The sky is falling! (pandemic edition) April 30, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Current-affairs, Observation.3 comments
There are some words that were designed to hit you in the hippocampus. Danger! Help!! F@@k you!!! They all trip the little wires in your head and make you act and react accordingly.
Recently we were blessed with the hallowed term “Credit Crunch”. Utterly sublime. KKKKKredit KKKKKrunCCCHHHHH. A term just so laden with meat and veg you can have all your 5 portions of goodness in just one breath. And who cares what it means? I can’t even remember. But I do remember the words.
Now we have a new one. But don’t turn off, this one’s important.
Pandemic. PPPPanDEMic. It’s juicy, meaty, and no-one knows what it means. Well, okay, you might see a slider from 1 to 6 show up on the tv every now and again, green at one end, sliding through to amber and then emergency RED over at 6. Why 6? I have no idea. I guess it’s as good a number as any. Why red? Because it’s the DANGER! HELP!! F@@K YOU!! of the medical world.
Now if we have a pandemic, we have an infectious disease on the loose, it has crossed continents, and it can be passed around at parties, oh and coughing in people’s ears whilst travelling on the tube (you know who you are!). Now it would seem we have one kicking around, based on the influenza virus, and it’s really starting to make a ruckus. Bah, it’s all dramatic words and red bars, you say, isn’t it all overblown as per? Admittedly, it’s getting tough to tell what’s overblown and what’s not these days, but there are a few reasons why this isn’t one to turn away from.
The first recorded flu virus showed up in 1580, and, according to statistics, they’ve actually booted around the world every 10-30 years since.
1889-1890 gave the world the Asiatic flu. Now this little beast killed 1 million worldwide. That’s a hefty chunk of people in a very short period of time.
Thirty years later, 1918-1919 saw the Spanish flu spreading around the world. Apparently this little puppy affected around 20% of the world population in some way or another. Within six months, estimated casualties were between 50 and 100 million dead. Holy cow. Now things are getting worthy of attention. This is more than the death toll of the two World Wars combined.
The Asian flu in 57-58 saw 2 million deaths, the Hong-Kong flu in 68-69 killed another million.
There are a lot of people, including me, that are turning the tv off as soon as the P-word is mentioned. We’ve become embroiled in escalating media hype of late, and it’s easier to switch away than it is to have to listen to yet more phlegm-ridden phrases and stare at big red bars. But these numbers suggest it might actually be something to keep a half an ear trained on over the coming months.
On the other hand, it also wouldn’t hurt to be aware of a more balanced view of the harsh realities of life on this planet. The common flu (or man flu as many of us know it) has a tendency to kill hundreds of thousands of people annually. Starvation actually manages to kill 4-16 million people in the same amount of time. And of course we mustn’t forget who the biggest killers are; some of the figures listed on Wikipedia enough to make your eyes water.
As ever the advice is “don’t panic” and don’t do anything ridiculous, like for example, coughing in someone’s ear travelling on the tube when you have flu-like symptoms (GAH!). Stay home, keep hot soup and lemsips on the boil, and if your foot does fall off, for goodness sake phone NHS direct. No, really, it shouldn’t do that.
Of monoliths and change April 24, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Current-affairs, Observation, Technology.add a comment
Today I found myself embroiled yet again in a discussion about performance management. Such things never go well. Having been on both the giving and receiving end of these monoliths of corporate life for nearly 15 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only are they one of the most demeaning and depressing aspects of that life, but in all those years, absolutely nothing has been done to replace them. For all the tweaking and tinkering in a bid to remove their sting, they still sit there morbidly immovable in our lives.
Not so for the mobile phones of the world. Fortunately they had Apple come along and kick them out of their tweaked and tinkered doldrums, and their profits this week have shown just how successful they’ve been at it. Before Apple jumped into the ring, the paying public were stuck with clunky, dull, uninspiring pieces of technology, being drip-fed improvements whenever their owners’ revenues looked like taking a dive. In the grand scheme of things the real-world difference between my current mobile and my first really is slight to say the least. Thankfully Apple changed the game.
Another industry long in need of a game change is that of cars. Cars have long been suffering the same papering over old cracks as phones and reviews, the manufacturers inability to do anything other than churn out the same old same old is becoming legendary. In fact, even whilst things go pear-shaped they’re still doing what they’ve always done, creating even more 4-wheeled metal boxes to fill even more disused runways.
But if it was so hard to have foreseen the game-changing that Apple accomplished before it actually happened, maybe we’re missing signs that might have as profound effect on both the roads and in the workplaces?
On the road at least, experimentation is rife. Back at the start of the decade, Segway threw out their two-wheeled self-balancing scooter; not quite the world-changer Dean Kamen was hoping for, but it gained a following, and his company are currently busy collaborating with GM on further evolutions. The concept of flying cars has been around since the Jetsons though I’m not sure supergluing wings on a Vauxhall Corsa is quite the answer to all of our gravity-bound woes. Nor am I sure I’ll be taking the shopping home on an Enicycle or a water jetpack, despite the fun to be had trying. But these people are rolling some dice and seeing what lands.
Alas however, I fear the worst for the humble performance review. In contrast to technology and transport, it shows no such signs of experimentation, no visionaries making headlines, no game-changing on the front pages, just more of the same. For all the talk of empowerment and knowledge working, for all the great strides made in personal freedom and autonomy, people are still being judged as they always have done, personalities laid bare and held up on a scale of 1 to 10. Is there a Steve Jobs of the HR world out there readying themselves to hit the spotlight with a whole new way of thinking? Is there someone that can do to policy and processes what Dean Kamen did for the wheelchair? I hope so, and I hope they make themselves known soon. Actually, anytime before August 10th would be just fine with me.
Running as nature intended April 21, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Current-affairs, Observation, Science, Sport.1 comment so far
It wasn’t long back that the idea of running with a bone fide running club got motioned, and subsequently carried, two votes to zero. At that point the only thing left to do was to say goodbye to the knees and go buy some trainers to help put off their ultimate demise for as long as possible.
So off to the place of Airomaxes and GTturbo2000s. It didn’t take long to come across a recognised name, high-end models of reasonable price not looking like multicoloured clown shoes, and a nod of approval from the eager-faced shop guy. We’ll take a pair each thanks. Oh hang on, we pronate? And that’s bad? So you suggest this pair with extra support? Marvellous, let’s do that then.
And off we pop for a swift jog in our new treads, and a nice extended recovery period, immobile in the nearest watering hole.
A neat story, and one likely to be oft repeated around the northern hemisphere as the summer starts to slide into view. But here’s a funny thing. That bit about expensive trainers, extra support for pronation, damage to knees and injury prevention, well would you warrant it, it’s all complete and utter nonsense.
The public at large seems to spend half it’s life being hoodwinked in some way or another for the financial benefit of someone we’ve never met. Not that I’m against capitalism of course, enjoying the aroma of my Costa coffee whilst I hammer away on my lovingly cared for Apple laptop. But what I am against, is being knowingly lied to. At that point it becomes an all-ecompasing principle thing, and on this occasion my principle thing has hit the big bad world of running footwear.
“Higher-end trainers are better for your body, and prevent more injuries.”
According to the research, complete garbage. It would seem that they actually cause more injuries than their cheaper cousins, weakening the foot, causing it to roll unnaturally, and making the body do all sorts of things it was never designed to do.
“But supporting the foot to prevent pronation is good though, surely?”
No. Again, it would appear to weaken the foot, and actually prevent the natural movement of the foot from occurring. Your foot pronates? Good, as part of your shock-absorber assembly, research shows that it is meant to.
“Okay, well, surely all that heel-striking on the floor needs some cushioning to prevent damage to the heal and achilles areas?”
Well, experts say yes, and then no. Y’see, the natural gait of most creatures when running is up at the front, on the balls or pads of the feet. When the human foot hits the floor on its ball, the arch, heel, calf and knee combination all work together like a shock-absorber until the heel comes close to the floor, by which time the front of the foot is ready to push off the ball again. Trainers would prevent heel-injuries, but only if the foot is hitting the ground heel-first, something it wasn’t designed to do whilst moving at speed.
“Okay, so we’ve covered a bunch of health-related issues, and that’s fine, but you have to admit that you can run faster and change direction better in trainers?”
This sounds plausible on the surface, but yet again plenty of experts have concluded that this makes no sense either. Slow-motion photography of tribes that run in bare feet has shown that feet act very much like those in the rest of the mammalian land-based animal kingdom. On heading towards the floor, feet “reach” for the surface, with toes splayed ready for impact. The toes, arch and calves then work together to absorb the impact before then flexing, spreading and clawing at the ground for as strong and grippy support and push-off as possible. What trainers do is prevent the splaying of the toes, preventing the gripping of the ground and the connection with the floor that the feet have. Feet have as many nerves as lips, but in trainers they’re useless. In direct contact with the ground they’re sensing give, grip, angle, pitch, they’re applying forces and twisting to give the best traction possible on the surface being tested. This is what they were designed for, and something that modern footwear takes away.
So should we all ditch the shoes and run around the great british streets like Zola Budd? If we took it easy and gave our bodies a chance to build muscle and strength that decades of cosseting and support have taken away, then perhaps, avoiding the pot holes and glass whilst we do. We all have the same bodies, we’re all designed to run in the same way, with care there’s no reason not to. But there are alternatives starting to arrive now that the major shoe manufacturers have had their cover blown. Nike’s Free is one, but is barely a step in the right direction, and hardly the leap that was needed from such a prominent wallet-basher. Vibram’s Five Fingers do a better job however, giving a far more natural sole and allowing the foot complete freedom of movement. It must be said though that it’s up to the runner to see if they can work through the ridicule of wearing such visual monstrosities.
But of course there will be more. Now that the lid is off, it’s not hard to envisage all the major manufacturers looking to capture a slice of the natural pie. It’s a shame these things take so long to come to light, but in most cases free markets do a reasonable job of putting right what they once steered wrong, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t be the case here. As ever though, it will come down to the well-informed running public to make sure that this newly founded natural revolution doesn’t stumble at the first hurdle.
No incentive required April 17, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Current-affairs, Observation, Technology.add a comment
With a face that only a mother could love, you’d think that the government would be losing the battle to get us out of our V8 turbo monster trucks and into these more environmentally friendly forms of transport. And you’d be right.
Even a recently announced £5000 incentive package is unlikely to do much to sway us from our throaty roar, hyper acceleration and cool 16-pipe exhaust package. And why would it? Petrol is cheap again, the economy is getting set to pull its trousers back up, and let’s face it, climates change whether we fill the atmosphere with CO2 or not. Oh, and whatever Geoff Hoon would lead you to believe about the concerns of the general public, people are only worried about carbon’s effect on the environment because a) they’re told to be, and b) because no-one, least of all our scientists, actually understands any of it and so typically err on the side of caution. Getting London politicians to drive around in little blue electric bugs is unlikely to solidify people’s perceptions either, though the entertainment factor will of course be high.
We all know that these incentives are really all a ruse to get some positive airtime in the great British media, very much in short supply at the moment. Unfortunately for Mr Hoon and the government, the British media is a fickle beast. Getting something “out there”, even if intensely positive, is always a bit of a “light blue touch paper and stand well back” situation. It could rouse the masses and spur inspiration, lauded from every hilltop in the country. But it could just as easily be torn to shreds and leave people pointing and laughing. I’d say the newswires typically go with a 20/80 laud/lambast mix on a good day, and the majority of the feedback generated from this scheme has been firmly in line with expectations.
In the government’s defence, no-one excepting the great JC would dispute the fact that getting rid of nasty combustion engines would be a good thing, just as long as what we replace them with is some kind of new hotness. The problem is that what we are being offered right now is as far removed from hotness, old or new, as it could be. Yes these things are cleaner; 25% of the power used to charge them comes from some form of renewable energy, and the rest benefits enormously from the economies of scale that power stations afford. But the main problem with our froggy friend above, aside from its speed, comfort, practically and style, is that, given the rate of change and improvement currently being experienced in the world of alternative energy, he could in fact be obsolete by lunchtime, or at least by the time Boris has spent all of the leftover cash down the sides of our sofas installing his proposed 25,000 charging points around the great city of London. Which of course all become useless when the new technology turns out to be hydrogen. Or methanol. Or possibly even water. What do we do with all our newly purchased lead-acid-battery-toting mobility scooters when that happens? Well, move upwind of any subsequent lead-acid-filled landfill would be a good start.
Perhaps the Government, and especially our Boris, gawd bless his hair, could see fit to stay away on this one. The good old free-market has done its job well to bring us the iPhone, the g-string, and the Airmax trainer, and there’s no reason to suggest it wouldn’t do the same with the next transport technology. If they really want to throw money around, and this is assuming they have any spare at the moment, by all means throw it at R&D and see what grows. Who knows, maybe in a few years time we’ll all be pointing and laughing at all those chromed exhaust pipes as we stand in line to get teleported to work.
A new pet April 15, 2009
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Why is it people get really really excited about getting something new, then once they have it they realise that they’re not sure what all the fuss was about to begin with? All of us 80s boys remember the Airfix Super Flight Deck. Shame I can’t find the advert for it, though I think if I were to watch it again I’d still want it badly, even knowing it was the biggest bag of spanners money could buy.
So, much like the oft-berated Flight Deck, I had a hankering for a Venus Flytrap. I get drawn towards things that are a little different from the norm, and I thought that having something I could look after, call my own, and take for walks in the park, would be, well, nice. But this thing isn’t really that nice. Actually, it’s not really very nice at all.
You see, when you get a Venus Flytrap, you haven’t really got yourself a plant, you’ve got yourself a pet. All well and good, I like pets, I used to share my house with a cat, and loved it dearly. The problem is you can’t stroke this plant or give it hugs, you can’t even feed it pet food, nor ham or burger as is oft believed. No, if you want your new pet to live, there’s only one thing on the menu: bugs.
Now you might think that it’s par for the course, and considering our distaste of all things multi-legged, who really cares anyway? Anything that can cut the frustration of window buzzing and food-bombing is just fine by us, right? Except there’s a perspective shift. A bit like when you’re watching Eastenders and the bad guy that’s been terrorising the neighbourhood turns out to have a soft centre and a mum in hospital. All of a sudden you care.
So, what was once a buzzing irritation, has become a living creature with a soft centre and a mum in hospital. There are many things pitiful to watch in life. Now I can formally add “fly trying in vain to escape from a Venus Flytrap” to the list. I feel guilty. And bad. And the spider’s leg that keeps popping itself out of the next-door leaf does not help.
But surprisingly I don’t actually want to see it go. It’s strange, but it almost sits there as a testament to the harsh “eat or get eaten” realities of life. Sure, it could be a bit quicker about its mealtimes; a week is a long time to empty your plate, and it certainly couldn’t help diversifying it’s taste buds a fraction, but really, having a family is about acceptance; none of us are perfect, we just have to get along as best we can.
So I guess that, as long as I don’t have to watch it eat, maybe I could stand a bit less buzzing while the tv is on omnibus.
Office redundancies April 6, 2009
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I’m taking a bit of a dislike to working in offices right now.
It’s taken for granted that the world is in a bit of a shaky position, money markets in disarray, jobs hard to come by and businesses closing down, but actually living through it first-hand just plain miserable.
The problem is fear. No, fear is too strong. Apprehension is probably more accurate. Just an underlying unease that at some point someone is going to pull an errant wooden block and shout “Jenga!” as the whole tower comes tumbling down around everyone.
Every other conversation is a jest on where people will be living next week, how they’ll eat, all light hearted, but tinged with a weird, pale seriousness. Redundancies used to preface a jump over to a rival across town. But now? Well, now there’s simply no one left to jump to. Head office can send all the people they want to attempt to bolster moral and keep people productive, but any residual feelings of positivity only ever seem to last up to the next coffee break.
So what else is there to do but keep heads down and fingers crossed. Put family and outside life on-hold until the storm passes. Sure, maybe it’ll only stay the execution, our fates ostensibly in other people’s hands, but maybe if we make ourselves indispensable we can at least wrest a little piece of control over our futures.
Well, it’s two people down in this office. I’m not sure how many more need to go before the term “office” itself becomes redundant.
Do we really know what we’re doing? April 3, 2009
Posted by Snoopy in Current-affairs, Observation, Science.1 comment so far
Scientists seeded an area of ocean with iron filings recently, to encourage growth of an algal bloom that they hoped would soak up a chunk of carbon dioxide and deposit it at the ocean floor. Cunning in its JamesBondian overtones, or so you might think.
But, as it would turn out, complete bobbins.
Imagine for a second that there’s no more human beings on the planet. One click of some giant metaphysical fingers and poof! we’re gone. No more hunting, no more habitat destruction, just pure, untamed nature in all its hairy, multi-legged rawness. We’ve just seeded the entire world with iron filings. Now what do you think is going to happen to everything that’s left? Well, I know what I think is going to happen. I think there’s going to be an absolute party of the century.
So the iron filings created an enormous algal bloom. Nice job guys! But…
Well, the trouble is, that when there is an explosion in the bottom rungs of any food chain, typically the benefit to those actually on the bottom lasts, ooh, maybe five seconds, before those creatures on the next rung up go haaaang on… is someone having a party?! This veritable bounty of crudités and punch not only then gets them full, it also tends to make them, well, do it more, and typically after doing it more, leaves them with larger litters than they would otherwise have done. Animals (humans very much aside) are exceedingly good at adapting to their environment in this way, they spread and grow when there’s an abundance of resources and space, and don’t if not.
So was the experiment a success? Not for the capturing of CO2. The surrounding shrimps got down to it far too quickly for much CO2 to be captured. But maybe those goofy humans will have more luck when they try again later this year? Well, maybe, but if I were a shrimp right now, I’d be looking to get myself some advance tickets and a spare doggy bag just in case.
