Updates from Ed Ross

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who's flag is this? Red triangles either side with black and white stripes either side

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Board games from charity shops

Have you ever bought a board game from a charity shop? I bought this adaptation of the classic Defender arcade game today, only to find a few vital parts of the game were missing when I opened it up at home. I guess I should have checked before I bought it, but at 75p, it was worth the risk.
Anyone want to buy a slightly not-all-there Defender board game from me?

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Top nine Podcasts I like

I've been listening to podcasts for the last few years. I've listened to some for a while then stopped, and some I've consistently listened to.
Here are a few I recommend:

Tech
Christian
  • Lifespring!: The first non-church sermon Christian podcast, which has now spawned a variety of other Lifespring! podcasts.
  • Mosaic: A "community of followers of Jesus Christ, committed to live by faith, to be known by love, and to be a voice of hope".
  • Mars Hill Church: Mark Driscoll Audio: A great speaker on many topics. They are currently on a multi-year look at the book of Luke.
Other
Hope you have a good time listening to them. Do you have any top podcasts? If so, which, and why?
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Which microphone should I buy, and why?

I've recently received some Amazon vouchers, so think I should get a new microphone (especially useful to help improve my audio in the podcast I co-host: Geeks and God). I've done a bit of research myself, but I'm interested in your views: what should I get? Maybe a Blue Snowball or Yeti? Or something else? What should I get, and why?
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Delivering Happiness, and the circus (for @dhbook )

Last Friday evening, my wife and I went to see the Moscow State Circus. I have to say, it was perhaps the best set of acrobatic acts I've ever seen (even better than Spelbound). I don't know how long they practice each stunt for, but I would imagine it takes up a significant portion of their life. It got me thinking about how a circus acrobat is somewhat like an entrepreneur, especially one like Tony Hsieh, who's book "Delivering Happiness" comes out today.

A few weeks ago, I noticed Tony was offering bloggers the chance to receive a free preview copy of the book so they could write about it on their blog, so here is my contribution to the cause:

Unfortunately I haven't managed to read the whole thing yet (I'm about half way though), but what I have read so far has been very interesting and inspiring. The way this ties in with circus performing is this:
The performers were taking their life in their hands, leaping in mid-air, sometimes without a safety net: if their footing or timing was off by a fraction, they'd probably fall to the floor leading to serious consequences. In the same way, Tony and his business partners put their whole financial wellbeing on the line for their company. If they'd failed, they would have come to a sticky end financially. Just as the circus performer had to put everything they had into their performance, Tony had to invest everything he had into his company.

I've not read as far into the book to read the result, but I know from hearing the news what the result was. If you don't know, lets just say: it was good.

Having listened to other talks by Tony, and reading the book, I know the main focus of his company (Zappos) has been customer service. This seems to have resulted in a very successful company, winning accolades in the industry. The customer service focus is displayed though events like the recent pricing error on sister site 6pm.com, where they decided to honour prices that had been offered by mistake.

I'm seriously impressed by Zappos/Tony's attitude. I don't buy shoes very often, and Zappos don't deliver to the UK, but if I was in America, I'd probably try them out. They even stock up to UK size 21, so even circus clowns could buy shoes there!

Buy the book: Amazon UK / Amazon US
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Reply to Jon

Jon H replied to me last week, so here are my responses:

yes, more India stuff please!

Ok, I'll see what I can do.

like to know what languages they have there (must be quite a few right?) 

India has lots of languages. Wikipedia has a list of the languages of India if you'd like to check. I'm pretty sure there are many more spoken in local areas too.

Do Hindus and Muslims generally get on ok?

Personally, I didn't see anything to make me think otherwise, but then I didn't see a lot of what happens in day to day life outside of what we were there to do. You might want to check out the history of the area and the creation of India/Pakistan for a wider view of this question.

I know theres lots of IT pros there, is their much innovation on software or hardware developed there?

Seems so.

Outside of your India, I am interested in cloud computing, specifcally google documents. 

You might like Lifehacker's Google Docs articles and Google's Google Docs blog, as well as the This Week in Google podcast.

I am about to undertake a project to replace a small office with outlook/pop3 mail with corp gmail

You might want to take a look at "Migrating a Family to Google Apps from Gmail, Thunderbird, Outlook and others: The Definitive Guide". Let us know how the move goes.

Anyone else got any requests? What do you want me to write about? Do you have any questions for me to answer?
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What do you want from me?

Do you still want me to talk about the photos from India? They're all available online already: photos from India 1 and photos from India 2 - maybe you could just look through them and comment on ones you want me to explain more? It's been over a year since I was there - maybe it is time to move on to more current topics.
Who are you anyway? Why are you reading my blog?

Who am I talking to?

What are you interested in? What are you working on? What excites you and what do you want to talk about?
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Technology used and seen in India

I hope you're all well. This week, I'd like to do a round-up of the technology I used/saw in India, with photos from my Indian photos collection:

As I've probably mentioned here before, India is a country of contrast. At the same time as having an amazing mobile phone network (I never had to worry about not getting signal, like I did back at the UK YWAM base), they still use pumps to get water in many areas.

In many places we went, VCD players (I'm pretty sure they were just VCD, not DVD, but I might be wrong) were used as sound systems, just plugging in to sound desks. This one was at an orphanage we went to for children with Aids who's parents had died from Aids. This time, it was connected to a TV.

The house where we stayed had many satellite dishes on the roof. I think only one of them was still in use though. TV seems to be as prevalent there as anywhere else though - even houses with just  a couple of rooms would have a TV.

I can kind-of understand why Pepsi would join up with another company for this campaign, but I don't know why they still went for an address with .html at the end of it. So much easier to tell people a standard URL - and the site just redirects to a different domain anyway!

This is the wireless Internet key we used to get online for most of the trip. Wireless just makes sense in India: no need to dig up thousands of miles of countryside when you can beam the signals in the air. It would have been nice if it was a bit more stable though. We each had an hour a week (or there-abouts) to get online, and you could pretty much guarantee you'd have to reconnect at least once in that time. But hey - at least we had some Internet access at the house, and didn't have to travel to get to it!

I like the depth of this image. I'm not sure how often anyone comes out to read the meter though!

I would think having an uninterruptible power supply in India would be a very good idea.

Quite a lot of places had wind turbines for electricity generation. More power to them.

I'm not sure there is any technology this stand could have to convince me to use it: an outside dentist!

I don't think we'd be allowed to use camels for large-object-transportation in the west!

One of the many mobile phone towers. They really were everywhere.

These light switches are in the court yard outside the house Gandhi was born in. You are not allowed to take photos inside the house.

I don't think this pay-phone actually ran on Unix, but I could be wrong!

Pretty much all the the power gadgets I bought with me: an extension cable for extra sockets, a battery charger for my camera, behind the mosquito plug is a converter that allowed the Indian mosquito plug to plug in to my UK extension cable, and my universal plug converter, which also doubled as a USB charger for my phone.

I was pretty lucky to be able to bring my phone with me: DTS students are not really meant to bring their phone with them, but I was allowed as it had a spreadsheet program on it, and I was doing the team's accounts, so it was useful for keeping track of spending. It also meant I could send a text a day to my girlfriend. I became quite proficient at text-speak: cutting out vowels and using numbers as shorthand for groups of letters. It was also useful when we were in areas with wireless Internet access, as I could connect with my phone, meaning other people could use  the computer with Internet access.

I'm not sure what this man was saying, but he was certainly taking advantage of amplification technology to say it.

Overall, I'd say you don't really need to worry about having a lot of technology with you for ministry. In fact, sometimes it could be a barrier. However, it also enabled a lot of activities we wouldn't have been able to do without it. For example, just having a CD to play during a skit made the whole experience better (instead of us having to sing along to provide musical backing).

Being able to blog during my journey with Posterous was also great: it enabled me to use my email account to blog: all I did (and still do now), is write an email, and it gets added as a blog entry - and then the link to the entry gets added to Twitter, and Facebook, which helped me update people on what I was doing.

Don't forget, if you have comments or questions, there is a comments box underneath this post where you can add anything you'd like (within reason).
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Food and drink of India: photos

Well, after last week's delve into some of the harsher sides of India, I thought it would be good to bring it back to something more enjoyable. There are many photos of my meals in the Indian photos collection, but here is a selection of culinary delights from India:

This was probably one of the most up-market meals I had: the other guy on the team and I took our first host out to a local hotel for a meal. He knew a nice place, and the "all you can eat" buffet was certainly nicer than the one I had from an Indian restaurant a few weeks ago back in England.

Fish wasn't really my thing.

Seeing how it was sold at a local shop-hut was interesting though!

Butter in a cardboard box: not seen that before.

Ice lollies also came in boxes! They were nice in the heat.

One day we went out to find some local villagers to help. My partner and I found a house and the lady asked us to chop some vegetables and cook them with noodles. She then served it all back to us! That wasn't the point, though it was certainly tasty.

This is a very nice meal. The bread is great. The curry is tasty, and the banana ands a fantastic fruitiness. Oh, the bread: I could get through a few of those circles!

One of the breakfast variations: corn flakes and French toast. Nice (though the corn flakes had a slightly burnt taste to them).

The Dairy milk had a few extra layers between the chocolate and the outside world.

I'm not sure how many Indian's would have the bandwidth required to enjoy Youngistaan. 

One day we went out and had a Chinese meal. I guess the best Chinese chefs don't stray far from China, as this was fantastically tasty.

Our hosts cooked a BBQ: again, the food was great.

More of that bread: this time being used like a tissue to hold the BBQ chicken.

The other guy on the course and I also went out with our second host. The hotel we went to this time served Fish and Chips to start with.

Then they moved on a to selection of wonderful curries and other food.

Kid's drinks came in pouches. Our closest equivalent is probably Capri-Sun - without the straw.

This was an interesting, traditional breakfast: soft rice cakes with a selection of curry-like sauces.

In the UK, Fish and Chips comes in newspaper from a take-away (or used to, anyway). In India, rice does!

A lady we met in the village showed us how she made bread, the traditional way.....

....the moment was changed when we saw the dough came from this packet though!

The end result was very tasty. And it had shown something about the Indian culture: part way through cooking, the gas had run out, so we took the food to another house, and the lady there let us continue cooking. No pre-arranging was needed: we just turned up and shared what we had.

The meal on one of the trains. Slight more substantial than train food here, though harder to eat on a train!

If you are ever in India, try a bottle of Limca. A nice lemon and lime drink from Coca-cola.

The only time I got ill in India was after eating some western food: this pizza.

I think they should try some of those in western McDonald's, and not just leave them in Delhi!

This meal made me happy and sad all at the same time: happy that I was eating something very tasty, but sad that it was just appealing to a western palate, as we were in Delhi and it might as well have been London.

This is one of the waiters in that restaurant though: a cowboy and Indian simultaneously!

I had these cheese and tomato toasted sandwich on the way up to the Taj Mahal, in a rest-stop on the way. It was possibly the most expensive sandwich (compared to the rest of the trip), I had. They really put the prices up on the way to the Taj (for everything - there were camera memory cards on sale that were more expensive than in the UK!). The sandwich, as with almost all the food I had, was very tasty.

One of my favorite meals is Chicken Tikka Masala, so I was please to be able to try some Indian Chicken Tikka Masala. It was spicier than most UK versions, but still - very nice.

A dosa is flat bread with a variety of fillings. They were all very tasty.

This was the last meal I had in India: at the airport waiting to go home.

This feast was enjoyed on the plane home.

I tried a lot of new food in India, and enjoyed almost all of it. Getting to find out what "real" Indian food was like, rather than the food served in Indian restaurants over here, was quite an experience all on it's own.
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My experience of an Indian Orphanage

Hopefully you're still enjoying this trek through my photos of India. This week I want to tell you about the orphanage we helped at. We didn't plan to help there: we didn't even know it existed till we found. But I doubt I'll ever forget it. Having seen Slumdog Millionaire, it has become clearer that there are places like this all over India. The help we gave was just a drop in the ocean, but having heard reports from people who have gone there since our trip, I know we have made a difference.

The first day we were staying in the new village, we walked down the the end of the main road, where we found a few kids, and then the orphanage they were living in. The helpers invited us in. We explained how we were in India studying the culture, and they asked if we would like to help at the orphanage. We agreed. We could have been anyone, with any agenda.

At this point, I'd just like to state that I'm glad these kids have somewhere to stay and call home, and a community around them. At least they weren't left to die in the gutter because of a slight bodily deformity when they were born - at least someone decided to take some sort of care for them. But that is just about all the good I can say about this place.

These were the good beds, though on closer inspection, you'll see there were not that good:

There would be four or five children to each of these beds.

These are what the younger kids would sleep in: the cloth was untied and dangled down like a small hammock. Then the kids were placed in one and swung to sleep.

This was one of the ceilings I cleaned. I guess they couldn't help but get spiders and ants and other creepy crawlies, but it wasn't fun getting rid of them and trying to make sure they didn't fall on me while doing so!

The court yard had some dogs in it, and a badminton net. The badminton was use more by the owner. He was very good at badminton. It would have been nice to have a casual knock-around, rather than just being thrashed.

Some of the donated books the children could read, if they managed to reach, which they wouldn't be able to. There were some surprises in the library: some books that would have been very good for the kids to see: if they'd been tall enough to get to them.

The medicine cabinet would not have met western safety standards. I know: it's easy to criticize now, but I'm not sure that they would actually accept good quality, in date, medicines.

This tube of Clobetasol Propionate was taken out of the hands of one of the boys in the orphanage, who was just walking around with it.

These jars of medicine were just left in some of the children's lockers, available for them to drink as much as they wanted, whenever they wanted.

One time, I spotted one of the girls having to pick up all this litter with their hands......

....but the kids tried to stop me taking the photos........

.....and took me round to the front of the orphanage, where they organised a photo for me to take, as if they'd been taught the exact publicity shot visitors were allowed to take.

This old metal shelf stack was used by the kids as a climbing frame.

There was urine on the floor a lot of the time. We couldn't tell if it was from the kids (who would run around with no trousers on (not uncommon for kids out of the orphanage though)) or from the dogs. Either way, it wasn't acceptable that the kids had to live in those conditions.

This very scary guard dog was kept on a lead most of the time, which I was please about! I wouldn't have liked to be around when it was allowed to roam free.

I think the orphanage was summed up in this picture though. This dog is checking out the stools from a child who had been left to sleep in the swing-cot having produced them. I don't know how long they'd been there before we came and helped, but the helpers didn't seem too bothered about the fact one of their children had been left in this state. It wasn't the only time we saw this either. 

These children had two towels to go around about 40 of them. They had far from adequate facilities for all areas of their life, but yet, in a country far from interested in the exact time, they received a digital wall clock as a donation!

If you were to look at the orphanage's web site or leaflets, you would think it was a wonderful place, bringing hope to many children and bringing them up to be record breakers and hope-filled citizens. That isn't what I saw when I was there. That isn't the impression I got from helping there for several weeks.

Just before we left the orphanage for the last time, a couple from our group stayed behind for a couple more minutes, and reported that they'd seen something that explained pretty much everything that was happening at the orphanage:
They said they had seen main guy at the orphanage perform what he referred to as "Yoga-meditation", through which he would "receive power". The other helpers and the children would then bow down and worship the man, and receive power from him.
The couple who saw this asked the helpers about this, and they were quite open about it and explained the process.
I don't think you have to be a Christian to see there there is something wrong with that setup. The spiritual interactions in that place certainly affected the physical world. If you're playing with fire, you'll probably get burned.  

As I said at the start, a few people from my team have returned there since our trip, and have reported some improvements, but it would take a complete change in leadership to turn that place around.

You can pray for it though, and remember those faithful ones who have gone out, and will continue to go out to orphanage all over India, and do their bit to bring true joy and hope to those children they find there.
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