Rant of the day: Welcome to a world of zero personal responsibility

The story on the front page of this morning's Metro (below) refers to an 18-year old girl who went out one night, drank 10 Jaegerbombs and then suffered a series of heart attacks that left her in a medically-induced coma for 52 hours.

While this is an unfortunate circumstance for the girl involved, Jayde "...is convinced that the caffeine in the energy drinks was to blame and is calling for controls on their sale".

She said: "I hope that people will think twice about drinking energy drinks. They could be deadly."

For the uninitiated, Jaegerbombs are made by pouring half a can of Red Bull into a tumbler, dropping in a shot glass containing a measure of powerful German aperitif Jaegermeister and then downing it as quickly as possible.

I like Jaegerbombs and have in the past gone a bit batshit crazy and had...let's call it several...in quick succession. 

However, Jayde - who by her own admission was out for about two hours - knocked back 10 Jaegerbombs. That's the equivalent of drinking FIVE CANS of Red Bull in two hours.

Considering that each can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee (90mg), is it any wonder that she had an adverse reaction? That's like wiring a car battery up to your heart.

The issue here, however, is not that this girl was irresponsible - people who live in glass houses and all that - but rather that this is yet another example of a culture of zero personal responsibility. 

This is a trend that started probably a decade or so ago when the litigious US culture seeped its way over here.

I'm not really sure at what point it became acceptable for us to seek out a scapegoat for every unfortunate event that takes place in our lives, but this weasley attitude is nauseating.

Jayde had three heart attacks because she went out and chose to drink 10 caffeine-powered cocktails. No one - as far as I'm aware - put a gun to her head and forced her to drink them.

Yes, energy drinks can be dangerous if taken in quantities well above the threshold of moderation of indeed common sense, but then again, so can water.

Our lives are what they are because of free will. That's what makes it unpredictable and fun. But whatever the decision that you make, man up and accept the consequences.

And sorry, guys, but the excuse 'but I was drunk' doesn't hold water.

Here endeth today's rant.

Now do some work.

And today's 'Bandwagon Award' goes to...

Congratulations to the Metro, which has demonstrated that you only have to scratch a little way beneath the surface to find its true scaremongering, Daily Mail colours.

The story of Amazon's proposed introduction of eight-rotored octocopter drones to make deliveries direct to your door within 30 minutes of placing an order is either a wonderfully delivered bit of PR, or a true masterstroke in revolutionising the way in which we all receive our parcels.

Below is the story, as it was carried in today's Metro (Tuesday, 3rd December, 2013):

It was when I reached the bottom of the first column that my eye was drawn to the following:

The link here between military drones controlled remotely by trained members of the armed forces and what is essentially every lazy delivery boy's dream Christmas present is tenuous as best, but is another outstanding example of snap journalism tarring all technologies with the same brush.

While there have indeed been instances in the past where military drones have been blamed for the deaths of civilians, what Amazon proposes is an entirely different technology.

I doubt that these little guys will come armed with missiles. 

As our reliance on technologies continues to grow, new developments needs to be introduced and embraced by the general public. Most importantly, it needs to be understood that the same technology can have different applications - something that the Daily Mail breed of journalism will never attempt to understand as long as they can instead feed our fears.

Top story of the week

My favourite story of the week so far has got to go to the Solar Death Ray that has been terrorising one (very) small section of London.

It's a very localised problem, this Death Ray

An unexpected side-effect of Land Securities' half-completed "Walkie Talkie" on Fenchurch Street in Central London is that the concave, fully glazed surface of the 37-storey building has acted like a parabolic mirror, focussing the sun's rays into one really, really small area in neighbouring Eastcheap.

Apparently reaching temperatures of 90C, the hotspot is not only hot enough to fry an egg, but is roughly the size of a Jaguar XJ...

Says the BBC:

"Land Securities, which is developing the tower with the Canary Wharf Group, says it is working on a solution and has taken the emergency measure of suspending the parking bays beneath the glare."

So that's alright then: just don't park in that superheated patch of focussed sunlight.

A Team of Top Experts has provided assurance, however, that City Boys will only be in danger of the plastic bits of their cars melting for roughly two hours a day for the next two to three weeks.

Until next year, of course.

"MY EYES!"

Reader is dead, long live Flipboard!

The news earlier this year that Google would be retiring its workhorse Reader software was met with a low-level grumbling.

This was, after all, one of the most widely-used RSS readers available on the market and people were understandably miffed, many having spent months or years searching the vastness of the internet to pinpoint the best websites and blogs on a given topic.

Reader brought all of these disparate feeds together, offering you a list of potential topics that could be browsed at your leisure.

Flipboard is the evolution of the reader. And it’s jumped straight from the primordial soup into the driving seat of a Bugatti Veyron.

OK, that may be a slight over-exaggeration, but the clumsiness and clunkiness of Reader was always a bit off-putting.  Flipboard, on the other hand, is smooth as silk and classier than Ron Burgandy’s moustache.

So what is it?

“Flipboard is on a quest to transform how people discover, view and share content by combining the beauty and ease of print with the power of social media.”

Originally created as an iPad app, the popularity of Flipboard soon saw it…er…flip over to the iPhone, before an Android version was brought to the market in 2010.

Formatted as a magazine, Flipboard brings together feeds from numerous partner sources and publications, alongside your own Twitter and Facebook accounts.  This provides you with a beautifully laid out, pictorially-driven magazine, automatically updated with fresh content every time that you open it.

In a rush? The handy Cover Stories section is the aggregator’s aggregator, pulling together the most read and shared stories from your various feeds into one place.

Lovely.

So how does it work?
As with any news app, when first configuring Flipboard you’ll be promoted to tell it what topics you’re interested in. There is a decent selection of starter-for-tens to choose from including all of the usual suspects (art, sport, business, politics, science, etc.) and the option to compile your own magazine from the searchable database of more targeted subject matter.

Opening any of the topics (which are all laid out as their own magazines, by the way) will show you a teaser of the articles within, each of which can be tapped through to the main content.

In turn, the next article is accessed by ‘flipping’ the current screen either vertically on a mobile device or horizontally on the iPad, watching one half fold over the other to reveal the next page beneath.
Clever, huh?

Articles can be saved into your own magazine, favourited or forwarded to friends, acquaintances and colleagues through the usual channels.

Sharing is caring!

Handily, Flipboard comes complete with a ‘Read it Later’ button which really comes into its own if – like me – you find yourself saving several hundred web pages a day to Pocket or Instapaper.

You can even select which web service you want to use to open links. Mind = blown.

As a die-hard Chrome fan, this feels like a step in the right direction. Apple: take note.

Even the menu is designed to enhance your experience, encouraging you to explore other topics and magazines, with a one-click subscribe function that will integrate the content you are browsing with your own magazine, or let you check out all of the content shared by individual contributors.

So is it any good?

Frankly: yes.

Flipboard has raised $60.5 million in funding from a host of financial houses and private individuals, including Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Dustin Mokovitz (the other Facebook co-founder) and Ashton Kutcher.

The partners providing the content aren’t particularly small-fry either, with publications of note including the Huffington Post, BBC, Telegraph, Times, NME and Economist.

The ability to incorporate your own Facebook and Twitter feeds into the magazine is a great touch and there is even a ‘Best of Instagram’ magazine available, which should fill your quota of ‘ordinary things looking arty because there’s a black and white filter on them’.

Not only is Flipboard smooth and intuitive, but unbelievably it’s also free.

Download it now from the Apple store and (presumably) from the Android thingy. Marketplace.  That’s the one.