The End Of Clamping … But Is This Good ?

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Aug 172010
 

The government have announced that they plan to ban clamping cars who park illegally in the new year. The excuse is that “rogue” clampers are endemic to the industry and despite a number of attempts at cleaning up the industry, they survive. Of course anyone who has been clamped is celebrating.

But is it really a good thing?

We have heard on the news from clampers and victims of clamping, but we have not heard from anyone who employs clampers to protect their property. And it is not always evil people who see a money-making opportunity. Sometimes there are good reasons to protect against illegal parking.

Many people perhaps do not realise just how aggravating and potentially dangerous illegal parking can be. Taking an extreme at the low end where clamping currently is not employed (but should be!), my flat is in a block which has a small narrow courtyard behind the building which is open to the road.

There are admittedly no notices up to indicate that parking is illegal, but you would have to be really dumb not to realise that it is private property. Parking there not only means that the council frequently finds it difficult to collect the rubbish, but the area is supposed to be kept clear as it is a fire exit and access for fire engines in the event of a fire. People parking there put the resident’s lives at risk.

Do they care ? Don’t make me laugh. On almost every day, there will be two or three cars parked there.

Ian Huntley To Claim Compensation

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Jul 312010
 

Today we hear that Ian Huntley is to claim compensation for the lack of care that allowed another inmate to slash his throat in an attempt on his life.

No problem. Just pay out.

Then seize the money under the proceeds of crime act – after all he wouldn’t be in prison if he hadn’t committed the Soham Murders, and the other inmate wouldn’t have slashed his throat if he hadn’t been a notorious murderer.

But the prison authorities should be hauled onto the carpet to query why this attack on him happened. He may be a notorious murderer, but he is entitled to protection from other inmates no matter how bad his crimes were.

Evil In Big Business – Tobacco and Ethical Behaviour

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jul 102010
 

This blog entry is going to have a rather unfortunate number of the words “opinion” and “apparently”, getting in the way of the prose. Normal people realise that when I say that X is a scum-sucking, arse-licking slimy snake, I don’t really mean it literally and that it is an opinion. Abnormal people on the other hand are likely to see an opportunity to silence a critic. In my opinion the tobacco industry is inclined to keep hunting packs of rabid attack lawyers ready to pull to pieces the most trivial critic, so it is wise to be a little cautious.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the tobacco industry was just another industry – perhaps a little hick in my opinion as it merely added a bit of value to an agricultural product by rolling up leaves in cigarette papers in a ready to smoke form. But people did not assign tobacco company executives to the same category as corrupt politicians, child molesters and serial killers.

Somewhere along the way it changed as the health risks of smoking gradually become known – with the tobacco industry apparently fighting every step of the way. At some point every tobacco executive woke up to realise he was going into work to help his company kill zillions of people with their product. And apparently the instant reaction from every single tobacco company was to fight the truth.

It must have been easy to deny the truth in the beginning where it was the opinion of one established industry against the opinion of a few wacko medical researchers. Fair enough. Who is going to give up a good income because some odd-ball begins to suspect that smoking tobacco may not be healthy.

But when the evidence began to pile up, wasn’t there one tobacco executive who sat back and said “Hey! This is wrong” ? Nope. I mean sure there was Jeffrey Wigand but he was not so much a tobacco executive as a researcher (who became an executive) who worked in the tobacco industry. And in that case we are talking about the 1990s which is far later than when the tobacco companies first knew that they were selling poison.

So it seems that every tobacco executive since the 1950s has felt that his (or her) income and the safety of the company they worked for was more important than the fact that they were in my opinion going out of their way to kill their customers.

Is there something specially corrupt about tobacco executives ? Well, we can probably guess that they were not necessarily the brightest sparks in the box – how much intelligence does it take to sell drugs to a drug addict ? But they were probably no more morally corrupt than any other company executive.

Which brings us to the question, should we really entrust power to the kind of people who become company executives ?

The Tassimo System – The Late Review

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May 132010
 

This appears somewhat over a year since I bought a single-serve coffee system based around the Tassimo system. For those who are not aware this is basically an automated way of making “real” coffee (and in many cases other hot drinks) from a kind of capsule with a bar code on top to indicate what method to use when brewing. For those who are prepared to pay a little more for their morning coffee … and cannot justify the waste and hassle involved in brewing from ground coffee, a single-serve solution is brilliant.

The Tassimo system should be brilliant  – in theory it is technically superior to the other systems as it allows greater freedom to the capsule makers in determining how the drinks should be brewed. Different drinks like different water temperatures, different pressures, different amounts of water, etc.

But the Tassimo’s biggest weakness is the lack of choice of prepared drinks compared with other systems.

So why in the name of the Great Cthulhu do the Tassimo people restrict the distribution of the T-Discs to certain markets? There are coffees available in the UK which are not available in the US, and likewise for Europe. A number of examples follow :-

  • Whilst in the US there are five different Starbucks varieties whilst the UK has just one.
  • In Europe there is a “3-cup” variety of Jacobs coffee which is approximately the size of the coffee cups that Americans use whereas in the UK there is not a single large US sized coffee available despite UK residents being much more likely to encounter US-sized coffee and to like it.

There is an argument that those in the US would not like European coffees because they do not match their preferences and visa versa – in particular the size of the normal coffee cup. But why not give us the choice ?

In addition I suspect that it is very difficult for independent manufacturers to produce T-Discs – indicated as such by the absence of any products on the market. Sure I can understand a manufacturer wanting to promote their own products, but when you have a new system you need to attract the early adopters who are more likely to want a great range of products. Sure the ordinary shopper is just going to pick up what is available at their local supermarket – which is always going to be the products with the famous names rather than specialist products, but he or she won’t choose your products if nobody buys your system.

I can see the Tassimo system failing – not because it is poor, or because the other products compete better, but simply because the management behind the Tassimo product are incompetent

Volcanic Ash Disrupting UK Flights

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Apr 152010
 

So this morning I wake up to find that UK flights are severely disrupted (apparently all domestic flights have been cancelled) due to volcanic ash being blown south-east from a volcano in Iceland. Nature is demonstrating again that it can severely disrupt the activities of people!

People may be wondering why something as apparently trivial as volcanic ash could disrupt something as large as an aircraft. Well this “ash” is not quite the same as the normal ash we are familiar with – volcanic ash is particularly nasty stuff being comprised of tiny amounts of rock and glass which can quite easily stop aircraft engines and cause damage to the aircraft. Nobody wants to be in an aircraft when all engines stop!

The ash is currently high-level so it is not apparent from the ground although there’s a chance of having some interesting sunsets.

(later on)

Now it appears the whole of the UK airspace has been closed to all air traffic until “at least” 7am tomorrow morning (Friday).

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