Walk away from the Sony

Want one of these? Resist the urge..

I think Sony has taken a significant business opportunity of becoming a big player in small e-devices and has managed to turn it into a disaster.

Let me explain. I used to be a regular buyer of Sony products. I've had a Walkman, TVs, a VCR (remember those), a laptop... but I would never buy one of Sony's small electronic devices post-Walkman because they made a fundamental error of judgement. They made it 'our way or not at all.'

I have never had a Sony video camera or digital camera. Why? Because they insist on using their own memory card format that's incompatible with everyone else's. And when you come to connect the device to your computer you can't just drag and drop files, you have to use their proprietary, slow and clunky PC software to communicate with the device. The same goes for their music players. Hopelessly crippled by the truly awful associated software you are forced to use. And as for their ebook readers... you get the picture. (It's also true that Sony's seems the least supported ebook format in terms of new book releases these days.)

But am I not being hypocritical? Don't my iPhone and iPad also use proprietary and slow software on the computer? There's a big difference though. If yours is the dominant environment (as with iTunes) or if you have software that is built in with the operating system (like iTunes or Windows Media Player on Macs and PCs respectively) it's fine to expect us to use it. But when you are only an aspiring small fry it doesn't work to try to impose your 'standard'.

I think the trouble is that Sony were so used to being dominant with the Walkman that they assumed they were top dog in other parallel small electronics markets as well. At risk of mixing the animal metaphors, Sony was so used to being a big fish that it forgets that in this particular pond it is down with the minnows. And that has led to a fall.

If they haven't already, Sony should drop the proprietary formats, lose their awful software and get in with the masses before it's too late. We all know it makes sense.

But does Sony?

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

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