Are Lottery grants a hindrance to pigeon racing?

More and more pigeon clubs are succeeding in their applications for Lottery grants under the Awards for All scheme. But what does this mean for pigeon racing and it's future?

Grants are being spent on Electronic Timing Systems, Transporters and the suchlike.

So before Awards for All how did clubs and fanciers manage? If there was any money left after the costs of the racing, showing and administration - that was not paid out in prize money(!), this would be held in a reserve. Also periodically there would be bird sales that would supplement this reserve. When things got tough - e.g. we need a new transporter now, otherwise we're not racing next season - a levy would be imposed on all members. That is, the amount of money needed, divided by the number of members, would be what each member would be required to pay.

These days, perhaps the levy is over - a short sighted solution if ever there was one - but are these Awards for All grants not the same thing?

It is my opinion that whilst pigeon clubs and federations have such an easy access to large amounts of cash, it will only escalate the short-sighted thinking that has had such a detrimental effect on pigeon keeping in recent years.

There is now no requirement to be prudent, to hold a reserve, a transporter fund - because when the day comes that the present transporter is written off, we can apply for a grant. It can only encourage the philosophy of running assets into the ground, and pay-out all funds as prizes.

What will happen when the money dries up?

While Awards for All are so readily available there is little argument with the short-sighted point of view. Spending money is unpopular, saving money is unthought of! which is sadly compounded by an aging membership. How do we restore strategic and long term thinking within the world of pigeon sport?

iPhone 2.0 Apps don't live up to expectations

After all the trouble updating my iPhone to 2.0 yesterday, it was about midnight when I first got my hands on the first Apps.

I downloaded, Twitterific, Facebook, iPint and a couple of others, and my overall reaction is that they're poor.

I expected fully functioning versions that encapsulated the simplicity of the iPhones interface, but no it seems you get patchy performance, and just about the same functionality as the Web Apps.

Lets start with Twitterific; I expected the full Twitter functionality natively on my iPhone. Instead I get a list of my 'friends' updates and (admittedly quite a nifty) interface for replying to them or twittering to my account. But comparing it to Hahlo  (a Twitter iPhone Web App) I think it's a poor imitation.

And the Facebook App. I've become increasingly frustrated and annoyed with Facebook over the last few months, and their iPhone App kind of sums it all up. There's the Facebook web interface which we all log into using a browser that gives you everything (although it's getting increasingly cluttered and hard to find specific options - like my feed and privacy preferences). There's the iPhone Web App which was a stripped down, bare bones, this is your status, this is your feed (with only native Facebook app updates), you can view someone's contact info, or write on their wall - pretty much it. Well the new native iPhone version is actually pretty much exactly the same as the Web App (which was pretty poor lets be honest). Oh there is one thing - using it for around 10 mins last night it managed to crash around 4 or 5 times, lovely!

Their not all bad, take the game iPint - 'the application that turns your iPhone into a virtual glass of ice cold lager'. You have a pint at one end of a bar, you tilt your iPhone to slide your pint to your friend at the other end of the bar, trying to miss the various obstacles along the way. If you complete that you are rewarded with an iPint - your screen turns into a pint glass and it reacts (with the motion sensor) so you can drink it, etc just like a real virtual pint! Its a simple concept (I'm just not too good at explaining it - this Youtube video is better), and it doesn't serve any real purpose - but what it does do is show what can be achieved by iPhone developers, and it is executed brilliantly. I need to point out that I haven't tried any other games (I'm not going to pay £5.99 for Super Monkey Ball...) and I know they will probably be better than iPint.

So games work on the iPhone, but regular apps don't. Maybe its because they are trying to port concepts I already know and use to the iPhone? Maybe because I'm used to their online versions I expect to get the same, if not more out of them on the iPhone?

Either way I think there'll be many changes and differences between the iPhone Apps available today, to the ones available in a few months time - after all its a new platform, and a radically new interface - somehow I just expected a better first shot.

Concorde in Pieces

Dropping Gem at the airport tonight saw us grab a hot chocolate, flicking through the paper that was on the table I spotted an article on Concorde.

Of the twenty that were built, since coming out of service they've gone to various museums and attractions all over the world. Seven in both the United Kingdom and France, one in Germany and Barbados, one was used as spare parts, and the other three are in the US.

Back to the article - which was about the one at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. You should see it! Abandoned in an airfield since the museum decided they'd rather build a pier to dock some aircraft carrier or other (alright it is the 'Intripid'!). Anyhow, if the Telegraph and the Sun are anything to go by they've crashed a lorry into it which took the nose cone off; the cockpit windows have been smashed, and there is untold wildlife living in - well anywhere they can get into, mostly the engines!

Now I'd love to turn this into bashing the Americans for allowing all this to happen, but no I blame the French. The French that allowed debris to be left on their runway, debris that caused the crash, and grounded Corcorde in the first place.

Mind you (reading just now) it was a Continental Airlines (American) plane that the piece of debris fell off. In fact checking up on Wikipedia it was a piece from a modified McDonnell Douglas DC-10 (an American plane) number 3 engine - a modification that was made in "violation of the manufacturer's rules".

So America it was your fault, and it is again.

Social Social Web?

Facebook, MySpace, LastFM... would work, if everyone you knew was a member. Problem is that is never going to happen. The thing is that social networks are walled gardens, built so that your data once in, stays in.

I want to retain ownership of my data! If I want sign up to a new better service next week I dont want to have to resubmit everything again, similarly the week after. Why can't my social networks be social?

XFN could be the way. Using microformats to tag the relationship between the content I own on the net. This is the best article I've seen to explain it, so come on Facebook, give me my data back...