Category: Rant

All me to rant. Things that make me angry, or find curious, odd, amusing

Posted on

Foot Spas And Bread Makers

I think the creator behind both the Foot Spa and the Bread Maker is the same person.

He woke up one day and thought “Today I will invent two devices that people will clamor for as gifts for themselves and others, that they will think is a great idea at the time, and yet they will only use once before they end up in the cupboard never to be used again”.

Have you seen how many are on sale on Trademe and eBay?

Thousands!!

Learn the lesson and stay away from these products!

And definately don’t you dare buy me one as a gift…

Posted on

Blueberry Muffins – Consistently Disappointing

Actually, I’m more disappointed in myself for falling for the allure of a blueberry muffin.

They promise so much but deliver so little!

Sub consciously I perform a calculation: 6 blueberries on the top of the muffin multiplied by the height equals an expectation of 24 blueberries.

But no.

There are only 6.

I bite deep into the muffin filled with hope that this one is going to be different.

But my search for those little sweet nuggets is in vain.

I vow not to fall for it again, but a few months later temptation is in front of me again.

I purchase, I eat, I’m disappointed, I promise, time passes and the vicious cycle begins again.

aaaarrrghhh!

Posted on

Everything Causes Cancer

Regularly, routinely, if you look and listen carefully, you may notice that once a month it is reported in the news that research has shown that yet another everyday item or activity causes cancer.

Smoking, handling radio active material, getting hit in the breast, snorting milk, we knew about those already.

But did you hear that eating meat, or sugar or drinking caffine, milk, and even contact with wood?

Oh no!! Lets all live in bubbles!

Maybe life causes cancer.

Cancer is nothing to be afraid of. Refer to my previous post for more info.

Need more evidence?

Posted on

The Speed of Technological Advancement… Is Not That Fast, Really

We all think we are pretty cool with our ATT (All The Time) internet, integrated handheld communication devices, flat panel TV’s on the wall, microwave cooking, stay sharp knives… and we have this perception that the rate of technological change is very high. “Moores Law” dictates that the speed of PC processors doubles every 6 months or something?

But are we really advancing as quickly as we think? I refer back to a 70’s TV show and a 60’s movie.

The TV show was called Space 1999 and it was about a colony on the moon and the hilarious miss-adventures of the inhabitants (I think it was a comedy, I don’t really recall too much). The point is, it was set in the future – 1999, that was 10 years ago, and there are no such colonies!

The movie is Space Odyssey 2001. Hello! Hello! The writers projected that in 38 years from then we would be flying around in space ships off into deep space. 38 years seemed a reasonable timeframe to arrange that! And yet here we all are, stuck on boring earth rather than floating huge distances through the frozen and desolate void of space, millions of miles from anything, eating food through a straw and getting your faeces sucked out of you in zero g… actually earth aint too bad!

Posted on

How Old Is The Earth?

Some christian scientists say less than 10,000 years. Some evolutionary scientists say millions of years. If the universe really is less than 10K then I suggest that the first day was a long one.

“On the first day God created the heavens and the earth”

Because the fact is we can see light in the night sky from stars that took tens of thousands of years to get here.

Posted on

Who Did Adam And Eve’s Kids Have Sex With To Produce The 3rd Generation?

I guess there are 2 possibilities:

  1. God created a few more people (most unlikely)
  2. They had to get it on with each other (most likely).

Yes, that is detestable to us now, but back then it was fine! There was only one law, one rule: “Don’t eat the fruit from the forbidden tree”. And keep in mind that the gene pool was fresh and clean. There was no chance of mutation or genetic muck ups, so it was perfectly acceptable and neccessary to populate the earth.

So time went on and the population grew, and generations followed. And as the population increased it was no longer neccessary for brother and sister to have sex, there was a large quantity of cousins to choose from. More time passed and then came the time of Noah. The population of the earth gets wiped out and there is about 8 people on the boat; Noah, his wife, two or three daughters and their husbands. The in-breeding had to kick in again to repopulate the earth. A couple of thousand years passed, Gods laws were decreed, in crept disease and the genetic code began to degrade. Now everyone knows that its a bad idea.

Posted on

Cancer De-Mystified – A Cell With One Instruction

Chances are you will probably die from cancer.

We are getting better at detection which has got to help.

Do you even know what cancer is?

We have a perception of cancer that it is some great evil that consumes people from the inside out.

Its quite simple, and really not evil.

It starts with a cell.

The normal cells in our body have one of two sets of instructions.

  1. One set (stem cells) have instructions that say “build a liver” or “build a heart”.
  2. The other set says “replicate to replace yourself”.

For example, a skin cell is coming to the end of its life and so creates a new version of itself.

Cancer starts with one cell that gets short circuited and confused, and “forgets” the latter part of its instructions, so the only items on it’s daily “to-do” list is “replicate”.

So, the cell does just that.

It creates a cell with the same instruction “replicate” which creates new cells and so on. The result is a tumour. Simply a glob of cells with the instruction to replicate. If all these cells stay in the same place it can be easy to just cut it out (benign tumour), but if some of these cells have escaped to other parts of your body you are stuffed (malignant).

That’s why it’s so important to either kill these cells with radiation or cut them out with a scapel – because every single cancerous cell left over will blindly carry on with its instructions.

Does this explanation make the concept of “Cancer” a little less scary?

Posted on

Nuclear Power – The Gentle Three Eyed Giant

I think many of us have a negative perception of Nuclear power that is outdated.

The technology has come a long way since Chernobyl.

It’s now one of the safest methods of electricity generation. And the impact of the environment is minimal. The only problem is those damn drums of nuclear waste… If we can somehow slingshot them off the planet onto the moon… (or sun, but we’d need a bigger slingshot).

Do you even now how nuclear power works? The simple explanation is that the nuclear reaction (fission or fusion, I get them confused) heats rods of uranium (simply a metal that can handle such heat without melting). These rods are dipped into water which creates steam. The steam builds up pressure which spins turbines which generate the electricity.

But is it an option for New Zealand? Perhaps not. Our nuclear free image is engrained so deeply into our culture that I don’t think we could ever have nuclear here. But we are happy for Australia to build them and lay cables under the sea to supply us with cheap power.

Posted on

The Difference Between Mass Advertising (dirty) and Marketing (noble and pure)

I absolutely abhore advertising. I hate ads on TV during programs, I hate junk mail in the letterbox, I hate spam in my email box. I often tape programs to watch later so I can fastforward the ads. I put a “no junk mail” sign on my letterbox. I take the time to train my spam killer. I block pop up windows and ignore banner advertising.

But I love marketing. I did a marketing major, I am a marketing analyst. You may be wondering what the difference is. If you’re not, piss off. If you are, read on.

Mass advertising is unsolicited. It’s a numbers game. If I send an email to 1 million people, even if I get sales from 0.001% I still make 100 sales. Its a sales tactic. All too often it promises a better life when it delivers junk, clutter and debt.

Marketing is about strategy. It starts with questioning whether I’m selling the right product in the first place and ends with profiling my ideal client, building a relationship with them and providing them with a product that adds value to their business or lives.

I’m so noble.