Abuse and cruelty isn't in the business model.

While listening to the wireless in the car this morning, they were interviewing Nick Clegg - the former British deputy Prime Minister, ex-leader of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, and now PR person (title, head of global affairs) for Facebook.

He came across badly to begin with, being asked questions about the use of Whatsapp to exfiltrate data from Jeff Bezos phone, apparently not having significant technical understanding and offering 'nuffin to do wiv us' answers. When quizzed about proposed taxation of internet companies by the UK, the grease oozed and the politician surfaced, suggesting piecemeal taxation would be ineffective and that any money obtained would be just a tiny amount compared to the taxes normally taken by the UK.

And then he earned his money with a bit of real insight.

The interviewer moved on to online material posted that encouraged children & vulnerable adults to self-harm or even committ suicide, wanting to know why it wasn't being stopped, with an undercurrent suggesting that this was something the business actually wanted on their platform. In a way she set up the situation for Clegg's answer, but at this point he became much more serious, much less obfuscatory. It seems it's a real problem for them too - the advertisers don't like it - and it *sounds* like they're doing all they can  to 'fix' the problem.

So where does this stuff come from, and why can't they fix it?

As a kid at school, life was frequently deeply unpleasant. The smarter bullies would set up situations where you were given choices that either ended up in public humiliation or getting physically abused in some way in order to show their superiority (while surrounded by their gangs) while the less bright ones would just threaten and punch. When the weaker children were picked on they would attempt to divert the attention of the bullies on to other, weaker or more vulnerable children. Some of the kids I knew at the age of 13-14 were already talking about getting into protectionism when they left school (and they had few choices apart from a local sweet factory, since they were disruptive and unlikely to get qualifications).

At the age of  16 I went to work in another 11-14 school as a lab tech, and I saw exactly the same kind of behaviour again.

To me, the problems in Facebook, Instagram etc are all about ordinary people. I've been lucky to work with generally well educated people, though have seen a reasonable number of bullies, liars and the odd nut job over time. It has sometimes made me forget that ordinary people camn often be extremely unpleasant. It also makes me ask whether I've been like that at times without realising it.

The problem isn't Facebook as such. The problem is giving everyone a public voice.

Posted once before (so worth repeating then ;-)

 While everyone is pondering the future and how we might have to change things, perhaps we should be reviewing the various alternative political and economic systems available to us:


SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The state takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The state takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The state takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The state takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot and block the roads because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A SPANISH CORPORATION
You have 2 cows but owe Santander for 6.
Nobody drinks milk.
You have a siesta and read about the collapse of the Euro

A GREEK CORPORATION
You lease 2 cows and pay somebody 3 times the going rate to milk them using borrowed money.
You refinance the 4 cows to secure the services of Goldman Sachs. They sell the future milk production of the 60 cows and fund your lifestyle.
You retire to anywhere that doesn’t use the Euro.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the cr_ap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least you are now a democracy.


AN ARGENTINIAN CORPORATION
You don't have any cows.
But you claim sovereignty over the ones belonging to your neighbour
 
AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

There's an amusing irony to this trip

In a couple of weeks I'm due to visit another company for the first business trip since May 2012 when I went to the ESHRE conference in Lille.

The irony? It's to Belgium.

Google maps live view doesn't paint a pretty picture - flat, wet, in a new town at least 10K from anywhere that's anywhere. It's a privilege to travel with work, but sometimes it comes with a sense of humour.

Driving a new car feels odd.

So my 9 year old mini with 126,000 miles went for an 'authentic' service with the local mini dealer this morning, and I had a loan car with 893 miles instead.

Now I'm completely fine with a new car, and an unfamiliar vehicle is no trouble, but car tech has moved on again. This time it was keyless ignition (where's the switch, do I just press the clutch or what?) and a lack of obvious controls for adjusting the driver's side mirror. Some things that should have been great weren't so smart, like the instruments were mostly analogue, but a bit dark and cramped, difficult to read at a glance.

At some stage we're going to have to chop this old mini of mine in, but I've no idea what we'll replace it with yet.

*edit*

The interior of the new car looked really nice after dark, with everything suddenly much clearer and making more sense. The leathery interior had that nice 'new and expensive' smell, and generally seemed a lot better than first thing when all I wanted to do was get to work ASAP without hitting anything.

But driving back to the dealership tonight, the new car felt kind of vague, rubbery, a bit wandery on the road instead of precise and crisp, and with poor feedback & action at the brakepedal. There was plenty of power, but also turbo lag, and it just made the experience a bit remote, imprecise, uncertain and took away confidence that the car would go where I tried to point it. Getting back in my own car, it felt crisp, precise, relaxed and like I was connected closely to the wheels, engine and brakes. Certainly the ride wasn't terribly comfy compared to many more softly-suspended cars, but it did feel good.

A colleague described a bend on a road we both use to drive to work as though it were a corner, requiring significant slowing to get around. He drives a Renault Zoe electric car, and also describes himself as not being a good driver. The bend is gently sweeping left-hander with reasonable visibility and a wide carriageway, and certainly far from being a corner *to me*. I wonder if the Zoe is as bad as I think it is, and it makes a gentle bend like that feel like a corner, simply because it's a rotten drive without either feedback or precision? My old Peugeot 307 was nice & floaty over bumpy roads, but handled like a drunken cow on the bends.

I'm also impressed that my old car still feels good to drive at this mileage. There's certainly less power than when it was younger, but it says quite a bit for build quality that things haven't become sloppy or worn out.

I have amusing memories of a Ford Cortina E MkIII we owned briefly. It had done around 100,000 miles, but didn't feel too bad solo or with a front passenger (if driven gently at London speeds). We popped down the motorway to Gatwick to collect my parents and grandfather from Gatwick airport, and on the return journey, full of luggage too, it was more like trying to guide a boat up the motorway than drive a car. We got back safely, but my knuckles were a little white at times. And related, I have similar memories of a Sierra with only 50,000 miles that was a company pool car, but that was a horrible drive even solo.

Yup, the mini is good.

Like a fine wine

We aren't the kind of household that just throws things away because it's been around, unused, for a while.

I should correct that.

I'm not the kind of guy who throws things away, just because they've been sat around unused for a while. Chris isn't a guy, and she DOES sometimes throw things out, but generally she's not wasteful and we both have a fair bit of stuff 10+ years old.

I digress.

Some time back I posted a picture of some of Lauralea's jam, given to us on a previous visit, stored carefully from 2013. That's Chris's department, since I don't do jam.

However recently it became obvious that the wine rack (stored in the coolest, darkest room) was beoming full, and free space was needed. Now a while back we were given a vast quantity of victoria plums by a friend which were duly converted to wine and jam. After 6 months they were sampled, and while the jam apparently tasted OK if you managed to chisel some from the jar, the wine flavour embodied all that was unpleasant in yellow plums.

In the hope of improving, it was laid down to mature.

A couple of years later it HAD improved, and we drank some, then for reasons no longer remembered it was forgotten and left. Over Christmas I re-explored the bottles. Several had severely corked and were un-drinkable, but 3 appeared to have survived intact, and although they'd thrown a sediment, once that had settled out after the change from horizontal to vertical they were sampled.

The nose was like a Rheinessen or other German wine, with strong scents of green apples and flowers. Flavours still had a background of plums, but not in bad way, with a pleasing amount of acidity balancing a moderately dry and quite long finish. It's actually not bad, though I suspect a fair bit of the alcohol has departed via the cork.

We dated these bottles - 1996. That wine is older than some of the people I work with.

Just for a bit of context, I have a 'special' bottle of wine on the same rack - 1982 Coteau du Layon, that I'm still waiting for an occasion to crack open & try.

Guess our house is a place of relative stability.

Shall we go to 'Transform' (insert the 'inspirational' name of current denomination bibleweek).

We talked this week about whether to go to the bibleweek that I've previously discussed here and here. From a historical POV, although some good things have been said, I've felt increasingly over the years like they are discouraging and unhelpful, making the cracks and divisions between groups seem more obvious, and the wriggling to get along has looked painful.

So this year we aren't going, at least not to stay - perhaps just for a day or 2.

It's a relief. We've all changed: me certainly; but them too, possibly more than me. I don't identify them as being in the 'us' group, and I haven't got with the program so pretty sure I'm not in their 'us' group either. If and when we move out of the area I'll be relieved from a church point of view, because we'll be able to start again - or not - but will have freedom of choice to decide where to go instead of feelng boxed in and heavily invested.

I am a fair-weather runner.

That should come as no surprise, after all, who wants to be out pounding the grey streets (or slithering on the brown mud) of Oxfordshire's pseudo-village, Kidlington, when they could be in the warm eating lasagne.

I had my first run back on Monday. 3.2K=2 miles in about 20min. A better start than it might have been, and it was actually quite pleasing to be out again, even though I feel like I just shuffle along old-man stylee. Today was intended to be run 2, but it's cold (due to get colder) and just tazzing it down out there right now.

Staying in, not getting soaked & catching a cold, seems like a much more prudent thing to do.

:-(

You KNOW you're getting old

When you look at what's involved in rooting and reflashing a phone, and decide it's not worth the hassle.

Almost like an asteroid about to smack into the Earth

Today is the day when Windows 7 support is being discontinued by microsoft.

According to some news papers it should be a valid reason for mass panic, weeping, wailing and stopping doing your banking online. DOOM! Doom I tell you!

It's nothing a quick Linux Mint install couldn't fix, but there's nothing like a good panic and a screaming headline at the top of the front page to help shift a bit of product.

Much more quietly, Windows phone died today.

Not that it wasn't obvious - both the remaining users weren't surprised.

It had reached the point more than a year ago where a lot of stuff wasn't really working anymore, but the things carried on, y'know, working a bit. Ben had our last Lumia (the rather crappy 650, having already 'consumed' my 640) we had no use for them since moving back to Android.  However to finally see the platform killed is disappointing - given decent hardware and reliable apps it could have comfortably taken on Android, but that was never going to happen.

Goodbye Nokia Lumia - we enjoyed you while we could.

Phrases one comes across

And then 'borrows'.

The 10 years it took him to get a bachelors in Psychology - majoring in social cognition - has given him all the prerequisites for a career in the motor industry - as a speed bump - but otherwise he's virtually unemployable.

I shouldn't, but I find it funny.

It's a matter of mildly sad amusement

A revived draft post.

Today (31st December 2019) it became possible for heterosexual couples to have a civil partnership instead of getting married. Homosexual couples have been joining in civil partnerships for some years.

Why sad & amused?

For many of us, marriage was about committing to each other, making promises to each other that we would be faithful, supportive etc. It wasn't about whether the wife would obey her husband or whether he would be head of the home and she the neck that turned it (to borrow a family phrase from an earlier age). It certainly wasn't about conforming to religion.

I'm sad that people see marriage as a religious institution, rather than a human one to help families grow and stay together.

I'm amused that people think what they're doing is different, whether it's cocking a snook at the establishment or feeling like they're doing something 'special' and new.

I hope people are faithful, loving and honest in these partnerships - in other words they don't behave like people often do once the shine & feelings of a new partnership have become a little familiar, possibly worn a bit.

The descent of Skywalker

I've just read a review (I've read more - this was just the most recent) of the latest Starwars film.

On a cold, damp & dark boxing day afternoon it should be something I'd eagerly want to go see, but the 2 previous Starwars reboot films have had so little inspiring in them and so much not to like that I think we'll probably just skip this and try to pretend the series finished with film 3 (or was it 6?) with Anakin-become Vader.

Maybe it's because we don't have a TV that these haven't worked for us?  The characters don't seem notable - I couldn't even remember the name of 'the black guy' without looking it up - and I've realised that mostly what happens doesn't matter to me. It's not the actors fault - the story or lack thereof  - is to blame.

I hope this IS the last, and they don't just have to keep nudging the franchise along, milking the fanbase for a few more dollars with each new film.

Sunday – the day after the day before.

And who should we meet at breakfast? What are newly-weds even doing UP before 10am??!

So we – our friends, plus Chris & myself – went out for another explore on foot, finding a park and zoo near to the hotel. We wandered about, saw buildings, animals (that seemed suitably content, plus tigers that weren’t so much) and generally got very warm. 

We had been invited for tea over to the grooms parents place for a couple of hours in the later afternoon, and that was also good: Christian family, clearly connecting well together, Carol visibly part of the family too.

It feels like there should be so much to say about that last day, but with the main event out of the way we were really just waiting to fly back.

We had dinner in the hotel Restaurant that night. It’s memorable because we were going to try a ‘garden restaurant’ in the grounds, but it a) had a menu that made little sense and b) seemed a bit more ‘greasy spoon’ than we’d expected. Having said that, returning to the main restaurant wasn’t a complete success – Chris ordered a butter chicken dish as the safe option and got something that was the hottest, spiciest dish we’d had between us all week. Overall the food was excellent as I’ve probably said already, but definitely Kerala upped the heat quotient over Goan cooking.

One more curious thing that’s connected was the smells and scents.

We noticed the spicy smells – all very pleasant – as soon as we got on the domestic side of India and away from industry, but we’d not realised how strong and all-pervading those smells were. For the wedding I’d brought a bottle of CK One (gift from Carol on her first Christmas here) with a plan to ensure I could smell myself at least a little at the wedding: couldn’t smell a thing! It didn’t matter what we wore in terms of perfumes etc, because nothing was going to overcome the natural fragrance of the country.

I’d booked our hotel room for the rest of the evening, and we checked out around 11.30pm for a taxi to the airport with the flight leaving at 3.25am Monday morning. Zzzzz.

Immigration was another experience, with poor Chris being grilled about what she did for a living & when we’d been in India before. This time we checked our bags through to Heathrow and made sure the labels said LHR. Outside of that the flights (on Qatar airways) were uneventful. We changed planes in Dohar, managing to nap a little arriving back in the UK around 12.30pm local time, 14 ½ hours after taking off.

Car was delivered to the carpark just after we got there, drove home, went shopping, ate, eventually went to bed after a very long day. Just 1 week before Christmas!

We will go back, but probably not 2020.

SATURDAY. Wedding day.

So we dressed in our transported finery and wandered down the corridor to the bride’s room for the 9.30am start of photos.

Photos.

This is the land that invented bollywood.

There were half a dozen guys in the room, 4 with cameras plus a couple of assistants, light stands, reflectors, all kinds of things. Many and various photos were taken, video shot, poses posed. Carol is a beautiful woman by any caucasian standards, and had carefully kept out of the sun for months to ensure her skin was pale to increase her perceived beauty by Indian standards. I suspect the guys were working overtime to get a shot that would promote their business with an unusually attractive subject.

Then the local priest from the Mar-Thom Syrian church in which the wedding would take place came along to pray a blessing on the wedding. The Mar-Thom appear at first glance to be a little like the eastern orthodox with a substantial amount of Indian culture stirred in. (After a little research I’d say that’s probably not too far from the truth, but with their own connection back to early Christianity).

On to the church.

Dressed in suit and tie, the day was meltingly hot, though the cars were at least air-conditioned.

Unlike the church.

We left our shoes outside and wandered in. I mentioned that the fans were off to Chris and someone overheard & kindly turned them on. The wedding service was mostly conducted by singing the words written in the order of service, generally in English, but partially in Malayalam (local language) and perhaps in Syriac at times? There’s some similarities and many differences to a British wedding that I’ll not go into here, where local practice and Christian stuff is mixed together.

Off to a reception (a small affair Carol said, only around 250 people) the purpose of appeared primarily to have photographs taken of every guest with the bride and groom, and to eat. The food was excellent, based on local specialities. Food there runs from spicy to very hot, and this covered much of that range. Carol had a clothing change, from her white wedding dress to a special red and gold wedding sari for this, transforming from a western-looking bride to one that was fully Indian. Finally back to the hotel for a rest before the next part of the wedding celebration.

The final evening reception was somewhat delayed due to rain, making the planned outdoor festivities impossible. We arrived in the hotel reception at 6pm ready for transfer, and then waited. After a bit Carol and her new husband Joe arrived, having just finished the photos, then disappeared upstairs for more than an hour to put on her 3^rd wedding outfit of the day – a gold north Indian style outfit with separate top, shawl and heavy pleated skirt. The couple and her parents reappeared explaining the reasons for the delay, and we all then transferred to the reception together.

This should have had a friend of the couple providing music through the evening but he’d been unable to come, so a friend and neighbour of the grooms family stepped into the gap with his family. Carol had also kindly mentioned to the grooms father that I played guitar and might do a turn – dobbed in by a friend! The music was a mix of piano pieces, a couple of worship songs from the last 20 years (NOT what we expected) and some vocals over backing tracks of various kinds including a turn from the groom. There was a slow dance, followed by a bit of formation Macarena in best Bollywood style that Chris was able to join in.

Things went quiet and I wandered over to talk with the guy who’d been singing to see if there was anything we could do together. He had a book of older worship songs, all written out by hand, so we picked a couple, sorted out a key they could be sung in, and I played along and sang a little while he sang main vocals. Finally Chris & the others came over, having found a (terribly slow) music-only backing track for 10,000 reasons that we sang together. Despite terrible singing and playing (the guitar was a beast to play, needing a good set up) our efforts seemed appreciated, and we were thanked by both sets of parents.

Stepping back a little, I’ve been fairly down-beat about the wedding, travel and everything, and that’s partly a reflection of not being well for some of the trip, together with a desire to just record what we did or didn’t do. The wedding was good and, it was great to see Carol finally get to marry after all the planning & hard work of the last few months. People were also enormously kind and welcoming to us, and we really appreciated that.

We made it back to our hotel & slept a bit.