MeVsWorld

Like the mould that grows on a discarded sandwich - life evolved on earth and is just as insignifcant.

I envy those with faith. It must give a fantastic sense of purpose and meaning to life.

I’ve often heard it, always from the older generations…

“Isn’t it about time you got your foot on the property ladder, settled down”.

Lets run through some numbers.

If you are between 50 and 60 years old now you would have probably paid between 15k and 30k for a house, lets take an example of a house in a quiet countryside village costing 25k in 1980. The average salary was around 8k a year.

Fast forward to 2008 and the average house price (170k) is just short of 8 times the average salary. In the 1930’s and 40s the average house only cost a years salary. And the quality of properties that make up the mid range of these averages has gone down considerably. 1st time buyers are pretty much restricted to town and city living which was not the case until recent years.

So if you are between 20 and 30, and people of your parents age say something like:
“When we were your age we had a nice little cottage and the wife was expecting” you can remind them that their cottage was probably priced below the average for the year, costing around 2 years salary.

Today that same cottage would be valued above average at around 10 times their salary - I wonder would they have been so quick to settle down and start a family under these circumstances.

I think not!

In every good pub guide and on every real ale website you will find mention of a pub that is local to me, the Boat inn, a 400 year old riverside inn, situated on the Ashleworth Quay in Gloucestershire.

Almost every review of this inn will praise the fact that this small riverside cottage has been in the same family for 400 years, serve real ale and farmhouse cider, from the cask in their small front room bar.

Tourists flock there in the summer, many are shocked by what they find and more importantly how they are treated; you see the reality of this place is that it is indeed a piece of history preserved, and some history is very ugly indeed.

I used to be a huge fan of this pub, like so many others I would rave about its unspoiled charm, but I was naive. I am white, English and local.

To my horror, the day (my birthday as it happens) I took some friends to this pub I was to discover a dark throwback to a historical England, an England filled with small mindedness and racial hate.

One of my friends had to endure a torrent of verbal racial abuse, and we left. The next day I was informed that I was no longer welcome there. The details of that particular night are very unpleasant.

Gob smacked and rendered speechless by what was happening I left silently, however it was not long before the family that own this pub tried to spread rumours about me. None of these stuck however because it is widely known locally that the individual responsible for the attack was capable of this behaviour.

He had previously been sacked from another local establishment for a similar thing so when the landlord believed his story over mine plus 5 witnesses it was like finding out a best friend whom you had trusted and defended for years was actually a criminal.

To this day, reviews pop up on the internet telling stories of abuse and refusal of service for one reason or another, these are mainly taken down swiftly by worried publishers or perhaps the pub itself.

Some may think it’s amusing to be greeted by this surly hostile attitude, some travel for miles expecting to find something wonderful and end up upset, disappointed and offended; still this remains a favourite pub for the guide books, I wonder why.

I suspect the main reason for the best pub awards and the loving reviews is the fact that the pub has not changed for hundreds of years, but are some things simply best left in the past?

I’m sure if a village in England still used the stocks for minor offences, practiced the public burning of witches and the torture and execution of the mentally unwell we would not all flock to visit and preserve that way of life.

My point is that we almost always look favourably and even lovingly on anything that preserves the past, often blind to the unpleasant element of the past that comes with preserving it. We learn and grow and advance as a race and as a society for a reason, and maybe there is a reason why Inns such as this are now so rare.

French fishermen are blockading all major french ferry ports, ruining 1000’s of people’s bank holiday plans as part of a strategically timed appeal for state aid. The extra money they want is in order to cope with rising fuel prices.

I support direct action, but France is part of the European economy, as is Britain which leads to some issues here.

Fuel price rises are due to many factors, and it is not just the french that are affected, we have been hard hit as well. UK businesses that rely on fuel to deliver services to clients are having to apply extra charges for these services, UK producers have little state help, in fact many are being pushed out of business every year by harsh government budgeting.

Before the 2nd world war, around 65% of all Britain’s consumables, mainly food was imported. The 1st strategic move by the Nazi’s was to blockade these trade routes with u-boats, forcing the UK to be self sufficient.

Emergency measures had to be put in place, ration books issued, legislation put in place including one law which made it illegal to leave anything on your plate during a meal.

My point is, a sudden problem with food imports put this country in a state of emergency. I would bet that many households in the UK rely on near 100% imported consumables. If a pre-war 65% reliability bought us to our knees, then what on earth would happen now.

France is part of the European economy, but it is far from balanced. Producers are supported by the state, farmers can live a compatible life running their businesses at a terrible loss because of payment from the state. We see this and feel bitter, partly because of the huge amounts of cash we put into Europe, very little of which comes back.

I can see how UK producers would be livid, running a business in this country with the government apparently doing everything in its power to break them, watching the same products as they grow here, coming into the country by boat, plane and lorry at a retail price that they could not even grow for.

In being less reliant on imports, maybe the french government are having to pay farmers, business men would call it ridiculous, governments supporting loss making businesses, supporting a way of life for sentimental reasons, but think of the environmental impacts of being self sufficient.

Its plain ridiculous to bring something in to a country by means of expensive environmentally damaging transport when we can grow it here. And if we can’t sell it for the same price as the import without making a loss, there is a serious problem of this governments making which require direct and prompt resolution.

As part of a European economy, we cannot support imbalances for long, when the french fishermen get their government aid to offset high fuel costs, this will increase a dangerous imbalance unless UK businesses affected in the same way get the same support.

So while I support action as a responce to perceved injustice, I suggest that self sufficiency and economic balence between EU member states needs to be reevalutated urgently.

Where funds from the UK are flowing into another country, and their businesses are enjoying magor benifits that their UK counterparts are not, there is a serious, serious problem.

Read the full report here…

There you go, quite a balenced expression of my thoughts on this subject taking into account that my own bank holiday plans have been made pretty damn difficult because of this situation.

My brother Mark just posted me some pics and a video of a ‘UFO’ he saw floating over Southampton.

While the definition of unidentified is simply that no one knew what it was, I believe that if aliens were flying probes over planet earth, a leisurely float over the south coast would be pretty low down on the list of destinations.

What do you think? YouTube video here.

I’ve just discovered that chunky Peanut Butter and Marmite Sandwiches are freakin’ delicious!

Try it with warm multi-seed brown bread… mmmmmmm

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets!

I love ‘em…. having had my shiny new o2 XDA Stellar for 1.5 days as I write this an interesting question has been raised… Is it a good thing that you can tweak windows smart phones, mould every component within the software to your own liking, or does it demonstrate the fact that the included phone related applications are not good enough.

On searching through the 100s of tweaks, improvements and gizmo’s available to enhance (or confuse) my pocket PC experience I came across something amazing:

This is a screenshot of PointUI’s Home application - Search for it on youtube to see it in action… As tactile as an iPhone with out being a rip off - a genuine enhancement to user experience - I rate this GUI above that of any phone that’s currently on the market. and….

ITS FREE!!!!!!!!!!!

Grab it from their website here.

I hope someone commissions these guys to design an entire mobile phone!

After thinking long and hard - this is the very reason I wanted another windows mobile based phone above any other like the Nokia N95 8gig or the iPhone - because you can completely change the feel and function of the device to suit your own tastes.

You can choose from a huge array of 3rd party software, no hardware within the phone you own is locked away from you.

With Nokia locking their GPS devices in your phone unless you use their own subscription based services  and apple maintaining a Nazi-like iron grip over application development for the iPhone, are there any other phones that offer this sort of versatility?

The Pirate Bay are currently being sued for 1.6 Million Euros by the Ifpi.

The pirate bay have never hosted or distributed copyright material and this has been the main reason for legal complications in the many futile attempts by industry representatives to have the site shut down; they instead provide links to user submitted torrent files which are essentially road maps that can be used to locate the source of a particular file. This action marks just one of many increasingly desperate attempts to win a case and create presidence so that the way can be cleared for similar action; but at what cost is this legal precedence going to come if successful?

One particulaly unpleasant potentual side effect can be seen in the ongoing Shareaza saga. The full story can be read here on Shareaza’s official site, however the short version is as follows:-

2002 - Shareaza software designed and build by a sole developer as a file sharing, file management and media player tool with many completely legal uses.

2007 - Summer - A trusted Shareaza end user who was looking after the domain name www.shareaza.com was threatened with a $2.5 million lawsuit and was forced to give up the domain name.

2007 - Christmas - Shareaza.com went live with a fake version of the program claiming to be 100% legal. This software contains spy-ware. The  website also activated a pop up in official Shareaza software prompting an upgrade to the fake - potentially harmful version.

And finally - In January 2008, active iMesh representations were changed from “MusicLab LLC” to an off-shore “Discordia Ltd.,” followed by three distressing actions:
1. Their website was changed to original but deceptively similar graphics to their site, labelled “official” but with less incriminating text.
2. Their lawyer sent a threatening letter to Shareaza’s community forum admin, on grounds of a new user’s post that had previously been deleted. (It remains the sole communication received.)
3. And their lawyer filed for the “Shareaza” trademark in the US.

OK: Big problem with this - If these actions are allowed to succeed precedence will be set and it will be possible for large companies to destroy any free / user maintained product that threatens its commercial counterpart. Microsoft will be able to destroy open source office applications by simply challenging a non profit group of users and volunteers for the trademark rights. The recording industry will be able to destroy unsigned bands and musicians giving away music that may detract attentions from one if its profit generating artists.

The possibilities are endless and extremely frightening so if you like home grown applications / underground indi music, and solutions to problems not available in main stream applications be afraid!

And I have no idea where figures are coming from. The 1.6 Million Euros claim by Ifpi is interesting because falling music sales are pretty much in-line with retail slumps globally. I personally don’t believe there is any way for the music industry to prove that file-sharing detracts from sales. I can however think of a few scenarios in which industry generated red tape detracts from sales; a few quick ones…

1) I want to download an album from iTunes, put it on my memory stick and plug it into the USB port of my car stereo. I can’t!
2) I suddenly have the urge to watch a film that has just been released in DVD. I want to download this film. I can’t, simply because I do not live in the USA.
3) I want to watch TV episodes of my favorite show online - I can’t because again, I am in the wrong country.

I am willing to pay for all these things, they are not available PURELY because of red tape and licencing issues. Would you drive to a store or simply fire up a point to point application and grab what you want that way?

The frustration of not being allowed to access certain things others can does also create a level of bad feeling towards publishers and media creators, making it easier for the end user to steal.

From another point of view, figures claiming to represent loss to the industry do not reflect the viral marketing benefits p2p sharing has on the very industry that is fighting to shut it down. I know of a good number of people who have downloaded or been sent part of an album from a band they had never heard of, only to discover they love the music and want to own every album available.

Of course with no way to trace these figures the industry will sweep this side of the argument under the carpet, but everyone with a little understanding of marketing will know that this will no doubt account for a significant percentage of legal sales.

Too often in the last few years have large companies been able to push smaller players out of the way with no opposition, inflict unfair practices on end users and increase their market share with actions that could possibly be proven legal (by anyone with enough money to fight them) and I fear it is a trend set to become far worse if these smaller actions are allowed to go un-challenged.

Reading this Motley Fool Article entitled 5 tips for struggling 1st time buyers got me thinking.

As has been pointed out, 4 out of the 5 tips rely on parents help in some way or another. Looking with a cold eye on the situation it is now almost impossible for a couple (let alone an individual) on an average income to buy a property.

A default notice was wrongly places on my credit file in 2007, this prevented me from taking advantage of HSBC’s 100% graduate mortgage… It took me a year of fighting to have this removed, and now that it is, no ones lending anyway.

I speak to many people of previous generations who tell tales of buying land in their ideal spot, building their home, or buying a place at auction for £10,000 which is now worth £300,000. Will we ever see that sort of growth in our lifetime? Not within a time-frame of 20 years as some people previously have.

So is this unfair? well… economies are all essentially lots of sets balances, one imbalance starts chain reactions creating both positive and negative outcomes, depending on who you are and what situation you are in. There will never be an economic state that suits everyone so in that sense, this is just a transitory period on the way to a greater balance.

Could policy makers make live easier for 1st time buyers, desperately wanting to get on the housing ladder? Yes - planning policies which don’t require large sums of bribe cash would be nice. mortgages made available for 1st time buyers who want to convert derelict houses, barns, churches etc…. (my parents were allowed one of these with no problem but I am not). Why should these opportunities be reserved exclusively for cash rich developers and builders when they could go towards solving a problem.

Discrimination - yes, even though I can prove a substantial income for years, I cannot get the best rates beacause of my self employed status. Also the fact any company can place what they want on your credit file with no accountability or penalty if this is done incorrectly or wrecklassly is wrong. Credit referencing needs a complete overhaul.

The only thing I should have to do to secure a mortgage is prove my income and the ability to maintain that income to a human, not a computer! What I buy with this money is my business and my risk!

OK… Watching violent porn / extreme porn is something a lot of people do - while I personally find the idea of watching a film which portrays (with consenting, professional actors of course) a rape distasteful to the point of mild nausea, I understand that some otherwise well adjusted people want to watch this sort of thing played out once in a while.

Will this turn them into a rapist? NO, NO, no, no, no!!!

OK, people capable of torture, murder and other monstrous violent sexual acts have to be very deeply disturbed - this mental damage goes far beyond what exposure to film and video games can do! This is deep rooted sickness and the craving for pornography, films, video games is side effect not cause.

I’ve had a video involving a golden lab doing something unmentionable to a blond girl placed on my PC to play on every boot up (this was a college prank)

Of course as soon as I worked out how to stop it from happening I did, it was a good prank because it was days before I rebooted after that person had tinkered with my startup.ini file.

The residuals of this video (even after deleting) may still exist on an old hard disk I have on a shelf somewhere, the chances are slim, but it is possible none the less - does that make me a sex offender?

While I’m looking through torrent sites, underground hacking sites (I’m allowed to do this out of my own interest and curiosity … or am I?) some of the most disgusting pop-ups appear on these sites - have some of them downloaded into cache? probably - will this make me a criminal from next week? - If you have EVER seen anything like this, even as a joke or accident or as an unwanted pop-up you could be charged and placed on the sex offenders list, even if you deleted the files etc etc!

We have had violent media in one way or another for many generations, when I was young was keen on shooting Germans in the game Wolfenstein 3D, since then I have visited Germany several times and never felt any inclination to go on a killing rampage!

We need to look at the deeper problems, which of course the government will not do as it will cost too much money with too little press coverage, this is the only reason for the bill - maximum exposure, they are being seen (by idiots) to be doing something about a problem.

In reality this is one more step towards communism in the UK. Freedom of speech is very much a thing of the past, and now there are several websites which the french, Irish, Germans, Americans etc. can visit but we in the UK cannot under law! Where I don’t have any problem with the specific nature of this particular move, I have a big problem for the prescience it sets - is this the start of further censorship in the UK?

Will imported films and TV shows now be vetted for any language and content that could in the governments eyes cause individuals to go out and commit crime?

Read the article on the BBC website here

To add to this it was this story that sparked off these legislation, a horrible affair it is, although I must say - if the Internet had not existed - this individual would still be capable of this - as I said before to be capable of such things you have to have damage beyond that which exposure to media can cause.