Monday 31 May 2010

On Freedom

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. 
John F. Kennedy 

The stuff people can make

is pretty awe inspiring, the same scrap heap dwelling country morlock that shuns the rest of the world and lives in permanent fear that someone from the next village never mind the next country might turn up, is the same guy who with a little application and some reading can make one of these. 


It's difficult to comprehend the scale but essentially that's the back half of a 1200 ton Korean warship that that monster is hefting out of the sea. 


And then there is this stuff, okay, you have to factor in that the Japanese are a whole other magnitude of crazy, but a moonbase built by robots as a base for robots to work and explore. 
It's probably no accident both of these things are in a tiny corner of laser beam focused inventive hardworking Asia. Meanwhile in Europe and Europe's slightly more athletic children, I'm looking at you America and Canada, we're still fcuking around pretending that regional economies in the form of London or Paris or New York can juggle a bit of financial services and fool everyone into pretending they are national economies. 


We are so dumb. 

Tuesday 25 May 2010

On Liberty

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”
 Jacob Hornberger

Tits are awesome

ooh, I've got a black and white camera I'm such a tortured artist

Monday 24 May 2010

Get a grip on your problems, man the fuck up and get on with solving them

Maybe you've put your faith in spiritual claptrap because our random, narrative-free universe terrifies you. But that's no solution. If you want comforting, suck your thumb. Buy a pillow. Don't make up a load of floaty blah about energy or destiny. This is the real world, stupid. We should be solving problems, not sticking our fingers in our ears and singing about fairies.
Charlie Brooker The Guardian

Having had a Mascot whine I found this bus Transformer (which is apparently known to all Lahndahners already)

Much better, now if it was just chasing French people out of America to the tune of O'Fortuna that would be ace.

So yeah, a trillion pounds pissed into the 'creative' industries later and we get this shit

Now apparently we (I say we, I mean shitty London which is apparently a design wasteland if these things are anything to go by) have 1 Mascot for the Olympics that TV companies care about and 1 for the Paralympics which the BBC is obliged to show but shunts to highlights on BBC4 at 2300+. 


The worst thing is can sort of see what they have tried to do. They have gone for a sort of cuddly black hack robot thing. The problem is that it comes out looking like something a taxi might have shit. What they have done was sit down with a copy of transformers 1 & 2 and then made giant transforming taxi and routemaster, called them Apocalyptor and Psychotron and watched them fly off the shelves. 


Creative fcuking industries my arse. 

Sunday 23 May 2010

On Freedom

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."
Mark Twain

Sunday 16 May 2010

So yeah, The Coming Big Society, oh dear, where to start?

They say if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish…. then he’s godda get a fishing licence, but he doesn’t have any money. So he’s got to get a job and get into the national insurance system and pay taxes, and now you’re gonna audit the poor guy, coz’ he’s not really good with maths. So you’ll pull the HMRC van up to his house, and HMRC'll take all your shit. They’ll take your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush, and your penis pump, and that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to carry the one, coz’ you were just worried about eating a fucking fish, and you couldn’t even cook the fish coz’ you needed a permit for an open flame. Then Defra is going to start asking you a lot of questions about where are you going to dump the scales and the guts. ‘This is not a sanitary environment’, and ladies and gentlemen if you get sick of it all at the end of the day… not even legal to kill yourself in this country. Thanks again. You were born free, you got fucked out of half of it, and you wave a flag celebrating. The only true freedom you find, is when you realize and come to terms with the fact that you are completely and unapologetically fucked, and then you are free to float around the system.

Too Much Bling? Give us a ring

http://www.2muchbling.co.uk/


This has got to be one of the most truly fcuking depressing things I have ever come across and I've had mercy sex. 

Tits are awesome

Litigation is real law

Proper lawyers do disputes. Within 6 months of joining my firm it struck me that 80% of our work could be outsourced to Bangalore. Not disputes. That is the arena in which fortunes and reputations are won or lost. It's the practice where you are the man or woman in the ring. Go for this and you'll never look back. Take the transactional route and you'll wonder why you ever bothered.
sparklingwater Rollonfriday 15 may 2010

If you have not read What Price Liberty by Ben Wilson then do so

quick bit of review by Peter Wilby

Ben Wilson is well aware that Britain was always stronger on rhetoric than reality, that protestations of liberty often allowed the propertied classes to maintain privilege and control, and that modern threats to freedom come as much from corporate interests as from the state, and that the two frequently act in concert … Liberty, as Wilson points out, cannot be bottled for all time. There is “no such thing as liberty in an absolute sense”, he writes. It needs continual rethinking and renegotiation, and means different things in different times and places.

How stuff works

Tuesday 11 May 2010

I have stolen this wholesale from Lexology, it's a bit American centric but still a good take on pros and cons of arbitration v litigation

My own feeling/rule of thumb is "when weak arbitrate when strong litigate" however if it were that simple we'd all be out of a job, however;

When deciding whether to agree to arbitration in your next automation contract, keep in mind the following differences between resolving disputes via the traditional litigation process versus arbitration:

1. Arbitration can be cheaper and faster. The general rule is that arbitration is a faster and more streamlined process, making it cheaper than the typical litigation process in most, but not all, cases.

2. Possibility of knowledgeable arbitrator. Because of the way an arbitrator is chosen, the parties can agree to an arbitrator who has specialized knowledge, which can be an advantage when technical issues are involved.

3. Very limited appeal rights in arbitration. The parties generally have to abide by an arbitrator's decision, even if it is wrong. Cases that are litigated can be appealed and reversed.

4. Limited consolidation in arbitration. In a typical court case, all parties who may be involved in or contributed to a dispute can be compelled to join one lawsuit. In arbitration, parties cannot be made to join in someone else's arbitration process unless they agree.

5. No jury in arbitration. There is no right to a jury trial in arbitration. Instead, disputes decided in arbitration will often be decided by one arbitrator

Monday 10 May 2010

Contrary to the horrific woolly bullshit you are fed it is a tough, competitive world

It is only through work and strife that either nation or individual moves on to greatness. The great man is always the man of mighty effort, and usually the man whom grinding need has trained to mighty effort.
Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech about Grant, delivered at Galena, Illinois, April 27

The Immigration Debate

Tits are awesome

Friday 7 May 2010

Oh No! a hung parliament! we're all fucked! err, or are we?

“I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'”

Bill Hicks 

Tuesday 4 May 2010

No No No, if it is serious don't give it to your in house guys

Back in 2003 the EU's anti cartel investigators raided Akzo Nobel's offices here in Manchester and grabbed, among many other random documents you don't want lying round where anti cartel people can grab them, a bunch of papers containing advice from Nobel's In House lawyers. 


Now the general consensus is that such documents are privileged and thus a typically painful ECJ level litigation was kicked off with hopes of getting a ruling to that effect. 


Unfortunately (well unfortunate for the in house guys, sorta good for me) Juliane Kokott, ECJ Advocate General, released her preliminary opinion last week which essentially says that "no, your advice from In house lawyers does not enjoy privilege from disclosure that is normally applicable to communications with outside advisers". 


Result for King! Swift mail shot to the contacts list mentioning the above and wait for the phone to start ringing.

Tits are awesome

HOLY JEEBUS FCUK!

I think I may have to get some sort of carnivorous insect, drop it in my ear and hope it devours both my inner ear and the part of my brain which processes sound. 


Cause that is the only way I can see the horror of the news that John and Edward Grimes (you know the Jedward kids from the X Factor that you just can't help but want to see skinned and rolled in salt) are going to re record the shake N vac advert (I shit you not, election round the corner, oil slick in America, bomb in New York, Ed Balls not being beaten to death for continuing to breath and this shit makes Sky News?)

Time for a Quiz, is it a horse or a filthy sex act?



ANSWER KEY: A. Horse, B. Sex act, C. Sex act, D. Horse, E. Sex act, F. Horse, G. Sex act, H. Sex act, I. Horse, J. Sex act, K. Sex act, L. Sex act, M. Horse, N. Horse, O. Sex act, P. Horse, Q. Horse, R. Sex act, S. Horse, T. Horse

Monday 3 May 2010

On Liberty

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
Abraham Lincoln quotes