Spartans… in B&Q of all places
After a long day at work Charlotte and I were feeling a little under the weather last night and so we decided to not go out but to have a quick look at the garden furniture in B&Q as hopefully we’ll have to buy some soon - how soon seems to depend upon the surveyors…
Anyway this just struck me as rather funny, so I thought I’d share it. The guy in B&Q who saw me taking the picture probably thought that I was funny though…
Good Hunting
Stop the children
I was listening to the radio this morning (BBC Story) and they had a representative from a charity (Alcohol Concern I think) who was saying the government should be prosecuting the parents of under 15s who are given alcohol. Now while I’m sure that all the police officers that are sitting around doing nothing would love to pop round to peoples houses and check that no 14 year old is having half a glass of wine with the sunday roast how is this possibly enforcable? And if not, whats the point of having a the law in the first place?
I’m not sure that such a measure would combat the things that people are worried about i.e. antisocial behaviour and assualt. I had alcohol when I was this age at home and whilst I’ve had the odd time at uni where I’ve gone way to far it’s never been a problem. Is this just another example of the so called ‘Nanny State’ trying to hold our hands or am I an exception to the rule?
Over the last few years I haven’t really paid much attention to politics but when I look back there has been a shift in responsibility from the individual to whatever form of enforcement is appropriate, ie do what you like and we’ll tell you when its wrong. For example professionals nowdays are suffering because of the increased monitoring that they have to endure - let them get on with the job that they are good at (I’m sure Charlotte would have something to say about that!). Doctors are starting to be told what medicines to provide rather than letting them make a proffessional judgement, teachers must constantly evaluate their students to ensure that they are performing and I bet the police have endured the same kind of treatment - if the stories about increased red tape in the system are to be believed.
The burden of responsibility should lie with the individual and this I think, in the past, was enforced initially by peer pressure. You didn’t drop that sweet wrapper on the pavement because the old guy on the other side of the street was watching. Now however the lack of respect that has been brought about by this shift in responsibility ensures that these simple pressures no longer affect us - is it really that simple or are there other things at work?
Good Hunting
Home working
With the new year upon me and with a lot of work to be done this year I decided that I should spend more time on campus and that I should seperate my uni, work and home lives so that time at home was a bit more relaxing and time at work/uni was more productive. My hope is that with me being at uni more I’ll get to bounce ideas off people and get a bit further down the line faster than I would at home. I’ve been working mostly at home for about two years now (I’m not counting work for my Bachelors or Masters in this as it’s not really the same kind of thing). Over the last couple of years I’ve enjoyed the freedom that working from home gives me and I really hope that it will be an option for at least part of my working week when I get a proper job.
I have found that when I get into it I can work harder and more effectively when I’m home than I can where there are countless distractions to be had, the problem is that when your days are spent at home and your home life is spent at home all you want to do is get out. Another issue is that of motivation and ideas, when I’ve been working at home recently I been a bit unmotivated and uninspired, hence the change really. It’s been really good to have the difference between home life and work that I’ve been lacking.
Most people seem to think that you do nothing when you’re “Working from home” and most people put the inverted commas around it when they say it too. Most people have never worked from home though and don’t really know what it’s like. You have to be pretty strict with yourself to get jobs done and quite often you work harder knowing that your at home and that means that your probably slacking. The isolation can make working at home a lonely existance too and you find yourself jumping on any oppourtunity for conversation with anyone that’s not a hamster. From my point of view home working is great if you know what you’re supposed to be doing, have the knowledge and the resources to get it down and the strength of will to actually sit down and do it. I do think that you need some form of contact to get you though frustrating times and so perhaps part time home working is the best combination, giving the human contact that we all crave and the time to focus. I’m going to give it a try over the next few months anyway and see how it goes.
Good Hunting
Should I download music? Morally speaking.
The law tells us it’s wrong but so many people do it and as the saying goes, ‘That many people can’t be wrong’.
The record companies, film distributors and software publishers would say that they can be. Downloading and sharing music/films/tv/software seems like a pretty much victimless crime and I think that to a certain respect that is correct. If I download a CD that I would never have actually gone into a shop and bought, how am I hurting anyone? I can even argue that this type of downloading is beneficial to the industry as there are some bands where I have then had to go and buy the CD and/or subsequent albums. Ultimately people want the actual thing in their hands, I know that I’d rather have the CD with the artwork than a Tesco CD-R. I think that it goes back to the fact the people think they are being ripped off when they buy a CD and so don’t want to pay the £10-13 that most places charge (£16-17 in HMV sometimes), even for old albums. Is this wrong then? Isn’t this just a protest against the distributers who charge too much?
I’m not sure, I think that it’s an easy excuse and that people will quite happily take for free whatever people put in front of them. Take away the option of a free inferior alternative and people would probably plump for the real thing over a cheaper version - otherwise why do brand names do so well. So why don’t all these people feel that they are doing something wrong? Perhaps because their victims is probably already in the Bahama’s drinking champange. We feel less bad about stealing from someone who is already well off than we do someone who has nothing. Try stealing from an old lady.
Another aspect to this is the justification that we feel by telling ourselves that it’s just once or twice and that it’s the wholesale pirates that they should be after. I think that this arguement has the most force, the people who bootleg material and then sell it off are the people who they should be looking for. After all I may download a film, watch it, and then that’s it. The pirate would download it, burn it to DVD and then flog maybe hundereds of copies, actually denying these companies not only his income but those of others too.
Perhaps the only way to approach this morally is to do what we feel right, after all evolution has spend millenia crafting our moral senses. As for me I’ll stick to what I’ve always done, the occasional CD and Film plus the TV shows that I miss on TV or can’t get in the UK. Ironic really that the image I’ve used is taken from the copyright page of another website.
Good Hunting
PS - Just found this link on the movieblog and it kinda relates.