The Journey(s) of Ian

Another two years go by, another Mac osx upgrade, thusly do we measure the passage of our years. My thoughts. I was not in a hurry to upgrade. First, I did not see a huge improvement between 10.6 and 10.7. Second, I was not in a locale which allowed for large downloads, however, this has all changed and last night I did the deed.  First thoughts: not much to get excited about, and a few minor annoyances. The reverse scrolling for one. Back in the old days, when one scrolled downwards with two fingers on the trackpad the window in which one was scrolling moved upwards, with 10.7 it is the opposite. This mimics both ios and ‘real’ life, so I am told, however, I do not like this ‘feature’, which I reversed. There is also a general dumbing down present in the new os. Apple wants to make the os transparent, akin somewhat to ios, where file and folders do not exist, at least for the user. For example, where is my drive? By default it is not visible in Lion. I am long past the geek phase ...

A little over a year ago many people in Thailand—certainly in Bangkok—believed that the Red Shirts were over as a political force. After occupying the city centre for months and shutting down several major shopping centres(!), in May 2010 the Thai army ‘swept’ the city of Bangkok clean of red shirt protesters, killing over 90 in doing so, including a 16 year old boy. The city, or at least its ‘elite’ quickly got back to the business of making money and tried to forget that for several months the streets had been dominated by protesters from the rural provinces, however, this death knell was premature, the red shirts did not give up, nor forget. The basis of the red shirt power is a seemingly unlikely combination between an emergent capitalist class, which came into existence in the previous generation riding the wave of Thai industrialisation, and the rural poor, those who believe that they are getting the sharp end of Thai economic progress. Impatient with the restrictions, which the ...