Consumer power

Some times I cannot help but stand in awe of the amazing power of the stupidity of people...

For those of you that cannot be bothered to follow the link: The company that makes Mars bars (yes this is the kind of level of news I'll be dealing with today) came up some days ago and said that their Mars bars would no longer be suitable for vegetarians because one of their minor ingredients (which doesn't sound as anything naturally found in a chocolate bar anyway) would be substituted by something that once bore a fleeing resemblance to an animal by-product; as a consequence, the strict vegetarians might want to avoid it, but we trust that blah blah blah.

Keep in mind that we are talking about a Mars bar. A product so unhealthy that the Scottish people deep-fry it in fat and eat it when drunk - we're talking bad here. About 6000 calories per bar, fats, sugar, preservatives, you name it, it's in it. And vegetarians won't be able to eat it anymore. Cheers all around, another one bites the dust, right?

No. Not really. The Vegetarian Society organised a campaign against the change of ingredient, and the company's spokesperson said "It became very clear, very quickly that we had made a mistake, for which I am sorry". Anyone else feel like screaming?

What the hell? Correct me if I'm wrong, but in an age that we're banning smoking, trying to fight drug abuse and Tesco makes 625 TV ads about minding how much salt is in every slice of Tesco Italian Pizza Pappa Paolo Puccini, the vegetarians complain because they cannot stuff their arteries with cholesterol and their bodies with fat? And sure, it's their choice, but at the same time these 6000 people that signed the petition about the Mars bar will also talk about how healthier a vegetarian diet is, how meat is bad (uhm-kay?), and at the same time devour their vegetarian Mars bars and feeling good about themselves! Great! Mars is giving you a valid reason to eat less crap every day, and you just connect your feeding tube to the sewer! Well done!

How many people have signed a petition against poverty in UK cities? How many people have signed petitions against having your whole life spied upon in this country? How many people have signed a petition to pull out of conflicts this country doesn't belong in? How many people have signed petitions against being so incredibly stupid? Bet it's not bloody 6000...

Seriously (and I claim the rights to this idea), I'd like to see guns companies coming out and saying that their fire arms are not suitable for vegetarians (because they'll switch over to using animal fat to oil them or something), and the vegetarians society organising a petition against that.

Probably in the States, right? Don't be so sure...

Moving again

Well, it's that time of the year again when, for no apparent reason, I have to move to a new flat. If I had a penny for every time I've moved since I first came to Scotland, I'd have precisely 12 pennies. Which isn't a lot, but it comes up to about 3.5 pennies per year, which is quite respectable.

Anyway, I'm still going through the Hell that is to move your accounts and contact details to the new address. And, as anticipated by Murphy's law, the simplest one should take the longest. Therefore, the deceptively simple-looking task of moving my current broadband account to my new address (we're talking about 5 miles away here, not across the solar system) had developed to a complete and utter mess.

You'd think that all you have to do is call the provider, ask them to move it, and they either can (great) or cannot (sucks) do it. Binary systems are clear cut and easy to deal with (anyone who's ever dealt with them is hissing and spitting at me right now, maybe there is a point in that). However, my provider has a more complicated process.

You call them to have your account moved, but they don't technically move your account; rather, they cancel your existing contract, charge you cancellation fees, give you a new contract for the new address and then refund you the cancellation fees. Oh, and it takes 7 working day to cancel, 7-10 working days to connect the new account, so the whole process might actually equate a move of account, if you're lucky and you time everything with the precision of a military operation.

Only it doesn't really, because once you get through to the call centre, you speak to
a) a general advisor, who then puts you through to
b) a cancellation advisor, who then forwards you to
c) a new account advisor, who then asks you to call
d) BT because there is a problem with the line (mostly non-existent).

Each of the four steps includes a 10-minute waiting period, and given that you're in the process of moving your landline as well, Murphy will make sure that you're making those calls on your mobille and getting charged dearly for that.

                                                                          JUST MOVE THE BLOODY ACCOUNT!

But then again, where's the fun (for them) in that, eh? For crying out loud, I got to the point where I, em, disfigured my laptop's keyboard (forgetting that, unlike desktops, there are vital components living under it, oops) while talking to them and trying to understand why this ridiculous procedure is not, in fact, ridiculous, but effective and reasonable. A joke of a process, it's still not done, despite me having spent 2 hours on the phone today.

And I still have to contact the electricity company to terminate my current contract, the bank to change my details (I'll tell you about the joys of dealin with a certain bank, let's name it SBR for now, in a future post), my mobile provider, my magazine subscription... Maybe I should just get a P.O. box address and be over with it. Or stop moving.

Pictures from a conference

A research future conference, to be exact. Oh, and they're verbal pictures. Here we go...

"It's all about how to survive your own future". That was 5' into the first talk, sets the pace nicely. Just like in the Old West, the signs at the entrance of towns: "Stranger, leave all hope behind". Or so it says in Lucky Luke.

"There will be no day like this again". They meant it as a positive, about how this is a unique opportunity etc, but think about it. Technically right, potentially scary.

"Multinationalism is dead". And something else has replaced it, can't remember what though. Something fancy.

"You can go in a forest, dance around naked, and good ideas and innovations just come to you. I don't think so." Seriously, I can't add anything to that.

"Trust falls with distance". A valid point, which I think the guy used to hint why Nokia in Finland/Denmark won't really hire any of the pople attending the conference.

"I have a very nice Russian book". So, a student asks the speaker if his company hire fresh PhD students, and that phrase was included in the answer. Go figure.

The last four points were made by the same speaker. Who, by the way, was very good. In a country and age of political corectness, he was a shining beacon of honesty and, erm, sarcasm.

In other news, if you have a PhD, you'll get a job anywhere you want. Especially if you also "fit in the culture of the company" that you want to fit in, and have taken a couple of courses on time-management, you can substitute any of the leading companies' executives within 3 months from finishing your PhD - which, incidentally, can be in any area you want it to be, as it's the general menatllity, way of thinking and experience that companies want; besides a deep understanding of hyperfine multiprocessing load distribution in biologically-modified supercomputer clusters.

Gotta love these conferences...

Oh, and here's Jonny. I drew him during the most boring of the presentations.