Noel Gallagher blames “brutal TV and videogames” for UK riots.

Thanks for that Noel. I can sleep soundly now in the knowledge that the massively complex issues of crime, punishment, rehabilitation, teenage angst, mob mentality, community, self-respect and education have finally been put into clarity by the man who wrote She’s Electric. Up until now I relied heavily on the peer-reviewed studies of leading experts in their fields who have spent months doing nothing but crunching data in the hope of providing a small clue to the reasons behind these riots but now I can just ask a passing guitarist for an indie band.

Being a parent to two girls I obviously worry about the issues of teen pregnancy but I shall worry no more… as soon as I bump into John Squire of The Stone Roses and ask him the answer.

Indie guitarists… they not only write catchy tunes but they quickly solve complex social issues. What a bunch of guys.

I’m not going to pretend that I am a fan of my local newspaper. The Express and Star on many occasions seem to revel in the negativity that blights my local area. With the recent riots still in the memory I do feel that people like the Express and Star don’t help matters by keeping the amount of positive stories about an area to a minimum. How can we expect kids to have respect for an area when the so-called local media will almost exclusively focus on the negatives?

A perfect example of this happened yesterday when the Express and Star front page was dominated with a “recycling story”. The Twitter feed reads:

Amount of food waste collected in slop buckets in Wolverhampton falls every month since introductionhttp://bit.ly/p2liwi

So let’s get a few facts out of the way. I am a resident of Wolverhampton and since the introduction of this scheme the Express and Star have maintained the biased stance of referring to this food recycling scheme as “slop buckets”. The negative connotations here are obvious. It is, therefore, no surprise that in the past the Express and Star were also quick to pick up on the slow uptake of this scheme. Of course, it’s hard to say if there was slow uptake or if it was just the E&S bias coming into play. It’s also hard to say if the “slow uptake” was actually caused by the amount of negative press the E&S have given this story.

It is this cause and effect that is the reason for this rant. The E&S have filed a freedom of information request to get the information presented in this article, which has cost the council money to process. Maybe the residents of Wolverhampton need to ask if this bastion of local journalism has done nothing more than waste public money and massage the facts to fight their own little battle.

The problem here is critical thinking. Even if less food waste is being produced why does this story imply that this is a bad thing? The issue is that the food recycling scheme deals with “food waste”. The key word here is “waste” and while the E&S would like to imply that a reduction is about the failure of the scheme and a waste of public money I would like to present a different hypothesis.

As a Wolverhampton resident I partake in this scheme and while I was initially sceptical I gave it a go and our household discovered an interesting thing. It makes you more aware of the food you are throwing away. Separating it almost makes you look at it and go, hang on, we bought that and never used it. Combine this with the belt tightening every household is going through and it’s no surprise that my household has seen a reduction in food waste. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that this is happening in other households in Wolverhampton? Is it really such a stretch to imagine others are wondering around supermarkets and thinking, “Let’s not have that, we threw the last lot away” and putting it back on the shelf? If this is the case then it’s a great thing. A wonderfully positive thing. A thing that should be celebrated. We are wasting less. Go Wolverhampton… you’re great. You waste less. Well done. Of course, that’s not something I’d expect the E&S to publish.

Now unlike the E&S I will present another hypothesis. It could be that people are now thinking, “I can’t be bothered recycling” and throwing the food waste into their main bin. It could be that this scheme has been a waste of public money but the problem here is that the information presented by the E&S doesn’t suggest that. It suggests that they’ve taken a “statistic” which could have a positive or negative angle and immediately jumped on the negative. Surely, residents of Wolverhampton, if this newspaper is forcing our council to spend money answering Freedom of Information requests we should at least expect them to write a balanced story as a result?

I’ll repeat that:

If this newspaper is forcing our council to spend money answering Freedom of Information requests we should at least expect them to write a balanced story as a result?

It seems obvious that the answer to that is, “yes”.

Of course, I’m not naive. The E&S is not the only media outlet to focus on the negative for sales. Most of them do it. And neither are they the only media outlet to be biased. Most of them do that as well. But if we can all think a little more critically about the information presented to us we wouldn’t fall for these tricks and maybe it would influence our decision on if we should buy their products.

I will also point the E&S to this page. It will be interesting to see if they are non-biased enough to retweet my message to them. I doubt it, but I do hope I can make one journalist there think before sending off for Freedom of Information requests and then writing a biased article. By all means file Freedom of Information requests but the subsequent article should be “fair” and “non-biased” otherwise they are wasting the money of the local council and therefore the local people. And if local journalists are not there to help local people then they really have to question if they are doing the job they should be.

So, let me get this right…

We worked together for eleven years and in that time you never spoke to me like I was a human being. When I went out of my way to help you the help was ignored or slagged off. Whenever we have met outside of work you have spoken down to me, disregarded me or essentially treated me like scum. Then today, when I’m on annual leave, you find the nerve to phone me at home to request help with a problem you have with your computer.

Let me put this in simple terms:

Off!

That is the direction I wish you to fuck.

Today the A-Level results in the UK are given to the students. I’d like to take this opportunity to say something to all those people collecting results…

WELL DONE.

I say that because that phrase is not one the students will hear very often. More often they will hear:

“You only passed because the exams are getting easier”

So if you know someone getting A Level results today congratulate them on their hard work, because they have worked hard. Then drown out any negativity you hear. For some reason this time of the year becomes about knocking the achievements these students have got and instead telling them it’s because the exams are easier. Of course, all the research proves that they are not easier than 50 years ago, they are just different.

So well done sixth formers… you worked hard and you got good results. You deserved it.

WELL DONE!

I’ve long given up expecting decent aftersales service from any company with more than twelve employees but this afternoon Nintendo have essentially taken then biscuit and ended up in territory previous only ventured into by the Mafia.

This isn’t what happened but I took what I was told and offered the following scenario to the Help Desk employee who confirmed it was true.

First off, forget trying to register your fault on the Nintendo website. That section didn’t recognise the serial number.

Also, when you dial the number given on the official Nintendo website make sure you have a pen handy to write down the new number as that old number, the one on the official Nintendo website, is no longer correct.

A good start, I think you’ll sarcastically agree.

Now let’s say you bought a Nintendo 3DS on the day of launch. You got it home, unpacked it (along with your paracetamol tablets to combat the headaches you’ll get) and you played it happily. Then on the thirty third day of ownership you accidentally lose the receipt. You know what I mean, the receipt. That little piece of paper which is really really really easy to lose. The Sales of Goods Act states that when you return an item you DO NOT have to provide a receipt. You know all those signs you see in shops saying, “Refunds only given with a receipt.” Well they’re all illegal. Just so you know.

Anyway, on the thirty forth day of ownership your 3DS breaks down. You can’t take it back to the shop (it’s been longer than a month) so you contact Nintendo.

Are you ready for this?

Your item is considered out of warranty. Even though you bought it on release day, even though the date of manufacture is well under the twelve months, Nintendo say that without a receipt they will consider that you bought your item second hand and that the warranty is only for the first owner. If you say “I am the first owner” Nintendo basically say, “You’re a liar.”

Now I am sure this is against the law but if anyone with more knowledge of the Sales of Goods Act can clarify this I’d be grateful. I’m sure the warranty is twelve months no matter how many owners it goes through and either way, I’m almost certain that it’s not up to the buyer to prove first ownership.

But you’re probably sitting there thinking, “I keep all my receipts this doesn’t apply to me.” Well you’d be wrong. You see if you do happen to send your receipt and item to Nintendo it then goes to a Nintendo engineer who decides if the fault is caused by “operator error”. Well, we can all guess how unbiased that would be, can’t we?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that if an owner bashes an item about or misuses it then the company shouldn’t have to foot the bill. However, I was told that, “repairs on the game slot are very rarely covered as this is usually down to operator error”. Consider that? Users constantly insert and eject games in the game slot. It’s altogether possible that through no fault of the user that this slot gets damaged purely through over use. Yet Nintendo, to quote their employee, “very rarely” cover faults with this.

I’m a firm believer that we should be “informed consumers”. We should get at much information as possible about an item before deciding if we should buy it or not. So, it’s worth bearing in mind if you decide to buy a Nintendo product and it goes wrong that you can’t register it on the website, they can’t put the right phone number up on their website, you better have the receipt to hand and you better hope that a Nintendo engineer deems it the fault of Nintendo and not you.

Consider yourselves informed.

Do you use Picasa, Google’s own photo-management and simple editing piece of software? Well if you do, it’s worth knowing it has a problem.

I store my photos on an external hard drive. As I wanted that drive to be read and written to by both a Windows 7 machine and an Apple Mac I formatted it using the new exFAT system. I set up Picasa on the Mac and everything was fine. However, when I tried to set up Picasa on the Win 7 machine I hit a problem.

When you add a folder for Picasa to monitor the external hard drive doesn’t show up. Weirdy if you add a file in Picasa the hard drive appears without a problem. I spent a very angry hour or so fighting with this until I found the solution on this page.

The answer is provided on that page is this one:

There is a file that holds a list of the watch folders called “watchedfolders.txt” it can be found in “C:\Users\{yourusername}\AppData\Local\Google\Picasa2Albums” (assuming you are using a default Windows installation).
It may contain a number of lines already, mine looked like this;

C:\Users\{myusername}\Pictures\
C:\Users\{myusername}\Documents\
C:\Users\{myusername}\Desktop\
C:\Users\{myusername}\Videos\

Open it in Notepad and add the path to the exFAT folder that Picasa can’t see.

So now my file looks like this;

C:\Users\{myusername}\Pictures\
C:\Users\{myusername}\Documents\
C:\Users\{myusername}\Desktop\
C:\Users\{myusername}\Videos\
Z:\My Pictures\

Fire up Picasa, and it will start adding the files from your required folder.

Sure enough it works. Except it doesn’t quite. Picasa has “face recognition” software built in and it’s something I simply don’t use and switch off to speed everything up. However, because you’ve had to “hack” Picasa to get it to work you can’t turn off the Face Recognition on these watched folders. I’m sure there’ll be another hack to sort that out but quite frankly I can’t be bothered.

The reason this has happened is very simple and it’s nothing to do with Windows, Mac or the partition of the drive. When you open or add a folder in any other application on any machine it opens the standard operating system file management system. Yet Google have decided that for the Add Folder in Picasa they would write their own file management system. It is this bespoke file management system that’s fallen over. So you have to ask why have Google done this? Yes there is a tick box for the Face Recognition but that can be easily tacked onto the Windows system. Then it dawned on me… it looks nicer.

This has become a major bugbear for me. The new version of Skype looks great… everything is hidden, it’s not user friendly and it’s almost impossible to have a conversation without it dropping out but it looks nice. In an ideal world applications will look nice and work but this isn’t an ideal world. So if you think it’s more important that applications work rather than look nice stand on this side of the line. Thank you.

Now if you don’t care whether applications work and just want them to look nice then take your frosted glass hammers and stand that side of the line. Yes I know that side of the line is six feet under water. Oh dear, have you drowned? That’s a shame.

So a little message to the software developers….

IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAT THE SOFTWARE WORKS THAN IT LOOKS NICE. IF YOU CAN DO BOTH, THEN GREAT. IF YOU CAN’T DO BOTH JUST CONCENTRATE ON GETTING IT TO WORK.

You bunch of sad, 40 year old, living in mother’s basement, virgin twats.

Failing that. Try talking to real people… AND GET SOME SEX.

I’m starting to think that the only way to develop software is to hire a developer, tell them exactly what you want and then beat them with a big stick every time they deviate. We suffer so much in IT because developers are not human. They are geeks. To develop software you have to lock yourself in a basement and not have human contact. These people are not human and they cannot be expected to develop software and systems that are used by humans without very careful supervision.

I’m off now… to get a big stick.

Today a jury member has been jailed for contacting the defendant in the trial she was hearing.

The news here isn’t that this is the first time that someone has been found in contempt of court for using Social Media. The news here is that a jury member is so stupid as to do that. I mean, if they can’t grasp that can they really grasp the ins and outs of a complicated trial?

I hope if I’m ever accused of something I get a jury made up of smarter people than that.

Lars Von Trier has been kicked out of the Cannes Film Festival for saying that he sympathised with Hitler and was a Nazi.

Let us begin with the hypocrisy of the Cannes Film Festival. You can’t silence someone because you don’t agree with what they say. ”He says he’s a Nazi so we’ll ban him,” is the logic of Cannes. Well, isn’t that Nazi-like behaviour? Silencing people you don’t agree is certainly something the Nazis did. Maybe the Cannes Film Festival should ban themselves for their Nazi-like behaviour. Sure they may explode in a puff of irony but surely behaving like a Nazi and saying you’re not is worse than just saying you are.

We will now move onto Mr Von Trier himself. Von Trier is, without a doubt, a talented film maker. However, he also seems to behave like a twelve year old boy. His last film, Anti-Christ, seemed to sum up the problems with Von Trier’s work perfectly. A beautifully shot, haunting and emotional opening scene is completely ruined by a shot of an erect penis penetrating a vagina. Was that shot needed? Did we up until that point wonder what this man and woman were doing and then go, “Ah, they’re having sex?” No. It was put in for controversy. It was put in to generate a shock. I’m not sure if it was meant to be a shock for the audience but it was certainly meant to shock the media. I actually found Anti-Christ to be a really good film ruined by about thirty seconds to one minute of footage which seemed to be scattered throughout the film to generate headlines.

With that in mind this whole situation seems to be more about Von Trier, marketing and the media than whether someone is a Nazi or not. I neither know nor care if Von Trier is sitting to the right of Hitler but knowing his films and knowing his past I can’t help but feel that he said this to get publicity for his film. Even sadder is the fact that he feels he has to do this. He is an incredibly talented film maker but that’s obviously not been enough to get news of his films out to the general public. Dogville was a superb movie but how many reviewers outside of incredibly specialist publications even mentioned it? But show a hardcore shot in a film and a woman cutting off her clitoris with scissors and suddenly the media go into a frenzy, your film gets lots of publicity and suddenly bums are on seats and DVD and Blu-Rays are sold.

Combine this with Von Trier’s obviously strange sense of humour and it doesn’t seem to be a massive leap of logic to find him inside a press conference saying, “I’m a nazi” a few seconds after saying, “I’m not a nazi” just to get a reaction. I wouldn’t be surprised if journalists use autocorrect so that when they typed “Lars” it immediately changed to “Lars Von Trier, enfant terrible of the film world”.

Von Trier has always been on the controversial side and his films have always been more interesting when they are not being controversial. But if quality is ignored in place of shock and controversy then no one, least of all the media, can complain when Von Trier decides to play that game.

Even sadder is that the “success” of his next film will be judged purely on money made and if this outburst has given his film free publicity which puts bums on seats then Von Trier will be perceived as doing the right thing.

As a lover of films and a hater of mainstream media this is actually a really depressing story. It seems to point out a major problem these industries have where shock and controversy in films is more highly regarded than quality, story and emotion. Even more depressing is the fact that it’s a self fulfilling prophecy where Von Trier will reduce those great moments in his films for more shocks and where better filmmakers will be ignored for the next story about “look what Lars Von Trier, enfant terrible of the film world has done now.” Then, of course, the media will probably run a story about how filmmaking has moved away from quality and more and more people are making films just to shock audiences (or in reality to generate headlines). They media feed the shockers and the shockers feed the media and that’s all the public are aware of. Meanwhile quality cinema which is deserving of attention gets left by the wayside.

Is it any wonder I try to review independent quality films and get word of them out there? There can be good cinema without sliced clitorises, hardcore porn or controversy seeking directors. Let’s celebrate it and maybe those directors like Von Trier can just stick to using their talent to make quality films instead of chasing headlines.

Following on from my conspiracy theory post it is becoming apparent that more and more people are doubting the story behind the death of Osama Bin Laden with some people even suggesting that he could be alive and the death / murder of him is all lies. As a consequence America are considering releasing pictures of OBL’s corpse to the world as “proof” he’s dead. There are several very good reasons why the American’s should NOT do this.

To begin, anyone who thinks the American Government can cover up a fake murder of OBL, hatch any kind of conspiracy or fool anyone is as deluded as members of the flat Earth society. Governments of the world; in fact any large organisation; are incapable of keeping secrets. Let’s not forget that in recent history the American government failed to keep secret a break in of a hotel room. As well as that, they weren’t able to think of the plan of planting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify their war. They couldn’t even keep a blow job secret and there were only two people in the room. To think that such an organisation can then suddenly carry out a conspiracy around the fake murder of the world’s most well known terrorist is ridiculous to the extreme. It’s not even a good conspiracy. Surely a manufactured conspiracy would make them look more intelligent. The current one basically says, “We killed Osama Bin Laden yesterday and it only took us ten years to track him down but also meant we were bombing the wrong country… Not once, but TWICE.” On top of all that a living breathing OBL could very easily prove he was still alive and there would be enough media outlets to distribute that proof (Al-Jazeera anyone?). But no doubt the conspiraloons are already reading this and saying, “Ah, but Al-Jazeera are part of the conspiracy.” Yes, oh dribbling one, of course they are. If only they got Al-Jazeera in to help them cover up the blow job.

This is the problem. Conspiraloons aren’t treating their theory as an hypothesis to be tested. They are treating their theory as fact, then all they need to do is find the evidence to fit into their ideology and dismiss anything that doesn’t. Therefore it makes no difference what “evidence” the American government release it will be claimed to be fake. Even if Al-Qaeda release a statement saying he’s died then that statement will be considered fake. Anything, absolutely anything produced will be stamped, “FAKE!” so they can continue on their deluded path.

I don’t completely blame them. We live in a world were changing our mind is seen as a weakness. How often do we hear the media refer to politicians as “doing a U-Turn”? But if new evidence comes up which challenges the hypothesis then surely we’d want our leaders to change their conclusion? But no, any alteration of opinion is the sign of weakness and it shouldn’t be. It should be embraced and celebrated.

However, I digress. It’s not just that any “evidence” will be dismissed by the conspiraloons. It’s also that no good can come from it. Images of OBL’s face blasted apart by two bullets (fake or not) is only going to inflame hatred and speculation. I have no doubt that we haven’t heard the whole story nor do I think we ever will but it would not surprise me in the slightest if OBL was unarmed and effectively executed by the SEALS who stormed the compound. I’ve spoken to an armed policeman in this country who said that he was trained to shoot to kill because you can never be sure if the person you are shooting has a bomb strapped to them or not. Give them a second to pull a detonator and you could end up dead. Therefore, you switch their lights out. Also, it’s now common knowledge that during the Iranian Embassy Siege that the SAS killed all but one terrorist. This terrorist only survived because he disguised himself as a hostage. All hostages were handcuffed and bundled onto the floor of the garden and they all pointed out this guy and told the SAS that he was a terrorist. This guy was bound and couldn’t move but the SAS were still going to execute him on the spot until they realised a news helicopter was circling above them. Their orders had been to not let one terrorist out alive. Therefore, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that any team attacking a compound thought to contain Osama Bin Laden would be told the same. My surprise is that anyone walked out of there alive. I also think that over time this is the story that will come out. I have no doubt that the people involved will already have book publishers hovering over them like vultures waiting to get their story.

So for me releasing photos or video of a dead OBL will just inflame his supporters more especially if those photos and videos show he was unarmed and it certainly won’t stop the conspiraloons who insist that he’s alive and well and living in Droitwich.

On a final note we also don’t need to give the news media any more excuses to show harrowing images. It is one thing for a investigative reporter to show suffering in some long forgotten corner of the world but it’s another to have 24 hour news channels constantly pumping out grotesque image after grotesque image with no other purpose than to secure ratings. In a way it’s worse than the most horrific torture porn movies made by people like Eli Roth. At least they admit it’s torture porn for entertainment. The news just hide behind a cloak of journalistic freedom and “informing the masses” while showing gory images at ten am then a week later criticising an 18 certificate movie for being explotative.

But the really sad thing about all this and probably the one thing that concerns me about conspiracy theorists is that they are a distraction from more important issues and they distract both the Government and the public. While conspiraloons get people’s attention with tales of holograms, controlled demolitions and living terrorist leaders they are stopping us all considering things like “Why are there groups of angry young Muslims willing to blow themselves and others up?” “Why are certain countries subject to attack when others are not?” “Why are kids going into schools and shooting their classmates?” You can even bring these questions down to a more local level. “Why is there more anti-social behaviour?” “Why do some people have no respect for their local area or the people around them?” Can we really admit that Bin Laden’s current state of life or death is having any effect on us at all? Yet these questions are having an effect on us. They do make a difference to our lives and they are all being left by the wayside while Governments try to placate a group of people who are too busy looking for the three card trick.

I’ve often joked that if there was a global conspiracy then the conspiracy would involve lots of conspiracy theorists. What a great way to distract the public from the real issues that our government should be dealing with.

And maybe, just maybe, if our Governments concerned themselves more with what happened on their own doorsteps and not those in other countries then we’d all have safer and more content lives.

I love conspiracy theories I do. The journey from secret gunmen on the grassy knoll to controlled demolition via a moon set on a sound stage and a secret group of bankers ruling the world is one that always cheers me up.

Now, with the reports of Osama Bin Laden’s death setting the social networks alight the loons have already been out. It is obvious in their world that OBL is still alive and news of his death is a conspiracy made even more obvious because his body has already been buried at sea. The fact that OBL supporters have commented on his death and the fact that OBL could easily disprove his death by releasing a video of himself holding up today’s newspaper and saying, “I’m still alive you lying motherfuckers,” doesn’t cut any mustard. The fact that Western Governments are so inept they couldn’t plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify their war is ignored. The fact that the might of the American government couldn’t cover up a simple break in of a hotel room is conveniently ignored. No, it’s a conspiracy.

So because I love conspiracy theories please use the comments to give me you own wild, outlandish and completely made up theories about anything. Anything from OBL being alive in an under the sea base waiting to attack us with evil sea creatures to Bono not being a twat.

Come on… conspiracy theory me.