Reach for the stars, follow your heart's desire

Unfortunately, we don't always get what we want, or what we deserve. I was talking to someone today about a goal which he completely deserved to attain, and would have done had he not been so modest about his unrecognised achievements.

It is also unfortunate that few people go out of their depth to look for the positive aspects of people, and instead, concentrate of what is given to them at face value. I speak as one of those arrogant people who are very willing to let others know of their achievements, at least when it matters. But it does annoy me when people who aren't so well acquainted with showing off miss out on what they deserve because others do not have the time or the courtesy to try them out.

It annoys me more when people who are confident, boastful and fake achieve certain goals at the expense of those who are less keen to get a one up on everyone else.

And finally, it annoys me when people are chosen or rewarded simply for being nice, even if their individual assests relevant to a task at hand are less valuable than those of a person who is simply unable to maintain a fake smile for the duration of a conversation. Of course, people are understandably attracted to nice people (in the generic sense), and in most circumstances, you don't want to be around someone who is not nice. However, I still don't think someone who is nicer at face value should attain a goal at the expense of a less overtly nice person who deserves it more.

Having said all that, I will freely admit that I'm a hypocrite who plays the game but resents doing so. When necessary, I have no trouble projecting a fake persona, and I will definately forgo some of my morals to get something that I really want, then feel bad afterwards. But this is the way the world / our society rolls, and if everyone does it (let's face it, most people do) and knows its wrong, what can be done?

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Let it NOT snow!

I don't know about everyone else, but personally, my tolerance to snow is waning. It has caused me to miss 4 days of school and spend that time at home under the constant watch of my parentals. They refused to let me go out into the snow with a few friends and have a snowball fight, and this was their reasoning:

1. Its cold. I'll get ill.
2. I'll infect my mother
3. She won't be able to go to work at her new job
4. She'll get fired.

Personally, i think this was a tad selfish because I'm not sure you can fire people for being ill. However, you can fire people for deliberately not even making the effort to turn up to work because they are too busy disallowing their son access to the outside world...
I tried to convince her that a cup of Lemsip cures all, but this didn't go down too well. For some reason, she was led to believe by that statement that I wanted her to be ill.
The other thing that was really strange was that they said I should get some new hobbies, and allowed / encouraged me to go out for a run in the snow on Thursday :/

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at in a roundabout way is that right now, I'm finding the snow really frustrating. It needs to go away.

It doesn't help that it also gets turned to ice overnight. Coming back from a sleepover (well, film night - does sleeping for about 1 hour count as a sleepover?), trekking up the small hill to my house was a mission and a half. I am proud to say I only stacked it once because a car drove out in front of me and stole the piece of dry ground I was going to walk on.

Recap: snow makes be feel bored, clumsy and annoyed. These are not good emotions to be feeling. Therefore, I'm sick of snow.

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I'm dreaming of a white snow day, when my parents aren't in the house

It snowed today.

Perhaps its just me, but I really don't like the idea of heavy snowfall anymore, at least until my mother has enough compassion to allow me to go out despite there being a tiny chance that I might catch a cold and pass it on to her.

However, this problem could be avoided if there was a snow day for us at school, but the roads were sufficiently un-iced so that my parentals could happily drive to work and back. Grrrrr.....

Why are we (general British public) so bad at preparing. We knew several days in advance that a snow storm was on its way from Russia, yet failed to do anything about it! Only now are people doing some hardcore gritting of major roads. Why is it that this weather probably seems mild to most Baltic states, yet they somehow keep it up and running when Britain just gives up?

"We're not used to it" is hardly an excuse. For example, in Germany, heavy snowfall is hardly common, but most cars there have snow tyres. They also remember to put grit on their roads when they expect low temperatures / a snowstorm.

If only work, but not school, could have resumed as usual today. Then, I could have been out in the snow instead of morosely watching the snow in my back garden whilst listening to Bach.

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Cook, Robot.

After having watched I, Robot with Will Smith and co, I classed the film under science fiction - something that wouldn't happen in a million years, or at least not anytime soon.

But after watching some Chinese cookery programme with my parentals, I found out that in China, they have developed some kind of robot that can cook 50 dishes, and can have a 3 course meal ready in half an hour. It was even featured on TV! But is this kind of technological advancement really a) necessary and b) beneficial?

So the immediate benefits I can see is that if you can't be bothered to cook, then have your pet robot do it for you, and probably even clean up the dishes. If you could have robots to do all the menial jobs such as cleaning and cooking, it might even sort out the alledged immigration "problem."

But are we at the beginning of some increadibly slippery slope? What if these robots, in the not-too-distant future could be made to replace skilled workers in professions such as medicine, mathematics, physiotherapy, banking, law and even adult services? This might not seem to be a problem at first - after all, labour can probably be re-directed and people could just sit at home all day and make money by using robots to do their work. But what about accountability?

If something goes wrong, e.g. you're at the physio and the physiotherapist massages your back a bit too roughly and it hurts. The following things happen:

1. Speak to the physiotherapist and explain the problem
   
2. Physiotherapist acknowledges the problem
3. Physiotherapist appologises and learns from their mistake

Alternatively:

1. Lodge a complaint
2. Practice manager acknowledges complaint
3. Practice manager reprimands physiotherapist

Basically, it is clear who is accountable, because humans, unlike machines, are capable of thinking.

Suppose we are in a world where robots have most of the jobs. In the same situation, a sequence of events might look like this:

• Patient speaks to robot physiotherapist, but robot cannot respond helpfully as it has only been programmed to give massages.
• Patient sues, but robot lawyers, a robot judge and a jury of robots cannot find who is accoutable.
• Patient cries and is left to deal with the problem.

Ok, the example is a little extreme, especially if there are measured to prevent a world as pictured in I, Robot. Indeed, accountability is only a problem if a great deal of jobs are taken by robots who cannot be controlled, in which case, introduction of robots into the market as household slaves could be a good idea. I, for one, could definately use a robot to ensure that chocolate brownies emerge from my oven instead of a hard slab of combusted flour.

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