Triplesourced

Ok – so there is the long tail – and then there's the looooooonnnnng tail. Internet economics mean that almost any niche is a market but come on – a site that specialises in making LEGO brick recreations of iPod-related events?

Well, it seems that someone is buying this stuff and if you see yourself as a potential punter then check out podbrix.com.

The latest set recreates the early days of Apple with Steves Wozniak and Jobs tinkering around in a computer lab. Despite the detail – someone seems to have forgotten Jobs' turtleneck – but maybe he wasn't wearing one back then?

Last month I posted some pics of an exhibition I attended at Camberwell art college of some interesting ceramics of degraded computers and mice.

I received this reply from the artist - Jehan E. Haddad who is keen to point out that she is not anti-technology - which I may have implied in my earlier posting.

Dear Andrew,

First I would like to thank you for your interest regarding my work. Recently my sister came across your web-site by chance and told me about your article, so I thought I should write to you and thank you.

I am glad you attended and enjoyed the exhibition at Camberwell.
It’s very kind of you to offer a space on your blog and to open a debate regarding the subject of my work.

You quoted a small part of my statement, which unfortunately doesn’t give the full meaning of the pieces. If I may I would like to seize the opportunity to explain the full concept of my work.

Laptops/computers have become an important means to store data but as powerful as they are, I believe that not only they hold a risk of loss of information due to hackers and computer viruses “the reason why my objects are eaten from within”, but also we have become too reliant on them that they diminish other aspects of our cultural heritage such as writing. Few people write letters nowadays and with it the voice of the handwritten letter is disappearing. Documenting and referencing has changed too. One seems to spend so much time making back ups in case of loss. Also I believe there will come a day when it will be hard or impossible to retrieve saved data because of the rapid change in the technological machinery, which would result in so much loss.

I am not against modern technology but I see a rapid advance that is not necessarily always for the best. I do admit the internet and computers have made communication much easer and faster.

Image No.2 is a purposely made beautiful object as laptops are but, I am also referring to the idea of received seductive and colourful emails and documents which quite often are concealed viruses. These I have portrayed as a lacy screen image yet at close viewing it is the names of viruses from 1960 to 2002.

I hope I have managed to explain my work further and once again thank you for your interest, hope to see you in future exhibitions.

Jehan E. Haddad

Some good news from Pisco – site of some of the worst damage from last week's earthquake in Peru which killed 500 people and left 200,000 homeless. We covered the work of telecom engineer charity Telecoms Sans Frontieres earlier this week which is tasked with re-connecting communications links in disaster zones.

TSF have released some more information on how the project is progressing and some touching pictures showing the importance of their work which allows disaster victims to contact friends and loved ones.

TSF's Oisin Walton writes: "Our humanitarian calling operations for survivors of the quake continue in Pisco to allow people to call their loved-ones outside the affected area and abroad. Already more than 600 affected families have been able to make a call.

On Friday, a TSF team is travelling to a mountainous region situated at 4 500 meters altitude and uncovered by traditional communication networks. Our team will enable civilians living in this remote region affected by the quake to give news on the situation and request personalized assistance.

Since TSF deployed from its Americas base in Nicaragua, only 24 hours after the disaster, 17 aid agencies such as the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination teams (UNDAC), the World Food Programme, the International Federation of the Red Cross, Oxfam or Médecins du Monde Spain used TSF’s two communication centres in Pisco."

Despite the fact that its rolling in profits – brought about to some degree by squeezing out costs to the business by getting customers in interact online and thus eliminating those pesky overheads associated with branches and face to face customer service – it seems HSBC doesn't have the cash to maintain a truly seamless web service.

The bank's website has been experiencing problems this morning which it claims could take some time to resolve. Customers – including me – are having problems logging in – which the lady at the helpdesk I phoned attributed to "technical issues" but wasn't any more forthcoming on what exactly these are.

To be fair, HSBC's site has a pretty good uptime – not sure of exactly how many 9's we are talking about – but this is the first serious outage I have seen for a while. That said, with the rise of spoofing and fishing, any glitches can set the security alarm bells ringing. While no service can be truly seamless, being down for an hour or more is just unacceptable, mirroring and back-up systems should mean that service is maintained even if there are problems in one data centre. Makes you wonder where all those profits are going exactly?

Still it’s a blessing in disguise I guess as it buys me some more time before I have to confront the massive dent my holiday has undoubtedly made in my bank account.