eBOOKS
Having left the discussion after stressing the anti-competitive nature of Amazon's Kindle saying it needed further investigation to identify the alternatives. It turns out that Amazon use the MOBI text format as developed for the original handheld Palm computer, which Amazon call AZW.
John Buckman came back with the Kobo ereader as sold for instance by WH Smith which he and his wife use either to buy ebooks to keep from various suppliers or to get free temporary downloads (lasting three weeks) from a Library. An ebook alternative to borrowing a physical copy, subject to similar availability rules, probably to harmonise with the libraries lending licence.
Kobo and the ereaders made by Sony and also Barnes and Noble (Nook) use OPEN free text formats of ePUB and PDF (the free Adobe Reader commonly used on PCs as mentioned before).
It is possible to convert these formats to the Kindle format on a computer and then download them onto a Kindle, but there may well be a further hurdle caused by proprietary Digital Rights Management or DRM which is used to prevent copying. A few years ago DRM was used to stop copying CDs, though later deemed illegal since it also prevented CD copying to make a back-up. Amongst the users of this technique are Amazon, Apple, Sony and the BBC, though the later does it to directly protect copyright of its own material and not just to gain a commercial advantage.
Interestingly note that Kobo is owned by Rakuten of Japan who also run the <play.com> site selling ebooks as recommended to me by Marilyn Croft. Does it pay tax for business done in the UK? I have a gut feeling there is a huge problem with international Internet sellers.
U3A ACTIVITIES
CHRONICLE When I enquired recently there was still a shortage of entries of articles for the next edition which are required in two weeks. Please send them to derrick.jenkins@ntlworld.com
It does not take so long to write and its a sad reflection that copy seemingly dries up as our membership increases. Meanwhile I have sent one in for consideration.
ARMCHAIR TRAVEL
Next Meeting at Hazel Court 2pm Friday 3 May
Joan and I will be doing half the session on our trip a couple of years ago to Turkey, politically perhaps one of the key states in Europe, secular politics but a largely Muslim population, a long border with Syria and a beautiful friendly country to boot
Tony and Esther Searle will do the other half with an account of a trip to Canada.
JAZZ
John Buckman is trying to start a new group both to increase the attendance at local events and to encourage visits to Jazz Festivals. Joan and I will attend the Titley jazz festival (hospital operations allowing) at The Rodd estate in Presteigne the Friday 26 July to Sunday 28 July, which features nearly all the best known names of British Jazz from Stan Tracey down, in an interesting mix of combinations from Django Rheinhart style through vocals from the Great American Song Book to Bop. Featuring the likes of Professor Steve Waterman on trumpet and Britain's now mellowed original hard man Alan Barnes, who made his name as a young alto-saxophonist with drummer Tommy Chase's bop band.
Liverpool fan John Buckman can be contacted on
johnkop.135@btinternet.com
TRAVEL
Owen Lewis is trying to get support for a Group to actually Travel together in groups. Far wider appeal I would think than Jazz. Recent week ends away organised by DJ Thomas onto which the Jive Group independently book have sold me on this sort of cooperation of like minded U3A groups. We go our separate ways during the day but meet up in the hotel for an evening meal and particularly to dance during the evenings prearranged entertainment.
MARGARET THATCHER
I have no doubt whatsoever that in 1979 the UK urgently needed reform, for the unions not management were effectively in control of major industries including Steel and Coal whereas the professions were under control of 'old boy' networks free to restrict entry and competition, not least in the City of London. It is to her credit that she saw both these wrongs and was determined that her government would stand up to these vested interests, which they undoubtedly did with great success.
Another observation is that UK industry in general had lost out to engineers in the USA, Japan and Europe. Even tiny Canada was outstripping us in the development of Nuclear Energy, and with British trained scientists. We could not even mass produce cars of sufficient quality to stand the rigours of long journeys on high speed highways in north America or the cold and salt of Canadian winters. In the 50's our lead as inventors of computers, once parallel with those in the USA, were being rapidly lost for the want of industrial understanding of technology's importance.
Or, and I would say this wouldn't I, the recognition of the increasingly vital importance of well trained young Engineers. It was not just a reflection in pay/living standards that I was offered 3.5 times more by Canada Westinghouse than I could have secured in the UK to follow a Graduate Apprenticeship. In my experience the quality of British engineer training was recognised there, both in terms of university degrees and Higher National Diplomas (HNDs). No wonder that a decade later we had the Brain Drain from this country, chiefly of scientists and engineers.
But when the Thatcher government in the so called Big Bang opened the City to vigorous competition including for the first time foreign ownership of banks, it did nothing to check the feeding frenzy which led to the our current banking problems.
Although it had to be strong to face down the Unions it was a dreadful error to close down overnight heavy manufacturing in Britain displaying particular viciousness to the coalminers and their one industry communities. How much better it would have been to show a little forward thinking and opened discussion on union participation in management - but I guess that was just too European to contemplate
Sure change was needed but the emphasis had to shift to the development of competitive modern industries. The unexpected wealth from the discovery of North Sea Oil and Gas should have funded such a strategy. Only 8 years previously Rolls Royce was nationalised to rescue it from the short term costs of developing the RB211 engine which proved the key to their future prosperity. Thanks to that forethought Rolls Royce is now world class and our most important integrated design and manufacturing firm.
The British pharmaceutical industry thrived because the high cost of product development could be borne, the advantage of a having a large dependable unified market in the NHS.
Meanwhile the north sea boom was wasted on tax reductions and benefits. Benefits which given the appalling level of unemployment amongst working men was hidden by falsely assigned incapacity benefits.
So when my eldest son left university with a degree in Chemical Engineering in 1983 there were insufficient jobs for his year and so a third went on to study accountancy whilst he qualified again in Informatique. ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) had just announced redundancy of 800 Chemical engineers. ICI was once the giant of British industry.
The remainder of the once great Electrical Manufacturing industry was continually amalgamated and downsized, the remainder is now in French hands and German Siemens marches on, so does Swedish ASEA and Swiss Brown Boveri albeit as ABB. For cars now we have only of the US Ford and Vauxhall and the major Japanese brands, all mainly as manufacturers only. For computers practically no firms are left. But micro computer on a chip designer ARM is a world leader, its designs being now used in most of the world's mobile phones, though it sensibly leaves manufacture to its customers discretion.
Where did our once great designing and manufacturing industries go? The French and the Germans still have theirs so do the USA and Japan. No wonder we have such problems nationally after placing total reliance on the financial industry which collapsed across the globe. Now we have a continual stream of evidence of corruption in the British financial industry.
The Thatcher era started us down these routes but Tony Blair's government followed with glee along the road to financial disaster. Greed and selfishness led to the ever growing disparity between top income and average wages, to such an extent that many senior employees now earn more in a year than the average person can hope for in a lifetime (read two lifetimes for a minimum wage earner). Some of these top people are now exposed as rogues, but still no official action is taken.
Perhaps we should choose a leaf out of Mao's book and have a Cultural Revolution of our own and clear out the greedy self seeking types at the head of our society. It doesn't seem to have done China any harm! These people weren't irreplaceable here either.
CHINA'S CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Once one starts to think in depth about something then it is remarkable how further information seems to flit into place. I hope previous paragraphs have emphasised the harshness of suffering by the powerful and the intelligentsia. But what I perhaps forgot was Mao's political opponents.
Zhang Hongbing's mother Fang suffered two years of investigation and detention but was eventually shot as a counter-revolutionary, aged 44, after he at 16 and his father denounced her, that's an indication of the fervour behind Mao's communism last revolution even from educated people, or maybe it was just the hope of personal survival. Many children turned against their parents in this way. His mother's father had been shot earlier as a suspected Nationalist, perhaps it was that which sealed her fate.
Zhang is now a lawyer and lives in the USA. He wishes to atone for his action. He seeks above all to turn her grave into a shrine dedicated to telling her story, hoping to ensure the lessons of that terrible era are never forgotten. He claims that 36 million people were hounded and perhaps 1 million were killed. His father too was attacked as a 'capitalist roader' and suffered at least 18 'struggle sessions' of verbal and physical abuse.
Almost in passing it was recorded in he article that the father of China's new leader Xi Jinping was sent to labour in the countryside.
Zhang's mother Fang was cleared in 1980 and they erected a headstone not far from the place she was shot in Anhui province, it is this he would like to become a centre for remembrance.
Having left the discussion after stressing the anti-competitive nature of Amazon's Kindle saying it needed further investigation to identify the alternatives. It turns out that Amazon use the MOBI text format as developed for the original handheld Palm computer, which Amazon call AZW.
John Buckman came back with the Kobo ereader as sold for instance by WH Smith which he and his wife use either to buy ebooks to keep from various suppliers or to get free temporary downloads (lasting three weeks) from a Library. An ebook alternative to borrowing a physical copy, subject to similar availability rules, probably to harmonise with the libraries lending licence.
Kobo and the ereaders made by Sony and also Barnes and Noble (Nook) use OPEN free text formats of ePUB and PDF (the free Adobe Reader commonly used on PCs as mentioned before).
It is possible to convert these formats to the Kindle format on a computer and then download them onto a Kindle, but there may well be a further hurdle caused by proprietary Digital Rights Management or DRM which is used to prevent copying. A few years ago DRM was used to stop copying CDs, though later deemed illegal since it also prevented CD copying to make a back-up. Amongst the users of this technique are Amazon, Apple, Sony and the BBC, though the later does it to directly protect copyright of its own material and not just to gain a commercial advantage.
Interestingly note that Kobo is owned by Rakuten of Japan who also run the <play.com> site selling ebooks as recommended to me by Marilyn Croft. Does it pay tax for business done in the UK? I have a gut feeling there is a huge problem with international Internet sellers.
U3A ACTIVITIES
CHRONICLE When I enquired recently there was still a shortage of entries of articles for the next edition which are required in two weeks. Please send them to derrick.jenkins@ntlworld.com
It does not take so long to write and its a sad reflection that copy seemingly dries up as our membership increases. Meanwhile I have sent one in for consideration.
ARMCHAIR TRAVEL
Next Meeting at Hazel Court 2pm Friday 3 May
Joan and I will be doing half the session on our trip a couple of years ago to Turkey, politically perhaps one of the key states in Europe, secular politics but a largely Muslim population, a long border with Syria and a beautiful friendly country to boot
Tony and Esther Searle will do the other half with an account of a trip to Canada.
JAZZ
John Buckman is trying to start a new group both to increase the attendance at local events and to encourage visits to Jazz Festivals. Joan and I will attend the Titley jazz festival (hospital operations allowing) at The Rodd estate in Presteigne the Friday 26 July to Sunday 28 July, which features nearly all the best known names of British Jazz from Stan Tracey down, in an interesting mix of combinations from Django Rheinhart style through vocals from the Great American Song Book to Bop. Featuring the likes of Professor Steve Waterman on trumpet and Britain's now mellowed original hard man Alan Barnes, who made his name as a young alto-saxophonist with drummer Tommy Chase's bop band.
Liverpool fan John Buckman can be contacted on
johnkop.135@btinternet.com
TRAVEL
Owen Lewis is trying to get support for a Group to actually Travel together in groups. Far wider appeal I would think than Jazz. Recent week ends away organised by DJ Thomas onto which the Jive Group independently book have sold me on this sort of cooperation of like minded U3A groups. We go our separate ways during the day but meet up in the hotel for an evening meal and particularly to dance during the evenings prearranged entertainment.
MARGARET THATCHER
I have no doubt whatsoever that in 1979 the UK urgently needed reform, for the unions not management were effectively in control of major industries including Steel and Coal whereas the professions were under control of 'old boy' networks free to restrict entry and competition, not least in the City of London. It is to her credit that she saw both these wrongs and was determined that her government would stand up to these vested interests, which they undoubtedly did with great success.
Another observation is that UK industry in general had lost out to engineers in the USA, Japan and Europe. Even tiny Canada was outstripping us in the development of Nuclear Energy, and with British trained scientists. We could not even mass produce cars of sufficient quality to stand the rigours of long journeys on high speed highways in north America or the cold and salt of Canadian winters. In the 50's our lead as inventors of computers, once parallel with those in the USA, were being rapidly lost for the want of industrial understanding of technology's importance.
Or, and I would say this wouldn't I, the recognition of the increasingly vital importance of well trained young Engineers. It was not just a reflection in pay/living standards that I was offered 3.5 times more by Canada Westinghouse than I could have secured in the UK to follow a Graduate Apprenticeship. In my experience the quality of British engineer training was recognised there, both in terms of university degrees and Higher National Diplomas (HNDs). No wonder that a decade later we had the Brain Drain from this country, chiefly of scientists and engineers.
But when the Thatcher government in the so called Big Bang opened the City to vigorous competition including for the first time foreign ownership of banks, it did nothing to check the feeding frenzy which led to the our current banking problems.
Although it had to be strong to face down the Unions it was a dreadful error to close down overnight heavy manufacturing in Britain displaying particular viciousness to the coalminers and their one industry communities. How much better it would have been to show a little forward thinking and opened discussion on union participation in management - but I guess that was just too European to contemplate
Sure change was needed but the emphasis had to shift to the development of competitive modern industries. The unexpected wealth from the discovery of North Sea Oil and Gas should have funded such a strategy. Only 8 years previously Rolls Royce was nationalised to rescue it from the short term costs of developing the RB211 engine which proved the key to their future prosperity. Thanks to that forethought Rolls Royce is now world class and our most important integrated design and manufacturing firm.
The British pharmaceutical industry thrived because the high cost of product development could be borne, the advantage of a having a large dependable unified market in the NHS.
Meanwhile the north sea boom was wasted on tax reductions and benefits. Benefits which given the appalling level of unemployment amongst working men was hidden by falsely assigned incapacity benefits.
So when my eldest son left university with a degree in Chemical Engineering in 1983 there were insufficient jobs for his year and so a third went on to study accountancy whilst he qualified again in Informatique. ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) had just announced redundancy of 800 Chemical engineers. ICI was once the giant of British industry.
The remainder of the once great Electrical Manufacturing industry was continually amalgamated and downsized, the remainder is now in French hands and German Siemens marches on, so does Swedish ASEA and Swiss Brown Boveri albeit as ABB. For cars now we have only of the US Ford and Vauxhall and the major Japanese brands, all mainly as manufacturers only. For computers practically no firms are left. But micro computer on a chip designer ARM is a world leader, its designs being now used in most of the world's mobile phones, though it sensibly leaves manufacture to its customers discretion.
Where did our once great designing and manufacturing industries go? The French and the Germans still have theirs so do the USA and Japan. No wonder we have such problems nationally after placing total reliance on the financial industry which collapsed across the globe. Now we have a continual stream of evidence of corruption in the British financial industry.
The Thatcher era started us down these routes but Tony Blair's government followed with glee along the road to financial disaster. Greed and selfishness led to the ever growing disparity between top income and average wages, to such an extent that many senior employees now earn more in a year than the average person can hope for in a lifetime (read two lifetimes for a minimum wage earner). Some of these top people are now exposed as rogues, but still no official action is taken.
Perhaps we should choose a leaf out of Mao's book and have a Cultural Revolution of our own and clear out the greedy self seeking types at the head of our society. It doesn't seem to have done China any harm! These people weren't irreplaceable here either.
CHINA'S CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Once one starts to think in depth about something then it is remarkable how further information seems to flit into place. I hope previous paragraphs have emphasised the harshness of suffering by the powerful and the intelligentsia. But what I perhaps forgot was Mao's political opponents.
Zhang Hongbing's mother Fang suffered two years of investigation and detention but was eventually shot as a counter-revolutionary, aged 44, after he at 16 and his father denounced her, that's an indication of the fervour behind Mao's communism last revolution even from educated people, or maybe it was just the hope of personal survival. Many children turned against their parents in this way. His mother's father had been shot earlier as a suspected Nationalist, perhaps it was that which sealed her fate.
Zhang is now a lawyer and lives in the USA. He wishes to atone for his action. He seeks above all to turn her grave into a shrine dedicated to telling her story, hoping to ensure the lessons of that terrible era are never forgotten. He claims that 36 million people were hounded and perhaps 1 million were killed. His father too was attacked as a 'capitalist roader' and suffered at least 18 'struggle sessions' of verbal and physical abuse.
Almost in passing it was recorded in he article that the father of China's new leader Xi Jinping was sent to labour in the countryside.
Zhang's mother Fang was cleared in 1980 and they erected a headstone not far from the place she was shot in Anhui province, it is this he would like to become a centre for remembrance.
