Elections 2015: Change was inevitable.

Kamla, ex-PM of Trinidad and Tobago, must have a head spinning by now. Not from spirits backlash, because last she she appeared wide awake to the sober truth - the country was fed up of her and her 'cabal'. Truth is a bitter pill and Kamla's sour face bore it out well when she gave a 'concession' speech that was no concession speech. Body language is indeed a great revealer, as it expresses above 90% of what we say... as opposed to 7% that we voice.

I guess the nastiness of the 'No Rowley' campaign was the straw that broke the UNC's back. My padner used to say 'using sledgehammer to kill a fly'. 

I watched some of the interviews on TV6 live steam on Morning Edition today with Fazeer Mohammed... hope I got his name right. He was very professional, interrupting those who wanted to get personal or aggressive, but in such a smooth manner that no one had time to be offensive. 

I have friends and family members who are staunch UNC supporters, but when they asked me and I responded I was hoping Rowley wins, they couldn't understand it. But I explain it this way: The UNC had 5 years in government to learn to tief (Trini word for stealing) and bring it to a fine art. The PNM will have new people who will have to learn to be corrupt. So, while corruption will not stop, at least it will slow down.

And Kamla who was on a spending mania would have run the economy to hell. Austerity is needed, and some hard shots will have to be called.

I expect to see changes to the police service. The 'acting' Commissioner ought to go, being a failure in many ways. So too is the Integrity Commission. Perhaps finally, in line with the modern world, the Judiciary will be paid from a Consolidated Fund and be free of the government's annual stranglehold. I hope to see an AG who will advise the government but still uphold the Constitution's finer aims and purposes, and support the Rule of Law and not a law of rules.

More enforcement of laws, amendments or new Acts to replace the archaic British laws we inherited at Independence... a stricter disciplinary system for agents of the State who shirk their duties. 

But maybe I am too optimistic too soon.... tides change with the moon phases and the incoming goverment may well be as immutable to change as the sea itself.

Fear about email links?

Over the last two years I’ve been tracking the behaviour of some of my closer contacts on a particular issue.

On occasions I would have sent them material that I thought would have been of interest to them. Some of my e-correspondence (emails, forum posts, text (sms), and chat messages e.g. WhatsApp) have contained BITLY links. These are hyperlinks that shorten long web addresses. They are called short-links. There were a number of reasons for sending bitly links.

1. The links are only about 10 characters instead of say 30 or 40.
2. Short-links use up less space if sending text messages and make it easier to redistribute.
3. I could track how many times those links were hit by those I had sent them to or if they sent them on to others. (Don’t be stupid: I wouldn’t know who exactly clicked the short-link but because I created it, I would know that that particular link I sent was clicked, and how many times – even if redistributed. So I’m not invading anybody’s privacy.)

On a handful off occasions my contacts have responded, “Is that a virus link?” Or ‘I was scared to click it so I didn’t’. I mean these are people who know me; people of above average cognitive status.. So why the devil would I want to send them a link to some virus or some other nefarious activity? And that right there is the disconnect between cognition and emotion. They know it’s me but their emotions are saying ‘This could be some sort of spam or fake email from him, I dare not click this else the world may blow up and I with it’. Well yes – emotions don’t actually say anything – they’re silent things that have no real language in a form of words.

The results of my study give me an estimate that of publicly and privately distributed shortlinks, the hit rate is very small compared to my expectation. So if I would have expected 10 hits over 1 week, I’d only get about 2.

Of course there are a zillion other reasons why people don’t hit these links as frequently as I might have expected.  And naysayers would argue:

1. They actually don’t like you or your junk.
2. They’re not interested as much as you might think about what you send them.
3. To be fair people are busy – aren’t they? Not everybody has time like you to spend hours on the internet.
4. There’s a flaw in your link tracking system.
5. Just because people tolerate you doesn’t mean they have to like you or your stuff!!
6. [.. yadda.. yadda …yadda]

And naysayers of course have absolutely no knowledge of my contacts, their interests, my interests or the degree of match in those interests – but they feel a need to defend simply because they’re similarly afflicted. And no – I’m not saying that people ought not to be cautious about e-correspondence and what links they click! And I’m not saying that everybody is obliged to click every link I send them. Jeeze!!

The internet is the greatest revolution in history – this is the best time in the history of mankind to be alive – to be in touch with our kind out there. But guess what? People are so busy and scared that they are crippled from taking part in this grand spectacle in our humanity. It adds to my world view that the average human being is a timid anxiety-ridden block of flesh gifted with the higher functions of a neocortex - but ruled by a primitive evolutionary remnant buried deep in their subcortex, which rules over them evermore.

Elocution lessons for Stephen Williams

It is absolutely fair comment to say that Acting Commissioner of Police for Trinidad and Tobago, requires elocution lessons. How?

You need only watch this video and listen to Williams giving a talk at Cambridge – yes Cambridge UK. (Scroll across to the 5 min mark).

I’m NOT suggesting that he needs to change his accent. People listening to him speak, might think (at least attitudinally), something along the lines of, ‘that’s how the natives speak down there.. oh dear!’ Well that would be true. However, ‘natives’ including myself who were educated in English (only) on that Rock were drilled about speaking in or for formal situations.

The issue is also similar for Jamaicans. I recall that many of my Jamaican lecturers would speak the Queen’s English perfectly – with proper pronunciation of words – when giving lectures. But if you met them informally at a pub or party they spoke like any average Jamaican, patois and all.

We were clearly taught back on the Rock, that when giving a speech or in a formal situation the following changes are to be made:

Informal (patois)	Formal (the Queen’s English)
Dong	Down
Dee	The
Dat	That
Arong	Around
Doze	Those
Deese	These
Dohh	Though or Don’t
Tuh	To
Specially for Stephen Williams
Home-ee-cide	Homicide
Comprom-eye-zin	Compromising
Decreasin	Decreasing
Tree hundred and seventy nine	Three hundred and seventy nine.

Do I have mission to appear better than Stephen Williams? No! So, why is any of this important? Over the last two years or so I’ve come to appreciate that perceptions and expectations of a ‘people’ are quickly generalised. I don’t like that sort of thing and I can’t change it. As a matter of fact for example I can tell you based on my experience that with about 70% probability people from India, who learn English as a second language will substituted a ‘W’ sound for a ‘V’ sound in most words that begin with ‘v’. So ‘victory’ will become ‘wicktory’. It’s not that they can’t say ‘v’. (I can’t explain it and I won’t attempt – but it remains a fact for me).

So for Trinbagonians using their patois ‘down’ becomes ‘dong’ – which is fine if they’re ‘liming on the culbot’ (aka culvert). However, I don’t think they need to give a wrong impression to the rest of the world that they can’t speak English properly, or a broader impression that ‘natives’ of T&T speak similarly all the time.

And for me it’s a sensitive matter, because a few years ago I was exploring the possibility of working in Australia. Then it became a requirement of a certain regulator that I have a language test to see if I could speak English!!! Huh? I only know to speak English – like any other person born in England. Well – the Australians couldn’t care less! I needed to take a test – else no job. I told them to take their job and stuff it! But reflecting now on this, I have to say that if they listened to the likes of Stephen Williams the Australians might well have doubt about his articulation – and whether their natives would understand him. Look, the first time I heard this ‘home-ee-cide’ thing I did a double take. Like what the hell is that?! Chryssst!!

People on the Rock and off the Rock must be cringing when they hear Williams speak. Oh well. It’s a new year.. some things change and some don’t.

However, Williams appears rough or unrefined in his intonation – and that’s fine for those who like that ‘bit o‘ rough’. I however, think he could take some lessons from Gavin Nicholas former High Commissioner for T&T in London.

Yes – I do write in the local patois for effect. However it is clear that I am capable of proper English.

British spelling mistakes

When reading British newspapers, reporters and commentators alike make some nifty (and inventive) spelling mistakes. Some I came across just this morning:

1. Dought     -   doubt
2. kray fish   -   crayfish
3. brother-in-law’s   - brother’s-in-law

Conference calls on Galaxy phone

Many Samsung Galaxy Phones will have a dialler that looks similar to what you see below. Why am I putting this up? Is it to teach? Well it’s hardly a proper teaching. Clicking image below will bring up a larger view.

Still a rip off–Ignorance is bliss

If you want to know how Brits are being ripped off 10,000 fold on the deal at left read on. It really is quite serious, but thousands or perhaps millions of Brits would have had a laugh at this advertisement by Three.co.uk.

You know, the Brits like to have a laugh, and dressing up a dog in some funny looking gear gets um pointing and giggling. And when the Brits giggle they go out and spend more easily. The idea is to suspend logic, because that could be an inhibiting force upon sales.  I think you’ll agree with me that it’s rather difficult to be ‘logical’ whilst giggling. So – if you want to win sales get them to commit whilst they’re giggling. The joke is on them actually – and they don’t even care!

Okay so what’s this one about? Some time ago I wrote on The great text-message rip-off. Here’s the news: IT’S STILL A RIP OFF!

The math – yes you don’t like math and they know it – but it’s rather quite simple.

1MB of data is roughly equivalent to 5000 text messages (for ease of calculation, but it’s actually 7490 messages). So theoretically you could expect to pay 1p for 5000 text messages. But hang on, they’d bill you 2p per text message. Which means they're bleeding you at 10,000 times the cost of the data. Assuming that you’re a human reading this – and not from the planet Zog, where I originate – you’d be doing a double-take and thinking, “Naaahhh… I don’t think he’s got that right”. Slow-thinking – System 2 – required. Here we go:

1. 1p is the cost of 1MB (1,000,000 bytes of data).
2. 1MB of data = 5000 texts.
3. 1p = 5000 texts (you’d therefore expect).
4. But you’ll actually be billed 2p per text.
5. Now each 1p should give you 5000 texts and therefore 2p should give you 10,000 texts.
6. This means that you’re being ripped-off 10,000-fold!

If you followed that ask yourself why you have trouble believing that people could actually endure being ripped off 10,000 fold. Look, a cup of coffee in the UK at the likes of Costa is around £2.00 (focus –it‘s not really that important whether it’s Starbucks, Costa, Prezzo or whatever). Now what if you ordered a coffee and then found out that they wanted to charge you £20,000 for that cup. What would your response be like. You might have fantasies of causing them to wear their coffee at such a ridiculous price.

Here’s the thing - 1p – oh that seems so small!! However, the actual factor of the rip-off is same as in the coffee example above. Rip-off-Britain is ‘good’ – cuz it knows how people’s minds work (or not). It knows that 1p means little to them. How many text messages are sent in the UK year?. It was 150 Billion in 2011 – and they’re texting more than talking. If all cellphone companies charged 2p/text and most charge more on unbundled tariffs, that’s £3 Billion just from texts alone.

How much data does 150 Billion texts consume? 150 Billion x 200 bytes (for easy calculation) = 3 x 10¹³ bytes = 30 Million MB = 30,000 GB = 30 Terabytes of data. Most hard drives these days come with 1 terabyte of data. So for argument sake for the total data storage capacity of just about 50 UK home computers they rake in £3 Billion? I’m green!!

But it doesn’t end there. A minute of voice conversation over Skype normally consumes 1MB of data. So that's 1p per minute. But they're charging you 3p per minute for voice not transmitted by data i.e. 3 times the price of their advertised price per MB of data.

If you got this far, you’re probably thinking, “Great story, but what the devil can I do about it? After all I still need to use my phone! And reading all this is interesting but is of no practical use.” Well on that basis, you must stop watching the news – take no interest in anything that you can’t get some ‘practical value’ out of. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ must be your motto. Rip-off-Britain lives for you. It needs you. Now bugger off.

The Future is about to Arrive!!

I am proudly non-allegiant to any brand name e.g. Samsung, Microsoft, Sony etc. So when I say watch out for the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, it’s purely because it will be revolutionary.

And it will drive the competition further. See below – tough if you have small hands. Pray to Gord to make your hands bigger or supm, if you want this. Else sulk that Sony is insensitive – and makes stuff for geeks and wannabes etc.

Nope – I won’t be rushing out to buy this either. Why? Cuz I know that Samsung having made a flop with it’s mega series, has to bounce back, and cannot allow Sony to cut in like this. Well if not Samsung, some other giant is gonna weigh in after Sony. You’ll see.

Supplementary Skype tips for Rock-crawlers

Doh arks meh how these tips became necessary. Just accept that some Rock-crawlers still don’t get it. And note that I have not alluded to any named individual/s or given any clues about the identity of any individual/s. 

1. You will need a device that can run Skype – and it must have a working microphone and a speaker that can be used by Skype.
2. There needs to be a live internet connection on the device for Skype to work.
3. You need to be logged into Skype on the said internet enabled device.
4. You cannot do a Skype to Skype call unless the other person is online with you. [No – I’m not talking about making a telephone call from Skype to a landline].
5. You cannot be logged into the same Skype account on two separate computers and expect to hold voice conversations with another person – it is doomed to fail.
6. You cannot be logged in to your Skype account on the Rock and be logged into the same account 5500 miles away and expect to use the same account to speak to your people who are logged in to the same account, back on the Rock. You really need two separate accounts: one for you 5500 miles away and the other back on the Rock in another name.
7. If your Rock-crawler famaly are logged in on the Rock and you are logged in on the same account 5500 miles away, then you can expect Skype not to work for you – and you will most probably not receive Skype calls.
8. Ensure that eef yuh want to call landlines from Skype that you have Skype credit of some sort. Yes – this normally means you need to pay some money (unless you have some Skype promo offer in place for free landline calls). And doh arks me how tuh do dat.
9. And finally, doh call me and arks me to call A, B, or C to tell dem to switch orn dey Skype so dat you can call dem for free on Skype. Why? Because from here on you’ll get one or two responses:
   1. A bill for the call (which may be very cheap) and my time (pro-rata) at £600 /hr (i.e. roughly TT$ 6000/hr), and/or
   2. Knowing that you are a Rock-crawler with a high probability of refusing tuh pay – along wid whinging ol’ talk such as “So yuh does treat yuh fren an’ famaly boi?” - you will then be the recipient of a concentrated volley of four letter word expletives – including directions about which cliff to jump off and the appropriate posture to take whilst diving (normally head first).

That’s it! You take it or you leave it – in the words of Volney and KPB. All further questions to be directed to the people who created Skype (else you risk treatment very similar to 8.2 above).

Embarrassment and Shame!!!!

Oh Gawd

Ah tink we need Gawd more to geh rid ah dis embarrassment more than we need Gawd to free we from corruption and crime. Really, anything at all ever was this shameful? Meh teeth ‘edge’ watching this.

Changing world

The world, as we know it, has become infinitely smaller. Twenty years ago, I had to write ‘snail mail’ (letters by hand, routed through the postal system) and wait a month or six weeks for a response. now, we have email, text messages, MMS messages, Skype, WhatsApp, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. This changing world has made contact a different ‘dance’ if you will.

Which brings me to my rant this morning.

Lately, I’ve been getting ‘friend’ requests from people I don’t know, usually friends of friends. Not that it’s a bad thing, it does increase the ‘social’ network, but me being the Grumpy Old Man that I am, I ask myself, “What’s the point?”

My ire is raised because:

1) These are persons I will never meet.

2) I do not know them, will never know them, and have no interest in knowing them.

3) Accepting a ‘friend’ request merely means a person added to a list but with no further attempt at communicating. No messages, no emails, no contact…

Alternatively, some of the requests come from people I went to school with, more than 3 decades ago... I have never had contact with them since, never intend to contact them, and we weren’t friends even back then. So.. why?!

It’s inconceivable to me that I would be even remotely interested in renewing or maintaining contact.

But flashing through my mind, is “What is going through theirs?!”

I cannot fathom the workings of a mind of what could quite possibly be a deranged person… or am I just paranoid?

As a Grumpy Old Man too, I raise my eyebrows, because clearly, coming from married women (mainly), there is no nookie involved. Heh Heh. But the puzzling part is, why would a woman, married and with kids, want to contact an unknown man? I mean, how would your husband take that?

I think maybe the world is changing too fast for me, and I can’t keep up. Sigh.

Two great addons for Gmail users.

Say you want to set up for an email to be sent at a certain time, in the future, but you don’t want the hassle of having to remember or do this manually.

Say you’re a control freak or a pretend one and you really need to know when your ‘victim’ opens your email that you sent last night.

Or say you wanna know when they clicked a link in an email you sent them!

What do you do?!!

Well – there are two great addons that can help.

1. Rightinbox
2. Boomerang

Errh.. you gotta click thuh links to see what they’re about! Duhhhh!!

Nope? Don’t need it – press on.

Misplaced loyalty–Our penchant for poor language skills

Again, a reposting of a worthy article.

I should like to respond to Winford James' column in the Express of March 15 headlined "Licensed to speak Trinbagonian''.

The sentiments expressed in it, and especially in the headline can have a serious negative effect on the efforts of English teachers  throughout this country who are trying against serious odds to help their students master the skills of reading, writing and speaking Standard English as it is used in Trinidad and Tobago. This article is likely to add another disincentive to those students who are reluctant to make the effort to acquire Standard English on the ground that they are now, like Dr James, "licensed to speak Trinbagonian". 

One of the regrettable features of this article is that Dr James does not state where and when he is "licensed to speak Trinbagonian''.  He certainly is free to speak it in Tobago, almost anywhere, even in the Tobago House of Assembly, if he wants. But his license to speak Tobagonian with impunity is limited to the Tobagonian speech community in which he so proudly boasts, with some justification, I suppose, to have been socialised. 

Once a speaker moves out of his native speech community, however, he must adapt his speech to the standards of the new speech community if he wants to make maximum communication and to avoid being identified as an outsider by his speech patterns and pronunciation, not to mention his accent.

Given that there are several different speech communities co-existing in our nation, it is necessary for speakers to acquire at least an operating knowledge of more than one of these so as to be able to socialise with a wider range of the population. 

It is also necessary for all speakers to develop a proficiency in the use of the main language of official discourse in the country, the language in which an understanding of the outside world is communicated to our people and in which our children are educated. It is puerile to cast aspersions on those who seek to attain a mastery of standard English and put down those who would help us on the way to a greater appreciation and awareness of where our efforts fall short of acceptable international standards.

I come now to Dr James' postulation that Mr Dookeran's use of the commonly used pronunciation  for the word "licence",(lie sn) (Dr James' phonetic spelling) is the result of his "apocopating a noun" which he explains for us lesser mortals, as "trimming its plural looking end and pluralising it by adding the English plural suffix "s".  He goes on to explain that "licence" has an "s" sound at the end, which has a pluralising function in English. This is just so much quasi-academic fiddle-addle.

"Licence'' does not have a plural looking ending. It has a plural sounding ending, as Dr James points out himself.  Words with a plural looking ending include: "innings'', "series'' and "species'', all of which are rendered by several writers, and many students without their final "s'' when they attempt to use them as singular nouns. But words like defence, offence, incense, pretense all have plural sounding endings but not plural looking endings, (they do not end in an "s'') and are never subjected by our speakers to any "apocopation" to use the new word so generously given to me by the learned columnist.

No.  Mr Dookeran did not engage in any clipping of the plural sounding end of the word licence.  He pronounced the word (lie sn) because that was the word for that document or permission in common use by his speech community. It is a pronunciation that was common to probably the majority of speech communities all over Trinidad.   

When I was growing up, we all knew that those of us fortunate enough to have bicycles had to (lie sn) their bikes before the police charged them for riding an (unlie sn) bicycle on the public road. We knew that the owner of the rum shop had to have a liquor (lie sn)  and that later on in life, we had to apply for a (lie sn) to sell alcohol at a public fete. (Lie snz) were part and parcel of our growing up. We heard and used the word long before we ever saw it in print. 

Some of the more fortunate  members of our group who went to schools which engaged in regular spelling quizzes would have learnt that this word, so regularly pronounced (lie sn), was really spelt "licence" and we lauded the new knowledge over our less fortunate playmates. The point I am making is that the language of a speech community is essentially an oral one and that words like  toolum, chataign, kaimet, grugru, grigri, pomesetay, potigal, paymee, provisions, making message, drivay, making/breaking biche, macomere, compere, poitik, lagniappe, kalpet, tri-aye (the fore-runner of jacks) and rounders were all words that were part of the social life of the times that hardly ever saw life on a printed page. Some of them have not survived, others have stayed the course with rather different spellings.

Some of the younger members of that speech community have, by dint of education at various levels, have acquired some, or many, or most, of the language skills of Standard English.  They can still operate in the dialect of the speech community of their youth.  But they have learned that every community has a legitimate area of functioning and operates best with the language in which they are most competent to perform. 

They have learned to discriminate. They have learned when the dialect of their youth is no longer appropriate in certain places and on certain occasions, and thankfully they have the linguistic skills required for them to perform competently in the more formal arena.

To hold on to the dialect pronunciation of certain words when the standard English version is preferable, simply because it is the  part of the language that one was socialised  is to pay a misplaced and exaggerated sense of loyalty to a mere accident of our upbringing. To have such a sentiment transferred to our youth today is a decidedly backward step.

Clive B Borely is an educator

Press censorship – Positive proof

[Compare New] PM's MONEY REFUSED Comparison

The above is a comparison of today’s main Express story as it was this morning at around 6:00 AM my time in England, and now as it is at 11:50 AM. The highlighted bits are what is currently missing, or changed. You will notice that even the story has been fiddled with.

This is not the first time I have noticed this, but it is the first time I have actually compared the documents I saved at different times… and the results clearly show the Express has some sort of hidden agenda in hiding the comments that reflect negatively on this government

By comparison, Manning was a rank amateur when it came to press censorship.

The Jumbie’s Watch Android App

Always at the cutting edge, we present you with the official Jumbie’s Watch application for your android based handheld computing device (phone, tablet or whatever that runs android). Kindly replace your wallet or cheque book – it’s free! [You are responsible for your internet connection charges as usual]
Why this app? Cuz the app is only 110 kb, and puts you in instant contact with JW. No more having to load up a browser and then select a bookmark  for JW. Now you can just click our app once and you’re with us! How cool is that!!
There are two views each coming with full zoom functions, and auto-rotate. Yes and you can interact and post comments on the blog from this app.  Get it HERE! [To install transfer it to a folder in your phone, then click to install]

Mobile view	Full site view

what phone and provider

I’m thinking about phones and services providers at the moment. It’s not just about the phone. It is also about best value for money the two taken into together.

The Cap likes a logical analysis of these things and to be directed by logic instead of what’s popular. Oh – the other thing is that if you’re in the UK you’re normally tied in for 18 – 24 months on a contract phone unless you want to go PAYG. So if you go contract – you gotta live with your choice of phone and provider for quite a long time. It’s like a marriage, sort of – except that you can’t just upgrade your marriage with a snap of the fingers – well unless you’re name is Britney Spears or sumfink. The conclusion arising from this post is not apparent. There’s a surprise near the end.

Right – I’m considering two leading phones. Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Iphone4. A few minutes looking at the video comparisons can save you hours of headaches and unnecessary trouble down the road. Again it’s like a marriage – check that potential mate out very properly, for potential troubles years later. Yuh know – after the wedding ring comes the ‘suffer-ring’. Oh gorm! Glad you’re still with me.

SGS2 wins overall though IP4 is better in certain areas. Note that you cannot change battery on IP4 without screwdrivers etc.. and that could affect warranty depending on provider. SGS battery change can be done in under 5 seconds (by just slipping off the back cover–no screwdrivers). I always carry 2 spare batteries if I’m out and about. My IP4 colleagues are always groaning about their battery problems.

Ok – would I buy a SGS2, if I had to choose a phone today? Logic actually dictates that I would not! That may be a surprise for many but I will explain.

1. Both the SGS2 and IP4 have had worrying power management issues, leading to rapid battery drain. It is difficult to know the precise percentage of owners who are so affected for each phone.
2. The competition between Samsung and Iphone is so fierce now that anything you buy today will be outmoded in about 6 months – keep that in mind. IPhone5 is already around the corner. And I’m sure Samsung has an answer to that!

So – what on earth would I buy if I had to, today? Actually I would buy a Samsung Galaxy S1 (not the S2)!!! Why? And you’re probably wondering why I would go for the older model. It’s based on what I know from direct experience of SGS1 – and that obviously puts me at some bias in favour of SGS1. But my reasons are as follows:

1. Power management is very good.
2. It does all that it says.
3. I don’t take many night shots so I don’t miss the LED flash that the new S2 has.
4. I really can be bothered with high powered video content like on the S2 the max setting on S1 for video is quite good quality as it is.
5. The big plus for SGS1 is that it’s operating system has been tweaked by a number of very good developers out there.. so its processing power can be enhanced within about 30 mins (with very little technical expertise needed – really).

Now leave the matter of phone to one side! Provider is the next big issue. I am also biased in favour of Three in the following way:

1. Totally unlimited broadband/internet connection (my average usage over last few months was 17GB/month. I do a fair amount of video and audio downloads).
2. Great broadband speeds of around 3Mb/s but as high as 6.5Mb/s
3. 5000 – three to three network calls
4. 2000 min any landline/any mobile network calls.
5. 5000 texts

The SGS1 phone and the above are included for £30/month (inclusive of VAT) – for a 24 month contract. Today I personally checked an Orange Mobile phone shop. They have nothing that comes near to that package for that price!

Contribution by reader

Bad English irks me, especially if not written in dialect or slang but in a ‘formal’ environment. This morning, I received an email from a reader which highlights bad English posted in the comments section at the Express. Kudos to the diligence of this reader. Here are some examples pointed out.

 

THE EDITOR: As a nation we are beseeched besieged with controversy (Dexter Rigsby – Newsday – June 1^st 2011

 

June 3^rd 2011

 

Kevin no lie: June 3: yuh tieing tying yourself up, nome nom de plume; What rules were bended bent

 

imbertneedstilt: what you all of have said

 

The AG layed laid it out on the table

 

KNIGHT AT NIGHT

 

Give Jack their his Jacket; worst sinario scenario ;

 

IONGOD:

You do your dammed you’re damned

 

D_Interested:

he should have disqualify disqualified Gopaul

 

LOGICc:

The contract is scraped scrapped

 

rescolaclement

what a looser loser looks like; I hold heartedly agree; definaitely no bail

 

massiah1: Peter we know each other by face and by name and by waive and right o

 

whiterose1:

a chauveinistic pig; to take over the reigns

 

 

illario: to indite indict the feelings of others who understand clearly that there is no virtue in the practise only error, there their hope will come to nought.

 

 

asrealasit get:

You win some, you loose some

 

Saturday June 4^th 2011

 

MrMindset 57

hush your tie-tounge tongue mopsy mouth.

 

Wensdae 44

parliamentary previliges privileges; COP must get ready to seize the reigns reins;

 

Karlspinner

he continues to sew sow the seeds of mischief; He will keep throwing them out untill something sticks;

 

ac_360

Maybe if you won't weren’t so arrogant you'd learn some ethics and values from Mr Ramadhar.

 

Maturedteacher

The alleged act was committed

 

IONGOD

Who are these people trying to kidd?

 

Shortman

If you read yesterday you will of would have seen

 

charlo56

ITS IS SO HARD for you to except accept the facts

 

watch_woman55

we need someone who is willing and have has the strength

 

diegotodebone

a good way to perverse preserve press freedom

 

arimadon

As a geologist, Rowley, is surely making leaving 'no stone uncovered

 

bajanandy

they take what ever whatever you have of value ,weather it be chain

 

June 5^th 2011

 

Maturedteacher

 

we see people waddling through these waters and cars serpentining snaking their way through the flooded pathways

 

 

frostynob

sounds like Jack bought an add in the Express

 

poorperformers

Before I am inundated with replies

 

June 6^th 2011

 

ttposter

jack the camelion chameleon

 

LOGICc

your wish not coming through true.

 

aleiah3030

she either wanted to waist waste police time

 

June 7^th 2011

 

ROCKSTARTT

" celebrations " tends to get out of hand where the excessive consumption of strong liquor

 

patriot_tt

And they obviously have people who know about he ware abouts her whereabouts

 

phillnoir

i never strayed from the basic tenants tenets.

 

reverlator

Anyone who knows of the alledged act

 

Countryboy1

Patos tolerated no descent dissent from his troops and on the other

 

poorperformers

so please retrack retract this.

 

There was an attempt to retrack retract the headline

 

June 8^th 2011

 

Dr_ Rat

That is welcoming welcome news.

who invested everything they had at the bekon beck and call

 

I'm just hoping at this stage now that the cat is out of the bag, that they have ceased seized all of his money and assets so he can't "grab and run."

 

strokerdragon

 

These guys should be jailed and there their assets siezed seized just like

 

think twice about committing these types of crimes. Only hope they also sue Harry Harrinarine for all the HCU money he thief.

 

Moruga man

was Permiell calling for the Goverenor to go when the Governor was saying  … what he should be saying now is thank you Governor and Central bank because

 

June 9^th 2011

 

Kevin_no_lie

 

The media should now boycott Kamliar since she appears to use them conveniently for her PR gimmicktry.

 

June 13^th 2011

 

Saffron_Rice

 

Finally Tobagonians would be able to get rid of the yolk yoke that is called London

 

Ayeshanina

Don't hold your breadth!

 

DR_Rat

Tobago was different from Trinidad and it was a sepearate body … it is high time, we start Treating Tobago as if there was no water sepearating them..

 

Ivor_St_Hill

Annoying Tobago sufficiently to increase the number of Tobagonians wanting independaence from Trinidad

tizzeny

What is interesting to note is that the Office of PM is not beholdern to anyone

 

Whiterose01

It appears that the aggressive behaviours of some of your Cabinet Ministers are roubbing off on you

 

Patriot_tt

Politics aside, what she did hear here is very disrespectful both …the precedent she is setting will have reprocussions repercussions for Tobago …

 

Poorperformers

Con't - Last but not least PM your true colours are now showing this is another faux paus

 

June 14^th 2011

Reverlator

 

She moves … to underminde; he Prime Minister is being dictatorial, abusive and out of order in her most recent move to underminde the THA!; What you worship is what you become! (Soca, Chutney, money, religious triaditions and more).

 

IzaTrinigyul

Fire again! Apparaently we have a bunch of pyromaniacs

 

NIXZLOU

Well DNA, should play a big roll role here, these scums shouldn't be 

 

TriniNEWYORKER

 

tie them up in there their village naked on a pole and then cut off there their thing with an 

 

Dr_Rat

However, the lazaffere laissez-faire attitude toward bringing charges on those indivuiduals will have severe reamifications for almost every 

On duncey behaviour

A series of exchanges on the Express website that completely supports my view on why dunces (as opposed to dunceys) on the Rock prevent progression.

gifted wrote:

i realise that you are ALI S family but let me correct some aspects of your misleading statement... firstly the FIU cannot grant firearm licences, the COP is the only person with this authority... secondly.. a police officer can enter into any premises without a warrant and arrest any person once he has reasonable information that an arrestable offence is being committed or has been committed thereon and it would be impractable at the time of receiving that information for the police to obtain a warrant to search...eg you leave your 16 yr old sister at home, bandits break into the home and raping your sister, police get that info, your reasoning is that they should go and look for a warrant or try to find you before they go and get this bandit [Note spelling]

Jumbie’s Watch response:

a police officer can enter into any premises without a warrant and arrest any person once he has reasonable information that an arrestable offence is being committed or has been committed thereon and it would be impractable at the time of receiving that information for the police to obtain a warrant to search.

Can you provide your source for this info? I am currently reading the Police Service Act and I can find no such thing written in it.

gifted wrote:

if you had gone through the act, section 35 [ b] , think this section deals with p o duties and 36 if i remember correctly would have answered your question

Jumbie’s Watch response:

You misremember. Sections 35 and 36 deal with recognition of an appropriate Association.

Section 45 (b)(c)(d) deals with summary offences. This is different from indictable offences or 'either way' offences. No mention is made of arrest within the privacy of one's home, as a right guaranteed under the constitution.

Section 46(1) states, and I quote: A police office may arrest without a warrant ---

(a) a person who is charged by another person with committing aggravated assault in any case which a police officer believes upon reasonable ground that such assault has been committed although not within his view, and by reason of the recent commission of the offence a warrant could not have been obtained for the offender;

Nothing in this suggests a police officer can enter into any premises without a warrant and arrest any person once he has reasonable information that an arrestable offence is being committed or has been committed thereon and it would be impractable at the time of receiving that information for the police to obtain a warrant to search.

"a person who is charged by another person with committing aggravated assault" means a complaint has to be made. And only for aggravated assault, not for 'any ‘arrestable offence’ [sic]

The assault must be 'aggravated'. And the assault must be 'recent'.

Instead of being 'gifted' you merely sound like a typical 3 O level duncey who failed in the school system, joined the police service and we expect them to learn law.

You amply demonstrate the ignorance of why the Police Service cannot and will not rise above its present state.

• First, you cannot remember the correct legislation to charge.
• Second, you cannot interpret the language it is written in.
• Third, you ascribe your own meaning to the written statute.
• Fourth, you are wrong and won't admit it. Instead you want to be wrong and strong, typical duncey behaviour.

We can see now why so many cases are thrown out and the dunceys have a 3.65% solve rate for crime.

This folks, is why we have dunceys failing time and time again. I admit, I have no evidence gifted is a duncey (right Capitan?!) but his defence, language and mannerisms provide strong circumstantial evidence.

It is his attitude that I abhor though. If dunceys carry this attitude as outlined in my four points above, no wonder the Rock is in deep shit!!

Nice li’le set up

Well yes.. dee Cap real good oui. See dat simple shot below.

That is my 22-inch computer screen  attached to the wall in my bedroom. The cables go to the computer which is on the floor and out of sight.

Sub-woofer is below the bed!! Computer and sound are controlled by wireless mouse and keyboard.

On top the screen sits my video-cam. So Cap can video conference from comfort of the bed. [Ah few perverts gettin’ some strange perverted ideas as we speak. I jes know it.]

That picture on the screen is TV. Double clicking on the TV display will make TV into a smaller (resizeable) window, so I can check emails etc on the side. Many TV sets suffer by reflecting light sources in rooms. This screen is much better than a dedicated TV, because it does not reflect light coming through windows or any bulb in the room. That was the first very noticeable thing.

This set up allows me to view a TV channel while recording on another. Or I can view and listen to two at the same time. Flipping through channels is done by rolling the mouse wheel.

This computer can stream sound or video to any other computer on the home wireless network.

Why did I do this? Well although I can go out there and buy 5 of the latest TV sets, I doh like was’ing money. The setup above gives really good TV quality. I mean one o’ them fancy TV out there of the same size screen would probably cost at least £800. I did the above for only £30.

One KIK ass app!!

Well, here’s another story – as usual you have to wait a  bit. Nothing comes easy wid dee Cap. When the Cap was using Skype and barking at the likes of Jumbie, no one was listening. Here we go again. Now the Cap is barking about KiK – it go take a few two years to catch on – watch yuh go see. I’m so ahead of my time eh – I can’t believe it myself sometimes.

Now catch up or not on KiK!! Yes – yuh cyah read or what, KiK. Yuh want one or wot? Yes – it works on nearly any phone even if it doesn’t have Kik – how yuh like dat.

Click dee pictchure below and load dis on yuh HCD (aka handheld computing device). And guess what you can use dis t’ing wid any phone too.

Oh and get this Blackberry is so concerned about this app, that they are delaying messages to BBM by one hour!! This thing is hot!!

Thinking - A learnable skill

I know I am going to catch some flack from the Captain for this… (^_^)

Some years ago, I started a BSc (Hons) in ICT. After all, I had been in the IT field for nearly 12 years. I thought that I’d ‘formalise’ my knowledge and get some ‘higher’ paperwork to go along with my experience. Eventually I opted out. The reasons for this are twofold:

1. As part of my degree I had to work in a group. I was the only mature student in my group. The others were on average about 20 to 21 years old and fresh out of high school. Their core education was sadly lacking. I will link you back to a previous post to show you the level of work that the group submitted. My contribution to this assignment was three pages long and was one fifth of the assignment. That was completely deleted by the person compiling the assignment. My response to this was literally tears when I saw this submission.  I resubmitted the entire assignment, all five parts - within 24 hours, and obtained 78% grade. The frustration I experienced prompted me to switch degrees. I approached my tutor and told him in no uncertain terms that "I was not carrying monkeys on my back" during the course of my degree, since I felt strongly that any work of a higher level submitted would be mine and that the others would be earning passing grades on my work. Additionally, any work of a lower standard than mine would drag my own grades down.

2. The Captain had sent me a test designed by Harvard University which was supposed to measure what career is best suited for an individual - or something like that. I was a bit shocked that - despite being in engineering (electrical and electronic) and IT for approximately 23 years - I actually scored lowest in these fields, barely over 20%. I scored roughly around 50% in terms of being a journalist/writer/medicine. And a whopping 86% in law.
   
   Now the Captain has been after me to study law for approximately 3 years. As he put it, I am "more legally minded at my age than he was at the same age." It took him around two years to persuade me, which I know personally frustrates him to no end. He claims I have "a two-year turnaround time", which does have some basis in truth. I can personally attest to the fact that, when readers think the Capt is being unduly harsh on me on this blog, he is actually moulding my untrained mind. Hard as it is!
   
   For those who do not know me personally, I am now entered in my second year of a part-time law degree (with an 82% average on my assignments). Mainly thanks to the Captain, who is like an irritating leech on my arse. And despite the many arguments online, I am indeed grateful to the Captain. And yes, I have thanked him time and time again.

Darn it! After writing all the background, I forgot why I started writing this post!

I remember now… Since starting my law degree, my reading material has changed considerably. I find that I am hardly interested in pulp fiction, or my old reading materials (which was extremely wide ranging). I am a lot more interested in self-development and critical thinking materials. I freely admit that I am a novice.

The Captain has surely been here before, but I have only recently discovered Edward de Bono, cited as one of the foremost thinkers in the world. He is the originator of the term lateral thinking and promotes creative thinking. I am currently reading "Think!: Before it is too late".

I have yet to read the entire book but I did come across something that blew my mind. De Bono stated that perception may perhaps be more important than logic. He also said that humour is far more significant than reason. As yet, I am not entirely sure what he means. This will take some digesting but perhaps an illustration may help:

A 90-year-old man dies and goes to hell. Wandering around, he meets a friend of similar age, sitting with a very attractive young woman on his knee.

"Are you sure that this is hell?", he asked. "You seem to be having a very good time."

The friend replies, "It sure is. I am her punishment."

In this illustration, the change in perception and humour cause a change in thinking… And we're able to see the logic presented.

I shall continue to explore this.