Travelling to Disasters
Posted: Mon 10 October, 2005 Filed under: Cynicism, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »While I can – kind of – empathise with people who are worried about their relatives/ family in situations like the earthquake in Pakistan, I really don’t understand what it is they think they can achieve by travelling out there.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed more recently, and particularly since last year’s Boxing Day tsunami, where the news seemed to cover a lot of people doing this. Yes, sure, some of the people travelling over will have uses (on the news this morning I saw bits about doctors going over with supplies, that kind of thing) but the majority seem to be people saying “We’ve not heard from x, y and z so I’m going over to see if I can find out anything”. Why? Surely it’s best to stay at home, rather than adding to an already disastrous area by going over and getting in the way while looking for one’s family.
Frankly, to my mind I can see better priorities than going over there yourself. But hey, what would I know?
Hep C
Posted: Fri 30 September, 2005 Filed under: Cynicism, Health, Thoughts 3 Comments »The BBC today has been banging on about how Britain is ‘failing’ on Hepatitis C, and failing to diagnose it in the majority of cases.
Now OK, I’m sure I’m just being thick here, but how can a story say something like this?
[the study estimated] 500,000 UK people had the virus, which attacks the liver, but only one in seven knew. Only 1-2% of those with the disease in the UK had been identified and treated with approved drugs, which can cure between 60-80% of those treated, it said.
They estimate 500,000 people may have the virus, but they don’t know. I don’t see how you can come up with such a seemingly arbitrary figure as “we’re only diagnosing 2%” (or 10%, or 20% – the figure doesn’t matter) – because in honesty you have no fucking idea how many people actually carry the virus. That “2% diagnosed” could actually be 50% of the people with the virus – you don’t know, because you haven’t bloody well diagnosed them all.
Short of making it a compulsory test – and that would be too expensive to be feasible, I suspect – the figures are bollocks, and it all comes down to hype.
Or am I missing something relevant?
Despair
Posted: Tue 27 September, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »For some reason unknown to all but themselves, I’ve recently been getting a lot of contacts from a couple of IT agencies (I won’t name them here, because why should I give them any credit? Instead I shall name them Aldous and Regressive – which should be enough of a clue for any other IT people who read this…) about jobs in Manchester. Now, I told all the agencies I deal with (including Aldous and Regressive) that I had moved – and let’s face it, we’re talking nine months ago here, so you’d think they might have had time to alter their records by now.
Anyway, yesterday I got emails from both companies, despite repeatedly telling them by phone and email that I a) had moved, and b) wasn’t looking for work. You’d think that was fairly blunt, wouldn’t you?
But oh no, not in Regressive’s case. Instead, I got the following reply.
Thanks for the update- where are you now looking for work? Regressive has offices across the Uk and Europe and we would be more than happy to keep you posted about other suitable roles.
Kind regards
Sometimes agencies are just too bloody thick to be believed.
Inducing Fear
Posted: Tue 20 September, 2005 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »A couple of people have commented that it seems pretty dangerous, a slightly irate and easily annoyed person such as myself now having a compound bow, arrows, etc.
I can see their point, to a degree. But let me put it this way : if I were carrying something like that around in public (and, interestingly, carrying a bow in public isn’t actually illegal – it’s certainly not a concealed weapon, and in theory if I’m just carrying it it’s not threatening behaviour either) do you think anyone would be dumb enough to get in my way and piss me off? *grin*
As far as I see it, if there were the distinct possibility of people getting hurt (i.e. my continued suggestions that everyone should be equipped with a stun-gun, and could “reward” foul behaviour or plain unutterable stupidity with a brief dollop of 40,000 volts) then people would behave better. Yes, the training might take a couple of weeks, where inconsiderate fuckwad twats still wandered in front of other people, or behaved like tossers, but once the message got through (roughly the same time as their hair stopped being frizzy, I’d reckon) they’d soon learn. Yeah sure, it’s Pavlovian, but sometimes it seems that might be the only way to teach people.
And no, I’m actually not a proponent of firearms or lethal weaponry in general. It doesn’t solve anything, and doesn’t make a society more law-abiding. Non-lethal concepts, however, now they’ve got potential…
Redistribution of Mortality
Posted: Fri 9 September, 2005 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »I don’t know if it’s just me in this case, but the news about Gordon Brown announcing a plan to increase the number of vaccinations in Africa and potentially “save 10 million lives” raised a question in my mind.
If they’re saving all these lives, given the current conditions in the area, won’t this just be 10 million more people who have the potential to die from starvation/famine, instead of from measles, polio, hepatitis B, tetanus, and diphtheria?
Or am I missing a point somewhere?
One Born Every Minute
Posted: Fri 19 August, 2005 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News 3 Comments »Sometimes you just have to wonder about people, don’t you? Today’s Barnum moment comes courtesy of Cornwall’s Trading Standards (although how they got involved, I’m not quite sure) and the story in the BBC today about a letter scam that’s been doing the rounds.
Basically, the letter comes with an enclosed Jack of Spades playing card, and tells the gullible fuckwit, sorry, recipient that they’ve been cursed, and that in order to rescind the curse they need to rip the card into quarters, and send it back to the sender wrapped in a £10 note. Now, duh, I’m sorry but send that to me, the fucker’s going in the bin.
Cursed? By post? Excuse me while I fall off my chair with laughter.
Quite honestly, anyone who does send the card and £10 back bloody well deserves to be fleeced. Call it a stupidity/gullibility tax and be done with it.
Ugly, Ugly, Ugly
Posted: Wed 23 June, 2004 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Geeky Leave a comment »I can’t say it enough – this has to be one of the ugliest stereo systems around. I’m currently looking for a replacement system, as my Technics one is officially deader than a very dead thing, but I can be pretty certain that it won’t be this that’s replacing it.