Posted: May 6th, 2011 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: General, Social Comment | Tags: AV, democracy, politics, yes2AV | No Comments »
Can’t believe that the Conservatives have won Gloucester. But then again only around 40% of the electorate bothered to vote here.
What’s wrong with people? I’ll be honest, there was no candidate that really struck me as being worth my cross but I weighed things up and voted for who I wanted to win, knowing that they would not. Did I Waste my vote? Perhaps. But surely one should vote with their convictions rather than try to manipulate the least undesirable result? I voted with my head and heart and a blind faith in the system – just in case miracles happened.
So you get splits like this, for Barnwood, with 5 candidates standing. Resulting in 66% of those that bothered to vote NOT voting for the winner:
Trade Unionists 115 (3.6%)
Cons 1,086 (34.07%)
UKIP 209 (6.55%)
Lib Dem 1,059 (33.22%)
Lab 718 (22.52%)
Or this for Quedgeley Severn Vale, with just 3 candidates standing, in which 60% voted AGAINST the winner.
Lab 477 (25%)
Lib Dem 750 (39%)
Cons 670 (35%)
When you have more than 2 parties the system doesn’t work especially when there is no real difference between the candidates (i.e. they are all as bad as each other). So one candidate gets very slightly more votes than the others and is deemed the winner but in reality they have fairly low overall support.
If no candidate gets over 50% of the support then how is that democratic?
If you support the winning party then great. You got the result you wanted but don’t you still question the fairness of a system in which the majority of people voted against the eventual winner? It’s nothing to do with which party you support. It’s about having a system that represents the majority preference.
Too late now, but if you didn’t bother to vote or voted No in the AV campaign then shame on you.
Posted: October 6th, 2010 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Drunken Ranting, General, Humour, Social Comment | | 2 Comments »
I had a minor problem with a wasp infestation during the summer so I went to the local Homebase to get something to deal with it.
No problems there. I forgot all about it to be honest.
Just now though, I received and email from Homebase asking me to review my recent purchases. Curious as to what it was I may have recently bought from Homebase I took a closer look.
They wanted me to review the can of Wasp killer and the tub of Ant powder I’d bought in the summer.
Well, after a prompt from a Tweeter, I obliged.
–
Death to Wasp Scum.
With a can of wasp spray in my left hand and the ant powder in my right, I had a glimpse of what it felt like to be Hitler.
I didn’t like it, but it had to be done.
I approached the wasps at dusk to catch them unawares. Creeping up on their stronghold I let rip with the can of spray, deploying choking death directly into the wasp nest’s entrance. And but few seconds later I heard many tiny, buzzy coughs coming from inside.
Unfortunately they must have had some special suits or had developed a resistance because within 30 seconds I was being pursued by what was probably in excess of 1000 rather annoyed, coughing wasps.
I did a pretty good job keeping ahead of them but eventually I started to flag and they caught up with me. Once I’d endured a couple of hundred stings I found it very hard to keep up the pace and they brought me down.
Not to give up without a fight I chose this moment to deploy the powder – at the very least it might provide a smokescreen so I could effect a getaway. Alas, the wind took the puff of noxious powder straight into my face.
It was shortly after this point that I must have passed out as I woke up a couple of days later in hospital. It’s ok though, I was back home within a week or so and all the wasps were dead. Got them! Great product!
**** 4 stars
The Waspinator.
–
Hope I win the 100,000 Nectar points on offer but I somehow doubt it.
Posted: April 30th, 2010 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Drunken Ranting, Social Comment, Web Design | Tags: adobe, apple, flash, ipad, iphone, pressrelease | 1 Comment »
This week has seen the argument between Apple and Adobe regarding the absence of Flash from the former’s mobile devices take another step towards a public cage fight between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen. In a press release from Cupertino, Jobs outlines the rationale behind Apple’s decision to keep Adobe’s flagship product away from iPhones and iPads – thus cruelly preventing their owners from enjoying the oodles of top quality Flash content that apparently, in the words of Adobe themselves, “makes up most of the web”.
Well, to be perfectly honest, who actually gives a monkey’s?
No, really. Do you own an iPhone or iPad? Do you actually miss being able to access Flash content?
I own an iPhone and I really couldn’t care less. There is nothing that Flash has delivered to me in the last *cough* years that I can’t live without. In fact, I, like many other web professionals would prefer not to live in a web where Flash is the ubiquitous means for delivering animated “rich” content. I don’t go as far as blocking it with a browser add-on, but I certainly filter it subconciously from my browsing experience.
Actually, I tell a lie. I have recently discovered a must have piece of Flash content – Farmville. Then again the last time I logged in, about 3 weeks ago now I think, I simply dug my farm plots to spell the word “crap” then logged out again. Yeah, I couldn’t have done that without Flash.
In the face of fairness, after all some people do seem to care, perhaps Apple should give customers a choice to install Flash or not. That would be fair wouldn’t it? Personally, I would say “yes, customers should have a choice to suffer at the hands of Flash or not”.
But consider the underlying reason for keeping Flash from marching in the iParade – that of protecting the user experience – it makes sense just to exclude it all together. Why? Because Apple make products for “normal” people, not geeks. These “normals” quite possibly have no idea what Flash is, let alone a plugin. They just want to press a button and go. If Flash was included on iProducts it would need to be “on” by default and so subject the victim user to the performance issues, shortened battery life and instability that have all been well documented by other sources.
Flash just doesn’t fit with Apple’s paradigm of “It just works”.
So where do Adobe go from here? For one, they could fix Flash. Why they don’t do this is really puzzling me. Though in reality I think the iBoat left the iHarbour a long time ago and they are not iInvited on the iTrip. Even if Flash was perfect, I think Apple would resist including it – then again, if it was a better product then perhaps Apple’s and Job’s interests would not be in competeing technologies.
I won’t go into “openness” here. Enough people are arguing about that. At the end of the day Flash is proprietary, inefficient and, on the whole, unnecessary. It is irrelevant. We don’t need it anymore.
Posted: June 10th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: General, Social Comment | Tags: newpaper press photograph children privacy | 1 Comment »
My local paper ran a picture of my daughter last night complete with her full name and the name of her school. I think this is absolutely irresponsible.
I’m normally pretty liberal when it comes to things like this as I feel there is a lot of scaremongering that goes on. Even so, I think it’s our responsibility to accept that there are people out there that might use this sort of info for nefarious reasons.
I know the school has a policy that doesn’t permit showing full names with photos and that’s how it should be.
It seems the paper thinks otherswise as they have published the full name (and in places schools and ages) of every child shown in a photograph within their pages.
Speaking to the head teacher this morning she shared my concerns. Every guideline I have ever read concerning publishing photographs of children says that this shouldn’t happen.
I’ll be calling the newspaper later today and probably getting arsey with them.
Posted: June 9th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Drunken Ranting, General, Social Comment | | 10 Comments »
Apple realeased the “new” iPhone 3GS last night. It’s faster, much faster apparently, has a few more nice features and looks like it will keep Apple and the iPhone at the cutting edge of mobile telecommunications.
But what’s this? If you have an iPhone 3G (still available alongside the newer version incidentally) you have to PAY to upgrade! WTF! Pay? The cheek!
I’ve seen and heard many, many (many) iPhone 3G owners complaining that they can’t get a free upgrade to the iPhone 3GS. People have started petitions online and are calling for O2 to give them upgrades.
OK. Firstly, I feel your pain and if I was on the other side of the fence I’d probably be miffed too but 3G iPhone owners – you have really have very little to complain about.
I’d also like to say that I’m no fan of O2 – of the fact the iPhone was only available on O2 was probably the biggest influence in me not grabbing one the day they hit the streets.
Why the fuck should they do that? Look at the simple facts…
1. You signed an 18 month contract.
O2 subsidised the purchase of your phone for the express reason that they have you by the short and curlies for 18 months. Why do you think a PAYG iPhone costs so much more? Part of your monthly charge is paying for the handset.
Why should O2 be compelled to give you an upgrade – at their expense – when Apple release a new model. I’m no fan of O2 but it’s simple business sense surely? The whole business model is to get people on a contract. It’s not just phone networks either. Sky, Virgin, Magazine publishers etc. all love the contract/subscription model because it guarantees cash flow and looks great on their books.
If you defaulted on your contract and didn’t pay do you think O2 would let you keep the phone? It may be a surprise to you but it’s not YOUR phone. It belongs to O2 and they are leasing it to you.
In fact, you CAN upgrade. You just have to complete your contract first. i.e. pay for the handset you are borrowing from O2. Once you’ve done that you owe them nothing and can do as you wish.
But, I hear the cries now, the upgrade from 1st to 2nd Gen iPhone was free!
Ahh, say I, but the 1st Gen iPhone wasn’t subsidised. You had already paid for the thing outright.
I think part of the problem, and the reason I initially resisted getting an iPhone, is the 18 month contract. It’s too long to be tied in when you consider Moore’s Law.
2. You’ve got a bloody good phone
At the end of the day the “old” iPhone hasn’t been retired. There is still life in it. It’s a bloody good, no, it’s the BEST mobile phone on the market. You know that, it’s why you bought one.
Yes, it would be lovely to have the new features but your current handset is far from obsolete. If you REALLY want the 3GS you’re just going to have to pay up to get out of your current contract and take out a new one.
But then what happens when the iPhone 3GSX comes out in 12 months? Oh noes!
3. Tethering
Oooh. Tethering. What? I have to PAY for this?
Er, yes you do… and here’s why.
Again, why should O2 pay for your internet connection? OK 3G isn’t going to give you the speeds of your home broadband connection but not everyone has a 10/20Mbit home connection. The majority of (the UK at least) make do with 2/4/8Mbit connections. I’m sure that if they also owned a contract iPhone and could hook their computer up to use that to access the net they would consider ditching the extra expense of paying for home broadband.
Also, O2 offer “broadband dongles” to let you use their 3G network to access the internet via your laptop. It’s no different really except your dongle costs a lot more. So why should they let you use the network for free simply because you also access it with your iPhone (again, you’ve paid for this in your monthly subs)?
Consider this. While using your iPhone “normally” you will probably download a bit of data over the net, send some emails… nothing heavy. Now if you could hook your laptop up to it a whole new usage pattern emerges. Your use of the network becomes much heavier. Consequently O2 need to invest more in their network to meet the increased demand (yeah, of course they would do that haha). Someone, somewhere pays for this.
Fair enough, I tend to agree that £15 for 30 days usage is a little bit rich but you can buy 30 days at a time. Besides, look at how much contract mobile broadband costs with O2.
That’s a snip under £30 a MONTH for 10Gb data. I may be wrong but with iPhone you get unlimited data transfer don’t you? For £15 and NO contract – you can buy the tethering when you need it in 30 day lumps. Oh, AND if you only want 1 month’s access you have to buy the modem for another £58.
Sounds like you’re getting a bargain with the iPhone’s £15 tethering charge.
I’d also question how many people actually NEED to tether their laptop to their phone. Yes, it’s undoutably useful but I bet if you couldn’t do it you wouldn’t miss it. It’s the new feature bug. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean you, personally, actually have a need for it 24/7. As far as I can see there is very little reason to tether. I for one can only think of rare instances when I’d really, really need it so I’d pay the £15 for the privilege.
For all our high-tech gadgetry we don’t live in the Star Trek universe where there is no need for money and we share everything. Shit costs money. Someone, you, me, whoever has to pay and it sure as hell won’t be a warm hearted philanthropic mobile carrier or silicon valley based tech firm.
So existing iPhone 3G owners, don’t feel hard done by because you are actually quite lucky. Enjoy the remaining time on your contract safe in the knowledge you are lucky enough to have a bloody amazing bit of tech nestling against your nuts (or female equivelant – cos their different right?).
+++ STOP PRESS – O2 Executive’s contact details +++
For those of you who are amongst the disgruntled, you may be interested in the following contact info:
Simon Lloyd,
O2′s Head of Media Relations
tel: 01753 628 335
email: simon.lloyd@O2.com
Richard Poston,
O2′s Director of Corporate Affairs
tel: 01753 628039
email: richard.poston@O2.com