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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Recession busting


Last Friday my partner was summoned to work for a meeting, this was the second phone call of the day, the earlier call offered him extra hours next week, something we can always do with.
He called me, blabbering about letting me..... letting us down, that he was sorry.....
In a week of politicans resigning posts, do you think any of them called home and said I dont know how we are going to keep a roof over our heads, how we will heat or feed our family, which one of the animals should we try to rehome first?
Hughes and Hughes went into recievership, L dosent qualify for any SW as he is a full time student, that leaves me with 250 a week to support two of us in college, a teenager, pets, mortgage, car and loans.
Im afraid to do the maths....
I have implemented some plans, I bought my first container full of green diesel and will be running the car on that from now on, we will be cutting out all red meat, the dogs are down to boiled scraps, I will be scanning and photoshopping a tax disk for the fucking car and tonight when the strip light in the kitchen started smoking and the smell of smoldering electrical wire got too much I had no choice but to take the thing down and dump it, we can only cook in the daylight from now on.

I thought Id steal from his blog and paste it here, while we try to find other routes, I think its the best thing he has written to date

So last friday another 500 jobs in the retail sector were either gone or under threat. A familiar story and nothing more than another example of our economy that has been run into the ground and good material for the working journalist.

Just one problem this time because one of those 500 unlucky people was me.

I found myself in the uncomfortable position last Friday of being the story as Hughes and Hughes Booksellers went into receivership at 5pm. No warning was given to any of the employees before a representative of the accountancy firm Deloitte walked in and ordered that all trading must cease and the shop closed.

I found out via a phone call from my boss who in a shellshocked voice simply said: "it's over." Not all of us were so lucky as they found out their jobs were gone through the dispassionate voices of Today FM and RTE News.

I bolted into town to attend a staff meeting where we were told that the game was up and that we should expect to be on the dole queue by Monday. The softly spoken accountant was dispassionate too , just doing his job and as I sat there only half hearing him i became suddenly aware of the void that exists between the journalist and the events that he or she records.

500 people loose their jobs, 6 people die in a car accident, 3 homes are repossessed, all these things are real and having huge impact on real people but often if you are writing a story this impact is lost because its just words on the page, its just numbers as no reporter is in the car as it leaves the road or the courtroom where someone looses their home or when a person you have never met before turns up and says your job is history.

While working on the production of the Moyross Voice, the pull of a good story was irresistible and I remember the excitement I felt when I heard in an interview that regeneration was in trouble. Here was a good story and not only would it make the paper, it would make the front page.In that excitement I became disconnected from the reality that if regeneration was indeed in trouble then a lot of people would be let down and in a very real sense betrayed by the government that long ago should have shared the wealth.At the time I'm sorry to say all I felt was happy, I had my story and it was a good one.

I felt sick yesterday as I read the reports, each one reminding me that I can't pay my bills next week and I think despite my financial woes I have gained something and thats empathy. Reporting the news is a vital function of the journalist but I suspect that to the best kind of journalist you should never loose your empathy for the people whose lives are being affected.

Empathy does not mean you write your story with a softer tone, but maybe the next time you interview your local TD, you will remember those people and ask the hard questions that they might not get an opportunity to ask or follow up your straight news story with a human interest piece that highlights the impact of the events you have reported.

Thats my two cents, I'm off to wipe the NAMA shaped smile off my bank managers face when I show him my P45. Should be fun.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Stephen Fry considers the position of the catholic church

Stephen Fry rips shreds from the flagging shambling corpse that is the Catholic Church

Ann Widdecombes' face is hilarious, and not one of Fry's points fails to hit hard

The drugs dont work...unless you have chemicals



Substance P, I think they were having a slow day in the lab when they came up with that. Brain chemicals are the building blocks of human beings, yet the majority of us remain blissfully ignorant to their work.

Unless of course a head shop opened up in your fluffy sleepy hamlet. The outcry against headshops is only justified if a similar level of outrage can be mustered outside of pubs and clubs at closing time. My 13 year old has been visited in school by the Gardai and given the 'your brain on drugs' rhetoric, no doubt exacerbated by the new head shop in Ennis. Lately we watched a man so drunk he looked like he was trying to walk into the path of a hurricane and I suggested to him that drink was as harmful a drug as any.

Any drug you take in acts on what you already have. We posess all the necessary chemicals to produce the effects of any drugs, but in a normal state our body regluates the ammount of chemical in your system at any one time. What drugs do is convince it that its doing it wrong and either convinces it to produce more, use less or turn off. Your brain is a highly complex mass of electrical relay systems, how these little buggers light up, how often and for how long depends on chemicals. Specifically neurotransmitters.

Whats a neurotransmitter?
.................................................Glad you asked

Every feeling, sensation, sense, action and behaviour is controlled by these chemical reactions, its like the matrix, there is no spoon... well not if the chemicals don't release and tell your brain to search for the relevant visual cues..

There are different types of neurotransmitters, you may have heard of some of them.

Dopamine

Involved in regulation of movement, reward and punishment, pleasure, energy

Every drug that affects feelings of pleasure, including Cocaine, Amphetamine, opiates, marijuana, heroin and PCP

Epinephrine (also called Adrenaline)

Excitatory neurotransmitter involved in arousal and alertness


Norepinephrine (also called Noradrenaline)

Involved in arousal and alertness, energy and feelings of pleasure

Stimulants

Serotonin

Involved in regulation of mood and impulsivity

Alcohol, Hallucinogens, Stimulants, Anti-depressants

Acetylcholine

Inhibitory neurotransmitter involved in movement, memory function, motivation and sleep

PCP and hallucinogens, Marijuana, Stimulants

GABA (Gamma Aminobutyric Acid)

Inhibitory neurotransmitter involved in arousal, judgment and impulsiveness

Depressant drugs, Marijuana

Glutamate

Excitatory neurotransmitter


Endorphins

Substances involved in pain relief and reward/punishment

Opioids, Depressants


All of these chemicals are present in your brain at all times, all drugs do is activate or suppress them. Drugs make their effects known by acting to enhance or interfere with the activity of neurotransmitters and receptors within the synapses of the brain. A synapse is the gap between one neuron and another, think of it like a series of signal fires on top of hills (I'm thinking of the call to Gondor in Return of the King -Nerd) once one is lit then it tells the next one to light.

Drugs come in two forms, firstly an agonistic drug, it enhances the message carried by neurotransmitters. So a neurotransmitter that is inhibitory (tells the next neuron NOT to fire) becomes more inhibitory (imagine a devout catholic after meeting the pope) or it makes an excitory neurotransmitter more excited (12 year old girl gets a seat on the train next to Jedward on her way to see Lady gaga)

An antagonistoc drug on the other hand interferes with message, think of it as a big tall defender in basketball who blocks the basket. It stops or lessens the action of the neurotransmitter.

Alcohol is an agonist that works on GABA, its action is to slow down or stop the work of other neurons ( the 'cop on' neurons), along with this it also antagonises Glutamate which you need to get your nervous system going, a lack of this lead to that mans difficulty in walking. Glutamate and GABA are your brains most plentiful neurotransmitters, I theorise that cats tend to eat only the heads of mice because of the deliciousness of brains (possible cat - zombie link there to be further explored). You know glutamate cos your chinese take away is full of it (MSG used a flavour enhancer in food). I once had a friend tell me she was allergic to MSG, this is impossible, as it would mean she was allergic to her own brain...then again....

Speed, or amphetamines work by getting dopamine flowing freer and for longer in the brain. Dopamine is the GO drug, normally your driving a one litre... add enough amphetamines and your driving a 3 litre monster. I think its useful to add here that Ritalin does the same thing, but you buy it from a lab and not in a bag. I could write all day about dopamine, it has so many roles, and is crucial in everything from Parkinson's to schizophrenia...let me know in the comments if you want MORE on dopamine



Friday, February 5, 2010

Argh Jamie Oliver



Another week of healthy living and non snacking has produced a weight loss of 0. Damn you Jamie Oliver recipes with cream and butter and cheese....damn if this weeks dinners ain't been good
Chicken stroganoff with leek
Chicken Fajitas with fresh salsa
Bacon bean and tomato soup
Omelet with mozzarella, spinach and ham

All this any I'm only a few pages into the book and half way through the iphone app


Whats better, eating well or eating less?

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Going forward, and more nonsense



GOING FORWARD.....
Am I the only person that hates the term going forward?
Nothing fills me with bile so quickly as the terminology of business speak, that counter intuitive nonsense which is circling the globe in texts, emails and online presentations as we sit here. Ernest Hemingway once said, "I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the world--or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out thin."
But in today's world a short phrase wont do, not in romantic Ireland where more is still more, at least in terms of political splurge.
Lets take a look at the tainistes comments to the leaders questions part of DailCity

"No one is in a position to say what adjustments are needed in next year's budget. However, we are clearly of the view that public sector reform is for the benefit of the citizens of this country and equally that rising (sic) from public sector reform we can clearly find savings which in themselves can be taken into consideration in the context of the adjustments we may make," she said.

Translation:
unknown...

What we say is not what we mean, or at least it would appear so, getting a straight answer from a politician may indeed be as difficult as finding a sun lounger in a German naturist camp after 8am on the Costa Del sol

There is a key for those among you who who cannot crack this DaVinchiesque bullshitcode it comes in the form of a program called Foggy. this was an IBM programmers joke designed to generate random sequences of manager speak, which to the untrained ear may indeed sound like sense. I include a random selection below, if anyone has a translation for it Id love to hear!

To approach true user-friendliness, the characterization of specific
criteria must utilize and be functionally interwoven with the
postulated use of dialog management technology. In respect to specific
goals, any associated supporting element is functionally equivalent and
parallel to any discrete configuration mode. Thus, a large portion of
interface coordination communication must utilize and be functionally
interwoven with the subsystem compatibility testing. For example, the
characterization of specific criteria affects a significant
implementation of the preliminary qualification limit. In particular,
the incorporation of additional mission constraints adds explicit
performance limits to the postulated use of dialog management
technology.