Morgan Spurlock strikes again

If you are in the UK, and you have cable or satellite (not sure if it's on Freeview) you should watch Morgan Spurlock's new show on More4. The first episode showed Morgan and his girlfriend trying to live on the minimum wage in Ohio for 30 days. Showing how the richest country in the world subsidises the lifestyles of the better off by exploiting the poor and vulnerable without even the protection of a basic welfare state, it is another sobering look at the other side of the American Dream. Now we know how they can afford that $419bn defence budget (are my prejudices showing?). It is Morgan's job to give it some shock value, but the consensus seems to be that his view is not inaccurate.

Seasonal Warning

Christmas is approaching inexorably, so I'd just like to remind you that anything that is marketed as an Ideal Gift is likely to be anything but. It is almost certainly not a useful item, but something created specifically to be given away, and to make sure that the process is as painless as possible it will be something that no-one would ever want to keep for themselves. When I rule the world, anyone found giving an 'Ideal Gift' will have their entrails extracted by eagles before being dipped in a salt bath. So just say no - you know it makes sense. If you can't think of anything to give someone, try Good Gifts, Great Gifts or Oxfam Unwrapped. Actually, these are great alternatives to any presents, not just Ideal Gifts. Few of us in the developed world actually need a present this Christmas, so why not spend your money on someone who does?

Devil's Advocate: Why poor customer service is all too common

Martin Brampton's column on Silicon.com raises a number of issues, but his basic thesis, that poor customer service is caused by an almost total disconnect between the people to whom you complain and the people who actually do the stuff you complain about, seems sound.
On a related subject, under the title "Airline cost-cutting gone mad" Stephen McDowell of Interactive Investor asks how much cheaper airlines can get now that they are asking the passengers to clean the planes before they disembark.
Neither Brampton nor McDowell ask why this situation has arisen. It's my belief that it is the result of the constant drive towards lower price as almost the only market differentiator. Coupled with the general dumbing down in society which has resulted in fewer people being able to discriminate between articles or services of varying qualities, it has led to a situation where 'just good enough' is all that is available. I also think that there has been confusion between the pursuit of high quality and elitism, and once again the casualty has been quality.

Re-building

Re-building 
Way back at the end of June, I broke my collarbone during the Mountain Mayhem 2005 24-hour mountain bike race. The medical advice at the time was to leave it alone and it would heal of its own accord. I was somewhat sceptical about this, as the two ends of the bone were severely displaced and nowhere near each other, so I didn't really see how they would re-connect. Anyway, they didn't, so last week I had an operation to have a bone graft and a plate put in to hold the bone together, the results of which you can see above. I hope it works because I've spent the whole summer unable to ride my bicycle, unicycle or motorcycle and it is starting to depress me.

National Insecurity Cards

This is quite an old article on AlterNet from my favourite security consultant, Bruce Schneier. In it he argues very persuasively that ID cards make us less rather than more secure. At the core of his argument is the principle that security measures should be evaluated not based on how they work, but on how they fail. Well worth a read, if you value your safety and liberty.

BusinessWeek Best of the Web

A useful list of sites (via Jack Schofield at the Guardian)

LJK Setright

LJK Setright was the most original contributor to motoring journalism over the past 40 years. In Car magazine through its heyday in the '70s I used to turn to his column first. I would always learn something, and I would always enjoy the read, even if I didn't always agree with his position on, say, environmentalism. Highly individual, and a private person to the end, I think it is unlikely that we will see anyone write like he did again. He leaves a treasure trove of books to remember him by - a little searching at Amazon will prove very rewarding. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if he had directed his intellect towards some of the issues we find in software development.

Moral Hazard?

In the New Yorker article, "THE MORAL-HAZARD MYTH - The bad idea behind our failed health-care system.", Malcolm Gladwell sheds some light on how The USA manages to be the wealthiest country in the world and yet allow a huge proportion of its population to live with third world standards of healthcare. I found it shocking reading, and a grim warning to us in the UK of what we have to lose. The article doesn't address the financial aspects of the issue, but it seems likely that the cost incurred by society due to the endemic ill health and suffering would outweigh the saving in taxes.

Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19

Just a reminder - next Monday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Possibly even more pointless than trying to get 2000 petes in one place, Talk Like a Pirate Day is in its eleventh year, but it didn't become an international event until Dave Barry gave it wider publicity in 2002. The site has plenty of help and advice if you are a beginner at talking like a pirate, and less desirably but inevitably there are now some merchandising opportunities as well.

An unnecessary gathering of people called Peter!

The current record for the largest number of people of the same name gathered together is held by the Mohammeds from Dubai. As a Pete myself, I wholeheartedly support Pete's attempt to bring the record back to Britain. If you are a Pete, register and make plans to be there next year for the largest gathering of Petes in history.

Survival of the fittest?

More from the BBC on whether Katrina will shock America into rejecting the Social Darwinism that has been so influential in shaping its policies for over a hundred years. As the article states, the Americans are basically a kindly people so I find it hard to believe that they can turn their backs once again, yet I fear that they are too well practised at seeing only what they want to see, and hearing only what they want to hear. I hope to be proven wrong, as the passing of peak oil will make the world an increasingly uncomfortable place, and we will all need to learn to be more interdependent and less independent.

Touched by His Noodly Appendage

Have you been touched? Read Bobby Henderson's Open Letter to the Kansas School Board and be saved! Since I discovered this my life has been turned around and I feel like there is a reason for living again.

24FightingChickens

I was disappointed when Rob Redmond took his wonderful Karate site, 24 Fighting Chickens, offline last year. Rob had been very active online, and had annoyed a lot of people by applying logic and common sense to the learning of Karate. I found nearly all of his writing to be very enlightening, and I was quite happy to agree to disagree with the (very) few bits that I either didn't get or actually thought were wrong. The site is now back on line, although most of the original content is absent. He's now running it as a Karate blog, although he has switched off the ability to comment. Still worth a read.

The Dark Side

America is the world's richest country, but that wealth is very unevenly distributed. When Katrina struck, the glossy veneer was stripped off, and the rest of the world could see the reality behind the glitz. It wasn't pretty. America sustains much of its wealth on the backs of illegal immigrants or poor blacks who live and work in third world poverty. These were the people who suffered in New Orleans, who will suffer for years to come. The state won't look after them once the eyes of the world turn away again. This lack of compassion, this exploitation, is justified by the American Dream in which everyone has the potential to rise up from poverty and become a millionaire. Yet social mobility in the USA is very low, because this underclass has little education and hence little opportunity. With my liberal European outlook I would find it hard to live in America, knowing what underpinned my prosperity.

But just when I was feeling all smug in my comfortable anti-Americanism, I found that the UK keeps the US company at the bottom of the social mobility scale. My experience suggests that our divide is less racial and more class based, but I don't suppose that that is any comfort to those who suffer from it.

The Ex-Blogging Officer

Well, while I was away, Chris Locke seems to have got himself separated from his gig as CBO for Highbeam Research. I thought he was doing a pretty good job, and I don't know the circumstances of their parting, but Chris has been asking for donations to pay the rent. He's kind of like the Stonehenge of the internet, so he should be worth preserving. Please give generously.

He's still working on a new book, and there's a blog site for that too. Even stranger than usual, I have to admit I find this one quite heavy going, and I don't really have the time to try and get it all straight in my head. YMMV, and it is at least worth having a look.

It's been so long...

Can't believe it has been so long since my last post. Well, summer's nearly gone so I guess I'd better get writing again.

Your fingerprints are everywhere

"How Much do you trust your government?" is the question asked by Scott Granneman at Security Focus. He goes on to reflect on the way the US government has eroded liberties in the name of security. This prompted me to Google for "Star Wars This is how liberty dies" as I had a hunch that it would lead me to a few people who would draw parallels between Chancellor Palpatine and George Bush. I was not disappointed. Many people have noticed that the creation and hyping of threats to justify the restriction of liberty and the concentration of power in the state is happening in our world just as it happened (or not) long long ago in a galaxy far far away. Scott concludes his piece with a call to action, and he's right. Democracies like ours aren't lost, they are given away, and if we refuse to give it away the forces of the dark side will have to look out there. As citizens (or subjects if you are in the UK) we have a duty to be informed and to resist this gradual theft of our liberty.

The tyranny of choice

In the early stages of the recent campaign, one of the things that the parties tried to outdo each other in promising was choice. Choice of school for the kids and choice of hospital for the sick. Who said we want a choice? Who is going to pick the 'worst' service? We just want the nearest service to our home to be good enough that we don't have to worry about it. Anything else simply creates a market in which the rich win out at the expense of the poor. As an example, consider schools. In my town, there is a school that is considered 'better' than the others. The difference in price between an equivalent house in the catchment area for the 'good' school and one in the catchment areas for the other schools is pretty much the same as the cost of a private secondary education. I don't think this is a coincidence, it is just the market working.

I've never been so insulted in my life

Well, actually I have, but let's not discuss that now. What I'm talking about is the Conservative party's belief that they can get my vote by appealing to my xenophobia and greed. I'm not xenophobic, and I'm not greedy in the sense that the Tories seem to think I am. As I write this, the first results in the UK General Election are being announced and it seems that the Tories have done rather better than the polls had indicated they would. I hope that this does not indicate that my fellow citizens are impressed by Michael Howard's cynical attempt to encourage racism and the pusuit of personal gain. There aren't that many Daily Mail readers, are there?

Who should you vote for?

Following a link I found in a post on uk.rec.cycling I took the test at Whoshouldyouvotefor.com, and my results are shown below. I think I misunderstood one of the questions - when they asked "Which result do you actually expect to get?", I thought they meant "who will win the election?", when what they thought they were asking was "For whom do you think you ought to vote?". Re-reading the questionnaire, I think it is they who were not clear rather than me who is dumb, but then I would say that wouldn't I? According to Google, the original post has provoked 75 replies so far. I can't help feeling that whoever you vote for, the government still gets in. Still, you've got to hope, haven't you?
Apologies for the formatting, the site provided some HTML to copy, but it was unreadable on my black background and I didn't have time to do anything more sophisticated than wrapping it in a DIV with a light background colour.

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Labour

Your actual outcome:

Labour -20
Conservative -12
	Liberal Democrat 32
	UK Independence Party 10
	Green 23

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

If you are wavering, you can take the test yourself at Who Should You Vote For