Some hot number ones on google

Pocket monster

This guy's physical and vocal resemblance to an android is, truly, remarkable. But his product seems to rock.


So I saw this yesterday.

I've had a three year old old-for-2005-got-it-cheap mobile phone that I have felt no need to upgrade because it's basic and simple, and doesn't try to pretend to look like a computer, like the current crop of mobile phones do, without doing much, if anything, else. They're trying to chase iPhone's arse, but they've just gotten wider and bigger and have more flashing colours and mimic the physical appearance of the iPhone, but basically all they do is transmit voice and short text information.

So far, my reluctance to hook up to an iPhone subscription is twofold: I am living rootlessly at the moment, and currently you have to subscribe for some lengthy period of time to a particular server, and this just doesn't rhyme with the way I live. And secondly, it's not cheap. I hardly ever use my mobile phone. But I use the internet constantly, and I spend hours every day on my laptop. And that's what the iPhone is talking about.

Ultimately, the iPhone is a small device, which is what is great about it, and also its limitation. I can't edit movies on an iPhone, I can't record songs, it's not really feasible to pore over a tiny screen to write anything for much time, without getting a headache. So it is what it is, and its scope as a work tool is limited. But in terms of a constant internet companion, now THAT is something I can understand. Maybe it'll mean I'll get out more!

Whether I get an iPhone, however, despite my affection for the Mac OS, is moot. Check this out: a Linux/Google version of iPhone is on the way by the end of this year, the Android platform, which, if you look at the video at the top of this post, seems to be really drawing together the various google applications into an open platform pocket internet device. I'm excited to find out how they release it.

The interesting thing about all this generation of device, of which the iPhone is clearly the first to emerge, is that they really make redundant the telecommunications industry standard of paying in terms of 'minutes' spent engaging with the network. There has been a revolution in my own life this past year since I got this laptop (a year old tomorrow!) and iPod and basically the software therein: the iLife suite, the iWork suite, and New York city's freely available wifi. Not every city has wifi running on tap in the same way, partly to do with the sheer density of New York and the way it runs, partly to do with the fact that networks in Ireland, at least, and Spain and Denmark I think also, embed a password as a requisite part of signing onto their broadband package. I have only found an open individual subscription in Ireland once: people seem to guard their wifi access as if throngs of laptop owners would be likely to flock to their doorstep and hang around in the rain, nudging ever closer to the wall, eagerly googling.

It is only when a city's culture understands the need for the internet to be like running water, freely available, run on individual subscriptions, but with an open sensibility so that if you find yourself out of range of your own house-based connection, then you'll always find a friendly port to give you access. It's an alternative community idea, it's about building internet infrastructure, understanding that people live mobile lives, and some live more mobile lives than others.

Less than a year ago, I found Dublin to be a very inhospitable place to wifi access. Everything was on a charge-basis, none of the hotels had open access, and cafes offered 'free' wifi in the form of a password that gave 20 minutes of access, presumably because of a fear that people would linger ever slightly over their coffee if the wifi was on tap. Well, it's a long way from Brooklyn's fields of white laptops, one to a table, that have colonised some of the city's hipper cafes, mini office spaces for cash strapped writers, developers, designers, students. Yeah, I don't know how these coffee shops pay their rent either, but it's a part of what makes New York so interesting: subcultures develop and teem over. Endlessly dancing circles.

Anyway, last weekend I found a few more Dublin hostelries advertisting 'free wifi' in their windows. I also got the impression that it had been a bad summer for the hospitality industry, so maybe they've got to work a little harder for that five euro skinny vanilla latte, but it seems like a step in the right direction, a necessary direction.

Hello Philadelphia

... who googled gagged ladies and cat, and found their way here, somehow... oasis in the storm? Glad to have you, Philly.

Latest in: A lonely heart in Singapore, Singapore found Lucy Takes Off yesterday, upon googling 'discreet spanking'.

The mind does boggle, though.

Google search terms

Continuing one of my "occasional series", this time: How People Find Lucy Takes Off From The Great Unknown of Internet Chaos. Well, yesterday, the search term 'kind porno' brought someone from Hungary home to the sweet meadows of Lucy Takes Off, and today, someone from Hackensack New Jersey felt their heart beating to the drum of 'cats with small heads', and found sanctuary here. As always, a certain once-quoted Beatles tune (hint: from Revolver) seems to bring people here several times a week.

It's like a Brooklyn streetcorner around here sometimes (um, only with fewer people, and no bodegas, and only a couple of people picking up their dog's poo. Some similes fly, others drop out of the sky like crisp carbonny meteorites.. oh.)

Would anybody like to see a picture?

What to do in the event of an atomic bomb

I’ve decided to keep an occasional series of posts under the label, Google Searches. People out there in internet land have a LOT of needs, and very often they confess all to Mother Google, in the form of a question, or a declaration of a problem, or something sought after. And sometimes, these searches send them in the way of Lucy Takes Off. I find out about them when I check my stats, and discover how people get here.

If you got spun out here today for the first time like a cow from the eye of a tornado, welcome to the pastures of Lucy Takes Off. If you’ve been hooked up to Lucy Takes Off for months like a bitch to a bag of crack, welcome. I can only hope that you find here a balm to soothe the worry from your brow, get a little kick to get you through the night. We do our best, here at Lucy Takes Off, and her sister site, Here Comes Lucy. Feel free to have a look around.

So this series starts here, with a question from Concerned from Portsmouth, whose issue with Google last night was “what to do in the event of an atomic bomb”. Naturally, Concerned was ushered at once into the safe waters of Lucy Takes Off. And the post he was directed to was this one from December of last year, but we’re an audience friendly kind of shindig around here, so I’d like to address his question more fully, directly.

Well, the first thing that I would imagine I would do if I saw a mushroom cloud in the sky, would be to be very surprised. You just don’t hear about atomic bombs anymore. They’ve just lost their popularity. Sure, there was some attempted resurgence in the last few years, but that all came to nothing more than accusations and threats and bombs dropped on countries who wouldn't play "bomb back".

What with the bubble skirts and big hair and loud patterns of the eighties coming back around recently, there’s been a fondness for all things of that era, and nuclear fright was all the rage back then too. So my best guess for that initial response, is that most people would be looking in the sky uttering variable involuntary invocations on the “what the fuck” theme, and if you’re in a car you might find yourself in a crash-type situation, so I would advise wearing a seat belt at all times, or if you’re a cyclist, a sturdy helmet. But I think you’ll manage that shock response all on your own.

The next thing to do would again be instinctual. Reach for your camera, your mobile phone, your mac with photo booth, and take a picture.

A few years ago in Ireland, there was some frenzy about what we would actually do about fall out, if it were ever to happen. I think it started on the Joe Duffy show, where many good national scares start, and we collectively realised that actually nobody had been talking much about nuclear bombs anymore and none of us knew what we’d do. So the minister who was supposed to know all about this stuff turned out not to know anything much about it at all but somebody whispered in his ear that they had heard a rumour on the internet that it would be a good idea to drop iodine tablets into drinking water, and that that would neutralise all the radiation in the fallout, and everything would be groovy. So everybody in Ireland who was registered to vote got sent a little package of iodine tablets. I don't think anyone wrote a song about that phenomenon, the iodine tablets and our salvation. Missed moment.

I read a lovely graphic novel when I was small. It was called “When the Wind Blows”, a story of two old people who had been young in London during world war two and how they tried to cope with a nuclear disaster in the same way as they did back then, which of course didn’t work out too well for them at all. But it’s a pretty gorgeous book, if you ever happen to come across it. You’ll probably have it read in a couple of hours, and it’s a good illustration of what happens when people try their best to apply what they’ve been told they should do in the event of a nuclear war to the reality of it.

So, Concerned, I hope this helps to round out your checklist and sense of preparedness for what to do In The Event Of A Bomb. Good luck. I hope you never have to pop those iodine tablets (available widely throughout Ireland in 2003 or perhaps in a chemist shop near you).