The Tassimo System – The Late Review

 General  No Responses »
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

 General  No Responses »
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).

Can We Stop Calling It 3D ? It’s Stereoscopic

 Film, General, Media  No Responses »
Mar 222010
 

The world seems to have gone 3D mad with films like Avitar, 3D TVs, 3D laptops, etc; fair enough you may think but what is this 3D they are talking about ?

Well it’s not 3D at all. What they are all talking about is a stereoscopic effect where two different images in two dimensions presented to different eyes give the impression of a three dimensional scene. Just film a scene with two different cameras a little distance apart and you too can produce an illusion of three dimensions. But walk around the back of Scarlett Johansson or Brad Pitt and you will soon see why it is not 3D at all.

That is not to say it is bad – just deceptively named. Call it “stereoscopic” and I’ll be happy.

Marriage – That Great Church/State Institution ?

 General, History, Politics  1 Response »
Mar 142010
 

Today when we consider marriage we think of it as an official ceremony performed by a representative of church or state; without their sanction, no “marriage” can be called such. It wasn’t always quite like that. Given the pressure to legalise marriage between two people of the same sex (apparently a “civil partnership” isn’t quite enough), it may come as a surprise that it is entirely possible that there have been single sex marriages in the past.

The idea of marriage being a ceremony conducted by an official (a priest or state official) is actually relatively modern. It was not until the Council of Trent in the 16th century, that the church insisted that marriage could only be performed by a priest. Whilst the church had laws governing marriage, the ceremony itself was a private one between two individuals. This would often be followed by the priest blessing the marriage, but that was a separate ceremony.

If you look at genuine early English churches (many of those old looking churches in sleepy villages are in fact 19th century), you will notice that many have quite large porches. There are various reasons for this, but principally it was a convenient place for conducting business that either didn’t require the whole church, or did not have any business in the church. And marriages were often conducted in this porch before the wedding party would enter the church for the priest to bless the marriage.

Now in almost all circumstances, the marriage would be conducted in this way; in public with a notice published on the door of the church some time in advance for people to object to the marriage if there were suitable grounds. But there was nothing to stop anyone from having a private (and probably illegal) marriage in their own way. It was even accepted by the church that merely saying the phrase “I marry you” was enough to constitute a marriage – effectively a common law marriage which was abolished in 1753. Such a marriage may not have been accepted by secular law, but would as far as the church was concerned been a marriage.

This would seem to indicate that marriage was originally a personal commitment between two people with nobody in authority sanctioning it. And only concerns over property rights and the urge that all authorities have to regulate everything changed that. Property? Of course to the rich, the effect of marriage on property ownership was exceptionally important – enough that many marriages were arranged principally to ensure that property ownership was preserved in some way.

So we know that many marriages in the past were arranged marriages conducted for merging property holdings ? Well there is plenty of evidence that the rich conducted marriage in such a way, but there is little to say that the vast majority who were poor also did so. Why arrange a marriage for property when neither partner owns any land ?

Of course there was also a tendency to pick a future partner for possible future earning power rather than for love. However we simply do not know enough about marriages in the past to say that love marriages did not exist.

But enough of the past. What about the present ? Is it not time to tell governments everywhere to keep out of our private business and take back ownership of marriage ? It is no business of government or any other authority to tell individuals whom they can or cannot marry. Sure, there are plenty of reasons why marriage should be registered with the government, but why do they insist the ceremony must take place in front of an appropriate official ?

The instant you allow private marriages, you solve so many problems that it is plainly (to me) an obvious thing to do :-

  • No nutters with an axe to grind can stop single-sex couples getting married, or impose any form of lesser marriage.
  • Private marriages mean you can get married anywhere – if I were to get married, my choice of spot would be on a hill north of Arundel overlooking Amberley mount. Not the kind of place that would normally be allowed by the government but why should they have a say on where I get married ?
  • It allows for marriages to be much cheaper. According to a quick search the average cost of getting married in the UK in 2006 (so it’ll have gone up since) is £25,000 – which is plainly ridiculous. Anyone can understand wanting an unforgettable day for a marriage, but surely it can be done for cheaper than this ? At this cost, many people put off getting married either because they just can’t afford it, or because they have better things to spend the money on – like putting down a deposit on a house!

Assisted Suicide Is Not Euthanasia

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 252010
 

Today we’ve had the news that the UK’s prosecution service has issued guidelines on where people will be prosecuted in cases of assisted suicide. Basically people won’t be if they assist someone provided they stick to certain conditions. Fair enough. But there’s a bit of a problem here – we’re in danger of allowing some groups of people who wish their life to end to be allowed their wish and others not to.

Part of the problem is the use of the phrase euthanasia which is mistakenly believed to imply “putting down” those people who are in dire straits with or without their consent. In particular people are worried that euthanasia opens the door to killing those who are inconveniently lingering. Such killings have occurred throughout history and are probably occurring today.

Assisted suicide is not euthanasia – the key is the word suicide – it is an active decision by someone to end their life. Ordinary suicide is of course legal (at least now), but assisting someone’s suicide remains illegal. So anyone in extremis who needs help in ending their life needs to find someone who is prepared to undertake the risk of prosecution to help out.

There are two problems with this. Firstly it limits the availability of assisted suicide to those who do have a friend or lover prepared to take the risk. Not everyone has such a close relationship with someone else, so we are essentially saying that such people have no way out of an intolerable situation – is that fair ?

Secondly, as assisted suicide remains illegal, it is something that is carried out stealthily in private with no oversight. It is easy to see that there are any number of possible abuses here – murder could in some circumstances be disguised as assisted suicide. And we certainly do not want to make murder any easier to get away with.

What we need is to legalise assisted suicide and require some form of procedure to make it more open and subject to oversight. In particular we need to ensure that other avenues are explored – we need to ensure that people do not opt for assisted suicide when other options are available.

Today’s announcement was essentially the easy way out – it doesn’t give those in favour of assisted suicide what they want and neither are those opposed happy about it. Whilst legalising assisted suicide will also not make those opposed happy, they need to understand that keeping it illegal won’t stop it.

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