he commented to me about feeling under-dressed in the more well-heeled stores of London. I must admit I tend to agree with him. When I walk around the menswear sections of Liberty of London, Selfridges or Harrods in my oversized Kidrobot tee and baggy G-Star RAW jeans whilst my European and Asian counterparts dress in Comme des Garcon and Yves Saint Laurent Rives Gauche, I start to feel a bit self-conscious.  My other friend though does make a good point, in that it doesn't really matter how you look as long as the cash is in your wallet; and theres is nothing better than laying down for a few hundred on your debit while in hobo chic.

After this conversation, I started thinking about my current wardrobe, it was something I had been pondering throughout 2011. I have a great many tee-shirts that have been bought for me over the years, in various sizes (fitting to ill-fitting) and decided it was about time I upgrade my wardrobe. Being only 26, I do tend to find myself in an awkward position of not really wanting to give up the "funky" tee and jeans combo, but also wanting to move to the more classic shirt and blazer look, even though I still think it might be a bit too old a look.

Having pondered the situation, I decided to go and take a look around the high street and online fashion stores to find some good purchases for the upcoming Christmas sales period. This is where easily avoidable issues began, and I will try to tackle these over the rest of the series of these posts.

I hope you all have a great new year.