It’s all about the maths

This weekend is the final race of the Formula One season. Rookie Lewis Hamilton leads the championship by four points from team-mate Fernando Alonso, and seven points from Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. All should be plain sailing, but with Lewis’ DNF in China a couple of weeks ago nerves are a little frayed.

Ideally, Lewis will keep it simple and win the race. That way he takes the championship - and becomes the youngest winner ever (a record he’ll take away from reigning champion Alonso), as well as the first driver to ever win the championship in his rookie season. But Alonso and Raikkonen are both determined to win as well, and both have been more consistent than Lewis recently.

So, it’s likely to come down to the maths; I can hear James Allen and Martin Brundle now as they try to keep on top of the points changes as the race progresses. Today, the official F1 site has posted details of who needs to finish where for the three possible outcomes to the championship, but I’m going to summarise them here.

For Kimi to win the championship
He must win the race, but also Alonso must finish no higher than third and Hamilton no higher than sixth. It’s asking a lot, but this is Formula One - and at Interlagos, which can be tricky - so anything could happen.

For Fernando to win the championship
He must win the race, but Hamilton must finish no higher than third. If that happens, it will not matter where Kimi finishes.

For Lewis to win the championship
Ideally he should make it easy and win. Failing that, he just has to finish in front of Alonso and Raikonnen. If he can’t do that, and Raikkonen wins, he needs to finish better than sixth. Alternatively, if Alonso wins Hamilton must come second. Save us all the tension, Lewis, and win the race.

Of course, both Fernando or Kimi could win the championship without winning the race (Fernando could go as low as fourth, but Kimi can only afford second), but that would rely on the other two contenders having DNF’s or finishing way down the order and if you are going to start factoring in all those connotations we could be here all night!

In the UK, race coverage starts on ITV1, Sunday 4pm - I know where I’m going to be! Come on Lewis!!

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Have I found my theme?

A few days ago, I wrote a post asking what The Wolf’s Howl should be about; I felt that I hadn’t really achieved the goal I had when I started of making it about something; my subjects have ranged far and wide and not really concentrated on one area.

The last two posts have been complaints - about Apple’s UK pricing for Leopard and the BBC’s lack of support for Mac in their new iPlayer - that have bordered on rants. Indeed, a friend mentioned to me today that he’d “read my rant about the BBC”. I thought I’d been quite reasonable, but I missed that mark by quite a way it seems. The point was made that why should a broadcaster have to cater for absolutely every combination of computer and operating system? Isn’t the fact that it works with Windows - which has what, 90% of the total OS installations in the world - enough? And I suppose, being reasonable for a moment, it probably is.

And this is when I started to think that maybe I’d fond my theme; perhaps what The Wolf’s Howl will become is a place for me to post my unreasonable, unresearched, stream of conciousness rantings? That can be the common element, rather than have a common subject to post about. And the beauty of it would be, you would never know when I was serious and when I was just doing it as a wind-up, which could have humourous results. Or could bring on lawsuits. Either is good.

I can see it now - a huge long list of things that annoy and enrage me on a daily basis, all now fodder for my fevered brain to bash out onto the screen. I truly will be howling at the moon; I’ll call it BlogTherapy!

If that all sounds a bit much to take, perhaps you’re right. So I’ll try to intersperse the rants with the odd lighter moment just to bring a bit of relief to my benighted soul and lift your spirits, dear Constant Reader.

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BBC - TV for the nation? Um…

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So we all know that the BBC launched their iPlayer earlier in the year only for Windows users. (The iPlayer allows licence holders to download certain TV programmes for up to 30 days after broadcast, to enjoy at their leisure on their computer.)

Today, the BBC announced a new deal with wi-fi providers The Cloud to make BBC programmes available through 7,500 wi-fi hotspots around the country, so that viewers can download and stream programmes while they’re out and about. At the same time, a streaming-only service was announced for Mac and Linux users “by the end of the year”.

It’s about time that the BBC (which, let’s remember, is a public service broadcaster that enjoys an unprecedented and unique funding arrangement, whereby you have to pay a licence fee for operating TV reception equipment - regardless of whether you use that equipment to watch BBC programmes or not) included Mac and Linux users in its online services. But why only streaming, when Windows users can download?

According to Ashley Highfield , director of Future Media and Technology, it’s because “We need to get the streaming service up and look at the ratio of consumption between the services and then we need to look long and hard at whether we build a download service for Mac and Linux. It comes down to cost per person and reach at the end of the day.”

I’m sorry but I don’t agree. As a licence-fee payer, I fund the BBC. Therefore, I should be able to access all of the BBC’s services, irrespective of the equipment I choose to use. For an Internet-based service, it shouldn’t matter whether I’m using Windows, Mac, Linux, or any other operating system; the service should be available. There’s quite a difference between being able to stream a programme and being able to download it; just because I use a Mac, I shouldn’t have to feel left out in the cold.

The biggest annoyance about the whole issue is that to help them with the streaming service, the BBC have signed a deal with Adobe. If you wanted to pick a company that had more experience writing software for Mac’s, you couldn’t. Would it have been so difficult to go that one step further and make the download service available?

All of this comes on top of the fact that much of the BBC’s expenditure these days seems to be on digital stations. This is not good news, as I live in an area that currently cannot receive the Freeview signal. But I also I can’t receive Sky because the block of flats I live in does not allow dishes to be fixed to the building and the communal system is too expensive (and too limited) to be viable. This leaves me with a grand total of four TV channels to choose from. At least if I could use my Mac to download programmes through iPlayer I might be able to enjoy some of those digital-only programmes that the BBC puts out. But no.

I’ve thought for many years that “the unique way the BBC is funded” does not serve the licence payer well and needs to change. The half-hearted iPlayer just makes me more convinced.

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Working for the Apple dollar

I’m a fan of Mac OS X and I love my iMac. When I was using a PC at home, my favourite app was iTunes - by far the better media player for that platform. I like the look of my iMac; I like the ease with which I can do things with OS X; I like the look of the 300+ refinements and new features that are coming in Leopard (finally announced for 26 October).

What I don’t like is Apple’s pricing.

Don’t get me wrong; I think $129 is a good price - especially when you consider that this gets you everything, including the 64-bit version (Leopard Ultimate, if you will), unlike the Windows experience where if you want the 64-bit version you basically have to mortgage the children. $129 is a good price and I’d be happy to pay it.

If I want Leopard, though, I’m going to have to pay more like $172 because here in the UK the price is going to be £85. At today’s exchange rate, I should be able to buy it for around £63 but because of the way Apple price their goods I can’t. And this is what I can’t understand; it’s the same product - probably the supposed “regionalisation” of the UK edition could be achieved by changing a couple of system preferences - so why is it a third more for us in the UK? It’s a global product, so why isn’t it a global price?

Well, you might say that we’re talking about a physical product here, which needs to be manufactured and shipped out to the various different markets. You may have a point there - but I work for a company that ships products all over the world and the price in our local market is the same price we charge for every market in the world. If it sells for £4.95 in the UK, it will sell for the dollar equivalent of £4.95 in the US. If we, as a small company, can manage it then why can’t Apple? And we don’t have to be talking about a physical product in this case; this is software. It could be made available for download - in these days of broadband connections, it’s certainly feasible. Linux distros do it all the time, so why not Apple?

But Apple don’t just alter the price when it comes to physical products, they do the same with iTunes. US downloads are $0.99, which equates to £0.48. UK downloads are £0.79, which equates to $1.60 - a US iTunes user gets three tracks for less than the price of my two. And with iTunes, there is no physical product. I can understand that they have separate stores for different countries because of the way that the content they offer is licensed, but why different prices?

Of course, Apple are not alone in this practice but - because of the current frenzy about Leopard - they are probably the most high profile example. If we’re all living in a global village, shouldn’t we all be able to shop at the same global price?

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What’s it all about?

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be something more than just your run-of-the-mill “Took the cat to the vet today. He’s OK.” sort. I was going to make it about something; the problem was I didn’t know what.

The Wolf’s Howl has been live for a little over seven months now, and I still don’t know what it’s about. I’ve written entries on motorsport – particularly the rookie F1 season of Lewis Hamilton; technology – my entry on usbport.sys is by far the most successful post I’ve got, which says more about Windows than it does about my writing I think; health – my attempts to cut down on my alcohol intake and lose a bit of weight; relationships – and my complete failure at them; and blogging itself.

What I haven’t got is a common theme, which is where this post comes from. Do I need a common theme? Should I say “Right, this blog is about subject x and only about subject x. If I want to write about anything else, I need to start a new blog.”

Since considering the idea of limiting myself to one theme, I’ve been looking around at other blogs to see what they do. Some of the better ones (and the more popular ones) do stick to one subject, whether it be writing software or the life and times of an ex-Star Trek actor. Others jump from subject to subject depending what’s on the mind of the author(s), without any seeming loss in popularity.

My worry is if I limit myself, I won’t have anything to say for weeks at a time which will harm the popularity of the Wolf’s Howl which is (ever so slowly) starting to build up a following; it’s not on the scale of Mr Fabulous, but it’s encouraging. I’ve noticed, though, that when I don’t write for a few days, the stats drop like a stone and then take quite a while to recover.

My other worry is if I don’t limit myself I might end up writing about the smallest, tiniest, insignificantest (is that a word?) things that happen in the world or in my life and giving them a post all their own. I’ve edged towards this a couple of times already, but have lumped several things together into my Brief Notes series. I get annoyed by those blogs that tell you every little thing they are doing when it’s not at all interesting, thought-provoking or humorous (I remember reading a blog entry that lamented how late for the airport the author was. All I could think of was “If you weren’t writing this non-entry, you wouldn’t be so late. Get a life!”)

So, I want to ask your opinion. Where do I draw the line? Do I pick one subject and stick to that (at the risk of writing once in a blue-moon)? Do I carry on as I am, with random subjects that interest / annoy / otherwise attract me? Or do I go the whole hog and write about everything that happens to me or in my world? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, or drop me an email using the contact page.

I don’t have a cat, though, so you’ll never hear about his trips to the vet.

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