While we are still fighting in Spain to get a half decent internet service, Finland seem to have it all sussed out. As of today, broadband will be considered a legal right in the cold country. Meaning that all of it’s citizens will be entitled to a minimum of a 1mb connection. Fantastic Finland, I just wish this technologically backwards country named Spain took a leaf out of your book.

Finland Officially Declares Broadband a Legal Right Today.

I’ve never tried to hide my disdain for facebook and everything it represents. If it were up to me, I’d get stuck in a lift with Mark Zuckerberg and proceed to continuosly slap him until I felt that every hour wasted on his site were somehow redeemed. However, please allow me the one to point out my own hypocrisy, because I am fully aware that I can delete my Facebook profile. However, it’s not that easy. Yes, I realize I don’t need it to live, and probably won’t have any withdrawl symptoms but, with facebook becoming such a large part of our lives, one would be seriously socially stinted unless they too were browsing that pretentious blue site on a daily basis. The fact is, until people find a suitible alternative, removing yourself from the social networking site would be sacrificial. As much as I sing the prase of Twitter or Buzz, the truth is, people don’t want to go through the learning curve needed to enjoy them to their fullest. We are quite simply stuck.

But Facebook is not all powerful. It isn’t some sort of immortal deity who we have to adore, and it is quite recent that I discovered that it’s foundations are getting attacked from no other than the PC World website. I must make one thing perfectly clear here, these opinions are not from representatives of PC World, however from a group of tech savvy individuals who post on PCW’s website.

Here are some samples:

Privacy controls that don’t work, rampant phishing attacks, and the ability to hack live chats — can’t Facebook do anything right?

Dan Tynan , ITworld.

Calls for people to delete their Facebook accounts are gathering momentum. Critics cite privacy concerns and plummeting trust in the company and its leader, Mark Zuckerberg.

Richi Jennings , Computerworld

Facebook Users Ho-Hum Over Privacy Issues, Exec Says

Sharon Gaudin , Computerworld

If you are interested in your privacy then please go ahead and read these mentioned blogs, and there are lots more where they came from. Interestingly, all the posts I read were written in the past week, so something must have shifted in the wrong direction for Facebook quite recently.

All in all, remember that privacy is a personal thing. If you have a company that restricts you from arranging that privacy to your hearts desire, then maybe it’s time to realize that, although Facebook started out as a public service to keep in touch with your loved ones, it has now become a booming enterprise that uses our information as the fuel to keep the engine running.

,

Barfly.

Facebook, the internet phenomenon that is still taking the world by storm. It’s changes in image and functionality never fail to be a subject for heated debates. A company that has overtaken google.com as the number one port of call for most internet users. However it still shocks me that something so recognized and universally utilized can still be so foreign for some people. The thing about social media, is that albeit on-line, social conventions still apply. This is what people fail to recognize, they think that every name on their news feed is quite simply a combination of ones and zeros. Although not untrue, that binary code is linked to someone. Someone who has opinions, likes and dislikes just as much as the reader.

Every day I encounter someone who bitches about some “friend” they have on facebook who does nothing but talk shit. It’s always the same aswell, “I’m getting so tired of -friends name-…” or “they’re always banging on about -boring subject matter-…”. Not that I enjoy picking up on hypocrisy or anything like that (I love it) but YOU are boring ME with your bitching about your Facebook contacts. Here’s the thing, if you are so tired of someone on your friends list, well, unfriend them. After all if this person is so tedious, you probably aren’t that good of friends anyway. It’s like engaging someone in conversation and then complaining that they won’t leave you alone. You wouldn’t do it in real life, don’t do it online.

I know, there are some contacts you simply have out of obligation, the type that will question your motives if you ever unfriend them, and the answer “well we’re not really friends” or “I hardly know you” don’t really cut it. The reason for this is that people have got into the habit of adding everyone and (quite literally) their cat to their friends list. So not having them on there may just as well be a slap across the face. For this, those clever little so and so’s at facebook came up with a great way to  get rid of unwanted people without hurting anyone’s feelings. It’s called the hide button, use it, embrace it, love it. People who you find tedious can just be buried so that you’ll never see them again. No hearts broken, no love lost.

So before you go around complaining about the tediousness of your contacts, ask yourself this question. Is it their fault that I find what they write about annoying? or should I embrace Facebook for the broadcasting platform that it is, quite simply choose not to read certain people and stop being a dick.

Slainte,

Barfly

Well, the holiday is over. But rather than bore you all into a numb state of awareness about how great Thailand is, I thought I would do a piece on what not only was the worse part of our vacation, but probably my worst holiday experience ever.

During our lord of the rings-style epic journey across the globe we had to make a stop over at Mumbai airport. After leaving the aircraft, the passengers who were boarding a connecting flight were guided down to another security point which avoided immigration so to remain in the transfer area. There were only a handful of passengers who had to go through this checkpoint, however it was plain to see that things weren’t quite as they should be. Men and women are segregated into two separate lines with an armed guard in the centre. When I say armed, I’m not referring to a pistol and a baton, I mean a fully automatic rifle. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you the model of the rifle as I didn’t quite want to get close enough to check, but it really isn’t important.

Once in our separate queues we got through quite quickly to the security check where our hand luggage was kindly flung slam-dunk style onto the conveyor belt and we were ushered through the metal detector to then face, whether we beeped or not, another guard who searched us. God forbid you carry a lighter on these flights because, as we learned the hard way, they are strictly forbidden.

So having traversed the hitleresque security we were left in the terminal area which resembled a scene out of Resident Evil with designer shops. While wandering this derelict wasteland of Armani and Ralph Lauren we got approached by a little Indian man who possessed the same demeanour as a crack dealer offering to take us to a “smokers lounge” (read tiny, poorly ventilated room full of smoke) for a tip. We complied, had a cig and drink and we were boarding ready to go board.

After two weeks of paradise we expected that our return journey via Mumbai would have been more of the same. How wrong we were. What we experienced made us wish for that outbound journey, as, at my best guess there were about five-hundred  people all wanted to go through the exact same security check as us. Now I wanted to use “chaos” to describe the situation, however I do believe that “chaos” falls short at becoming an appropriate descriptive noun in this context. The sheer uselessness of the staff to get people organized was astounding, and I’ve been in Alcudia’s post office during the Christmas season. For the men it wasn’t that bad, having eight scanners and designating three of them to us made the queue move along relatively swiftly. However, for the women out of the five remaining scanners, only one was operational. So by the time I reached the front of the queue my other half was way down at the back. I had no choice but to wait, alongside other disgruntled male passengers all waiting for our partners to get through, whilst behind us a screen bearing our flight with red flashing letters beside it stating that the Jet Airways to Heathrow was now boarding. It was at this point this smug little shit, dressed in a suit that was clearly to big for him came and told us that we had to hurry to board our flight.

There are certain things in life that you just don’t do. For example, you must never poke a bear, you should never wear a Man Utd top in Leeds and you must never, never ever tell a group of blokes who are waiting for their respective partners to get through YOUR stupid security checkpoint to hurry up. I can’t really mention on this platform what was said, but I can guarantee that it wasn’t pleasant.

I would attempt to offer the account of the events from my better half’s point of view, however I do believe that unless heard from her, the story would be downplayed quite a bit. As she is the only one who was actually in that queue. Suffice to say that it is a story that contains pushing, shoving, a whole lot of rebellion, a mouthy woman who I could see was going to end up getting shot by a bloke with a moustache and an automatic rifle. But most importantly, a ballsy but decisive Thai girl, who must have thought the Thai equivalent to “fuck this”, grabbed hold of my girlfriends arm and dragged her through the queue with other passengers getting flung left and right, followed by the mouthy cow from before and other female passengers from our flight. All in all I waited about fifteen minutes for the rag tag band of pissed off women to reach the front. This compared to over forty-five minutes that one poor sod from London had to wait for his missus. Like I said before, I couldn’t tell you in detail what exactly happened, I have merely outlined the situation for you.

We were through, and after promising to kick the smug little shit if he even uttered the words hurry up to me, we were racing through Mumbai airport to our departure gate. Finally it was all over, or so we thought. Just before departure, there was, of all things, another fucking security check. This time a quick once over with those hand held scanner things and away we were again, heading down the jet-way where we were stopped once again by, you guessed it, another security check, this time in the form of a hand luggage scanner. The bags practically thrown through we were on the move again, with me trying to make light of a stressful situation, by joking that there was probably another security check round the corner. I wish I had kept my mouth shut. As if someone upstairs were torturing me just for kicks there was another security check, a quick frisk before boarding. After that, this story ends, with boarding the plane and finally setting off to a more civilised airport in the form of Heathrow.

In a previous post, I praised Jet Airways. Not only for their facilities and comfort, but also for their impeccable service. I do not wish to retract any previous statement regarding them, however, let it be said that as long as jet airways makes obligatory stops in that hell hole called Mumbai airport, I will never travel with them again.

It’s good to be back, but missing Koh Samui,

Slainte,

Barfly.

My better half and myself have recently traveled to Thailand. In order to minimize cost we flew from England and the resulting duration of  just about 30 hours from door to door. Surprisingly we were able to reduce the tedium of such a long haul and here’s a couple of tips in case you find yourself in a similar situation.

If available during a long wait in an airport, check out Yotel

Yotel preview

The second tip was one of a surprise to me. Again counting our pennies we chose the cheapest long haul flight available. Flying with a company called Jet Airways. I’d never heard of them before and expected no frills at all. How wrong I was. Everything about the flight was impeccable. That refers to cabin crew, service, comfort, entertainment etc. I’ll probably share some more information about them on a later date, for now I’ll leave you their promotional video. For those unaware, we flew the economy class.

Jet Airways

Anyway, I will leave you now, and go soak up more sunshine. Slainte,

Barfly