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an essential cargo in the Philippines

Wow – that felt longer than two weeks. We’ve just returned from a different world and a very beautiful one at that. A world full of idyllic islands straight out of James Bond, with incredible diving and friendly people. The Philippines has such a bad press here in the UK and I’m almost tempted not to dispell the myths so I can keep the place all for myself… but how could I do that? Island hopping around the remote islands to the north of Palawan by banka revealed some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen. Thousands of deserted islands with sheer limestone cliffs, hidden lagoons, secret beaches and turquoise blue waters.

However, it seems tourism “eco-development” and land title disputes are endemic in this area and corruption, at all levels, is rife. It’s a fine balance between tourism alleviating poverty in a place perceived by Westerners as “paradise on earth” and maintaining a pristine environment for future generations. As tourism encroaches on these small islands in this fragile ecology, I really hope this balance can be met.


Some of the people we met along the way (like the folk at Kudugman) were trying to do things the right way- pushing forward low-scale, low-impact and sustainable developments of two or three huts on islands that draw minimal resources and offer a very basic yet completely serene break from it all. However, the terms “sustainable” and “eco-tourism” are used all too rashly and I hope that recent measures to develop these small islands do not lead to their destruction.


Anyway – here’s some more photos. Not that I need to convince you of the beauty of the place!


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Snow drops

Taken in South Devon, last weekend. At last, the signs of Spring are starting to show. Whoop!

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Yahoo! UI goodness

When coding websites, there are some problems I come across time and time again – where I generally tend to crtl-c ctrl-v a previous solution into my work. The same goes for user interface tricks – like pagination, breadcrumbs, validation, event handling and DOM manipulation. Now the optimal solutions for all these woes have been bundled together into tested, robust and cross-browser UI libraries and design patterns by the clever people at Yahoo! I’ve spent some time playing with them and I’m impressed. A very shrewd move indeed – get the support of the people building the web and the rest will follow. Or something like that. Yahoo! have been making some rather interesting moves lately, with all their buy outs and what-not. I’d watch them closely, if I were you.

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brrreeeport

brrreeeporting on searching blogs can be interesting. honest.

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BT TV pacing in the aisles

As BT prepares to step up onto the IPTV stage – to take on the likes of Homechoice, NTL and sky – it is starting to gather together content providers like Warner Music, Paramount, the Beeb and National Geographic. All the sort of content providers that are likely to produce decent TV that people will sign up to “BT TV” to watch but please tell me that there’ll be more than Big Brother re-runs coming from Endemol.

On a similar note, I wonder what BT will use to deliver their video streams? It would be quite fitting if they used BitTorrent (BT – geddit?) really. Although, it looks like NTL are one step ahead on that one.

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future of web apps summit


The Future of Web Apps Summit.

why buck a trend at a geek fest?
everyone else is blogging here, so here’s my quick notes to self:

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OAP party pics

Thank you to all of you who made it on Saturday evening. It was great to see our new flat so full of people and it now feels well and truly warmed. All went rather smoothly – with no broken hips or slipped discs reported from the oldies. So that’s nice. There’s even some photos.

I feel like I spent the whole night having half finished conversations with everyone, being pulled this way and that, waving my stick at all the youngsters, supping on my beer… I quite enjoyed being an old man. A dangerous sign of things to come perhaps?

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sinner or winner?

For those of you who wondered where our evangelist friend with the loud speaker at Oxford Circus station had got to recently during these cold winter weeks – this photo was taken in Sydney last week. He certainly gets about. It looks like he flies south for winter to find warmer preaching grounds.

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Homechoice sale

I’ve just heard that Homechoice is considering putting itself up for sale. After last November’s rumours, I’m not sure whether it is true but there’s certainly plenty of vultures circling. I’m sure it won’t be long before we have to sit back and watch them fight over the spoils.

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Mindpixel man’s last thoughts…

Chris McKinstry‘s sad and rather public suicide note reveals “the mind is a maximum hypersurface and thought a trajectory on it and the amygdala and hippocampus are Hopf maps of it” – inspired genius, hoax or simply too much LSD? You decide.

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