A group of scientists proved for the hundredth time today that lazy journalists will gorge themselves on pseudo scientific waffle.

A group of control journalists called ‘bloggers’ were fed on a diet of raw information and dull research papers whilst MSM journalists were fed preformed biased and unscientific press releases from a marketing company keen to peddle the latest quasi health drug.

The results showed that the journalists gulped down the information until their fat little fingers could barely type out ‘Thank you. It’ll be in tomorrows paper if we have a slow news day.’

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In other news(?)… if you feed rats a load of crap they get fat.

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What is it about european culture and more specifically us brits that we are unable to comprehend why republicans are so vehemently opposed to Obama’s healthcare bill?

Having written these people off as uncaring wackos, incapable of kindness to their fellow man, there is no attempt to dig any deeper. No attempt to find out why nearly 50% of congress opposed the bill or why such a huge swathe of America feels so uncomfortable with Obama’s plans. “They’re just crazy bible bashing, creationist red necks.” - that seems to be the final conclusion. I’m not sure that’s true. Why hasn’t this bill been approved decades sooner? “They’re crazy southerners!” just doesn’t cut it for me. Know your enemy - what are their arguments and reasoning? Why would anyone oppose a bill that intends to improve health care for some of the poorest members of American society? Too much Fox news?

Also, given that the new bill effectively forces american insurers to take on new customers. Why aren’t insurance companies actively seeking out this untapped market already? Do poor Americans neglect health insurance because they can’t afford it or because they judge it to be of lesser importance than something else? Is it a lack of desire on the part of the customer or the provider? If its the customer, why mandate them to buy? If its the insurance company, why wouldn’t you want to take on a new customer who’s willing to pay the money? Are middle and upper class Americans willing to pay for the insurance of those who don’t wan’t it?

How free is the American health care market? Why can’t you purchase health insurance in a neighbouring state? Are there health insurance comparison websites? If you’re unhappy with the quality of care you’re receiving, how simple is it to move to another service provider? What prevents insurance policy owners moving to another insurance company if they see that their fellow customers are receiving sub standard care or value for money?

Why is the AMA given a monopoly on licencing medical practitioners? Why should accreditation be left in the hands of a public body like the AMA and FDA? … a slight diversion… If you eat in a Michelin star restaurant, how confident are you that the food will be good or excellent? Would they give a star rating to a bad or mediocre restaurant? Are restaurants or hotels mandated to have external accreditation? Are these accreditation systems such as the AA or Michelin, state funded or privately owned? Why would this system not work if it were applied to healthcare? Is access to another person’s time, effort, medical skills and equipment a human right? Are we entitled to demand it?

But most importantly, why is there such a reluctance to get inside the head of those opposing the bill or ask some of the questions above?

So many questions! So few asking them.

Nope. The British media has made it’s mind up. They know where public sentiment’s at - “We Love The NHS. This should have been done long ago. These republicans are crazy. No more questions, Your Honor.”

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I was playing that game the other day… “If you had just one superpower, what would it be?”.

Hmmm…

What are the options?

• Invisibility. - It’s great for escaping goblins, conducting practical jokes and ermm… crime? voyeurism? and err… not much else. OK. Next!…
• Climbing things and shooting goo from your hands. As a little boy said to me the other day “Spiderman is SO GAY!”. Now, I’m not sure I approve of the homophobic manner in which he said it but I agree with the sentiment.
• Being absolutely loaded and buying loads of gadgets so you can swan about dishing out your own version of justice like Batman or ‘V’. Is that a super power? We’ll leave it in.
• Flying. Hmm yeaa… super fast could be good. What are you supposed to do with it? Can you fly with really heavy things? That could be useful. OK. That’s the best so far.
• Indestructibility - Who wants to live forever.
• Mind control - tempting! very tempting! too tempting. No.
• Telepor…..

…TATION!! Teleportation!! yes that’s the one! You’re the boy! I want it.

As SuperMonk™, my particular gift allows me to touch any object and it will teleport with me. That way, my girlfriend and I could be sipping a Pina Colada in the Carribean every day after… work.

Work. Work? Oh yea! I’d have to use this power in some way. What would be the point of being blessed with this gift if I didn’t use it? Well for one thing, I could help my girlfriend avoid that miserable commute every day. Even better, I could just touch the train and everybody on the train would be instantly teleported into London. Even better than that! - I could start up a business where I just went around touching teleportation buildings that moved people in and out of the suburbs saving them huge amounts of time and discomfort. I could do this in every city in the UK! The world! My girlfriend wouldn’t even have to work. I could charge people a very small amount for this as it’s not really any bother for me.

I should be moving shipping containers about too. I should be moving huge volumes of supplies from China to the USA. I should teleport the sick to the best medical facilities in the world. I should bring the hospitals to the sick and needy at a ridiculously low price. I could teleport huge volumes of water to the reservoir side of a dam so that we have a constant clean and cheap supply of energy. I should be making transportation, energy, healthcare and industry in general - as cheap as possible. Woh! STOP.

Hang on.

How did SuperMonk™ end up being an energy provider and distribution mogul? I thought superheroes were supposed to do cool things like fight crime and stopping old ladies from being mugged. Here I am moving containers of dildos from Taiwan to Crawley at the speed of light. Wouldn’t I be better off doing stuff like Superman does? Come to think of it - Why does Superman do that stuff? Why does he get to wear the cool red cape?! and look chiseled! and get all the praise! I’m busting a gut over here. He get’s the big mayoral NY procession. Everyone wants to get in his tight little red pants even though you can clearly see that he’s certainly not ’super’ in that department. I want my praise! I know I haven’t stopped a school bus full of children falling of a bridge but I have single handedly, albeit indirectly and without their knowledge, helped millions of people out of poverty and introduced 2 billion people to the joys of low cost sex toys. I have put a smile on the world’s face! They just don’t know it.

The more I think about it, the less I like that Superman. He’s a populist, vain, creep who squanders his talents.
Rather than pissing about with token gestures of good will, why doesn’t he do us all a favour and put some of that ceaseless power and muscle to good use and reduce the price of energy. Fuck him.

That’s the problem with selling libertarianism - No superheroes. No big displays of altruism. Just people using their talents to the best of their ability - hopefully in the knowledge that by serving the market they might just maximise those skills for the benefit of all.

Note - I had fun researching pictures for this.

Spiderman maximising his potential.

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I’m 30 years old and I don’t have a pension scheme or plan. I think about it. Everyone tells me I should. If you tell people that you don’t have a pension they look at you as if it’s some revolting lifestyle choice; like you’ve taken up heroine or something.

The reason I don’t have a pension is that my life plan is about wealth creation rather than just earning money year to year. The £5000 I’d have to put in to a pension this year is worth far more to me now as an impoverished 30 year old than it would be in 30 or 40 years time. Surely a pension scheme works on the basis that you’re not able to earn a better return by investing in yourself now?

Put simply, I think I can get a better return AND use that money when it’s needed most.

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My new time management approach happened in microcosm this morning and made me think that it might not be such a bad idea. In my most recent post I’ve been trying to find a new way of managing my time more effectively.

The system involves the pomodoro technique combined with very small manageable objectives for each day. An achievable to-do list is the guiding principle.

Francesca had the day off today. She had about 5 emails that needed sending before I took the laptop to work. Unfortunately I’d left the power supply at work and the laptop was blinking at 10%. That gave us about 20 minutes to get everything done. It was achievable, we had a very strict time limit and we got all 5 of the jobs done just before the laptop died on us. It was a perfect example of edible pomodoros but in miniature. It was very, very satisfying. If we hadn’t had the battery constraint it might have taken an hour or so and I would’ve been itching to take the laptop off to work and start the day.

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There’s no need for an Idea Guy.

I’ve worked on some really fruitful projects in the past. They’ve all had one thing in common. The “idea”, if you want to call it that, was born out of necessity and demand. When I think back on my most successful projects, I realise that they weren’t so much a great idea but just a better way of doing something that was being done mandrolically.

History is littered with invention born out of demand rather than a great idea that had just never been thought of; thrashing machines replacing hard manual labour, the car replacing horses, facebook replacing keeping your contacts book up to date, iTunes replacing the CD rack and trips to the shop. Invention replacing tedium again and again and again.

The projects that have failed start “I’ve got a great idea!”.

The projects that are a success start “I need to find a better way to do this…”

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I had a great idea for managing my time today. It’s not really going to apply to anyone who’s not self-employed but I think it might work quite nicely for me.

The Pomodoro Technique
Last month I was looking at the Pomodoro technique. With the pomodoro technique you take a kitchen timer (originally this was a pomodoro timer hence the name) and then you take your To-Do list for the day and divide it up in to Pomodoros; pomodoros being a 25 minute intense work session. Each pomodoro session is followed by a 5 minute break.

My ambition last month was to do 10 pomodoros a day. That might not sound like much but that’s 5 hours of very intense work. The concept of Pomodoro is that you concentrate intently for 25 minutes rather than try to concentrate fully for the whole day, from the moment you walk in to the moment you leave. Instead, you do an intense work session for 25 minutes followed by regular breaks. When you get it right then it works very well. You can get a lot achieved using this technique. I failed miserably at the 10-a-day thing because I kept increasing my allocation of pomodoros for each task as I accepted that my To-Do list for the day was unachievable. I’m going to try the same thing but with a slightly different approach…

A realistic To-Do list (edible pomodoros)
The trouble I was having with the Pomodoro approach was that I would have a list of stuff to do and it was a list that would never be achieved in one day. The result was that I’d put about 10 things on my pomodoro list and then the first few would take longer than I expected or I’d mentally accept that the To-Do list I created for the day was unachievable so I didn’t mind using up a few more pomodoros on a task than I’d originally anticipated.

What I needed was a constraint on the To-Do list that would ensure that I would accept the tasks as achievable within the day. I’m simply not allowed to run out of pomodoros for the task. I needed to do the following; Accept three or so jobs for the day, Accept that they are achievable and then once the achievable list is done then I’ll go home no matter what time of day it is. If I get the job done early then I’m going home early. If I’ve miscalculated the achievability of my list then I’m going to have to stick around until they’re all done.

In short, every day is going to have an achievable to-do list. When everything on that list is done then I’m going to go home. Deadlines for every project, every day. I’m expecting to work something in the region of a 5 hour day but boy am I going to get a lot done in that time.

Starting tomorrow obviously… right now I’m going to go home and grab a beer.

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This is just a useful bit of code to stick in a .htaccess file if you want to check that your hosting company has mod-rewrite setup correctly. It should take any page you click on and redirect you to google.


Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.google.com/


Very basic but it’s a good quick check if you’re trying to get Joomla or Moodle SEF URLs working.

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I was playing around with http://www.xtranormal.com. I’m in a production of David Mamet’s GlenGarry Glen Ross so I thought it might be nice to feed in some of the script between Moss and Arinow. It’s got some bad language in it and the characters are pretty racist so if you’re easily offended then please don’t watch it. A very funny play and superbly written. Hope you enjoy!

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Time to get that wax redone I think?

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