Tie Your Camel

The recording industry isn’t the only one failing to move with the times and adopt new business models. Arnaud Nourry, of French publishing group Hachette Livre said to the FT:

“On the one hand, you have millions of books for free where there is no longer an author to pay and, on the other hand, there are very recent books, bestsellers at $9.99, which means that all the rest will have to be sold at between zero and $9.99,”

According to the FT, he also complains that the trade in the hardback industry could be destroyed by e-book pricing.

Good.

I’m not sure why he complains about providing millions of books for free (presumably both where copyright has expired and so-called ‘orphan works’), but whining about how publishers won’t make money on books anymore really doesn’t cut it for me.

The digital book or e-book is really beginning to make headway. The Amazon Kindle is driving it in the right direction. No, it doesn’t have the tactile satisfaction of holding (or smelling the chemicals lacing the pages of) a real book. Conversely, it will work out cheaper. No more purchasing fiction for £19.99+ on release for a hardback. No more clutter. No more lost books. And it transcends books. I’m fed up of waiting for my subscriptions to arrive. When the Royal Mail does get my magazines and journals to the right address, they’re inevitably late and out-of-date. I’ve been waiting for an issue of Private Eye for a month now. As magazines and newspapers transition to an electronic format (no, not webpages) you can subscribe and receive the new editions first thing in the morning. I could even see stores like WHSmith and newsagents saving space and time – imagine a coin-operated machine: plug in Kindle Version x, pop in 20-50p, press a button for the relevant newspaper and you’re off with your digital read.

Yes, it will probably drive down prices for publishers. It will also drive down costs. It should also increase consumer demand.

So, weigh up the amount of recycling and rubbish we’ll avoid (we love you mother earth!), the amount we as consumers will save and the convenience and sustainability of the system against missing the look and feel of a book… I know which option I choose.

If you’re a little to the left like me and you give a damn about the environment and sustainability, you might be interested in having a look at this website: Breathing Earth. It has realtime updates of the global population, births and deaths per country, and CO2 emissions. It will also give you detailed stats for each country when you hover over it with a mouse. Go check it out!

Not so much 'breathing' as 'suffocating'

'A fool and his money are easily parted'

Seriously. The 32 gig unlocked model is being sold for £900 on play.com. Amazon’s not that much better at £850. If you’re that desperate to get it unlocked, you could always shop around. An e-bay seller (not me, I swears it gov), is offering it for £675 unlocked with free postage and packing. That’s £225 saved after a two minutes search. Amazon Marketplace is offering it for £635 from a seemingly-trustworthy seller.

But why stop there? O2 is selling the most decent basic contract (600 minutes, 500 texts and unlimited internet) for about £35 a month with an initial cost of £275 for the phone (18-month contract). This means that for the phone and the 18-month contract you will pay a total of  £905. That’s right. You can get the iPhone and an 18-month contract for about the same price as the unlocked handset on Play.com. Even if you buy the handset from Amazon.com marketplace, you’d be able to get the phone and 10 months of the O2 contract for the same price.

Or how about O2 pay as you go? It’s being sold by O2 for £538 pounds. With a top-up of £10 a month (and the £10 a month for internet, free for the first year), you could pay for about two full years pay & go for the price you’d pay on play.com for the unlocked phone.

Is it really worth it, even when not considering the myriad alternatives to working around a locked iPhone?

Well I think this theme is alright, but I’ll be customising it as I plough ahead. I’m working on my own custom theme at the moment but I don’t know when (or if) that’ll get off the ground. So my adoring audience of precisely 0, fret not!

I guess this is probably the most opportune time to explyouain the title of this blog. It is not, as you might imagine, a blog dedicated to beautiful camels engaging in kinky S&M. If that’s what you came here to see, get back on the internet and go to www.idesperatelyneedhelp.com. The phrase is a snippet from an Arabic Islamic saying that goes “Trust in God, but always tie up your camel!”.

Now I tend to shy away from terrible stereotypes, but back in 7th Century Mecca, you would have loved to own a camel. You see, camels are wonderful creatures, perfect for desert travelling. If you didn’t breed them, you’d have probably paid quite a bit of money for them.

One day a man ran up to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and said “O Prophet, I’m a good Muslim. I do everything required of me by God and then some.” The prophet praised the man for his fastidiousness and piety. The man continued, “Well, O Prophet, I do all this and I trust fully in God. When I went to the market today, I recited a prayer and asked God to please look after my camel while I shopped. I left the camel there and went to shop. When I returned, the camel was gone! Why didn’t God keep my camel safe?”

The Prophet chuckled and replied “Brother, it is good that you trust in God… but always tie up your camel!”

The moral of the story is: Faith is great, but at least take basic precautions or “God helps those who help themselves”.

Ever since my father told me about it, I’ve loved it and I use it on a daily basis. Makes a great blog title .