"I know I'll get caught up in your traps"`

One of the things I despise with a passion is bad service.

And not just in restaurants. In this modern world of smartphones, tablets and music streaming, more and more of that service is online. As seen this week, some of the world's biggest tech companies get it very, very wrong. 

Blackberry might seem to be the most obvious choice: last week it managed to mess up millions of worldwide customers by fumbling an update to its servers. It provides the perfect evidence for what companies need to pay attention to: this wasn't a text message or voice call outage. It was simply an interruption to its email, mobile internet and BBM, the free Blackberry to Blackberry messaging service. And yet the anger it has provoked is massive. For not only did Blackberry appear to mess up its servers so badly it was several days with no sign of a full service returning any time soon, it got another very vital part of service totally wrong: communication. The company didn't reassure its customers it was doing something about it quickly enough, and even now many feel under served and alone  (the irony of a mobile phone company having communication issues only adds to the problem). They pay a premium for the products, and the data, and Blackberry hasn't even returned the loyalty that customers feel with a promise of compensation.  Businesses large and small have been affected financially both directly and indirectly, and there most certainly will be repercussions for Blackberry in the future, with fewer customers relying on the company as the sole source of receiving important emails. And that is vital. When your customers lose faith in you as a company, you're in trouble. And with RIM already trailing behind Android  manufacturers and Apple as the mobile phone provider of choice, it remains to be seen as to whether it can every truly recover. 

Apple should have, in theory, been leaping for joy at this unfortunate mishap for one of its major competitors only two days before the launch of the latest, and much anticipated, major update to its mobile and tablet operating system, iOS 5. If only it hadn't fumbled the launch. Sure, it's Apple, and I can admire its 'we're Apple and we have such great design and loyal customers that we can have difficult to use and complicated Windows programs and force people to use their computers to update the software' view, even if it's more than a little aggravating. But the problem with that is, and I don't care how big you are, you must get the basics right. Sure, make updating difficult if you want. But make it possible. Don't undersupply the server power you need, and leave twitterers complaining after they have to restart the download dozens of times. Because, one day, when someone comes along with an easier to use product that's even almost as pretty and functional, your customers will just jump ship. A nod towards customer loyalty would perhaps be appreciated, here. 

And that brings me to Android, Who are, to be honest, probably pretty happy to be not spoken about too much this week. I'm a bit of an Android fan: it lacks the pretentiousness of Apple, and the price tag of both Apple and Blackberry. I own a mobile phone that cost me less than £90 with no contract. Yet, because it runs Android 2.2, I have access to apps for phones twice or even three times that price. Yes, sure it doesn't have the most storage, RAM or processing speed of a £400 phone, but it has one factor that is very important to me. Stuff just works. Putting music onto it doesn't involve a complicated add it to your library, sync here, check this box routine if I don't want to pay inflated iTunes prices. It's just a drag and drop to the memory card, or a direct download. Album artwork was perfect, even though I had no idea where to put the images. When flash didn't work, I downloaded an alternative browser (flash player isn't supported on a £90 phone apparently). When I didn't like the keyboard, I downloaded two alternatives. Sure, it lacks the glitzy announcements and hysteria surrounding Apple. Yes, my phone isn't as beautiful as an iPhone. But it works. Without jumping through hoops. And therefore, in my opinion, Apple should be just slightly quaking in its very large boots, because with a cheaper, less controlled range of phone, Android could just be becoming a very strong contender.

~Malia

Please don't offer me your modern methods

3 things I learnt this week:
-I have lots and lots of notebooks
- A Rubik's Cube is quite difficult to solve
-You can do some really, really, awesome things with HTML5 (and it doesn't have an annoying space like shoddy old HTML 4)

One of the notebooks is just page after page of questions that I have randomly thought of and written down to research. So, in a fit of procrastination today over yet more work I should really be doing, I decided to research the first question.

Why shouldn't you paint smoke alarms?

Yes, I know, not the most intelligent of starting questions, but nearly every one seems to have a "DO NOT PAINT" label. Anyway, off to Google.

Looking here it seems that the main problem is that it could block the vents. Now that's a little disappointing. I was expecting something much cooler. Like it would somehow interfere with the alpha radiation in the alarm. (Yes, radiation. Don't worry. It can't get through paper. It's not going to get through your plastic smoke alarm)

Apparently the solution, if one ever has need to paint a smoke alarm, is to remove the cover and paint that.

Yet another useless fact that I never needed to know. All in the name of science.

~Malia

Lyrics: Magdalena by Brandon Flowers

Wishing you were anywhere but here, You watch the life you're living disappear

The other day, whilst half-watching the lottery draw on TV, I suddenly had a thought. I wouldn't actually want to win the lottery.

I know, this makes no sense at first glance. Whilst I wouldn't exactly count myself as poor, I certainly don't have a trust fund waiting for me to reach 21, or even an ageing relative who will conveniently leave for me my first house deposit and a fair few mortgage payments. Winning the lottery would mean that I wouldn't have to think about these things ever again. I'd never have to decide to leave items in shops on money grounds, worry about university debt or the cost of transatlantic flights.

I'd never have to check price labels, or postage costs or talk to a bank manager about extending an overdraft.

In many ways, my life would be easy. I'd have the finances of a celebrity (well, the finances of someone who is fairly famous) without the press scrutiny or drug habit to match.  I could even be totally anonymous. No-one would ever need to know that I have £4 million sitting in the bank, or in an overseas tax-haven trust fund.

I could take off on holidays, or even just leave the house with a passport and debit card in my back pocket, and not return for 6 months. I'd never have to get up at 6:30 again, never have to work with anyone I didn't like, or anyone at all.

Yes, there are definite benefits to being a millionaire. And I can see, that for a 50 year old, or possibly even a 40 year old, they would massively outweigh the disadvantages.

But not for someone my age.

Sure, if I won the lottery tonight, £3.4 million or whatever, thank-you-very-much, it'd be a comfort. For perhaps an hour.

Then the questions would start. Would I tell my family? Well, I suppose I'd have to tell some of them. But my grandparents and cousins? Would they still look at me in the same way? How many of my acquaintances would only see me as a source of money for half-baked projects or charity cases?

No, perhaps it would be better to be totally anonymous. But that would cause difficulties, too. How does one talk to others about their financial difficulties without feeling like a hypocrite? And then there's the (hypothetical) situations where £1000 would make all the difference to someone and mean absolutely nothing to you, but you're not able to give them it without raising suspicion. And could you marry someone, and buy a house with them, without telling them that you aren't that far off the rich list?

Anonymity would mean complete anonymity. I don't think it would be possible to tell anyone. And then it would be impossible to live a life other than one not of a millionaire, but with the thought constantly hanging over your shoulder.

Strangely, it's not any of this that is my personal reasoning for not entering the lottery. No, it's that I would be bored. And that sounds even more crazy.

I'm one of those people in life that is very lucky. In the main, I enjoy what I do. I love getting up in the morning, and looking at my timetable for that day and smiling. I like the subjects I study, and the depth I go into. I can't wait to study more, and then get a proper job and (hopefully) getting to spend the rest of my life doing an interesting job that is an intellectual challenge but yet massively rewarding. Sure I have bad days, but I know it's going to be worth it.

 And I just don't think that would be possible with a  lottery win. I don't think I could take up a job knowing full well that I was taking up the position of someone who needed that job financially, when I didn't. I wouldn't know what to do, having the money to finance the research but yet not being able to for fear of being looked upon as some omnipotent being.  

That's the real reason why I wouldn't want to win the lottery. 

I guess I'm just not motivated by money. Or, I suppose, it's just not that high on my scale of importance.  Although I will find something to do with the £52 I save this year from not buying a lottery ticket.

~Malia

Title Lyrics from Wasted Hours by Arcade Fire

Such an outsider, ‘cause in my heart, I don’t believe in anything.

Through definition as a petite sceptique, I have a very cynical nature. However, sometimes my scepticism far surpasses people’s expectations. If I want to enter an argument with somebody, I usually just have to mention my disbelief in one of two things: evil or love.

I don’t believe in the existence of evil because I think that everything that can be perceived as evil by some can be alternatively viewed by others. To try and explain this analogically, I have a serious (and of course, utterly irrational) phobia of fish. Were someone to show me a picture of a fish, I would find it extremely scary. If Malia looked at the same image, she would be wholly unperturbed. Just because I find the picture scary, it doesn’t mean that it is; that’s just my perception of it. Similarly, someone may see a certain act as being one of moral evil, but there is undoubtedly someone with the opposite viewpoint to deny this.

“But what about Hitler?” people always ask. “He was evil.”

Unbelievable though it may seem to some, I do not agree with that statement. I would like to clarify that I do not condone Hitler’s actions towards the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally disabled, or any of the other ‘minorities’ whose deaths he ordered in WWII, and as a pacifist I think he went about things in entirely the wrong way, but I do not think he was evil per se, just misguided. I realise that that sounds incredibly cold and harsh, but I shall continue: Hitler believed he was doing the right thing for Germany; he believed that what he was doing was good. Whilst he may have commanded the occurrence of many atrocities, he did not do so believing that what he was doing was bad, and it is for this reason that I would not describe his actions as evil: like the Buddhist principle of kusala or akusala being based on cetana, I think that for something to be evil, it would have to have been done with purely ill intention. Evil, as far as I am concerned, is premeditated inconsiderate action based on negative desires, with no immediate wholesome consequences and no intention of anything good coming from the action at any point thereinafter. To my knowledge, something fulfilling this criteria has not yet happened, therefore as of yet, I do not believe in evil. Theists often talk of ‘natural evil’ – things such as tornadoes and earthquakes – which have dreadful outcomes, but nature cannot be premeditated, and even if it can be predicted, it cannot be prevented, so I also disregard this classification of evil.

My scepticism regarding love is much simpler, but people don’t like to hear it: I think that the concept of love is one created by people to make life seem more positive. Though it is obviously not only atheists who believe in love, atheists have more to gain from the concept: many theists believe that after this life they will have eternal peace in some afterlife, and therefore have something positive to look forward to. For an atheist, with no cheerful ‘life after death’ to look forward to, actual life can be seen as quite depressing: from an existential viewpoint, there is no point to our presence here on earth and nothing positive to motivate us to keep on going. With the idea of love being so widely accepted, everybody can look forward to finding ‘that special someone’ with whom everything will ‘just click’ and happiness will ensue. I think it is no coincidence that the verb which is used for the creation of romantic feelings is also one used for deception: one can fall in love, and fall for a trick. Both require the victim to be gullible and both can cause the victim to feel humiliated. However, when one is experiencing ‘love’, they are doing what almost every female-orientated piece of media (and many which are male-orientated too) tells them they should do – ensuring that they are not alone in their life. People in today’s culture are expected to fall in love with someone, and the extent of society’s infatuation with romance has led to the indoctrination of children as well as those who are older – infants of very young ages come home from school announcing excitedly that they have got a boyfriend or girlfriend, and even if to them all it means is that somebody will give them a crisp for free at playtime, they are still being led to believe that this is how their lives should be: constantly intertwined with another’s. With this constant pressure to be romantically attached to somebody, and the inherent desire possessed by many individuals to conform to the expectations of society, people will decide that they have fallen in love with someone, when in actuality, they have found somebody with whom they would feel acceptable to conform to societal requirements and not be ‘lonely’. Love, therefore, is a manmade concept to encourage people to feel positive and happy, and has the unfortunate repercussions of damaging the self-esteem and general well-being of anyone not ‘in love’ in a manner not unlike the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy – people are told that they cannot be happy without a romantic partner, so when they have no romantic partner, they feel unhappy. Love is like an institutionalised religion, but with far fewer non-believers.

~Tamsyn.

"We are twelve billion light years from the edge, That's a guess, No-one can ever say it's true"

I've got two things to talk about this blog: NaNoWriMo and Freecycle. A little unrelated, but here we go.

1.NaNoWriMo
I've read a lot about this on other blogs, but it wasn't those which made me decide to attempt NaNoWriMo. I have a few literary friends: I don't really understand this, I'm a scientific brain, but one of them managed to use her persuasive powers to make me do attempt NaNoWriMo. In case you haven't heard, it's 50,000 words in 30 days.

I'm writing on the 18th November. And I've been sitting on over 50k for 2 days. In Nano terminology, that means I've "won". To be honest, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Not that it wasn't difficult, of course writing over 3,000 words a night for 16 nights in a row was. I haven't seen a television program, haven't read a book, and my long luxurious baths have gone out of the window.

I'm a planner: a massive planner. In the week before November 1st, I wrote a handwritten plan in bullet points that was over 50 pages long. This has helped me massively, and I feel that I would have been lost without it. Sure, I've deviated, but in  the end I kept the general plot in the plan.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not finished yet. I reckon I will end around 60,000 words,  but I don't quite know. I'm sure that what I have written in the main is utter rubbish, but that isn't important. I have no intention of publishing what I have written, or allowing anyone to read it other than a few close friends.

No, the most important thing to me is that I've challenged myself and "won". I've written something that is at least 5 times longer than anything else I've written in 18 days. That requires some dedication. If I can do that, I'll think twice next time I see something as "impossible", and perhaps this is the moral of NaNoWriMo for me.

2. Freegle


Freegle, is a pretty well known phenomenon. Many groups used to be part of freecycle, but in a series of event that I can't quite be bothered to understand, Freegle split from Freecycle. That isn't really my point, though.

I love Freegle. Many commentators plead that society is collapsing with technology: people spend less and less time with each other and become less and less charitable.  Many blame this on the Internet.

I don't agree: last week I was in need of a desk (see NaNoWriMo above). Looking up prices online, I saw them close to the £50 mark. This seemed ridiculous for a basic desk that I wasn't really bothered about looking good. So I posted on my local Freegle group.

Within 24 hours, I got a reply: someone had one, could I collect? They even enclosed a photo. It was just what I needed, and I felt so pleased that someone had given up even a little of their time to do something nice for no reward.

Not that I haven't posted things for others on there myself, but somehow I seemed to be astounded that someone else would do the same for me. Maybe the tabloid headlines are having an effect.

Either way, and even though I've emailed you, I would like to thank you, freegler- you've really showed me that perhaps there's some reason to believe that perhaps there are people out there who aren't just selfish after all.


November has been a great month already, but perhaps it's taught me more than I've learnt in a while. And perhaps David Cameron should study freegle for his "Big Society."

~Malia

Because he talks to the part of us which insists on drawing profiles on prison walls

I was gifted a rare treat today. A copy of The Times. A Saturday edition, not as good as The Sunday Times but not bad. I await the day when my finances can handle the £6 a week annual subscription.
Whilst scoffing at the overinflated prices of the recommended "capes", (a coat that appears to have no arms, in case you're interested, but I'm certainly not), I came across an advert in the Magazine. (page 37 if you happen to have a copy at this present time).

The limited edition Dyson Ball machine celebrates the fascination of engineering. Dyson spent three years questioning, testing and developing the advanced cyclones and a vacuum cleaner riding on a ball. The result is an entirely new type of steering mechanism.

Yes. A limited edition vacuum cleaner.
Now, I don't really agree with the whole 'limited edition' thing anyway. I think it's just a money-making scheme for musicians and film-makers in that last, often fruitful, attempt to extort even more money out of you. However, at least in games and CDs, it makes sense: you get your hands on something that not many others have and, in a few years, you might own something that will contribute towards your pension. If you're lucky. They're the perfect gift for a geek: give them a limited edition of their latest obsession, and they'll be there for you next time your computer breaks down. In my case, anything Star Trek related will do.

However, what exactly are you supposed to do with a L.E. vacuum cleaner? They're not really that collectable. I suppose someone collects them, but it'd be a little difficult once you'd collected more than 15 if you don't live in a Cowell style mansion.

I'm not anti-Dyson, in fact I wouldn't have any other vacuum cleaner, but this idea just seems ridiculous. Household appliances perform a function. Whilst some people think that AGAs show their sophistication and yummy-mummy status, to the rest of us it appears as a step forward rather than a step back. One cannot brag about the fact that only 2,000 other people in the world own their particular brand of Dyson at a dinner party, because, quite frankly, nobody cares. At least with physics (my favourite subject) you are likely to meet a fellow geek who also wants to avoid everyone else and talk about the latest developments in G.U.T.

So, please Dyson and anybody else who wishes to attempt this, forget this ridiculous plan and go back to what you do best: great design and engineering.

~Malia

I need to find someone who can heal my mind.

When roughly every other sentence anybody says sounds like innuendo, which is worse: the fact that your mind is evidently very far in the gutter, or the fact that 50% of everything you hear sounds perfectly normal?

~Tamsyn.