Eastleigh Waldo Moment

The by-election at Eastleigh is today. Formerly a safe Liberal Democrat seat but since the disgraceful Chris Huhne resigned all bets are off. Ok, well, some bookies have got the Libdems keeping the seat but unbelievably, some have got UKIP to win the seat. This is quite exciting stuff. Typically, you can have individual candidates stand as a protest against the incumbent or due to the antics of the MP who has resigned and win. Martin Bell, Caroline Lucas and George Galloway have proved that. And UKIP used to be basically one issue and one person (Nigel Farage). But now UKIP have actually managed to crib together some sort of organised manifesto and are actively challenging Eastleigh.

For the record I abhor UKIP. I disagree with all of their policies, and I cannot stand Nigel Farage, their erstwhile leader. However, I am also sick of the main three parties treating the voters as a tappable resource, as idiots who will vote for the big parties no matter what. The main parties take us for granted and in the case of the Coalition, do not carry out our wishes. At a general election, a party publishes a detailed manifesto about what they will do and they get voted in if people like that manifesto as there is the reasonable presumption that they will either achieve what they say will do, do something like it due to some necessary politicking, or will at least try. The current Coalition threw both manifestos out of the window when it formed and trotted out a few wishlists and mashed them together.

I want disruption. I want the Westminster elites to be shocked. I want the normal rules to not apply. I want UKIP to win at Eastleigh today. I do not want the populace to be taken for granted. I want to have a person say they will do something, and then they do it. I do not want craven career politicians suppurating their oozy politics of self-interest to rule us. I want honest people.  I want the main parties to take note of what we want, not do what they think we want according to lazy anecdotes and asinine and disconnected focus groups.  

I want a Waldo moment. The episode of Black Mirror this week (which I have written about here) could not have been timed better. There was some terribly lazy stereotyping in the episode but that can be easily overlooked as the genius was how it connected into how dissociated normal politicians are with normal people and the fact that if you have something new, then people will be attracted to it. It is fresh compared to the current offering, even though it is still stale by comparison. Waldo slinging dirt just like the politicians (case in point – Lord Rennard’s 2009 indiscretions coming to light just before a crucial by-election) but in a way that people can associate with is popular.

Bring it on, Waldo 

Sony Game Change

A lot of hot air has been puffed out by people regarding the Playstation 4. Will do this, could do that, might do this. One thing that was touted before the “detailed” announcement last week was the cracking down on used games. In the press event, Sony flat out said this would not be done by them, but left the door open for developers. There was a similar rumour about the Microsoft Nextbox which hasn’t been commented on by the Microsuits yet. In related news, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told The Guardian that every single PlayStation 4 title will be available digitally. "PS4 will be similar to PS Vita in that every game will be available as a digital download, and some will also be available as a disc," he said in an interview last week.

Now I am totally not down with the banning of used games. Heck, I would hardly play any games at all. I buy new games maybe once or twice a year as there is such a dearth of instabuy games and with me being such a picky twat, it just doesn’t happen. The last few ‘new’ new games I bought were Batman Arkham City  and before that, Mass Effect 3. So I would probably skip any console which did allow for the banning of used games. HOWEVER: What if Sony was prepping a Netflix-style online rental streaming type of thing using their Gaikai cloud streaming servers? You pay a few quid a month, and you can play whole back catalogues of games back to the PS1 system. Triple A games wouldn’t be available initially, or you could buy separately, but after a period of time, would be available as part of the package.

This would literally be a game changer.

I wouldn’t care about the availability of used games or whether or not they would be playable on the system. I would have my Battle Arena Toshinden and be damn happy. My Metal Gear Solids. My Infamous. If Sony do something like this, then I would happily sign up. No wait, hang on. They already do. The PlayStation Plus network already gives you free games, full game trials, discounts etc. So if they had their Netflix style streaming it would just sit alongside with that. Microsoft Gold costs £40 a year (approximately) and gives you no games and the ability to use services that you have already paid for, and to play online. Sony’s offering could potentially murder the NextboxLive service if all things were equal.

We wait in hope. 

Food Stamps y'all

I came across an interesting article today about how legislators in South Carolina are proposing to treat benefits payments. They basically want to restrict food stamps to only be able to buy healthy food. For those of you that are not aware, in the US, food stamps are how the most common form of benefits are distributed. They are coupons with a monetary value which most supermarkets accept and they are currently restricted so you can buy all food and drink but not cigarettes or booze.

In the UK, the BBC had a poll last year where they asked people about this idea as with the soon to be introduced Universal Credit could be used to bring something like this about using a prepaid credit card. Generally, according to the poll, the majority of the people favoured some sort of restriction on what benefits could be used on.

So the case in point with food stamp restriction. I think it is a great idea. Three quarters of society in the US (and two thirds in the UK) are obese. Obesity is more prevalent in lower income families. Billions of dollars are being spent on trying to make people eat more healthily and billions more on dealing with the effects of obesity. Obviously there need to be safeguards over what constitutes “healthy” food but I think it could work. Some frozen and canned food would be acceptable, as only fresh food means more trips to the supermarket meaning more in petrol or public transport costs and time. The only issue is that all the big purveyors of crappy highly processed food will lobby the hell out of not carrying it through. Guess why? Fast food companies can accept food stamps! 

Mad George 2: Beyond Moodydome

So the credit agency Moody’s has downgraded the UK’s credit rating from AAA to AA1 due to medium term sluggish growth, the projected continuation of the austerity measures into the next parliament, and the fragility of the UK’s balance sheet. All this sounds like very frightening stuff, doesn’t it? The shit has really hit the fan. We are all fucked. Already I can hear baying mobs of people roaming the streets clad in leather pants wielding machetes and taking off the heads of all the people who are wearing a different shade of leather pants. A thunderdome has been erected just by Leicester Square and squads of former telephone hygienists who are now cage fighters are oiling up and sharpening their sharpened slate tipped sticks. Babies are eating pools of feculence on the flinty rubble of destroyed buildings.

Hmm. My imagination might be running a little bit Tahrir Square on that one. Fact is, the US and France have been downgraded (the US is lower than the UK, France is now the same) and their cost of borrowing hasn’t changed one iota. Fact is, neither will the UK’s. The problem with the international credit agencies (Standard & Poor, Fitch, and the aforementioned Moodys) is that for decades they were highly sought after purveyors of information without people realising that they were completely full of shit and whose data means nothing at all in an emperor’s new clothes type scenario. With everything coasting along nicely all they did was rubber stamp things. When the shit hit the fan they didn’t move quickly enough or even give any warnings like, you know, they were being paid to do. Enron was rosy until they were found out. Freddit Mae were coasting along fine flinging out toxic sub-prime debt packages until Warren Buffett said something on TV then the credit agencies made a statement whilst putting their trousers back on hurriedly. There are other numerous criticisms of them but the point is that the credit agencies don’t really matter.

Unless, of course, your name is George Osborne, erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, who has staked his entire Chancellorship on the UK maintaining its cherished triple A credit rating. If it got downgraded, then George Osborne would be pretty embarrassed. Well, it turns out, that triple A status doesn’t really matter now that it has been downgraded according to Curious George. 

PS4 - First Look

Do you want a Playstation 4? What an absurd question. It’s like me asking, “do you want air?” of course you want it. The gun has been fired on the next generation console race (I’m discounting the WiiU – it’s a good system, but it is by no means next gen) and it is now a race between Sony and Microsoft to squirt their new systems down our throats via a fatline communication network.

So we now know what the PS4 will basically entail. Gone is the Cell processor, and instead we have basically all AMD silicon (8 Jaguar cores) powering the Japanese beast. It will incorporate a 720p 3D camera in an update to its Move/Eye technology, it will have a faster bluray player, more RAM, astonishingly it will cram in a Dualshock 4 touchy controller in a move that nobody saw coming. Split optical audio as well as HDMI. The PS4 is clearly trying to address the PS3 issues and to beef up the elements where it was weak and maintain the areas where it was traditionally strong.  The Kinect was seen as the better of the Wii style motion clones but the new camera on the PS4 will blow the Kinect away in terms of field of vision and depth perception. It will also work with a second screen app either tablet or phone for extra linked in goodies. Possibly the Vita will be able to be used like the PSP was with the PS3 but hopefully in a more integrated way. Fun fact: a PS3 can generate enough kinetic energy to send half a kilo of bacon to the Kuiper belt.

What about the games? Well, a number of the usual suspects have been lined up (some haven’t been confirmed but yeahhhhh they will)  like the next iteration in the Gran Turismo franchise, FFXIII, Uncharted, Killzone, Infamous, Motorstorm, Diablo etc. New game franchises such as Deep Down,  Bungies ‘Destiny’ and a particularly exciting game called ‘Watch Dogs’ which is new IP and it’s an open world action adventure game which comprises elements of stealth and parkour, computer and appliance hacking, as well as cover- based third person shooter.

There may also be backwards compatibility due to the recently acquired by Sony Gaikai technology which streams data and games back to the console thereby no requiring local software emulation of including a pricey Cell chip in the PS4 guts.

So it looks good. Wait, does it? One thing that Sony didn’t do, was actually to show the blimming thing off so we have no idea what it looks like which is a bit silly and fanbois always like to fetishise new tech. With this in mind and using my considerable gamer knowledge, I have included 3 CAD renditions of what the PS4 could look like. 

 The Potato Battery Style PS4

The PS4 in "Villa in the Dordogne" mode 

The PS4 "Concept of Paper" mode

Legalise #

A while ago I listed some of the policies that I would implement if ever I became mayor of Englandshire. One of these policies would be the legalisation of some drugs. There is an interesting piece in the Guardian today regarding this very issue but with the kicker being that it would be a perfect Tory policy to announce. Now it goes on in detail about it, but the matter is so toxic that despite actual physical evidence to the contrary they still won’t legalise drugs at all and in fact, no political party (Nick Clegg wants a Royal Commission however) will as it would be suicide for them. The blue rinse brigade a.k.a. the only ones that vote would have collective fits if their party did it, so they won’t.

It is a big shame though, as it would be a fantastic opportunity to wrong foot the other parties and actually introduce and use evidence based policies as opposed to naked electioneering. It works in Portugual and the Netherlands, and there are even laws being currently passed in some states in the US that would allow certain substances to be decriminalised. For a pro-business party, I cannot understand why this frankly speaking, revenue stream would go unrecognised let alone the reduction in crime it would bring. It can only really be the argument above and also intense lobbying from the tobacco and alcohol industries that prevent it.  Notice I didn’t even bring up the ‘morals and ethics’ argument? That’s because there is no such thing for modern politicians. All they are are craven yes-people who only want to keep being politicians as it gives them job security for 5 years and as much expenses as they can trouser.

To be fair, the implementation of such a system would initially be costly, as well as processing permits and the setting up of controlled shops etc. so it may drive the cost of the products up past the point where people would actually buy them, as black market (as opposed to current illegal) stuff would be cheaper but that is pure speculation. 

Aggressive pacifism.

Do you have a child? I do. It's tough. Very tough. If you have a child you are well aware of that fact. If you don't have a child, well, I am sure you can empathise. There are lots of difficult areas in life with a child. Restaurants are tough. So are aeroplanes. But we don't go to restaurants or fly on aeroplanes every day. Or week. Or month maybe.

One thing we do go to every week, is the supermarket. Supermarkets are fun. Well. Not really. But one thing that makes them a tiny bit more easier, is the parent and child parking. Nice and close to the door. Very useful for when it is cold and raining. Like winter. Some people find it easier to park there even when they don't have a child. They may have had a child a few decades ago, or they've left their child at home in an oven. However they feel the need to park close to the store for some reason. Laziness probably. Which makes people with genuine alive and present children unable to park in theit own designated spaces.

If you are one of those people, I'm going to passive aggressive your arse off with my vituperative funny looks. *looks*

The End of the Frozen Food Revolution

Although I am on a diet, I had a great big dirty Chinese takeaway last night. It was glorious. I really really like Chinese food, however I am under no illusion as to the general quality of your average takeaway. I go to one fairly close to my house and the food has always been good and I have never been ill, however when I was making my selection at home with the menu before I popped out to collect it, it found myself shying away from the beef and lamb dishes. I love beef in Chinese dishes. Literally, all of them. But you have to ask yourself the question, where do they get their beef from? If Waitrose have been hornswoggled over having pork in their beef meatballs then what chance does the local Chinese takeaway that buys in bulk from grotty wholesalers have?

Then that got me thinking. What about the frozen pizza in the freezer. The one with ‘spicy beef’ on it? Now, without using a DNA sequencer myself, how am I to know that the food isn’t tainted?  All these thoughts swirled around my mind as I picked up my Chinese chicken curry, egg fried rice, vegetable spring rolls, and crispy fried chicken with Peking sauce. Nothing can be relied upon now, well, at least, in my own mind it can’t be. This horsemeat scandal will change the supermarket dynamics completely as the cheap frozen meals that people buy will no longer be supplied under a ‘ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’ type of deal. The questions have been asked and the lies have been told. This means that frozen food prices will skyrocket to take into consideration of the ‘extra’ (which should have been in place anyway) due diligence that the supermarkets and end processors will have to take. If this is the case, then no one will buy them, as the people who rely on them won’t buy them as they won’t be able to afford it, and the people that don’t buy them anyway – well nothing will change there as well. So will it bring about the end of the frozen food revolution which started in the 70s until now? I hope so. 

Aliens: Colonial Marines Review

It is hard to remain objective on this subject, but I will endeavour to do so. I have erected a small shack outside my house which has been soundproofed and when I get a bit antsy over this subject then I go in there to scream and scream until my lungs vibrate and burst. I will be doing this periodically as I write this.

So, Aliens: Colonial Marines (ACM) is a game I have had on my game radar since I possessed a game radar. Fleeting hints have been dropped over the past 10 years over a co-op hardcore game starring the famous Colonial Marines from the James Cameron movie, Aliens. The game as it is was announced officially by Sega and Gearbox around 6 years ago or so. I was insanely excited, especially when Left 4 Dead came out and the ACM developers hinted that was the sort of Co-op that they were going to do. L4D with Aliens? Unlike Hudson, you can count me in. But then there were multiple delays on the game but I figured that you know, quality takes time and they were perfecting it for the masses of Aliens and gamer fans (a Venn diagram of interests that would almost completely intersect).

So it came out last week. I had pre-ordered it (of course) but the weekend before, I got slightly nervous and was wondering why there were no advanced reviews published. Basically, no gamer magazine had released a review. Now, I used to review computer games and I am well aware of the embargoes that are involved. But all of them? Not one? For a triple A game release? Not even the weekend before to build the hype for the following Tuesday? Well, it made me a little suspicious so I cancelled my pre-order but had the intention of reading the reviews and then was going to get it from a game shop on the day of release. Then, inexorably, as the world spun on its axis, on the evening of the Monday and going into Tuesday arrived, the reviews started to be posted. And boy, were they stinking reviews. Truly awful. There was a litany of bile and vitriol. But still, I hoped, they weren’t me. They couldn’t like the franchise as much as me. And I still intended to get it, but just not at the premium £39.99 that it was being sold for.

Then my colleague who had fluked an early pre-order copy told me about his experiences playing it. My malaise grew and grew. My colleague then got so fucked off with it he mailed me his copy when he hadn’t even finished it. Then I knew the game had to be tangibly bad. So last night, with extreme trepidation, I spun up the disc to play it. Whilst it was loading, I donned my USS Sulaco khaki t-shirt and my red bandanna to enhance the experience.

The game itself was truly frightening. Pure horror. It sent shivers up and down my spine. What frightened me so was not the contents of the game or the 20^th Century FOX signed-off canon script, of course. What is so terrifying is that this was a piece of code that had been certified gold to be printed onto discs. The game is broken. Fundamentally so. Technical people speak at length about things like V-Sync Tearing, framerate, colour palette, poor AI, major clipping issues. For me, it is the little things like being able to place current technology gun sights on iconic weapons. What? Isn’t it the future? Why do we have a chance to place crappy holographic sights on a fucking PULSE RIFLE? And make it red and flamey to show my ‘individuality’? No. Just no. The incredible warping sidekick that you have. Bitch, please. What we were shown in demos last year was an incredibly tight integrated team game with next gen graphics and fantastic plot. What we have been given is a COD clone in space with plot holes the size of an Alien queen’s fully dilated egg-popping cervix.

It feels wrong. It plays wrong. At least, for a triple A game release. If it was £10 then actually it would have been at least understandable but still shit. But then, if it didn’t have the Aliens licence this would never have ever even seen the light of day. Sega are going to be pissed. Ridley Scott is going to be pissed, as he was actually consulted on the game prior to the release of Prometheus. Gearbox trumpeted this story integration which of course made all the fanbois (myself included) spontaneously create inner pants conditions similar to that of an explosion in a Cadbury’s Creme Egg Goo factory.

But sadly, it was not to be. Maybe the movies’ creative spirit has been sucked so dry in the 25 years since it has been released by other movies and games that it is merely a dry husk and nothing further can be wrought from it? Maybe Aliens is better as a film and nothing else. Maybe guns and aliens and artificial tension can’t really sustain a full game. My final thoughts are that playing the game has made me not like the original movie as much which is a horrible and shocking admission and a testament to Gearbox’s toxic legacy. 

The Death Knell of Microsoft Office

A lot of people use Microsoft Office products both in business and home environments. If you use it at home, then you are more inclined to want to use it at work, and vice versa. Microsoft make an absolute killing on corporate licences – they even have their own auditing business that makes sure people have the right number of licences. Microsoft have built an ecosystem on compatibility, changing things up a little here and there just ensure that the free alternatives (OpenOffice, Libre Office, Google Docs) aren’t quite there yet. For IT departments and buyers, to bastardise a phrase originally made for IBM, “nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft stuff”. It is a compelling argument

To ensure that people have access to this cash cow, they make student licences super cheap (this is the modus operandi of a lot of software companies) or even basically turning a blind eye to pirate copies (as in China) as they know that if people get used to the software they will stick with it iteration after iteration and want to work with it.

And Microsoft Office is a good product. It works. MS Access and PowerPoint cannot be bettered by the free alternatives so power users need it. But for the rest of us, we probably don’t. People had a hissy fit (myself included) regarding the revamping of Office 2007 but we dealt with it and can now use it as before. Which seems a bit odd, as actually doing business stuff hasn’t really changed since the 90s and basically Office hasn’t either. It’s just got bulkier and more irascible like an elderly Jabba the Hut.

So Office has been bumbling along, possibly in decline but still made folders of money from hapless businesses. But Microsoft just made a very big mistake. A huge one. For single users of Office 2013, they will no longer let you install a copy of Office more than once. The version you buy or download will forever be tied to one machine. If you muck up your computer, then you will need to purchase a new version costing from between £50 - £350. No longer will you be able to buy a version and keep it as a backup to install on your new machine when you replace it or fix your own machine. That’s me done. I have used the free alternatives and straddled the fence up to now, but I am going free for good. 

On Beards

I watched some of the Baftas last night. Not in an “interested in the Baftas” sort of way as I am immune to that type of celebratory circle jerk, but more in the “wife heard George Clooney had a beard and wanted to watch it and also had the remote control” sort of way. And I, being wedged and cemented into the sofa, was forced to watch some of it. FORCED. So anyway, I asked my wife what the deal was about beards. “Oh,” she said. “Some men look good with beards and some don’t…but you look lovely with no beard…ahem.” As it happens, quite a few leading men had beards at the Baftas and suddenly I realised that having a beard is now a cool thing and once again, I am behind the curve. I want a beard. But I can’t be arsed to grow one. They are itchy, require more fussing than properly shaving to make them look neat and tidy, and make you look old. But apparently ‘bitches dig beards’. Looking at some random twitter profiles (and mentioning no handles) it seemed that this was confirmed by the number of beard fanciers there were out there.

 A famous leading man at the Baftas last night

I used to have a beard. A few years ago. But after about two months I just got bored of it. The novelty wore off. And when you have a beard you seem to run into mostly people that are disapproving of beards. I have yet to think of an appropriate name for the law for that particular phenomenon. Of course, beards are very natural and I am surprised that there aren’t more in the wild. Looking around my office there is one guy who kind of has a beard but it is not quite there. The rest of the men polled (and one unfortunate women who is capable) have never even had beards! In their entire life! When I don’t have to go to work (so either weekends or holiday) then I never shave and I get a heavy stubble thing going on which my wife loathes and badgers me to shave it off but what if I went the whole hog and just kept going AND NEVER STOPPED GROWING?

Watch this hairy space.

No, not that one. 

Sword and Gun Day

The tragedy of what happened to Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend in Pretoria today (we of course don’t know the full details) is all too familiar to people who live in countries where gun ownership is the norm. There is a heightened expectation of murderous violence due to the insanely quick escalation levels. People are literally cavalier about their right to defend themselves. However, I can understand this from a personal point of view and I think most people would. If you were scared or were trying to protect a loved one from an unknown threat of menace you would lash out with the most powerful weapon you had before they struck at you. I certainly would. The issue is that we aren’t a nation of individuals, we live in diverse populaces where people all think differently and react differently to events that can transpire. We live in societies and we can only govern as societies, and not a bunch of individuals.

“Guns don’t kill people, people do!”

Well actually, technically speaking, the bullets do most of the killing and maiming. Maybe if we can’t control guns (I don’t really know about South Africa but I understand the high levels of gun ownership is mainly due to the appalling amounts of crime and specifically burglaries that take place) maybe we should endeavour to control ammunition? I fully and realistically concede that you will never be able to take away the hoards of guns that people fetishistically collect. But you could certainly regulate ammunition and only in the manner how prescription medicines or even cigarettes are sold would place some welcome sort of restriction and control. But even this half-hearted attempt at restriction would not have prevented poor Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend and indeed the anguish that Oscar himself must be feeling. I feel for him, as no punishment the authorities burden him with (if any) will be able to make him feel as bad as he must currently feel. 

They Workfare for you

The government’s highly divisive ‘Workfare’ scheme was been given the bum’s rush by the Courts on Appeal yesterday. The court reckon that the government will have to pay back all the people it took off income support and JSA because they didn’t particularly want to “slaves” and work 40 odd hours a week for nothing. Nada. Zip. Except, it wasn’t for nothing. It was for the JSA. So they were getting that, but the issue was that this didn’t constitute the minimum wage. But then they weren’t WORKING working, just working in a scheme. It’s all a bit confusing as to what the reality of the situation is.

If the companies involved were sacking or laying off their normal salaried staff in favour of getting people to work for them for free then that is wrong and they should have their wrists slapped or possibly cut. If they were genuinely offering a chance to keep the people on the scheme out of bed and contributing in a work environment then that is a good thing. I have been unemployed and had to take out JSA when I left university – they didn’t have this scheme then but as long as I wasn’t out of pocket or travelling for miles then I would have done it. Mind you, the fortnightly interviews down the job centre were pretty horrific so maybe not. The point is that you lose the work mindset pretty quickly. I even get it when I’m on holiday for more than a few weeks. My mind goes sludgy and I can’t wake up even for delicious pancakes for breakfast. But that is just me.

Although I am generally in favour of the scheme, I can’t help but think about the situation in the US where prisoners are forced to work for pennies to build and manufacture things and they genuinely are an alternative cheap workforce that are deliberately put to tender against other companies and almost always win. As long as there is safeguards in place to prevent abuse then I don’t see what the fuss is. 

Black Mirror Review

I had high expectations watching Black Mirror (C4) last night. The previous programmes (mini-series? Micro-series? Vignettes?) were all excellent, original and very thought provoking. The theme of near future technology is highly believable and plays an essential part of the programmes but never becoming the focus is eminently laudable. Too many programmes have shiny toys that they over explain and wave in front of the viewer’s faces whereas in Black Mirror they are background enablers of the plot and don’t impinge upon the emotional urgency of the story. I was not disappointed – it was very good and one of Charlie Brooker’s better stories.

The story itself was excellent if a little over-wrought (a modern day Monkey’s Paw) and it is easy to see that if technology was the enabler, then the story would still work if it used bygone or parallel ‘magic’ like the summoning of golems or the friendly undead. The very real loss felt by someone who has had someone close to them pass away was dealt with very well. Having lost someone close to me recently I really could empathise with the main character’s plight. It also raised the spectre (sorry) of what happens to your online life which is increasingly encroaching upon the real. What will become of your facebook page, twitter account, or (gasp!) blog? Will they be eventually purged and deleted or live on by themselves forever as ghostly reminders of the dead? Unless passwords are shared by the person before they die then that might well be their fate.

Maybe this blog will be preserved and pored over by historians seeking to enlighten themselves trying to understand our primitive lives. Hehe. Yeah, right. Yo Future Historians? Things are just XOPOWO, you feel me?

An Everest a Week

“...It's like climbing an Everest a week, then if you get to the top, there is a bigger Everest you need to ascend. To get down from the climb is easy. There is a fun water slide with food to take and munch as you go. If you stay on the ascent then you can't even see the furthest Everest, but you know it's there. And after that last Everest is not another mountain, but a very thin plateau. That's the path you need to take for the rest of your life. But there are fun fireman's poles to get down from there all the way along it...”

I am on a diet.

I have written that sentence in my head a hundred times in the last 10 years. Then I deleted it. Or ignored it. Or just gorged myself on a Taco Bell. I think I am doing better this time. At least, it doesn’t feel like so much of a diet. My best diet was when I was 25 and I lost lots of weight by basically going to the gym everyday and exercising until I felt sick and didn’t even want to look at food. Turns out it wasn’t that sustainable. I have been on my current diet for over two months now but the time has flown and I still have lost a lot of weight. Still, time will tell.

I use an app to count my calories. It is quite handy but not too accurate about homemade stuff or some other things. The one thing that has been really hammered home to me is how so many products are extremely high in calories. Most people know that Domino's has got high calories, but almost 300 calories per slice? I never really thought about it before when I polished off a whole large pizza (ten slices) over 24 hours or even in one night (!).  Plus dips and starters, it is literally a weekly diet killer. Alcohol too, I discovered, is highly calorific. I went on diets before, went to the gym, ate carefully, but had beer and wine, and maybe a pizza once a week too, and wondered why I was only losing a few hundred grams a week or even nothing at all. Turns out I was just eating up to around my maintenance limit. Well, tracking my calories has cured me of that.

But I can see how easily that approximately 60% of adults in the UK are obese. It’s maths, biology, chemistry and physics. More energy is being consumed than being used. Those poor bastards on programs like “Half Tonne Teen” didn’t become like that overnight and they certainly didn’t want to end up like that. Just a few hundred extra calories a day and it all adds up over the years. I think we have a severe societal issue which could become even more absolutely massive in a few short years. It is already stretching the NHS to its limit.

Problem is, well, we know what the problem is. However the solution is not easy. You walk into any supermarket and all the high calorie products are on 2 for 1 whilst the vegetables sit there unsung and lamented. A double cheeseburger from McDonalds is cheaper than a stew pack of vegetables. So what can we do? It could be as simple as just supplying effective information. Basic education. But as far as I know, we as a society already do that. People sleepwalk into obesity and it is very difficult to return to normal. 

Swill or Swallow? Andrex wants to know.

I rarely watch television. The television I do watch, I tend to watch pre-recorded and I fast forward all the ads.  I hate adverts. With a fiery passion.  So I always tend to be out of the loop in terms of ad discussions that probably take place amongst people. Those sad people that like to discuss the ins and outs of professionally marketed substances. So it was entirely by accident that I managed to glimpse the Andrex advert recently. You know the one. The “scrunch or fold” advert. The most disgusting thing I have ever seen on television. I have seen much worse on the internet of course but this is broadcast television we are talking about here.

Now part of the marketing mindset is just to get people aware of a product. This has clearly worked as I am now aware of Andrex, but believe it or not, I was aware of them before as well. So do I now think positively of the Andrex brand? Hmmm gonna have to say no. Because toilet stuff is private. We don’t discuss it here in this country. Go to Bulgaria for that sort of thing.

What on earth were they thinking?!? Maybe it is just me. Maybe people do discuss these sorts of things with each other and I am woefully naive about this sort of stuff. Maybe people have bowel movement parties where all they do is wait for each other to loudly and joyfully defecate into special troughs they have bought and moved into the lounge. Maybe people inspect each other’s stools emerging and whisper things like “look at it curl as it lengthens...and it’s changing colour already...Christ I’m erect.” Maybe I’m a prude about this. I don’t know. And I don’t really want to know. Which is why Andrex’s adverts bother me.

Given the fact that I am giving this issue oxygen, Andrex no doubt will think that this is a marketing triumph. Well I have a few more ideas for Andrex which they can have for free.

“Do you piss your poo flakes away or wait for the eventual flush to do your dirty work for you?”

“When you lovingly defecate on your partner’s chest, do you sink down and mesmerizingly rub the shit into their chest, or immediately hop off and wipe?”

“Do you furtively masturbate in lifts or merely wait in the opposite sex bathrooms on the middle floor?”

“Bile or cum?”

I am sure you will see marketing campaigns based on these ideas within the next six months. 

The Politics of Self-Determination

There is currently a swathe of people who want to break off from a larger socio-economic area and become a smaller self-governing entity. One group of people already had a referendum in place and they know when it will be with certainty. The other group of people have an “if this, then that” date for a potential referendum. Both splinter groups don’t really have the foggiest idea what will happen if they are successful in their respective leaps in the dark.

I am of course referring to Scotland in the first instance and the UK (with or without Scotland, depending on timing) in the second instance. I believe that people should be able to determine their own future. I also believe that people are stronger when they are together – indeed, stronger than when they are apart. For millennia, the natural instinct of mankind is to herd together for greater protection against the elements. However, there are always a few who believe that they could be automagically bigger fishes if the pond were made artificially made smaller. Hence we have scant but powerful megalomaniacal people who are poised to rend asunder hundreds of years (in the case of the Scots) and decades of unity (in the case of Europe).

I believe that a “yes” result in these promised referendums would be an abstract lesson in pyrrhic victories. The outcome would be so unfathomable that the resulting paralysis would be catastrophic in terms of the overall sovereignty of the respective nations. In the case of Scotland, there are virtually ‘no knowns’ in terms of dealing with the aftermath of a ‘Yes’ vote and the SNP have inveigled and obfuscated facts continually and repeatedly about the nature of the after effects and how they would deal with the transition. Similarly, Britain would suddenly cease to be relevant in terms of trading and being a financial hub in the context of the wider world, let alone Europe itself yet for some bizarre reason a few UKIPers and Tory Grandees would be rubbing their hands together before realising how much trouble they would be in.

However, the force of democracy is the only way to determine what should be done about the future of a nation. I welcome the opportunity to vote in referendums, indeed, many populations do not have that luxury, and if the arguments are true and sound then the people’s voice will heard and that will be the determination of the direction of the country. 

Processed meat - Feeling Lucky?

I will not make any equine based jokes:- I believe that the media and twitter have quite exhaustively pursued that course of action. However I would like to talk about the state of the meat packing and processing industries in 2013. Since the BSE scandal of the mid 1990s the UK has had the most radical overhaul of the aforementioned industries in the world. Our meat should be perfect and flawless. Yet according to the news of the past few weeks (Burgergate – which involved Tesco, Aldi, Waitrose, Buger King and more) and the revelation yesterday that Findus frozen lasagnes have contained up to 100% horse meat, it is patently obvious that the processed meat industry is actually a shadowy world of borrowed sinews, animal derived filler powder and mechanically recovered circus animal parts.  

“Nothing wrong with a bit of horse, mate. It won’t kill you. Why does the Anglosphere hate on eating horsemeat. Every other country does.” The people that say that (of which there are more than a few) have gotten the wrong end of the stick completely. The labels say “beef”, not “horse”. I personally don’t mind eating horse. I have eaten it on many an occasion when abroad and rather liked it. But I would like it to be my decision to buy it, not an unscrupulous greedy meat packing plant owner. And other people object to it too. The issue is that the products became tainted in the first place amidst our robust and second to none regularity system. I use that word ‘tainted’ specifically, as I believe that something that wasn’t intended or suspected to be in a product is technically a ‘taint’. So apparently all the food companies have to do is to import dodgy meat from abroad or partially prepare their products there and the fantastic regulatory system is neatly bypassed. I do wonder how much of the blame will stick to the UK household names and how much will fall on the Eastern-European slaughterhouses that reportedly supply us with crumbling foetid flesh.

Of course, the horses that have reached the end of their life and are in pain from crippling arthritis get pumped full of the anti-inflammatory chemical Phenylbutazone (otherwise known as ‘bute’ – I love how horse medicine has street names). This is possibly a bigger deal if this has entered the food change as it can be toxic to humans. But who knows that was in the horses systems?

Clearly there is now a crisis of confidence in the supermarkets and the wider industry. How do you know your frozen fish-fingers aren’t tainted with sea horses or those scary deep sea fish that have lanterns instead of eyebrows? There needs to be a root and branch review of the whole processed food sector and executives need to go to jail before people will be convinced that it is safe to eat their cheap processed food again. 

Beyonce and the Streisand Effect

According to the Third Immutable Natural Law Of Beyoncé, there is no better photo of Beyoncé than the photo of Beyoncé you are viewing, because at that moment, it is the best of all possible Beyoncé photos, This is one of the great Mysteries of Beyoncé.

I just find it funny that Beyonce's PR person asked for unflattering pictures to be taken off the internet. Come on.

Micro-mistakes (CTRL-ALT- FU)

There has been a rumour swirling around the last day or two regarding the next Xbox console and that it will require an always on internet connection and that there will be no second hand games allowed with an activation restriction preventing the discs having any value apart from when they are first sold or possibly no discs at all.

Well. Pigeons. Cats. Amongst. Set. The! Now of course this isn’t a hard source of information (although the mighty Edge did a piece on it and other publications followed suit) but of course we all recognise that this is probably the eventual future of gaming (as seen by the games console manufactures and developers and all the other hangers on who currently hate the second hand games market). There were even similar rumours surrounding the release of the PlayStation 3 although these obviously came to nothing. It’s not even as if the technology doesn’t exist as it would be basically a gimped version of Steam with frontloaded DLC codes. Personally I think these are rumours that have been floated by Microsoft themselves in order to gauge the reaction amongst fans. Well, I hope they are listening as the reaction has been universally terrible for a number of reasons.

Firstly, 35.9 million of all current Xboxes have not even been on the internet let alone played online. Now things move on so I would expect that number to come down in the future for a new xbox but it is a chilling statistic for a company wanting to build things around having Xboxes totally online all the time. Secondly, most people’s internet connections are pretty ropey anyway. I think the average connection speed is about 2Mb in the UK and something similar in the US. We live in an age of data caps and fair use policies so will people really download 50GB blurays? Really, Microsoft?

Steam is always on DRM but people don’t actually mind it. Why? Because there is an offline mode which is decent now although it didn’t used to be. And because the games are damn cheap when the sales come around which leads me to my next point. MS and also Sony haven’t quite got their heads around digital pricing for AA games. New games are routinely at full RRP (£49.99 or even £55) even when the games have been around for ages and the second hand copies are £0.99 in the ASDA bargain bin or free with the purchase of a spare pair of false teeth. Not only this, but second hand games form the currency to buy the new games with people turning around games quite quickly and using them to part exchange. Now, the games shops are guilty of a little profiteering here. Ok, gouging basically. Try buying an AA game and then trying to sell it back to the shop a week later for something even approaching the original price and you will be laughed out of there. They will buy it off you for a song and then sell it for £5 off the brand new price. People are well aware of this which is why the game shops are in trouble anyway (see below).

There is also denying people the right to sell their own goods which is a well established legal principle in the US (First Sale Doctrine) and it is something the EU are actively looking at at the moment (with a test case in Germany underway). Software companies in general have been keen to deny people the right to the software and hardware that they buy by stating that consumers only have something under licence. This is true but their control was very limited when they still had to flog pieces of easily sold and swappable pieces of plastic but easy to control when it is merely bits and bytes that are floating around the ether that require verification with central servers.

If Microsoft do implement this then I am not sure where people will even buy games consoles as there will be literally no games stores left. They would be destroying an industry that is already falling apart due to myriad of other factors but including digital downloads as a minor subset of a reason. Despite all of these reasons, I think that most people would be ok with it if the games were cheap and you could play offline and you could gift or give games to other people. Sadly, I think Microsoft just won’t do this and will keep the game pricing static (possibly even raising the prices due to “development costs” and a large chunk of people will miss the next generation or become one with the PC Gaming Master Race or even lower cost alternatives like the OUYA console which is coming out soon. 

Do you Facebook? Yes? Recently?

Do you Facebook? What am I saying, of course you do. You Facebook all the time. Well, you might, but according to recent research undertaken by the Pew Internet Research Group, 60% of people do not log on to Facebook regularly and have taken breaks of a few weeks or more. Some people said they just needed a Facebook “vacation”, others just weren't interested any more  The largest group of people say they couldn't be bothered to go on Facebook as they were too busy doing other things. This is fascinating, as although Facebook is clearly the most popular and dominant social media network ever created, take up to the site has slowed down dramatically in the last few years or so. People create accounts, then just drift off and occasionally log back in to spy on their friends and relative’s holiday pictures. Something which I have never, ever done by the way. Ever.

So what can Facebook do to stem this tide of apathy? They have introduced a sort of global search based upon people’s personal preferences. This could be very powerful and people tend to not trust stuff they find on Google but will trust things that their friends can vouch for. Facebook could also make an accessible mobile version for Android phones. What, you say there is one already? Are you referring to that sack of dicks currently pretending to be a mobile version? No. Just no.

I was very late to the scene on Facebook when I joined in 2009. I only joined because I was getting so many emails asking me to join up that I had a small yet powerful psychotic episode where I joined Twitter and Facebook, got an iPhone, and burned an unoccupied barn to the ground in Grantham during the middle of the night.

Las Malvinas Son Argentinas

So common British groupthink dictates that I parrot the line that the Falklands belongs to the British. It’s obvious anyway though, isn’t it? It belongs to Britain now, and British people live there. So surely there is no argument, right?

The vapid posturing of the Argentine diplomat currently here in London is funny too. Clearly any diplomatic decision needs to be put past the actual people living there yet the fact that the diplomat contests this is clearly BONKFUCKINGMAD. Yes, there is history of the UK and Argentina beefing over this and the Brits barely, just barely, managed to smack the Argentine bottoms back in the 80s but I doubt they could do that again. So that leaves diplomacy, and for diplomacy to work then you need to have all the stakeholding parties talking around a table.  

But what if the Argentines have a point? Although clearly the population want to remain British, maybe their self-determinism shouldn’t a factor as they are not native to the island and actually replaced the native Argentines. There is also conflicting opinions, weird treaties, swapping of ownership between Arthur and Martha, all regarding who settled what and how (interestingly enough, France probably has the best claim as they first settled it and named it). So the “ownership” issue is all muddled up as well.  

So if we take those factors out of the equation we have a small settlement that is thousands of miles from London and the Brits are claiming is as theirs. It is clearly Argentina’s and the Brits are behaving like a big neo-colonial bully trying to hang on to it. 

The “SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE IS IN JEOPARDY”. Bitch, please.

The vote for gay marriage is today and I really cannot understand why there is a fuss about it. The crusty Tory Grandees seem to think that it is compulsory or will drastically affect their lives or something. The “SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE IS IN JEOPARDY”. Bitch, please.

Although we have come light years in terms of laws since the late 60s when committing a homosexual act was illegal I still think that a lot of people’s views haven’t changed very much. Thankfully, those people are elderly and on the way out and most ‘young’ people actually don’t even care about it and find it weird that it isn’t already on the statute books. One could argue that civil partnership is basically what gay marriage is but it obviously doesn’t quite have the same ring to it (geddit?). I think that the Conservatives are reacting totally insanely over this. They are treating it as a divisive issue when it really isn’t. If this is a stepping stone to breaking the party and creating a rift then the Conservative MPs deserve to lose the next election. 

Huhng Himself out to Dry

The farce that is Chris Huhne's resignation is probably about a year too late. The fact that it took until the actual court date to change his plea to 'Guilty' is a disgrace to himself, his wife and his profession. What is remarkably odious is that he tried to get the case dismissed several times on a technicality when he knew full well he was guilty.

I actually don't think the original offence is that bad. Hell, I've paid the fine when I was a kid and my mum picked up the points. But had I been called out on it I would have stood tall. Huhn's lying, inveigling, and obfuscation since the affair went public has on balance been the worse crime. The Libdems will unfairly now be tarnished (one could argue how much more bare metal to tarnish is left) by this affair by association.

MP's Pay

There has been a lot of nonsense regarding MP's salary with the vast majority wanting larger ones. If MPs want to be rich then they should get another job instead of running the country. However it appears that they want to do both. Because it is so much more lucrative being in business and at the same time able to influence the laws that affect your profitability.

Their income should be more representative of the country as a whole or their mandate from their constituents. 2 suggestions:

1) Pay all of them median incomes. At least there will be more incentive to increase incomes of the larger proportion of people earning less as opposed to just looking after top earners.

2) Pay them based on % of eligible voters they gained a mandate from. Those gaining 90% can have 86K while those having the smallest of mandates get minimum wage. It will create an incentive to stop running politics on a minority of seats and encourage them to find ways of appealing to those who do not currently vote.

In both cases there should be no consultation fees, no second job, no interest in a third party business.In addition, they can't be an MP if all they've done is an Oxford PPE and a parliamentary researcher's job. Having had a 'real' job somewhere doing something outside of politics ought to be a prerequisite.

Vine

I read about Vine last week and it seems awesome. A really cool idea. However all of the APIs are closed so you can't share automatically with Facebook and other social networks so Twitter is playing things very close to its chest. This is a real shame and the antithesis of social networking. Twitter wouldn't have been able to get as popular as it did without some cross-fertilisation from Facebook and MySpace etc. so Twitter pulling the sharing is a real step backwards. Completely foreseeable of course, as that is what they did to Instagram. I'm only bitter as I have an android phone and only iPhones and iOS devices can use it at the moment. As usual, XKCD has it nailed.

State of Play and Future

I am truly in despair as to who to vote for in the next General Election in 2015.

Firstly, a little history about my own political views. 

I will be honest, I voted Conservative at the last one. Partly as I considered myself basically of that ilk, and also I loathed Labour and what they have done to the country in their spell of oppression that I had to vote Tory. I didn't always dislike Labour, however. Had I been old enough in 1997 then I would have voted for them as it was time for a change. Just like it was time for a change in 2010. I didn't like some of the Conservative party leanings however with luck they will be tempered by the Libdems whom I have admired on a number of key issues. I suppose I am a fiscally conservative social democrat with libertarian leanings.

Well. Halfway through the Coalition term, and I don't want any of them to be in power.

The Conservatives have run rough-shod over everything that is decent. Worse, they have done it in a shambolic manner with U-turns and cock ups all the way. I actually don't think they even realise some of the social damage they have caused either accidentally or on purpose. Osborne is not only a joke but is a dangerous joke. He has literally no idea about what is going on other than what focus groups tell him. It says a lot about a party when you have people like Michael Gove feted as a wunderkind. Luckily, the frothing right wingers will have torn the party apart by the time of the next election. 

The Libdems are like irradiated Sellafield lambs from the 1980s. They will be obliterated in the next election barring some sort of psephological miracle. 

Labour are currently so on the fence about everything that the slightest breeze would see them sailing over the horizon. Obviously the wrong Miliband leads them and the most odious man in politics is in charge of their financial policies. I think most people still (rightly) blame them for poor policies in the 2000s that has vastly contributed to the current state of the economy although the Tories have cocked it up even more. But I think that Labour will sleepwalk into victory in the next election. 

So what do we collectively do as a nation? 

There is a lot of disaffected and effectively disenfranchise people out there now. It is not quite as bad as the totally two tier partisanship of the US but we certainly don't have the same enthusiasm for our 'teams' over here. Maybe we should set up a new party? 

Top of the head manifesto ideas: fund research into non-dinosaur juice private transport systems, aim for interim full nuclear power with long term renewable sources, re-nationalise rail service (introduce full highspeed across the UK), renew all public transport generally and make it affordable, government and privately backed renewal of telephone lines (full fibre rollout to all of the UK), evolutionary reform of the NHS, protected disability allowances but with more stringent testing, cap on welfare but a simplified method of getting access, improvement of job creation schemes (not outsourced), abolish Trident, abolition of PFI schemes and create legislation to introduce break clauses into current agreements, create tax incentives for manufacturing companies to set up in deprived areas, create a British Baccalaureate that emphasises maths, science, and languages, create resourced practical apprenticeships for kids that want to do plumbing, electrical work, be mechanics etc. Make university places free for the first year but then introduce a sliding scale charge for the second and third year with people getting good grades paying virtually nothing.

There are more, and you may disagree with the above. That is good, as it will focus discussion on what actually should be the right thing to do and help crystallise arguments.

The main ethos of the party would be centrist, futurist, pragmatic, and aim to make Britain competitive again within the context of the 21st Century. Our funding would be dependent on small donations from people and donations over a certain amount would not be allowed to maintain independence from big donors. Everything would be run on the internet and we would take advantage of any and all free social media. Every member of the party would have a blog, and all internal voting would be on the main party’s site on their secure forum.

The Tory Party was created from the Agricultural Revolution to represent the landowners; The Labour Party was created from of the Industrial Revolution to represent the industrial workers. Why can’t another party rise to adequately represent the members of the technological revolution?

Let’s set up a political party representative of the people living in the 21st Century.

Mobile

Oh it appears as though the mobile version works as well. That's good to know.

RIM Shots

The thing that interests me today I guess is the reception that the new BlackBerry phone has got. It has been delayed by a good 18 months, but RIM (sorry, sorry, blackberry now) have done what looks like a decent job and have got developers on board (ok, bribed 'em) but the result is the same. The critics have been cautiously positive and so have the members of the public that have had a go on the phones. So what is the end result? "Very good, but not very good enough" which is to paraphrase the tech media's view. This is a crying shame for several reasons. Firstly, blackberry have won hearts and minds of millions of people for decades and have finally brought out a decent modern product. Secondly, they have worked damn hard and taken body blows to achieve this (gotten rid of their idiot twin CEOs, delayed against public pressure, mucked up the PlayBook launch). Thirdly, they have gone their own way in terms of OS development. Sure they have taken cues from other OS makers (WebOs anyway) but have basically done their own thing. They didn't go down the incestuous tit for tat Android/iOS feature steal.

So what's my point? There is room for another player, blackberry are not down and out and they cut still cut Micronokia a new one despite the resources that Microsoft have.

Intro

I have started to write a blog. This will probably be the last entry until 2022 when the world will just be the trading audience for the super conglomerate of Amaztesoapple. I intend to write about my interests which are basically politics, technology, "humour", weight-loss, parenting, books, and bananas that have gone slightly too black to eat but you still try them anyway 'just in case'. Hopefully this will be interesting but I will try to write at least once a day on something that piques my interest or generally irks me.