David Emery Online

Robots and Space Ships

I was thinking today about “the future”.

A little background first; I – as you may be able to guess, even if you haven’t met me – was a pretty geeky child. I liked the traditional things that a small boy likes: cars, space ships, gadgets and robots. At one time I thought I was a robot, due to the lack of ever breaking a bone.

I still remain to be completely convinced otherwise.

One of the things I distinctly remember being fascinated by was Dick Tracy, the great retro-futuristic detective who – sadly – I probably only know about because of the film starring Warren Beatty. I do however, remember it in halftone, even though I probably never owned it in comic form – the wonders and tricks memory can play are really quite wonderful when you think about it.

The thing above all else that really captivated me was Dick Tracy’s watch, which functioned as a walky-talky. I used to run about shouting frantically at my watch, solving crimes with reckless abandon.

Thinking back, this may have seemed a little odd to an onlooker.

Fast forward 15 and a bit years and it’s really staggering how many things have changed, and how daily life...

Perspective

Perspective is everything.

Yesterday, 33 people died in Virgina, America, as you may have seen on the news (it would have been impossible to avoid it).

Yesterday, more then 25 thousand people died of starvation, worldwide.

Which of these do you think is more important?

Which of these do you think everybody else thinks is more important?

I have sympathy on an individual level for the people caught up in the shooting, in the same way I have sympathy for anyone caught up in tragedy.

But, quite frankly, I have no sympathy for America as a whole.

You did this to yourself.

I am fully aware that a significant proportion of Americans do not agree with current gun laws, but until you vote in someone that does something about it you are tarred automatically with the same brush.

There is simply no reasonable argument for the possession of guns; any argument to contrary shows a complete failure in critical thinking.

And, for once, take this opportunity; this grief you feel for people you have probably never met; and think about what else is going on in the world.

Get a little perspective.

Good Car Bad Car

Normally I don’t do requests, but today is an exception.

It’s a simple request and, as I’m always stuck for blog post topics (what? You mean you hadn’t noticed?), I thought I’d indulge. It’s a 2 part question: what is my all time favourite car, followed by the opposite: my least favourite car?

My All Time Favourite Car

This is really not as easy as it first seems. For a very long time the Ferrari F40 was my favourite car; the performance, handling and looks were all simply perfect. It’s still pretty darn high up the list, but I think the progress of time has been a bit unkind on its lines – it just looks a bit old now, and not in a good way.

I have similar issues with the great McLaren F1; a huge triumph of engineering – it had a gold leaf lined engine bay for gods sake! – and embodies a lot of very noble principles in its lightweight design and packaging but suffers aesthetically. Lets just say I’m not a fan of early nineties car design..

It may be becoming abundantly clear that the design and “look” of a car is of up-most importance to me; quite frankly engineering...

Mass produced customer service

I’m back from Brighton, which was very nice – I seemed to luck out rather nicely with the weather, which was ~15 degrees the whole time.

One of the most interesting aspects – other then the city itself – was the hotel we stayed in; specifically its customer service. Being someone relatively recently out of university, we went for pretty much the cheapest hotel we could find, and ended up in a little place called Millards. As fitting for the price we paid, the room we stayed in was pretty small (although that’s what we expected), but it was nice enough and had all the things you would really need in a hotel room.

Typically, I dislike staying in hotels mostly due to the customer service you receive. Obviously, good customer service is possibly one of the most important things a hotel can do and every hotel knows that.

The result is mass produced customer service.

“Thanks for staying with us.”

“I hope you had a lovely stay.”

Of course, in most places the people saying these things not only don’t mean them, I think they may have forgotten what they mean they’ve said them so many times. The result for me is that in...

Overloaded

As suspected, today has been a dead loss.

Brain full.

Time lost.

Go read The Perry Bible Fellowship instead – this is a good place to start.

I’ll try harder tomorrow.

Promise.

Busy, busy, busy

Sadly, today is yet another one of those days.

Yes, it’s a “I’m too busy to blog” day.

It’s not so much that I don’t have time to blog – always a lie, that, as it takes no more then 30 minutes – more that I don’t have the spare brain capacity to think straight.

To be honest, I’m bad enough when I think I can think straight, so I don’t wish to inflict you too many words today.

While I would love to say “I’ll be back with a proper post tomorrow”, this week is looking like a bit of a right-off; too many things to do, not enough time, not enough time to figure out the things we should do taking into account the lack of time etc.

I am, of course, complaining far too much. It is much better to be busy then quiet, and I think long term some things happening this week could work out quite well. That doesn’t help for my writing here, though…

I’m still sticking to one post per week day though; if I give up that, I probably wouldn’t post again, and I’d like to think that would be a bad thing.

Cars

It suddenly occurred to me yesterday that I’ve accidentally left out one of my main interests off this blog:

Cars.

Yes – of course – being male and, well that’s it really for stereotypes, I have a great interest in cars. However, I think I’m not quite in it for the same reasons as most people that like cars are; from anecdotal evidence and from reading magazines like Evo it seems to be all about speed. This should come as no surprise, as it taps into the primeval desire for power, but it’s not really why I’m interested.

Simply put, cars are some of the most beautifully designed objects created today.

The only real rival in terms of scale of design would be architecture – which I also have an interest in – but buildings end up being too compromised by function, and too large to have the details truly honed. The design of a car is so fundamentally important – it is probably the deciding factor in most car purchases – and their are few other markets where design is so relevant.

When I say design, I really do mean design; the blend of form and function, not just aesthetics. Don’t get me...

Argue every day

Politics.

Religion.

Never discuss at a party; never bring up at work. Common knowledge, you would think.

People are different.
People think differently.

You know this. I know this. We know this.

Right?

So why does everybody seem to forget?

Blithely going along assuming that everyone is going to agree with you, only to be shocked when they don’t.

Ok. So. This happens once. Twice. Once a week. Twice a week. Once a day.

Every fucking 10 minutes.

You’d think they’d realise. Anticipate. Negotiate.

Adapt.

Effort

Sick days.

I, since leaving school, have never had a sick day.

Not one unplanned day off work.

So why do some people take them all the time? Am I unusually healthy; extremely lucky that I don’t have to take 1-2 days off ill every month? I really don’t think so.

The corollary of this is people that work late.

In my current job I’ve stayed working late twice in the year and a half I’ve been there – both times because I was stuck in meetings that overran. I get my work done during the day – during the time I get paid for. I’ve never come across a time where I’ve had to stay late due to something needing to be done now, even though we frequently have very tight deadlines.

This contrasts with the large amount of people that both stay late, and seem to be perpetually busy; rushed off their feet. Do they really have that much more work to do, or is it just a state of mind?

I think so many things – almost everything, in fact – come down to your state of mind. If you decide that you are “busy”, then you will be busy. If you decide you...

Views of London