Published on
July 18, 2010 in
Rants.
I ventured out on my bike over the weekend for the first time in ages. Nothing too strenuous – a short climb on the road to the canal and an eventual 16km loop back home.
There is a well-established hierarchy on the road: truck drivers hate cars, car drivers hate cyclists and cyclists hate pedestrians. It works the other way along the chain too. Where does this stem from? Sheer embittered experience.
Within 50 meters of leaving the flat, two pedestrians started to cross the road – against the suggestion from the signal – and walked right in front of me. I gave them a good shout and they thankfully managed to jump back before I ploughed into them. Further along my way on up to the canal a woman behind the wheel of a BMW blithely ignored the protocol of giving way to your right at a roundabout and pulled straight out. Thankfully my brakes were up to the task asked of them.
It has been quite a while since I last rode along the Union canal towpath and in the meantime some helpful soul has erected signs asking cyclists to slow down to a near walking pace. These signs have now been officially replaced by British Waterways. Apparently I’m one of the few cyclists who sound their bell when approaching pedestrians. Of course, this makes absolutely no bloody difference if those walking in front of me are listening to their iPods at full volume1.
Everyone, for the love of Pete, please, please bloody well pay attention to those around you and obey the rules – no matter what your mode of transportation.
1 I’m thinking of strapping one of these to my top tube to replace my bell.
Published on
March 21, 2010 in
Rants.
What is it with the demand for ‘realistic’ movies all of a sudden? Case in point: Roman Polanski’s new film The Ghost.
Sidney Perkowitz suggests that every film should be allowed to ask us to suspend our disbelief on one occasion only. Currently, movies fly seemingly permanently in the face of what would actually happen in reality. Misguided attempts to recreate or re-enact what we’ve seen on screen notwithstanding, what’s the harm in letting the special effects department use it’s collective imagination to entertain us for 90 minutes? Have we become so entranced and convinced by Hollywood cataclysmic disaster movies that NASA is forced to assure us that the world won’t end in 2012?
It would appear so.
The reason that we have science-fiction and not science-fact is simply one of entertainment: one is and the other one usually isn’t. Watching a hacker craft a buffer overflow exploit – while more realistic and non-offending to computer professionals – isn’t exactly going to make for edge-of-the-seat thrills.
One of my old flatmates used to scoff at virtually every movie at least once, using phrases like “Pfft! As if!” or “Well that’d never happen” to the point where I stopped going to the cinema with him.
‘Realistic’ exists already: it’s called a documentary.
Published on
November 30, 2009 in
Rants.
Edinburgh’s Princes Street reopened yesterday – a couple of hours late thanks to torrential overnight rain – ready for the Christmas shopping rush.
A few months ago the Edinburgh Evening News asked if Princes Street was heading down to the road to ruin due to the tram works driving people away.
Personally I don’t think that the tram works are solely to blame (although they haven’t exactly helped). Legions of charity muggers, gouranga monks, aggressive big issue sellers, beggars and cheap tourist tat shops blaring out intolerable bagpipe noise have done more to make Princes Street an unpleasant place to visit than the never-ending fences, noise, dust and reek of tar caused by the relocation of utility pipes and laying of tracks.
Published on
November 7, 2009 in
Rants.
I like to think that any business that I have dealings with will set out to give me at the very least a good level of basic service. Be they utility suppliers, a clothing company, or even – let’s say – a restaurant. You know, just for example.
The Stendhal in Milan, you can consider this free advice:
- Don’t offer complimentary welcome drinks and then charge for them
- Don’t offer to upgrade to a “nicer” bottle of wine for the same price as the one we asked for and then charge the difference
- Don’t try and cover up these indiscretions by not giving us a receipt
Now I bet that you’re wondering where your tip went. Funnily enough, it was about the same as the extras you piled onto our bill.
Published on
March 27, 2009 in
Rants.
Unlike last year when a similar token effort was almost done with before I even knew about it, there seems to have been a larger effort devoted to getting the message out about Earth Hour which is appropriate given its global reach.
Now into its third year since being started in Australia in 2007, Earth Hour is a simple premise: turn off your non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour starting Saturday March 28 at 20:30, local time. In my opinion, it is a completely symbolic effort. Actual energy usage may decline, energy production won’t. Environmental changes also play a big part. The Saturday on which Earth Hour fell last year saw temperatures 12°C lower than the previous week in Calgary, Canada, and consequently energy demand rose 3.6%.
I’m not saying that highlighting the cause is a bad thing but people shouldn’t be patting themselves on the back for an hour spent in reduced lighting conditions. We need to change our habits permanently and start thinking differently. Thinking about cradle-to-grave: the energy used in production, transportation, usage and disposal or recycling of products at the end of their life cycles.
I expect that rather than sit in the dark, many people will light candles. It may surprise them to find that this could be around ten times worse for the environment.
So, knock down your thermostat by a degree or two. Take the train instead of the plane. Concentrate your products and learn to pack more efficiently. Stop pouring hot water down the drain. Turn off unused PCs. Get rid of your bottled water cooler and get a plumbed in version fitted. Buy a lighter coloured car.
That last idea may sound ridiculous but the theory behind it has been confirmed by Mythbusters no less and is just the kind of thinking that we’ll need if we want to really make a difference.
Recently I’ve noticed something of a resurgance of hoax emails, warning of various scams, old jokes and other detritus. I’m not sure if this is because I’ve been on the Internet for a long time and there is just actually no new content or if it’s simply a consequence of eternal September.
Either way, as far as I am concerned, chain letters are still forbidden on the Internet as per RFC 1855, section 2.1.1, paragraph five.
To try and stem the tide, I’ve outlined a five step plan below that you can send to all of your friends who forward things to you1.
Step one:
Pause. Do not hit forward immediately. Lives do not depend on you sending an email on to your friends as quickly as possible.
Step two:
Think. Does this email make sense? Can Microsoft actually check how many people I forward this email to? Is Baklaliviatatlaglooshen actually a place? Would Neiman Marcus actually sell their cookie recipe for $250? Just how much do you believe in fate, karma and evil spirits?
Step three:
Research. If you’re still unsure if you should pass the email on to all and sundry then try a search on a key sentence of the email. More than likely you’ll end up at a website (like snopes.com for example) which documents urban legends and exposes their fallacy or, very occasionally, truthfulness.
Step four:
Pause again. If you can’t verify the email is actually true then don’t automatically forward it. Would your friends find the email useful or informative? Would they appreciate the sentiment or humour?
Step five:
Delete the email.
1 That was a joke. Please don’t.
Published on
October 19, 2008 in
Rants.
At the end of last week The Dome on George Street here in Edinburgh put up their traditional festive decorations – fully ten weeks before the 25th of December. The shops are full of Christmas cards and scary masks. Access to fireworks has been restricted in recent years so they are less prevalent than before but I’ve still seen them for sale in more places than I’ve seen places stocking Poppies.
In calendar order:
- Hallowe’en
- Bonfire night
- Remembrance Sunday
- Christmas
In order of apparent importance to retailers:
- Christmas
- Hallowe’en
- Bonfire night
At the weekend I was amused to make the discovery that the Grammar Nazis have made it as far as the men’s toilets in the Star Bar here in Edinburgh:
I’m noticing this apostrophe abuse more and more. I even saw an example in an advertisement in the print edition of The Drum the other week which is hardly going to win you any business – that is if anybody actually noticed. Honestly, it’s not all that hard to get to grips with. There is only one rule to adhere to after all.
On the back of the Tesco signage debate earlier this week and the BBC’s follow up on the misuse of grammar, something leapt out of John Singleton’s Boys N the Hood opening title sequence. The text stating the shocking fact that “one out of every 21 black American males will be murdered in their lifetime” confused both me and my flatmate.
Not to belittle the message but “in their lifetime”? WTF?
Like you can get murdered post-mortem?
We’re roughly two thirds of the way through August and here in Edinburgh we’ve already had three times the average rainfall for the entire month. Consequently, I’ve recently spent a fair amount of time negotiating the streets with my umbrella (which is one of those huge marquee-on-a-stick type golf jobs) and noticed that there is an abundance of poor umbrellamanship around.
- If you’re smaller than the person walking towards you then don’t try and raise your brolly over theirs. People a good foot shorter than me have tried to get the upper hand as it were and only succeeded in poking me in the head.
- If you are the taller of the two parties then an early exaggerated movement upwards of your umbrella should stop any attempt by the other person to blind you.
- If you are both of a similar height, then tilt your canopy to the opposite side than the side that the oncoming person will pass you on.
- Do not shake the water from your umbrella into the path of other people.
- Do not have your umbrella up when passing under bus stops or other shelters.
- If you appear to be the only person with your umbrella up and you can no longer see the rain or splashes of raindrops in puddles then it has stopped raining. Put your umbrella down for crying out loud!
I am very tempted to purchase one of these unbreakable fighting umbrellas as used by Philippine presidential bodyguards for when people don’t adhere to the rules.
