Ralph’s Place

Wow!

What a band, what a venue! I have to admit I knew what to expect from Muse live on stage, but nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of walking down onto the pitch at Wembley Stadium. It’s one hell of a place and you can’t help but stop and imagine walking on as a part of the England team, the stands full to bursting and the atmosphere intense. I’m getting tingles down my spine just thinking about it now!

Muse were, of course, amazing as ever. I got the feeling that it took a few songs to get the sound levels right, (that could’ve just been the stadium feel to it all though - or just me, as noone else seemed to notice it lol) but everything was soon right and they played a truly incredible set. Unbelievable how they manage to recreate the tracks so well on stage, and there really are only 3 of them!

Getting home was a bit of a nightmare, queuing in the rain for the tube (with about 20,000 other people) after a 20 minute walk as the nearest station had no trains running into London. Then once we made it back into the city the last Northern Line train had gone so it was a bus back from Trafalgar Sq. Finally got in about 1am, but it was worth it

Now… back to work *sigh*

Pembroke is magic, and the Peak is “home”, but Cornwall is definitely a very special place to go climbing. Whether it’s just because everyone’s usually in a good mood before the summer I don’t know, but despite the rock not being the friendliest (in my opinion anyway!) it’s really hard not to have a great time there!

Last week was no exception, in fact I’d go as far as to say it’s the best week I’ve spent in Cornwall that I can remember! Sun, sea, cream tea and some of the best climbing there is… a night at the meadery, a curry night and an awesome pub dinner were pretty good too

I won’t bore you with all the routes, but the highlights were Pegasus - an HS at Chair Ladder with a tricky, “high in the grade” first pitch, Terrier’s Tooth - another HS at Chair Ladder with a bold first pitch and VDiff after that… and of course Doorpost at Bosigran, a climb that definitely won’t be forgotten in a hurry

Thanks to everyone involved (you know who you are :)) for an amazing week! Now bring on the summer, and all new adventures!

Second post in a day I know, but I had to share this! Not only because I expect it to make my life easier, but because it’s quite simply… cool

Google Reader is a free online RSS reader that Google have dubbed, your inbox for the web! RSS is a simple technology which allows a program to continually poll a website and check for updates, whilst at the same time taking away information from that site for display in a reader. This is ideal for blogs, forums and news sites, which if you read more than one or two, can become tedious to have to check over and over again. Put simply, Google Reader will inform you when any new posts or stories are put onto your chosen site and arrange all the information (including snippets from the post) into a convenient “inbox style” interface.

It’s really easy to add sites to your reader. You’ll see an RSS or Atom link on most news sites or blogs, or you’ll see the RSS icon in your browser somewhere (in Firefox, it’s in the address bar). You simply visit the URL of the feed by clicking that link, then copy and paste from your address bar into Google Reader. Some sites may also provide an even simpler way, by putting a link on their page to add the site directly into your reader (I’ve added one on the right menu, at the bottom ).

All you need is a google account to get set up. If you haven’t got one just let me know and I’ll send you a gmail invite (you won’t need to use the email address, just the google account). It may all sound like complicated computer speak, but it’s the simplest thing in the world… and you can keep up to date with everything you want to without having to be “that guy” who never leaves his computer

In this battle, once again, Google 1 - The World 0

The recent rise of blogging and social networking sites such as Facebook is being hailed by analysts and the media as Web 2.0, and although the definition is probably only accurate in the loosest sense, there’s no doubt that community websites are taking the net by storm, attracting even less frequent web users. (Even my mum has seen a video on YouTube!)

Social network sites like Bebo, Facebook and MySpace are increasingly being used for keeping in touch, sharing photos and other media, or simply dicking about wasting time. The real-time interaction between users and ease at which data can be shared is part of their attraction, but so too is a user’s ability to detach, or shut down their computer when they’ve had enough. It’s this detachability coupled with the medium (the internet and your computer) that gives a sense of surreality, even fantasy to the experience… it simply doesn’t seem real.

The view that the internet and “real life” are completely separate entities is long standing in both the internet community and those who only “log on” occasionally. In the past the internet has been a place where people can live out completely separate lives under new identities and with completely different personalities! Gaming sites, chatrooms and web forums were a place to hide from the real world and be who you want to be. “The Internet” became another reality to those who chose to allow it.

Now though, with sites becoming more and more about sharing information and keeping in touch with people you actually know, the separation is no longer there. Despite not feeling real, a message on Facebook is as real as a text message or a letter, a photo on MySpace is as real as a print and poking someone, whilst not a physical poke, is still an interaction between real people. The internet is no longer a different “place”, it’s a part of real life, another medium for interacting with people, like a telephone or mail. The way information is displayed (web sites) give it the feeling of being somewhere you go, even the term to “visit” a website suggests a physical destination, but you no more visit a website than you climb into the TV to watch the news, it’s simply another way of sharing information.

So how is Web 2.0 any different to Web 1.0? Well in terms of “the internet”, it hasn’t changed. The medium is exactly the same. Even the way information is shared hasn’t changed so much. People could always add photos to a website, they just had to be able to log onto the server to do it whereas now sites have been designed to allow this through a front end. No, the only major difference has nothing to do with the technology, it’s the information. Instead of fake identities and masked personalities exchanging comments over the abyss, the information has become more and more real. People post actual data, photos and messages that relate directly to our day to day lives. This - for me at least - is what defines “Web 2.0″, a major shift in the type of data being shared.

The internet is as real as the information it contains, and it’s becoming more and more so every day.

I’ve recently decided to stop importing my blog onto Facebook, so this will be my last post that makes the move across. Bizarrely, and I respect anyone who thinks I’m sad for this, it’s not been a straightforward decision!

First of all, to give any kind of writing a sense of purpose (even the drivel I put on here!), you need to believe that people are reading it. Facebook is great for this, the infrastructure and traffic are already in place so that when you post something, everyone you know is notified and someone is bound to have a look. On top of this, it provides a simple and straightforward means for people to feedback or comment on something you’ve written, even if it’s just to say “hi” on your wall and ask when your next climbing trip is planned.

However, despite being the driving factor for putting my blog on Facebook, the way the information is shared is also the reason I’m choosing to move back to my own site. Since clicking that “import” button many months ago, the whole nature and feeling behind posting has changed. It’s the difference between inviting someone to listen to what you have to say, and shouting out your message on a street corner. For example, I think the guy in Piccadilly who yells about Jesus saving us all is a bit of a tosser, yet I’ve some degree of respect for a Priest despite their messages being largely the same. If you want to read a blog you’ll visit the site, but if you don’t then chances are you’ll quickly get fed up with seeing posts scattered all over your homepage.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook is great as a means of sharing thoughts, photos, videos and of course as a way of staying in touch with people. It’s possibly the best social networking site out there at the moment and a valuable part of many people’s lives (whether they’d choose to admit it or not…).

But whereas FB is all about sharing things relevant to a group (or network), a blog is very much about one person or one topic. Rather than simply being a collection of “interesting” posts, it by it’s very name is more a “log” of a persons thoughts and experiences, which will of course only be of any interest to some people.

A blog is also open to much more scrutiny than, say, a set of photos and more likely to provoke a negative response if the reader doesn’t agree with the author’s opinions on a subject. If you read the Telegraph or the Times chances are you’ve picked one over the other for a reason. Each tells the same story in a different way, adding different opinions as they go, and while some people won’t care which they read as long as they get the bottom line information, others just won’t want to hear what the other paper has to say. No big deal, they simply don’t buy it.

So why blog at all? Well, why not? Despite being a reasonable way of allowing people you don’t see often to keep up with where you are and what you’re doing, it’s something I actually enjoy doing now and then. A big part of life’s experiences is sharing them, and this is just one of many ways of doing that.

So, after all that, the only thing left is to invite you to read my blog from time to time at www.ralphcooper.co.uk (if you’re already here reading it, great!). It has an RSS feed which you can subscribe to easily using Firefox or IE7 so you’ll still get notifications of new posts if you want them (this’ll also include posts about new photos, though I’ll try to share links to these on FB too, I might even branch out and upload one or two there as well *shock* )

Now, shouldn’t you be down the pub?