The Chinese Apple

Apple released their new iPhone 4S in China today.

After stores opened, a crush from customers waiting outside forced the company to suspend sales throughout the country. Violence ensued outside these stores as the largest mobile phone market battered down the doors of Apple re-sellers.

Earlier in the week I listened to This American Life's latest podcast. It tells the story of Mike Daisey and his experience in Schengen factories. This is where these phones and tablets are made. They are made by under-paid, over-worked and faceless employees with little rights or respect.

At both the retail end and the construction end, there is a very uncomfortable relationship here. Apple have created massive demand for the product through their innovation, but also through their manipulation of the market. A manipulation they are afforded by exemptions from the Chinese authorities due to their large investment at the manufacturing end.

The company it seems, like their products, are becoming ever more pervasive in leading world economies.

-The English Student

New Phone Era

Up until recently I have had two phones on the go.

Unfortunately I lost one last week while the other is definitely on its last legs. It certainly does not owe me anything as I have had it for a few years at this point.

But I hesitate to buy a new phone. Do I need a smart one? One with a camera or the myriad of functions that are available? It is quite an important decision.

Perhaps I could actually go phone-less for awhile, rely on older forms of communication and needlessly lose my friends in the process.

Or maybe I should just finally spend some money!

-The English Student

Open Today?

For a bizarre reason, some retail outlets were open today.

It is the first of January and let's face it, no-one want's to go shopping today. Well obviously some people do (and indeed, did) but they have to be amongst the extreme minority. These people should have been relaxing and taking some time off, regardless of what they got up to for New Year's Eve.

Surely these occasions should be free from the demands of consumerism. A time when we can all forget about bank balances and spending money and instead, enjoy a relaxing time with our loved ones.

Perhaps that is the crux however. These people who venture into retail outlets on these days may not in fact have loved ones to spend the day with. Perhaps being paid to listen to them and give them company is all part of the job.

A more believable position, if these shops actually cared one bit about people.

-The English Student

U.S. Subtitles

Why do U.S. audiences struggle with subtitles?

Surely that is the only explanation for why the U.S. tend to 'translate' foreign shows by completely re-writing them. When Disney bought Studio Ghibli they gave their films awful dubbing using U.S. actors, while the stellar Danish drama Forbrydelsen was butchered by AMC in their re-make.

I am not suggesting that everyone should learn Japanese or Danish to appreciate these shows. Instead, we should just get used to reading subtitles and leaving the show intact. It is our own intellectual blind-spot when we do not understand these languages and the integrity of the piece should not be threatened to mitigate this.

It is far more rare to translate a film from the U.S. to another culture and that is surely because other cultures understand how embedded these pieces are with their places of origin.

U.S. television executives should just learn to read and stop destroying foreign cultural pieces.

-The English Student

Electrocution

I've had two minor electric shocks in the past week or so.

These were by no means serious but the sensation was quite remarkable. It was not a feeling I would instantly describe as "pain" and so is difficult to articulate. It was more like a sense of physical disorientation.

I am not too interested in the science behind this feeling, although my impression is that this was due to a temporary disruption of my body's own electrical charge. The result of which was that I instantly lost my sense of embodiment for a split second.

Such slight and small physical shifts can have vast effects on the very composition of life. Perhaps this is part of the reason that the recent successes at CERN are so poignant. When we understand the minute forces at the base of existence we can understand how to control them.

I also need to be more careful around exposed wires!

-The English Student

Hobby Cartography

I have started to make some maps.

This new hobby began with a friend who has a similar issue with geography. We really do not have too good a grasp on this planet, it's countries or where exactly we live. I should point out that my geography is particularly poor and I am far more guilty than my friend.

So we began making maps. We made some by memory and my friend thoroughly showed up my ignorance. Embarrassed by my own, I have decided to work on a larger scale map and to use an atlas. This way I can actually learn where things are before having to make wild guesses.

This hobby cartography gives me a grasp on my environment, in the same way that following 'current events' gives me a grasp on what happens in my environment. These may very well be illusions but they are at least comforting illusions.

And they are illusions that allow me to spend time colouring nice pictures.

-The English Student

Commitments

Commitments keep me coming back to this blog, even when an update is due in five minutes time.

Making new commitments is tricky for me and I am pressed towards making another one by difficult circumstances and uncontrollable emotions. When I do make one of these commitments however, I tend to keep it.

This blog has been diligently upheld, despite an absence of readership and an absence of true inspiration for a long time. Is it some kind of zombie commitment when the initial reason for taking it has dissipated?

Perhaps it just shows commitment to that initial beginning. With that in mind, I should allow myself to make commitments a bit more readily: knowing that trust in myself is the most important factor for these decisions.

I will have to see how this plays out practically.

-The English Student