I just went to the local shop in an unsuccesful attempt to buy chick peas. Why am I getting uptight about this? The area we live in is a sort of poor man’s Hampstead. Strong community spirit and a middle class population centered around a shopping street, that supports a gastro-pub, cheese boutique, up-market wine shop and so on.
In the middle of this are two Co-ops (yes, two) who are totally out of their depth. In a typical socialistic top-down command economy sort of way they stock the same products as they would in a Salford council estate. So, no to sun-dried tomatoes, chick peas, or organic skimmed milk, but plenty of Fray Bentos tinned pies non-organic milk and baked beans.
I grant that there is a baked bean market here, but I doubt that the Fray Bentos pies have shifted since they opened the place.
They could have a large variety of products, except that a quarter of the store is taken up by an in-house baker. Why would anyone buy their re-heated bagettes? Two doors away is one of the best independent bakers in west London who makes Pan Boule to die for.
So when I want my organic skimmed milk to froth up for my capuchino I have to trek to Waitrose, which is crazy. This post may of course mark me out as a poncy southerner. But sorry; I grew up in the sixties and frothy coffee was what we drank. Any I like my homemade hummus.
The Everyday Champions Church is one of several Christian groups trying to start a free school. To quote from Pastor Evans “Creationism will be embodied as a belief at Everyday Champions Academy, but will not be taught in the sciences. Similarly, evolution will be taught as a theory. We believe children should have a broad knowledge of all theories in order that they can make informed choice.”
How can anyone in their right mind hand their children over to someone as scientifically ignorant as this. To make it clear, a theory is an explanation of something. I have a theory that the moon is made of green cheese. A Scientific Theory is an explanation that has evidence to back it up and which scientists are forever trying to find experiments to disprove. No-one has any evidence of any kind that the moon is made of green cheese. Nobody has any experimental evidence that we are descended from Adam and Eve.
A Scientific Theory is a very special kind of theory and you don’t get to pick and choose them like your shopping.
Pastor Evans should be made to write this out a hundred times.
The message you get about petrol prices is that the prices are unsustainably high these days and the government should do something about it until they get back to normal.
Here are the facts. Check this website. Brent crude prices have been steadily increasing for the last twelve months. Today’s price of $116 is only about $3-4 above the trend line. I can’t tell you what will happen to crude prices in the short term but todays price is not atypical or exceptional.
However I can tell you what will happen to the crude price in the next 5-15 years. It will skyrocket to the point where $116 a barrel seems unbelievably cheap. Why? Because the reserves of oil are being used up and sometime in the next decade (or two at most) production will peak and start to decrease.
What happens to the oil price when demand increases (by about 1million b/day per year) and supply starts to decrease? The price will go through the roof.
But, it is no problem really. We just need to anticipate the issue and plan for it by buying more fuel-efficient cars, developing alternative sources of energy and so on. It is not rocket science. Unfortunately as the crisis stretches beyond the next parliament it is totally off the agenda as far as politicians are concerned.
We went into Santander recently and there was an open space, a couple of sofas and some cashiers. We stood about until someone wandered out and we asked who we talked to about our question. She waved at the sofas and said to wait and someone would see us. So we waited. Other people were pointed at a telephone to call their call centre or a PC to use their website.
If I wanted to open an account I would have walked out.
A recent report on Moneysavingexpert.com stated that Santander is (a) has some of the best deals available and (b) overwhelmingly came last in customer service. So here is the business model at Santander, cut costs to the bare minimum no matter that customer service is the worst in the business and hope to maintain levels of business by offfering good deals. In other words pile em high and sell em cheap.
Is this a sustainable business model for the banking industry of the future? You decide. But with the CEO moving to LLoyds at some outrageous salary the same treatment can be expected there.
If you are at Lloyds, and like me, value customer service over an extra quarter of percent on my account then I suggest you switch to the Co-op.
I despair when I read stories such as the recent one about an Imam in East London who was forced to make a grovelling retraction, because he received death threats after he suggested that there might be something in the theory of evolution. The attitude of the misguided individuals who make these threats is often compared to that of the medieval world.
Well, I have to say that this is an insult to the Islamic medieval world at least. For example Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī who lived in 11th century Afghanistan (of all places) was recognisably a modern scientist. He carried out experiments, understood experimental error and how to overcome it. He argued against Aristotle based on his observations and speculated that the observed facts could be as well explained by the Earth going round the Sun as the other way round. While William the Conqueror was invading England was working out the radius of the Earth to within about one tenth of one percent (he was 36 kilometres out).
He interestingly said: ”[the Qur’an] does not interfere in the business of science nor does it infringe on the realm of science.” an attitude which would result in death threats in modern day London.
So if you want to condemn attitudes as ‘medieval’ be sure to qualify that with ‘European’ because the Islamic scholars of the time were at about the level of the Enlightenment.
Anyone will tell you that you should shoot photographs in raw format. That means the data straight off the sensor is stored together with the settings in the camera at the time you took the shot. Then software on your computer re-assembles it on request. Other formats (Like JPEG) do the assembling in the camera and once the omelet is made you can’t unscramble the eggs and fix any mistakes.
Nikon cameras raw format is called NEF and provided you get the latest codec from the Nikon website and install it in windows, you can view and print pictures just like you can with JPEGs. Nikon has quite a good NEF processing program to fix things like exposure and white balance and save the fixed file. You can even change things like titles and comments in Windows Explorer.
The problem comes when you bump up against the restrictions in the Nikon program and decide to use the market leading (by many miles) image processing program Adobe Photoshop Elements.
First off Photoshop Elements has about as much relationship to the Photoshop that professional designers use as a box brownie has to a modern SLR. It is a completely different program. So as I didn’t want to fork out six hundred quid for the pro product I have to learn something completely new. To be fair my grasp of the user interface in Photoshop CS was pretty feeble at best so maybe not such a bad thing.
It is truly a steaming heap. It won’t save NEF files - oh no. It has its own ‘standard’ raw file format. So you end up with two files, the original plus the adobe version which you have saved with changes. Sorry make that three because if you change the data stored with the image (like the title) it creates another XML file with the extra information in rather than update the original NEF file.
The so called standard raw format from Adobe has only one codec written. That is a release candidate and is for 32 bit Vista only. Only having a release candidate for a superseded operating system doesn’t exactly suggest a wild enthusiasm for the standard. I suspect serves you right for not having a mac. So unless you are a 32 bit Vista user you are pretty much stuck with Elements for any sort of organising task. At which it is indifferent at best.
The UI is dreadful. The Organiser program is a completely different program from the editing program. There is yet another program which only does raw processing.
The interviewee sat opposite me looking nervous. He was an IT graduate with a 2.2 or as I believe it is known a ‘Desmond’. Taking a tip from a friend of mine who had interviewed a lot of IT graduates I asked him “Tell me, what part of the course did you do best at?” he answered “Discrete Mathematics.”
In a feeble attempt to get him to relax I tried a joke “Well that is better than indiscreet maths.” It didn’t help. So I said “Tell me something about Discrete Mathematics.” His answer went along the lines of “Er Um I think it has something to do with set theory”. I finished the interview as quickly as I could and wondered what on earth this guy could possibly have done to justify an honours degree.
Over the years, as the MD of a small software company I have had to interview a lot of Computer Science graduates. I always set them a very simple test that would cover the rudiments of programming and SQL, the standard language for accessing databases of information. These are pretty fundamental. With a few exceptions I am surprised to find how little most of them know. Their level of basic knowledge often contrasts with impressive projects which they have allegedly undertaken at University.
I think this is such a shame, because university is a fantastic opportunity. You get three years to study a subject that interests you, all the books, equipment and advice that you could want. I know a lot of people that have thrown themselves at the subject and really benefited, but to come out of that with only a very vague understanding of the subject and an honours degree indicates to me two things:
Many of the Computer Science undergraduates should not be there because they are not really that interested in the subject. I started working with computers because I looked on them as ‘the best train set ever’. I think many people go into computer science because some careers officer tells them that they will get a good job at the end of it. Wrong. You will end up stacking shelves unless you are really interested in the subject.
The Universities give degrees out like candy. If more people failed the subject then people would think twice about taking or continuing the course unless they really thought they would pass.
The solution
My solution would be to
Set up an independent organisation to award first degrees, with very high standards.
Universities to refund a portion, say half, of tuition fees to failed students. This would incentivise universities to encourage students to leave or change course if they were not making the grade.
BP got a lot of stick for the Deepwater disaster. A lot of it is well deserved. But the report shows there were very serious faults on other companies parts.
Halliburton tested the cement and every test up to when the cement was used suggested the mix was unstable. They didn’t tell BP. Unbelievable.
The Transocean blowout preventer should have kicked in with a deadman system as soon as contact was lost with the surface. But a flat battery and failty valve caused the deadman system to fail. The BOP maintenance by Transocean was obviously not carried out properly.
BP did some really bad things as well, for example they didn’t ask Halliburton for positive confirmation of cement tests. Lets face it, they did most of the bad things and mainly to save time.
But maybe the demonisation of BP alone at the time was not right.
Tesco are selling the Samsung Android tab for £529. What a rip-off. They think they can charge the same prices as Apple? No way. Unlike Apple there are going to be dozens of competing product in the new year, once Gingerbread (Android 2.3 or 3.0) is released. I expect the price point to be around the same or less than a netbook, which is about the same level of technology - say £300 for early adopters dropping to £200.
