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People who look at car crashes

March 19, 2010 in Music, Rant, Views by admin | No comments

Why does a celeb, posthumously, become a superhero?

I could name a few – who had varying degrees of talent (from ‘zero’ to ‘some’) – who have been raised to this state.

This is not really related to the Radio 4 Feedback programme itself, more to a programme that was played out this week featuring Jeff Buckley singing Dido’s Lament.

I’ve never seen a car crash in realtime, in fact I have never so much as seen a person get killed or even die.

Nor am I one of those people who slows down to look at the crash on the motorway. I believe it’s more dangerous to do so, besides, slowing down can have a knock-on effect on hundreds of people’s lives by causing huge tailbacks; those in cars behind you may be missing their plane, missing a crucial interview for a job, trying to get to the other side of the country to see their dying grandmother. A police cleanup operation is made ten times more difficult by the behaviour of the public.

If you slow down to look, you are contributing to the chaos for one reason only: to satisfy your sick curiosity. I abhor everyone who looks at a car crash.

The only way to help is to look straight ahead and ignore it. Tell yourself people die every day from their own – or others’ – stupidity and thoughtlessness, or by mere chance.

Technically, I should feel similarly about how we humans are morbidly interested in the dead.

I understand our human obsession with venerating people to cultural superhero status just because they died in unfortunate circumstances; there is a correlation between the depth of tragedy and the amount that we consider them a genius. I understand our obsession with venerating stars to cultural superhero status because they committed suicide; they were oh so fragile, society didn’t listen to them, they were victims of the modern world.

But celebrities? People in the pop industry? People who appeared on Big Brother?

Jeff Buckley appears to have been a reasonably talented person, however he does not deserve the veneration to cult superhero status that he has received. Apart from anything, he butchered Dido’s Lament. Here is a beautiful piece of music written in the context of a work of opera, which has been singled-out by a man who appears to be nothing more than slightly interested in gothic things, with no more than a modicum of talent.

From my above views on people who slow down for car crashes, you might assume that I would curse loudly, switch off the radio, move on.

Except I had to listen. The more I listened, the more enraged I became. The more confused I became about why such terrible singing could be seen as so brilliant by so many people.

The positive comments that flowed in to R4′s Feedback confirm this.

Regardless of whether you consider this person to have been a musical talent or not, I believe that either way this kind of veneration is like slowing down to watch a car crash.

There are hundreds of other cars on the roads, millions of other personal stories, thousands of other performances of Purcell that will make you cry.

Is Buckley’s rendition of Dido’s Lament considered to have the depth of emotion that it does, because we only hear it with the knowledge of how he died?

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Browser Ballot

February 25, 2010 in Rant, Tech, Views by admin | 4 comments

Browser ballot. Ballot?

What, like an election? You mean, it’s more than a mere choice, it’s a personal statement of belief, a vote?

It appears that way. Each browser has its manifesto. A page held on a politically neutral website that outlines what the browser stands for.

What the hell?

Today I was doing some Windows updates on a client’s computer, and after I rebooted I saw something that led me to believe their machine had a trojan or spyware. For there was no branding, no explanation, just a box that popped up in an unfamiliar window saying that I had an important choice to make.

This has to be dodgy, right? A virus. Someone trying to steal my data.

The only important choice I have to make right now is what to have for dinner.

No, it’s the European Union ruling against Microsoft, telling them that they have to provide users with a choice of browser. A browser ballot. Yay! I get to vote!

It’s like returning home after your cleaner has been only to find someone took your wooden floor away, and left you a note saying you have an important choice to make. You need to choose what type of floor you would like to use from now on. Wait, you surely bought that floor along with the rest of the house? Like five years ago!

NO! Because a floor is distinctly different to a house. Lots of different people make floors! You should be given a choice! Otherwise it’s unfair on everyone who makes floors!

What the hell? Where is my floor? It’s my house, get out!

This only applies to Microsoft, mind. Your floor would only be temporarily removed if you bought a Microsoft house as your home, not an Apple one, or a Ubuntu one. Oh, and it only applies to Microsoft Homes purchased in the last 10 years. Oh, and it doesn’t apply to Microsoft Mansions (i.e. servers) or mobile homes of any sort (iPod, Windows Mobile). Only middle class homes. It’s because Microsoft are the Barratt Homes of computers. Their bigness makes them inherently bad.

Ok so the difficulty with this metaphor is that everyone in the world knows the difference between a floor and a house, but not everyone in the world knows the difference between a browser and an operating system. You, dear reader, are excused if you do not know the difference, deep down. It’s okay. You are quite normal.

Wait. Even worse to think. More people will vote in this arbitrary browser ballot in the UK than will vote in the general election. Many, many more people. That is so wrong it hurts.

Back on topic, let’s get this straight.

Anyone who actually knows what a browser is has already made their choice.

The remainder (75% of actual people – that is – living human beings with souls who just want to go on the internet without any hassles) do not care.

They will have a decision process forced upon them, be told the decision is important, (what, like abortion? Like looking for a new job?) and then be confounded with a load of options they don’t understand. If they click the window away, it will install a shortcut to the desktop, and come up again on next reboot.

I work in the field of IT Consultancy, and I can testify that to the majority of users, this decision is not as important as who to vote for on X Factor.

The consequence: IT Support will be picking up the pieces, after the sorry mess caused by a load of unsuspecting users who accidentally installed the wrong browser because they had no idea where to click, thus losing all of their settings, saved passwords, and not to mention being bloody confounded because the browser they chose didn’t have the latest version of Adobe Flash, etc.

Make it go away.

My mother doesn’t even know the difference between the address bar and a mouse. Give her a change of browser and she will have to go to night classes again just to learn how to do a Google search. Seriously.

Hell, even the BBC, in tech articles, regularly get operating system and browser confused. That’s how tech savvy we are: rightly or wrongly, our own media can’t even get it right. (Cringe.)

In the name of liberation, choice, freedom? It smacks of jealousy, of fanatical technocracy. It’s almost a religious war. Sure as anything isn’t politics. Or regulation for that matter.

The global tech industry requires solid, effective, and rational sector regulation. The EU has proven its worthlessness once again by entirely missing the point and unleashing its mindless red tape on an easy target. Path of least resistance. What a weak bunch.

It’s micro legislation, and it undermines the fact that the industry is suffering a dearth of real regulation, such as in cyber security, or in the environmental challenges.

Nit-picking at the big guy on a tiny point of interest does nobody any favours.

It’s straight bananas, except far worse.

It sure as anything wasn’t for anti-monopoly reasons because for one, browsers are not a major source of income for anyone (except those who only make browsers… cough cough) and secondly because this will do nothing to put a leash onto the fact Microsoft have cornered the corporate IT market – where the money is.

This is the techno-democracy-brigade equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

I’m starting to feel sorry for large conglomerates (for the random outburst of legislation that clearly applies to nobody else) and feeling anger towards libertarian organisations who supposedly want the world to be a better place.

I’m starting to mutter under my breath words like political correctness gone MAD, and I sound like one of those awful Daily Mail readers.

What’s going on with the world?

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How to get things done

February 12, 2010 in Tech, Views by admin | 1 comment

The whole concept of consolidating one’s thoughts into a list is something that fascinates me.

Why? Because I’m not a listy kind of person. I’m very much an improviser in life, I don’t like to be tied-down to systems or structures, I love to see how things go before I commit – but I still find myself having to write lists.

Herein lies a paradox, and here is the crux of this paradox: because I don’t naturally tend towards structure, and because my brain is so disorderly, and because I am not a natural multitasker, and because I think too much all of the time, (and because the number of clauses in this sentence reflects how my brain works), the only way of getting through my day is to write a list.

It’s a battleplan for actually getting things done.

Otherwise, I am easily overcome with the small things clouding the bigger picture.

This is something I realised a while ago, and so I started to read about the formalised concepts of GTD (getting things done) proposed by David Allen, became a friend of the 43 folders concept, and investigated list-making websites and programs.

Like any true list junkie, I had to feed my habit. This started, aged 18 (that’s 11 years ago), with an unhealthy dependency on using Microsoft Outlook tasks, and since then I have been a slave to the Palm Pilot (2 different models), early days of Nokia mobile phone tasks, the smartphone in 4 different flavours (Windows Mobile introduced synchronisation of my lists from Outlook to a mobile device – wow!), cloud-based services like Gmail’s task lists, synchonisation of lists across a number of different pieces of technology, not to mention the shunning of all the above and the purchase of the entire range of Moleskine notepads (I was feeling renaissance).

Now I come to think of it, I once spent three weeks trying to find the perfect digital audio dictation device that was waterproof so that I could pin-down the ridiculous number of thoughts and bright ideas that my brain has when I am in the shower, as well as driving in my car. No kidding. What a geek.

Invariably, however, after my foray into this new-fangled paper and pen thing, I came back to technology to help me get productive. How old-fashioned. And of late I have downloaded (and spent too much money on) a few good GTD applications for the iPhone.

I have pondered how much money I’ve invested over the years on systems to help me get things done (Things, TapForms, DropBox, Evernote, Done, Outlook, Pocket Informant, and more), and whether or not this investment has matched the gain in productivity I have encountered. Of course, it hasn’t.

But it has made me feel better. I therefore conclude that everyone needs a hobby, and because I don’t fly kites or own a cat, mine is “finding the perfect way to organise my thoughts”.

Like a junkie, I get excited when I sign-up for a new productivity enhancing website. I get excited when I find out the website will sync with my iPhone so that I can always never forget to not forget to Remember the Milk at all times, always, wherever I am.

Then I’m left high-and-dry 6 months later because I discover one TINY piece of functionality that another application has invented which my favourite To-Do list system doesn’t have.

Such is the curse of perfectionism. No, scrap that. Such is the curse of consumerism.

At this point in my life, I have identified the problem. The problem is me.

I am a fickle consumer of things that could potentially make my life more efficient and better.

Is it really me? Or has the perfect system – at least perfect in my mind – just not been invented yet?

You see, in my head there is a specification for what makes the ultimate list application. (This is like the ‘ultimate hit’ for junkies.)

  • Quick to enter thoughts. I mean, from the moment you have a thought, there should be zero delay in recording it. This also covers the requirement to enter lots of thoughts in succession.
  • Clear delineation of functionality from other apps. A good GTD app should not be my calendar, but because I am task-oriented and not time-oriented, I require some kind of time-based aspect. For example, I want to remember to do something in the future but not to have it cloud my list for the current day.
  • Needs to have multiple lists or contexts. (One for work, one for admin, one for home, etc.)
  • Needs to have multiple views and list types that transcend these contexts. (Things for ‘today’, things for ‘someday’, things for a project, things for a meeting, etc.)
  • Needs to act as a record or log for old thoughts / to-do items. I want to track what I was doing this time a year ago. This time 4 years ago. Therefore it must have an export function, to export to a common format, if and when I move on to another system.
  • Coupled with the above point, it needs to export items so as to be platform-independent. I love my iPhone, and will probably settle on it for at least a few years. And I currently use a PC. But what about in 20 years, when we are commanding computers built-in to coffee tables and the like? Tech has changed so much in the last 10 years, and this will only accelerate in the next 10.
  • Back to the now: needs to sync between different devices, and the cloud. My laptop and desktop PC are used when I need to expand thoughts, and my iPhone is my all-in-one that gets taken everywhere. Ideally, this sync should be done via the ‘cloud’, so everything is backed-up, and so I’ve access even when I lose or forget my laptop or phone. I use the Google cloud, because it’s free, and highly available, and resilient. This allows me to store and sync files, email, you name it. Too many of the best apps are written for Mac and iPhone only. No good for me right now.
  • Needs to be pretty. And ingenious. I can’t handle an ugly bit of software.

It turns out there are a tonne of apps out there that do most of the above, but not all. Perhaps that’s why I keep changing apps, not because I’m a junkie.

The best ones seem to be apps that are not quite as platform independent. Things for iPhone, OmniFocus for iPhone – great apps, but if you want to sync with PC or the cloud, they are limited. And they aren’t that ingenious in terms of their user interface.

Remember the Milk for iPhone, great, but you need to sign up for a subscription to their package.

My latest download is an application for iPhone called Today To-Do by Spielhaus.

The fact it’s my latest indicates it’s my favourite in the evolution of GTD on the iPhone so far (that small sentence betrays a lot of enthusiasm for the application right now), but it doesn’t quite fulfill the whole of the above hit-list… at least not yet.

The first application that does so gets a full, detailed review!

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“Is this a Turner for the better” and other clever headlines

December 8, 2009 in Views by admin | No comments

The most convincing criticism of contemporary art in general (also known by some of my friends as ‘conceptual bull’), is that most of it exists only to question the audience’s view of what art is.

Such art, I agree, is not art. At least, it was considered so back in the 60s, where it was perfectly valid to create a piece with the sole intention of getting us to answer the question “then what is art?” – but since then we have moved on. We have answered that question.

(In fact, it was way earlier than the 60s, in fact probably not even last century, but the whole thing was arguably popularised at this point.)

By inference, the most convincing criticism of the Turner Prize – which usually features the likes of cow brains, elephant dung, and other headline-inducing artistic concepts – the most convincing criticism is that it is entirely self-referential, and nothing more.

Well, it is self-referential, but this isn’t the whole story. A great proportion of historic art is also self-referential, but this seems to pass Turner critics by.

One solution that Turner defenders seize upon is to argue that the concept behind each work is what defines the work’s value, and the success of the work is based on two things:

  1. the artistic journey behind the concept (artistic process, technique, relevance of the concept to the audience and to society, etc.)
  2. the power that the physical rendition of the concept (i.e. the thing that gets put in a gallery) has to point the audience towards the concept; its physical success.

Personally, I don’t accept this, and it seems to me a regressive move to defend contemporary art in such a dialectic.

When Kim Howells denounced the Turner Prize as “conceptual bullshit”, I believe he didn’t mean that conceptual art is bullshit, but rather that the quality of the concepts were bullshit.

He may have been right or wrong, but this should not affect our view of the validity of a Turner piece as a piece of ‘real art’.

I know we all come to our own conclusions as to what questions were answered by the first strands of conceptual art – whether you think this was in the 60s or the 1917 or what. For me, it is that art does not require being part of a larger system or strand of development, nor does it require any kind of grounding in, or reference to society. Art is at its most powerful when considered as aesthetically autonomous. An autonomous art needs no defense.

It is no surprise that the papers have focused on how this year’s Turner Prize winner is more of a ‘traditional’ artist. The Daily Mail calls it “Actual Art” in their special little article.

And I am very glad at the announcement of Wright as this year’s winner of the Turner Prize. In fact I haven’t met a single person that didn’t want him to win this year’s Turner Prize.

But, given my views above, it upset me that this year’s judges said things like “it is just so beautiful” instead of providing a good reason as to why he won this year. This, I feel, makes a mockery of contemporary art.

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Royal Mail. Doing Justice to its 'Royal' Roots.

October 9, 2009 in Rant, Views by admin | No comments

Royal Pain in the Arse, more like.

Yesterday, our post came at 2pm.

I ran to the door, because two days ago I had noticed they had delivered mail for another house altogether, and I wanted to ask the postman what he was doing. (Politely. I am always polite, however angry.)

But first, I inspected the letters that had just dropped.

One for me, one for 61 Tunis Road (lucky me!) and one for 61 Stanlanke Road.

“What, AGAIN?!”, thought I.

I immediately dropped the mail, opened the front door expecting to see the postman a couple of steps away. I was ready to lose a little bit of patience, actually.

Even if it was the fault of the sorting office who had put things in the wrong piles, and even if it was the end of my shift, I would still not do something like that. I would look at the post, and think “I should take this to where it should go, one road down”. I would then sacrifice 10 extra minutes of my life to explain to my manager that this has happened too many times now, and it’s not acceptable.

Alas, the postie was half way down the road in a red van by the time I looked out on the street. How on Earth he must have returned to his van from my doorstep, started up, and driven half-way down the road in the space of about 8 seconds, I have no idea!

This is a special skill. An art, you might say. One that requires practice.

The plot thickens.

I walked around to 61 Tunis Road to politely offer them some important mail (return address was PO Box Northampton, does the reader know what this means? Yes, the letter had a credit-card shaped, er, card inside of it, no joke), and was greeted by a lady whose young boy asked if I was Matthew.

Good GOD. This sharp-eyed young boy had remembered seeing my address and name on some mail for me, delivered to them! And it was my online VAT registration details, including membership card. Great, so nothing too important then!

Do these people see “letter from HMRC REVENUE AND CUSTOMS” and think “sod it, I’ll deliver it elsewhere”?

Is it because I made a complaint about them shoving a “while you were out” notice through the letterbox two months ago without having even knocked on the door only to open the door immediately to ask what was going on and to find the postman didn’t even have the parcel he was claiming to try to deliver that day? Was it revenge for the formal complaint I had made about this terrible behaviour?

I visited my next location, where I was greeted by the grateful face of a lady whose HMRC REVENUE AND CUSTOMS letter (yes, another really important letter), or that of her husband, had been missing.

How desperate!

This country is a joke!

I am giving up and moving to Spain.

In Spain, people sit around in sunny piazzas, drinking espresso and talking about important things.

People look after others’ babies without the fear of being arrested or told off by officious social services workers.

Do people misbehave like this in Spain, where it’s hot?

Do people not take pride in their jobs here at all?

Do people have no souls? Not an ounce of goodness? Any sense of right?

Am I the only one who has a sense of basic human decency and duty? No, thankfully I am not. But it’s so hard finding others who also do!

Our road names are different! Our postcodes completely different! They are DIFFERENT ADDRESSES! Your job is to deliver an envelope to an address, not a random letterbox nearby because you are at the end of your shift, you lazy jobsworth-y heap of disrespectful human uselessness!

It’s one thing when we can’t trust others on the street to behave considerately towards others, but it’s another thing altogether when people do so AND take a pay packet for the privilege at the end of the month!

Member of the chattering classes that I am, I feel it’s my duty to apportion blame at this point.

Middle management. Not postmen. Middle management. For it is they who refuse to accept there is a huge problem with their workers. An enormous problem with quality of service. As long as they install customer care lines where they pay people to smile over the phone at you in order to form a convenient black hole for serious service complaints (every call ends with “thank you for your call, I will chat with the area manager and have this resolved as soon as possible“, which invariably masks a complete lack of understanding of the severity and spread of the endemic problems of worker attitude and area manager accountability), as long as they refuse to admit there are management structure problems and wipe out entire sections of the business to remedy the problem, this problem will continue to further plague the Royal Mail and cause its eventual demise.

Talk about an industry giving itself a black eye when it’s already got major health problems.

I only write because mail workers voted in favour of a strike today.

Good one. Imagine if everyone had a little bit of a strike. Postal workers, train workers, politicians, policemen and women, teachers, firemen. Anarchy, it would be anarchy. That’s why striking, in a society like we have today, is practically immoral; if you don’t like your job, or the sector you decided to go in to, why the hell are you staying in it? Sure, try to reform it, if you do care about your job or sector. But striking doesn’t have that effect, it has the effect of stirring up anger from the public and solving nothing between ‘robust’ negotiators for the industry and insolent negotiators for the unions.

God, it’s not like we are sending people down the mines any more, is it?

Striking: in our current societal status, it’s what lazy people who think they deserve more do. Here’s my message to you: everyone in the world thinks they deserve more. Apart from those who really don’t have anything, and they appreciate life in every way they can. Yes, workers think they deserve better treatment and pay, even politicians think they deserve better pay, even after The Scandal. I don’t want this to sound trite, but I have come to appreciate those around me who appreciate what they have got, I am one of these people myself.

Anyway, enough of the happy clappy, on with the vitriol.

Or perhaps it’s lawyers’ faults?

Lawyers have turned our society into a compensation society, like the USA. They didn’t mean to, their motives for campaigning for individuals to have greater power to challenge organisations were pure. After all, they were about power to the people. But actually it has backfired, and it means we are not able to simply get rid of rubbish workers, for fear of tribunals and court cases of unfair dismissal. The public sector, which doesn’t have the money to get serious heavyweight legal assistance in such cases, is the one that loses. Or rather, we, consumers of public services, are the ones who lose. The Lawyers didn’t think about that, they didn’t think about the long lasting effects of handing legal power to the individual.

Sounds good on paper, but actually leads to inefficient, ineffective organisations, ones that have to care more about workers’ rights than the job they are trying to get done. That surely cannot be right.

Sack it, I blame the Labour government. (NB I say this tongue-in-cheek.) Might as well. Spoon feed society, pay them for sitting around on their arses all day, and the wretched disease of indifference about life, the universe, and everything, will filter up into the working classes, god help us because it has probably permeated the middle and upper classes too, and soon enough 99.9% of the general public will be unable to make decisions for themselves and abuse their surroundings and take others for granted. This is the thin end of the wedge. The thick end is crime and intolerance.

Socialism. It may seem like a great idea to give handouts to those who need them the most, but it does nothing for society – all levels of society – in the medium to long term.

It simply means more people spit in the street, and dump their rubbish illegally, and behave in antisocial ways. And drop mess, and eat smelly food on the tube, and carry knives around. And drink and start fights, and can’t look each other in the eye.

That’s why I simply cannot bring myself to vote Labour, however much I don’t want the Tories to come to power.

Rant over.

I wish I were not in the impossible position of having to vote for a party I don’t really believe in, nor do I think will ever have enough power.

Can’t someone fill the political gap?

No, not you, UKIP, you single-minded waste of a manifesto.

A party I could take pride in, one that represents a political ideal I can connect with. One that is in favour of Europe, peace, technology, progress, social justice, reasonable taxes, fiscal conservatism. I wouldn’t mind paying higher tax if we could find one.

Am I a Tory? Please tell me no. I am not a Tory.

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The London Foxtrot

June 29, 2009 in Views by admin | 1 comment

The London Foxtrot
Once per day, usually between the hours of midnight and 3am, I sit on the front step outside my house in a busy suburb of London to get some ‘air’.
This summer has been unusually warm so far, with long spans of hot temperatures starting as early as late April.
In the 5 minutes it takes for me to finish this ‘air’ one usually sees 3-5 cars passing through the nearby junction, fifty percent of which have noisy radios or noisy exhausts. Three out of seven days during this 5 minute period I will watch a pizza delivery moped pass by, with its customary “L” plate denoting the fact the driver is a perpetual learner, presumably with no intention of ever taking a test. 2 in 3 times a passer-by will walk past. One in about 20 times the passer-by will ask me something. (Usually such people are to be ignored, because they are rude or scary in some small way.) Once, whilst I was sitting outside on the telephone, a man on the opposite side of the road shouted over asking me for a cigarette. I didn’t respond because I was deep in conversation, and he crossed over and shouted “hey, I’m talking to you”. He swore. I pointed at the phone to indicate I was busy talking, and he became verbal abusive. I explained firmly that he could see I was talking on the phone, but he swore at me and asked who the hell I thought I was to ignore him.
This year, foxes pass me by. Foxes always walk trot elegantly and quickly along the street from my left to my right. About a third of the way into my view, they clock me, stop as still as the night itself and stare. We exchange quizzical stares for five to ten seconds, dead still. About 5 seconds into the stare I raise my eyebrow. During this summer, this chain of events happens every time I go outside.
Why do foxes trot?

 

Once per day, usually between the hours of midnight and 3am, I sit on the front step outside my house in a busy part of London to get some ‘air’.

This summer has been unusually warm so far, with long spans of hot temperatures starting as early as late April.

In the 5 minutes it takes for me to finish this ‘air’ one usually sees 3-5 cars passing through the nearby junction, fifty percent of which have noisy radios or noisy exhausts. Three out of seven days during this 5 minute period I will watch a pizza delivery moped pass by, with its customary “L” plate denoting the fact the driver is a perpetual learner, presumably with no intention of ever taking a test. 2 in 3 times a passer-by will walk past. One in about 20 times the passer-by will ask me something. (Usually such people are to be ignored, because they are rude or scary in some small way.) Once, whilst I was sitting outside on the telephone, a man on the opposite side of the road shouted over asking me for a cigarette. I didn’t respond because I was deep in conversation, and he crossed over and shouted “hey, I’m talking to you”. He swore. I pointed at the phone to indicate I was busy talking, and he became verbally abusive. I explained, with a robust tone of voice, that he could see I was talking on the phone, but he swore at me and asked who the hell I thought I was to ignore him.

This year, foxes pass me by. Foxes always walk trot elegantly and quickly along the street from my left to my right. About a third of the way into my view, they clock me, stop as still as the night itself and stare. We exchange quizzical stares for five to ten seconds, dead still. About 5 seconds into the stare I raise my eyebrow. During this summer, this chain of events happens every time I go outside.

Why do foxes trot?

Why is it generally considered okay in prose to mix digits with the number written out in text, seemingly randomly?

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Radical rhetoric

April 17, 2009 in Views by admin | No comments

Did I hear this correctly?

Regarding Mexico, Hillary Clinton said, “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade”, and, “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians”.

Here we have a senior Whitehouse official accepting some form of societal responsibility for the damage the drug trade is doing to foreign ground.

That may well sound normal and correct to the average citizen, but isn’t it a little radical for Ms Clinton to state such things?

I can’t see how, if she had won the primaries and the subsequent election, she would ever have been capable of such radical speak. Being in support of good power makes Hillary an exceptionally likeable person.

Yes, this is another Obama-praise post in disguise.

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Tomorrow is inauguration day!

January 19, 2009 in Views by admin | 1 comment

I am distinctly jealous of all those in America who can attend any number of inauguration parties and celebrate the most exciting day in my living history with their friends tomorrow.

I am even more jealous of those in Washington DC who can have a real-life slice of the action. I have been highly excited about the lead-up to tomorrow, but there’s nobody to share it with.

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To what extent must society shape capitalism?

January 19, 2009 in Views by admin | No comments

Another post from a self-proclaimed economy non-expert.

This post is one big question mark, just so you’re aware!

I am sure that most of us, even the most right wing, would agree that capitalism is most effective – from a utilitarian point of view – when tempered to an extent by social forces. These may be ethics, the metaphorical workers’ rights of the marketplace; regulation, the health-and-safety handbook; economic progress, the constitution and philosophical goals of capitalism; trading law, the global rules of operation; process, the top-level efficiency of the capitalist system; communication and diplomacy, the oil in the machinery; the list could go on.

In fact if that list were to go on, it would become less and less directly related to capitalism, and the metaphors would become more and more broad. This is because capitalism itself eventually gives way to the aspects of society that surround it. For example, business ethics are informed by the aspects of global/local society that feed it, namely politics, environment, art, national and regional development, media, and so on. I hope to have explained this point as a construct rather than a view, as it exists whatever one’s views on the autonomy of capitalism within a state are. Whether you believe capitalism should be capitalism and completely uninformed by society, I am attempting to at least define the interdependence that could, does, should, or should not exist.

Which leads me to the point of writing this. As a layman I’m totally ignorant as to the schools of thought that define these boundaries. If anyone reading this knows of some studies on the interdependence between capitalism and society, I’d really appreciate a reading list. Or maybe even just a quick summary, or some keywords or authors I can search. Specifically the questions I have are as follows.

Most ‘moderates’, as I would consider them, believe that a marketplace should have a good degree of independence, but that there should be some healthy acknowledgement of the surrounding world. National politics usually define regulations, international consortia define trade law, but my question is to what extent should free market ethics be defined by society? A business should be able to use its powers to create a market and generate demand where there isn’t any, but the equal and opposite is that a business should also be able to use its power to close down a market, reduce demand, force down wages, etc. The obvious questions of business ethics arise from this example of irregularity. More importantly than “to what extent should free market ethics be defined by society”, is “who theoretically makes that decision” (this is rhetorical because it’s the powerful who end up making it), and “what system of rationale governs who makes the decision”?

I guess there are inevitably no answers to the above questions, but I am interested if there’s any research in these more esoteric areas.

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The domestic guide to good coffee

November 20, 2008 in Views by admin | No comments

This guide is a work in progress. Currently you are seeing the first draft.

Grinding your own

Always choose a burr grinder. A non burr grinder will chop the beans instead of crushing them to release oils. Chopping a good roast is a terrible thing to do if you want half decent coffee. It’s not worth buying a grinder at all unless it’s a burr grinder. If it doesn’t specifically say “burr grinder”, it most likely isn’t one, however expensive the unit may be. If you don’t buy a burr grinder, it is always better to have your beans ground at the shop where you buy it.

The quality of a burr grinder is defined by two variables:  

  1. Consistency of grinds
  2. Build quality (length of life, ease of cleaning etc)

It’s possible to purchase a cheap burr grinder for reasonable results. The Krups GVX2 is reasonable, although it may not last a lifetime. Mine broke after a few years. I found a replacement at Debenhams for £36 – an absolute steal. I believe Starbucks sell a branded version of the same model. It’s the cheapest reasonably decent grinder, and I use it. The compartment is not the easiest to clean, it requires a little shake sometimes mid-grind, to keep the beans flowing through. Also, you’ll need to clean grinds up, it does make a little mess. But that’s what coffee is about.

Better still would be the KitchenAid Artisan burr grinder. I haven’t used this unit myself, but it has great reviews.

Espresso machines

I’ve a lot to say on this subject, but I may fill this out at a later date.

It goes without saying, you must avoid cheap units in department stores or online. They often call themselves “cappuccino makers” or “latte makers”. The look like this.

The most important specification of an espresso machine is its pressure. Pressure is measured in bars, or atmospheres. Compare different machines on this specification to start with.

Avoid machines that use anything but coffee you can put in yourself. Nespresso is a well-known brand, and it’s the exception to this rule. It can make perfectly reasonable espresso, even with their cheaper models, and at an acceptable price. It makes a very good every-day espresso machine with minimal cleaning fuss.

The very best domestic espresso is made in lever machines like those from La Pavoni. They are also very high maintenance. You really have to want good coffee if you use this regularly.

Using a stove-top

Stove-tops are the cheapest way of getting espresso-like coffee. They cannot yield a true espresso, and they do not give a crema. That’s something that only a real espresso machine can do.

The most common stove-top make and size is the Bialetti Moka Express 3 cup. This is the one I have had most success with.

Often the coffee can taste way too bitter or way too weak, and sometimes coffee has a subtle taste of burnt rubber to it, due to the slight softening of the rubber seal. The seal may be replaced on Bialetti stove-top makers.

Stove-tops can yield reasonable coffee, but it’s very difficult to make them comply. It’s therefore advisable to lower your sights and use shop-bought name brands such as Illy or Lavazza as the consistency of the grounds will always be high, and grounds consistency is a variable that can throw the results out (strength, bitterness etc) by factors of ten.

It’s best to experiment with volume of coffee, volume of water, length of boiling and amount of heat. Also experiment a little with tamping pressure (how hard you press the coffee down) – start by not tamping it at all except to level the coffee grinds. Never tamp too hard.

A good starting place is to fill a 3 cup Bialetti Moka Express filter funnel with Lavazza espresso coffee, so it comes to just below the top of the funnel. Pat down with your finger to level the coffee. Run your finger around the rim of the funnel to remove loose grinds, ensuring that the rest of the funnel has no grinds stuck to it. Fill the bottom section up with cold water (filtered water is usually better, although such subtleties won’t be appreciated with a stove-top). Screw the lot together, nice and tight. Place on a medium gas heat from the smallest ring of your stove, or equivalent. Wait until you hear the perculating noise and wait a further 30 seconds to a minute. Taste the results without milk if you can, and vary the process.

It’s not uncommon for coffee to randomly taste so bad it’s undrinkable. It’s not uncommon for the coffee to simply never percolate at all; I’ve noticed this happening randomly on my own and friends’ stove-tops. It doesn’t necessarily mean a replacement seal is required. Just cool-off and try again.

There are no hard and fast rules except the following:

  1. Never fill water above the pressure valve. It’s usually best to fill the stove-top with cold water so the water level is just under the valve.
  2. Always remove grinds from the rim of the filter funnel before proceding.
  3. Avoid using washing up liquid on any of the parts, and never use a dishwasher.

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