If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right…

Last year Vodafone decided that they were going to offer a free iPad2. I weighed it up and decided I would take them up on the offer, only to be met by a whole host of shitty problems. Internal memory was small, couldn’t be upgraded, didn’t tie in to external storage and the versions with more memory were chargeable, so I binned that idea and didn’t think any more about it. My dislike of Apple continued, less than impressed at their ability to gimp what had till that point a decent offer that could have brought in more people.

About a month ago however, Vodafone upped their game and decided to offer me a free iPad2 (again, same offer, same problems) OR a free Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tab. After looking into the tab, it seems that essentially the tablets have all gone down the route of not allowing you to improve the internal memory by using memory cards, or allowing you USB access to external memory, but I figured if I am going to pick up and use a tablet I would rather go the Android route and at least use one that has a chance of easily tying in to my phone and desktop. So there we go. As I play with the tablet I’ll put more information about it up and whether or not it is worth having. So far all I have worked out is the battery life is impressive. At my level of use, 4-5 days per charge. Sure that will go down as I use it more, but for now I am impressed.

My embargo on Apple products remains intact, and I now have a handy tablet.

No I Will Not Sign Your Fucking Petition

Seriously. Fuck off with that. You do realise that the longer this social network frenzy goes on the more stupid we all look right? Just because you have a chance to get on your moral high horse, does not mean you need to or should.

So, lets start at the beginning. Capital punishment is not coming back. Wait hang on, some idiots want it to, and HOLY FUCK THEY HAVE A PETITION. Shit, we best all run for the hills then? No! We shall fight them! That’s right! And what shall we fight them with? ANOTHER PETITION.

Look, just because some cranks have started a petition calling for the return of the death penalty and the Daily Mail has done their usual bang up job of reporting it without any hint of bias, bullshit or exaggeration does not mean it is going to become law. But you have all read up on the figures and know how this works right? Its not a full blown viral headless chicken dance. Not at all. To start with. should any government e-petition succeed in reaching 100,000 signatures (which is unlikely) whatever tin pot measure is outlined within it does not magically become law. It gets passed to a cross party back bench committee whose job it is to read it and decide whether or not it should be brought before the main house. Any ideas reaching the house floor, still have to pass the commons, the Lords and get Royal Assent before they become law. Do you folks know how unpopular this is? It broke the 1000 signatures mark today. That’s 1%. Hardly a big deal.

But what will happen if the “Bring Back The Death Penalty For Evil Bastards, Paedo’s, Cop Killers And People Who Don’t Like News Stories About Dianna In Their Sunday Paper” measure hits the house floor for open debate? That’s right, it will get laughed out of parliament, and we will have the names and address’s of at least 100,000 nutters we should probably be keeping an eye on written down as a matter of public record.

Ok, so now we can stop panicking about that petition, lets consider the other one for a minute. In my opinion, its a worse thought out, more insidious and creepy petition than the first one we looked at.

1. First of all, should this reach 100,000 signatures, this will be passed to the same committee whose task will then be to decide if a petition stating that “A Significant Number of People Would Like the Law to Remain As It Is” should be given time on the parliamentary floor. No, I don’t think they will pass that forward either.
2. Secondly, given its quite sensible opposition to the return of the death penalty, chances are that were both to succeed, this one would succeed first. Meaning that the committee would be reached first by a petition saying we should keep things as they are, which they would then do nothing with, and some time later would be followed up by a petition saying actually quite a lot of people want things to change, and under those circumstances they should probably be passing this on for discussion. Not because its necessarily a good idea but if it can motivate 200,000 British voters to get off their arse then its obviously an issue in the public consciousness and we should perhaps talk about why, and what to do about it sensibly.

So. given this popular petition to say no to the return of the death penalty, and my opposition to the death penalty why won’t I sign it? Why is it so creepy? Quite simple. Its purpose is not to send a message to Parliament that we agree with the status quo, its message is that it wants the other petition thrown out. At its simplest level it is saying that “You people, and your beliefs are not entitled to the same democratic process and review as us and our beliefs, because we don’t agree with you.” And I don’t won’t sign up to that.

The whole point about democracy is everyone should have the same right to be heard as anyone else. This does not mean we have to act on everyone’s ideas, we get to reject the bad ones, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have access to the same channels as everyone else.

We all follow now? Good. Nothing to see here. Move along folks.

Well, the price is right…

It seems that I may be ending my embargo on Apple products. Now lets now be too hasty here, I still can’t stand Apple as a company and I don’t like their attitude on a number of issues primarily copyright and compatibility but this one boils down to a purely economics based decision. I have been offered the iPad2 for the heady price of “No Money”. It will still require expenditure in the form of paying for the tariff and I know some of that goes to Apple, but the tariff it will be on is pretty affordable. Smart move by Apple I guess, subsidise the iPad2 for a while to some customers and see if you can pull in anyone who has previously been avoiding you like the plague.

Having weighed up the question about it being worth the tariff or not over the last twenty four hours, and finally decided that it is, I was surprised to find I am actually fairly excited about picking it up. Despite my dislike of Apple I am pretty keen to see what this thing can actually do. I will probably include it in a couple of blog posts later on. It will either be under this category if it’s doing well, or rants if it is doing not quite so well.

So, it started with a rant.

Yeah, that will surprise my friends and those that know me. I’ve been considering starting a blog for a while but have generally put it off mostly due to not wanting to add to the amount of bollocks that is already smeared across the internet. That and laziness. There were plenty of reasons I should start a blog as well. As an external source of motivation to keep me busy with stuff I am working on, if I slow down then everyone will know I have been slacking. it’ll give me a record of the things I have done. It’ll let my friends scattered all over the place keep up with what I’m doing. It’ll mean that the guys in my car pool don’t have to suffer ranting to vent steam quite so much. Someone has to balance the idiots.

Was it any of those reasons that finally made me start though? No. It was anger. Anger at sycophantic badly thought out bollocks.  If you’re reading this, lets face it you found it via my post on Facebook. And that being the case then you have probably seen this piece of crap:

“Remember when teachers, nurses, doctors and lollipop ladies crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no tax? No, me neither.
Please copy and paste to your status for 24 hours to show your support for the strikes against the government’s latest attack on pensions”

Yeah that one. Now first things first, this is not an attack on any of those people, I can in fact state quite proudly that not one of the people that I know whose job is listed above, or otherwise works in the public sector has been pushing that line of shite. What I am attacking first of all is this bullshit sense of entitlement society has dreamed up for itself about “I didn’t cause the financial problems we are facing, so I shouldn’t have to suffer.” No you shouldn’t but guess what, life’s a bitch and you’re going to fucking have to. We all do. If we really want to get down to who caused it and who’s fault it is, regardless of whether you blame the government, the banks, the Americans or even fucking aliens there are probably two things about your opinion that are probably true.

1. Your finger is probably pointing at someone richer than you
2. Your probably not in possession of all the facts about this (lets face it even the politicians who claim they are in possession of all the facts don’t have a damn clue) so you’re probably wrong.

But, that aside, ok, lets play it your way. They are evil and should be made to pay for what they did. So, your going on strike you’re not going to do another thing until they stop trying to pay for it out of your pocket. Do you think “they” whoever it is your blaming gives a shit? Seriously? Of course they don’t. They are rich and have private fucking everything. Private health care, private education, they don’t use public transport and while your busy in your bat shit crazy world (looking at you Mail Readers) they probably even have a private company to come and empty their bins once a week. They do not use whatever service it is that you provide, so you going on strike does not affect them in the least. It just inconveniences the rest of us.

And that folks, brings me on to my second point. The rest of us. The inconvenient fact that crops up when we look at the point of striking. The rest of us. Those of us who do use the services that you work in, who are suffering from the same problems you are, who didn’t cause any of this either and who you are fucking over. Guess what. We pay more for our petrol now just like you. Our food costs more just like you. Lots of us risked losing our jobs or even lost them, just like you. And guess what. It wasn’t our fault either. If your my age, you are looking at the very realistic probability of there not even being a state pension, so where the fuck do you get off exactly being pissy that your final salary pension is being reduced to an average earnings pension? Your argument is what exactly, that because the generations that came before you payed themselves the same monthly income that they had been earning at the end (hopefully height) of their carrier when they stopped working, you should be able to do so as well? You, want to the state to pay you the same wage you’re earning at the end of your career. The big one. When you are no longer working. Just like the generation that came before. You know. The one that spent all the money. Are you fucking kidding me?

Here’s some ideas to consider. For every former public sector worker in retirement on a final salary pension, we could potentially employ someone to actually do some work in that field now.

But wait I hear you cry! They earned it. They served society throughout their entire life, aren’t they entitled to this? No. They are entitled to recognition, and thanks, and admiration and to the same pension as everyone else as well as any benefits from  money they put aside from their wage packets which whilst not outstanding were never totally crappy either. You think they are the only people who serve society? Fuck off. What about nursery school teachers? They aren’t council run, so they aren’t public employees. No final salary pension for them. Or the Newsagent. Or the landlord. Or the baker. Or the hair dresser. Or any of the other people who provide the services you need, but do it as a private business rather than working for the state.But no one gives a shit about them. They can’t strike. You know what happens to a landlord who goes on strike? his customers go to other pubs and he runs out of money and has to close. Same for any of those other people.

Sure I don’t want to see public sectors wages and pensions go down. I don’t really want it to happen to anyone but the fact is money has to be saved, debts have to be repaid and we can’t keep funding an economy on borrowing. And we are going to ALL have to get used to that. So, lets put the excuses, and the placards and the “It wasn’t my fault” away and work out how we are going to get out of this mess. And those of you who are peddling that crap, take a look at the people who you are peddling it on behalf of. If they are keeping quiet for now, so the fuck can you.