This one doesn't have a clever title either because the only ones that come to mind are unhelpful.

[hirez]

So, um, in the course of kicking some ideas around a muddy 2ndXI pitch before they put the goalposts back for the start of the new term, an idea that I'm not entirely sure how to express came to me

Comments

[quercus]

No, of course bloody well not.

However we all keep falling for it, because it's such a simpler and more attractive worldview than the likely alternatives.

I don't buy the branded trainers because they'll help me pull, I buy them because I want to believe in a world where my pulling power can be so easily and rationally manipulable.

[valkyriekaren]

I had my first taste of it with an electronic device today. I was sitting on the Tube with my mobile phone, playing one of the noddy little low-res games it comes with (Snake, or Tetris or something) and a guy sat down next to me, got out his smartphone and started quite ostentatiously scrolling through the masses of awesome-sounding games on his screen. I felt sudden tech-shame

[bogwitch64]

Where's the "like" button???

[valkyriekaren]

Glad it's not just me!

I do wonder how these women do it. You see them at 8am with perfect makeup and straightened hair and you think "Crikey, lass, you must have got up at 6am to get all that done!"

[bogwitch64]

I don't quite understand spending all that time on such things, to be honest. Not when I have so many other things I want to do. And it's not just DOING it, but maintaining it through the day. What if it's humid? Do you bring your straightener with you? What if it rains? What if you're riding in a convertible!!!

Well, I guess there would be no riding in a convertible, and that's just unacceptable. I'd rather have messy hair than give up the chance to have the wind muss it up.

And there are women (and men) out there who would look at me the way I look at them. Takes all kinds, I s'pose.

[badnewswade]

You'll have the new thing, and it'll be great for a while, but then not as great as the new new thing.

Then again, you might get Vista progress - where the new thing is shite compared to the old thing that was much better, but you can't get the parts now so, meeeeeh.

[andrewducker]

It is true for "do better in my work", for values of "this tool is actually more effective".

Other than that, bah! I do buy occasional presents for Julie, which adds to her general happiness with me, but I don't think they lead directly to copping off.

[jarkman]

As you know, Jim, I'm often taken with the urge to lay hands on one kind of shiny-shiny thing or another

[quercus]

The self-storage craze
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14718478

[quercus]

About 3am last night there was an absolutely top TV documentary on freight containers. How they've not only changed shipping, they've changed _everything_. "Ports" (the places were people put things on boats, by hand) can now be inland, so Canary Wharf closes overnight and you build yuppieville on it instead. Dockers are told to "sling their hook", so whole communities vanish. John Lewis expands its number of SKUs fifty-fold. We now need phrases like "SKU", which simply didn't exist before. A single container boat costs £30k / hour to operate, so nothing is allowed to delay it. Crane operator managers have degrees in "logistics", because we can't afford them to get it wrong. Any future strike by dockers would likely be answered with tactical nukes on the second day, because we just can't afford one any more.

Fascinating thing. Pour yourself a glass of weak lemon drink and watch it on some shiny new mediagadget.