Metanomics

Last night I attempted to buy some beer as a flatwarming gift for some friends of mine [1]. With me was my wonderful girlfriend ianthe88 and our lovely friend starlit_kitty. All three of us are blatantly in our 20s. However, the 16 year old chap behind the till didn't think Rachel or I looked 25 so he had to challenge us for our ID. Both of us had our drivers licenses, which he accepted. However, Ianthe, who he admitted looked older than 25 (the cheek!), didn't have any ID so he wasn't going to sell me the beer to give as a gift to my also over 25 friends. He called over his supervisor who explained that this was all part of Tesco's policy to avoid giving underage drinkers access to alcohol and that it was going to become law at some point anyway [2]. I'm not normally a stroppy customer, but this was a bridge too far and having worked in Tesco as a youth, I know a little too well how quickly the management will jump to avoid having upset customers. Ianthe eventually procured her student ID and rail card from the rental van we were driving and the supervisor accepted it, noting that normally they can't do so.

Now, note which age hasn't come up yet: 18. Current law requires retailers to request ID of anyone they believe looks under 18. The Think 21 scheme came about as a means of encouraging retailers to be more diligent in checking ID and to limit delinquent teenagers access to alcohol. As far as I can see there's no national legislation requiring this, though istr some councils enforcing it. Tesco's Think 25 policy seems to have come about as a result of this: basically one of their branches in Blackpool were incompetent at checking ID and the company received a rather trivial fine and some bad press. So if you, or anyone in your party don't look at least 7 years older than the legal age limit for purchasing alcohol, Tesco are going to require ID and only a driver's license or passport will do. I'm sure national ID Cards will be accepted when they arrive too [3].

This is farcical, and I believe this system will throw up far more false positives than actual cases of underage alcohol buying it prevents. Most people live in large cities with good public transport systems and thus many people don't have drivers licenses. Many people don't have passports, and most people find them too big and important to carry around with them on a daily basis. All this system will do is hassle Tesco's legitimate customers for no good reason while the underage drinkers will switch to less strict retailers or simply get their booze second hand or off the black market. We have good evidence from the early 20th century that prohibition does not work, however these sorts of policies are easy to implement and make it seem like the retailers are doing something constructive. The root issue is that Britain has serious social problems with alcohol, too many people abuse it to regulate their mood, and teenagers fetishize the (over-)consumption of alcohol as proof of their adulthood (which often leads to continued abuse of alcohol as a mood regulator as they grow up). Parents, and adult society at large, need to improve their own relationship with alcohol first and show the kids that its consumption has little to do with being a functional adult. One way to do this is for them to simply not drink regularly at all (perhaps only on special occasions as a treat), another would be to make non-excessive consumption of alcohol a regular and normal part of life from a young age. While there may be a case for an age-limit on the purchase of alcohol, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that an age-limit on consumption does anyone any good.

[1] The glass in the Punk IPA gift tube is not the snazzy engraved brew dog glass they have elsewhere on their site, sadly.
[2] I see no evidence of this on the internets which makes me think it's a customer placating lie. Regardless it is not currently the law.
[3] My personal crackpot conspiracy here is that this is deliberate to make ID cards more desirable to the otherwise more resistant younger generation.

Edit 16-07-09: s/series/serious/ as pointed out by shabble

I've been using twitter for at least 6 months now, but in the past month it's managed to get itself everywhere. Picking up the metro, only to find they're regurgitating something Jonathan Ross had tweeted the day before, is amusing the first time and disappointing every other time it happens.

The most startling thing I've found about twitter is how it humanises everyone you follow. This is particularly noticeable with well known folk like @Wossy and @stephenfry, but when you realise the foul-mouthed wise-cracker is a frustrated mother of two, or the seemingly effortlessly witty cad is a similarly confused neurotic IT professional, something special happens: it makes it easier to appreciate people for who they are. The fact it's a constant, real time stream of what these people are doing or thinking about means that what you have is a great tool for getting your head around reality and the folk that inhabit it along with us.

Up until now, the mood on twitter has been banterous and one of the things that's stood out is the often startling honesty. It's... interesting to watch the partners of some of the more prolific and explicit twitterers appear, and even more so when their kids become aware of what their parents have been up to. Thanks to the evangelising that Fry and Ross have been doing, I suspect we'll see a lot more folk joining, especially kids, workmates and parents. Sadly, I can't help but wonder if this will suck the fun out of it all. Already we have folk outlining how to be a total douche seemingly without realising it. Twitter is not (yet) a MMORPG where the goal is to grind your way to the top of followers chart as swiftly as possible. For the moment, however, it has merit as a way of getting to know folk better.

I'm probably a day or two late on this, but I don't think it matters.
( This years goals. )
Happy New Year folks!

At the end of last year, I set myself a bunch of goals to try and achieve over the following 12 months. Did it help?

( We'll see... )

I watched the elections on Tuesday night, staying up way later than was sensible and constantly flicking between 538 and the bbc's map while watching CNN. There wasn't really that much to see for most it, so it was mostly an opportunity for good conversation and mingling as we all waited for the results to come through. I think this meant that the significance of the event didn't quite hit me when it happened.

John McCain's concession speech was earnest, compassionate and seemed truly genuine and given the fiery nature of the contest which had proceeded it, it was most gracious indeed. Unlike some of the crowd, he wasn't swept away by the heat of the competition, but kept his head and remained reasonable.

Obama's speech oozed of victory and hope, but one of his main themes was change, as it had been through the whole campaign. Not only is America ready for change, Britain seems to be as well. His call to the citizens of his country to rise up and be the engine which enacts change is the kind of thing it would be nice to hear more often from politicians. We're the ones who constantly create our society and define our expectations, and for too long we've shirked this duty in the name of apathy and self-indulgence.

But the significance of the event didn't really strike me until the next day, as I was driving into work. That night I was heading off to see Alter Bridge live[1] so I was listening to their latest album, "Black Bird". One of the tracks is called "Before Tomorrow Comes" and it's a sort of anthem for those that are foolhardy enough to believe they can make the world a better place. It builds up to the bridge which goes a bit like this:

Does anyone care it ain't right what we're doing?
Does anyone care it ain't right where we're going?
Does anyone dare justify how we're living?
Does anyone here care at all?

We could be so much more than we are

Somehow, without really paying attention to the song, it tapped into all the repressed hope which I'd be storing up as I watched the US election play out. Pretty much ever since I've been old enough to pay attention to world politics, our culture has been doing the wrong things, time and time again. As a result I've learned to suppress my optimism and to constantly expect the worse. But finally, we've seemingly gotten it right. Putting the republicans back in charge with Sarah Palin a heart-attack away from the Presidency was not the right thing to do and, for once, it didn't happen! Sanity managed to get itself sufficiently organised that a candidate who, not only isn't terrible, but also seems like he might be at least half decent, won the election. That pretty much hasn't happened as long as I've cared about these things.

Now, my pragmatic side is strongly reminded that Tony Blair's original campaign in the 90s played on a similar theme of change. Things didn't quite turn out as different as might have been claimed. However, Blair always had a bit of a used-car salesman thing going on, whereas Obama strikes me as intelligent, optimistic and genuine. Time will tell if he turns out any better, but for the moment I'm glad that our generation has witnessed someone stand on a platform of change, improvement and betterment and has succeeded. Maybe the next generation will turn out to be less apathetic than ours. Maybe even my generation will realise that the world is what they make of it. I can only hope :)

[1] They were very good and played "In Loving Memory" which is a right tear-jerker of a song. Justin Hawkin's new band "Hot Log" provided support and earned my respect for managing such a hostile crowd. Also, I liked his cod-piece.

I've spent the past few days travelling all over the country for house warming parties. On Friday, I headed out to Eugene's new house at Pettinain. It's a converted coach house which is very nice and suits him perfectly. At one point we went outside to appreciate his Toyota Supra, which eventually turned into a full-on mission to charge its battery and get it running, taking the best part of an hour. It was very loud and impressive once he got it going. There was also scrabble and we watched Johnny Mnemonic (which has everybody in it, but is a bit disappointing) and other stuff happened and everybody seemed to have a good time. The weather was pretty rough on the way out and particularly bad on the way back, such that as we got to Balerno we found a huge tree in the middle of the road.

Anyway, after re-routing and dropping everybody off in Edinburgh, I had enough time to re-pack and meet up with Pert, Susanna and Ianthe. An hour or so later we'd finally gotten out of Edinburgh and were off to London to Thom, Susie, Charlie, Patrick and Dan's house-warming. Despite being beset by roadworks, crap weather and even the odd engine problem, we got there at about 11.30pm, just in time for the Potato-Throwing competition. The house is very nice and has a grand total of three(!) toilets, and a lovely garden which suprisingly serene despite the fact the house sits on an A road. They seem to have settled in quite nicely (there is an incredibly majestic Horse painting) and it was good to see that they all seemed happy. Sadly, Pert, Susanna and I had to leave the next day at lunch time so it really was a flying visit. Next time, I'll try and visit a bit longer, and himp more.

I'm now knackered. Next weekend I think I'll try to travel a bit less.

The Set of Single Digit A-Roads I Travelled On This Weekend: {2,3,4,8}

Over the past week I've been trying to put together a specification for a media PC for the livingroom. My original idea was to have a box with very little storage and look at getting a NAS as well, but it's cheaper to combine the two, and given you can get 1TB discs these days, there's no real advantage to seperating the storage. With any luck this should see me through to that glorious moment in the future when everything is downloadable with relative ease.

( specs and details )

Everything can now be considered ironic now. The term is so liberally applied these days that it seems to be used to label any situation or statement which may have more than one interpretation given the context. If the irony isn't immediately obvious, all you need to do is step back and look at your attempt to determine if a situation was ironic in order to find something that is now deemed to count as irony.

Pedants, don't just disagree with the above and start rattling of ways in which it's not irony as you were taught or led to understand it. Instead, go join in the debate at wikipedia, that's way more constructive.

Here's the thing: everything can be considered ironic. We've collectively abused the term to such a point that it no longer has a useful meaning. Which means we have to let it go. Just stop saying it because you're not really uttering anything meaningful when you do. That high you get when you observe something ironic? It's really just the matching of an abstract pattern that makes you feel good. There are plenty of other patterns which aren't so abused that you can appropriate instead, though you maybe want to switch between them instead of applying the same thing over and over again.

Maybe it's a kind of addiction. You notice something which fits the ironic pattern and you feel smart because you noticed it, so you start looking for more irony. But each time you find some, it's not enough. So you look more fervently, each time reduce the eventual pay-off. So how about we just broaden the definition of it a bit? Suddenly there's so much more irony to go around! This way lies madness people. MADNESS!

I googled for irony is dead while writing this. So we've known about this for a long time. I'm going to try and go cold turkey. For our own good, I beg that you do too.

At the end of the last post I posed the following question:

"what would be better [than facebook as an aggregation platform] and what needs to happen in order for web-app developers to want to opt-in to this hypothetical system?"

( here's some thoughts on that )