Why is Ikea so brilliant?

How can any company be so innocent as Ikea? or for that matter, have the same exciting atmosphere as Ikea and still show such concern for the environment? People are always scrutinising companies for their "unethical" stances towards causes etc. But for Ikea, it is practically unheard of. Afterall, what other flat packing furniture out there cares for the environment except for Ikea. 

The owner still generates billions, having at one point been the 4th richest guy in the world. People still flog to the large warehouse like stores to buy Billy the bookcase, Pax's Wardrobes and Afton flavoured bedside table lamps even in the times of a recession, and still dine at their fine restaurant where they serve brilliant fish and chips. Ikea for some reason can still hold that refined quality in their products, even when the quality of products used isnt fantastic, one can be sure to know that the finished product is probably really good.

So why is Ikea so brilliant?

• It can hold ethical stances towards peoples causes, like saving the environment.
• It has the influence in house furniture that other companies fail to capture of the public.
• It is rather cheap.
• It sells almost everything worth selling in a home design shop.
• It has a family friendly atmosphere.
• It hasnt targetted itself at a particular segment of the market, through its diverse range of products, it doesnt have to.
• The stores are often a trek away, this means that people consider it a day out to go to Ikea.
• It takes design, comfort AND convienience in mind, something not every one in the home design store successfully does.

Ikea's atmosphere is particularly interesting in the sense that the showrooms let you get a good sense of what is all looks like, showrooms are generally fun to just look at, it becomes even better when you get down into the market place, sort of feels like a treasure trove that one can simply delve into, it feels great when someone can simply find a bargain that they would love. Everything in Ikea looks good. Except for the plastic cups. 

The Moral Implications of Enhancing Human Beings.

Ever heard of Oxytocin? Neither did i until friday. It appears that people can create drugs now that can physically alter people's internal biology. Drinking caffeine and taking viagra pills is beginners stuff compared to this. Some mad scientist came out with some theory that taking a course of pills at a young age could enhance mental capabilities. Lowering the levels of testosterone in psychopaths means they wont have the addiction to kill another person again supposedly. But can we really be sure that a psychopath wont be inclined to rape, kill and mutilate another human being simply because their hormones have been played around with. 

They fed rats drugs that they have developed (a lot of companys' drugs that is) and they had a list of rats that were: mentally superior, anti-cancerous, more metabolically efficient, fitter etc) drugs that humans could possibly use.

IF this does turn out to be the future for all humans, there could be positive aspects along with the negatives. 

1. We could all be pretty powerful people when we are older.
2. We would effectively be playing God,
3. If drugs could enhance humans, we would be pretty good at enhancing cancerous cells and other dysfunctional cells.

Although, if you think about what we would then be vulnerable to, and capable to

1. people could go crazy after a few pills too many,
2. If scientists could create new drugs that alter humans positively, they should be able to certainly create ones that could deform us.

However, at the current rate we are at, we must begin to ask ourselves, are these drugs that we should consider taking. They say that these drugs are most efficient when taken by newborn to very young infants. Is it bad parenting to deny children of these drugs? or the latter.

Personally i think that biology has gone too far into this field so that it could destroy a lot of people. At this rate, the percentage of people capable of destroying the or part of the world would increase. Afterall, any mad scientist could recreate the black death with a new strain of pathogen thus causing a pandemic.

The Irony of Teachers Shouting at me to stop arguing.

Perhaps one would expect that a proficient school scoring high grades annually and having a very good reputation would have a firm foundation for enforcing it's own school rules. This is apparently not the case at the school i attend. At the very most, teachers would throw detention slips in our registers, expecting us to learn a lesson from that, but very often, they enjoy exercising their vocal cords in our faces. Even if the school rules state, that one should be polite (even if angry). Threats such as "If i find out you are lying, i will kill you" (voiced by my form tutor) are becoming increasingly common.

People refuse to be shouted at during a working environment, so why must we be subjected to it at school. Take the toilet facilities, by law: teachers must be entitled to clean toilets. Children only need somewhere to take a leak, even if the urinals are falling off the walls. But thats a gross example so im not going to delve into that.  

Back to the teacher shouting at me incident, i was being shouted at to stop arguing. Simple, except for surprisingly, although i wasnt raising my voice, it all concludes with a 1 and 1/2 hour detention after school next monday :(

Consisting mainly of paper fights and paper aeroplane competitions XD

Unusual Climatic Weather Patterns in the Uk

During Summer time, one would expect to see the beautiful sunny weather as soon as they draw the curtains early in the morning. Shortly after whilst watching TV whilst munching on their favourite breakfast cereal, The BBC would announce that the sunny weather is here to stick around. Sadly, this doesnt really apply to Britain in many ways. Metro forecasters still expect snow and harsh weather even throughout the middle of March and April. People still blame Global Warming for the depressing weather we are encapsulated in and not to mention the constant grey skies and heavy rain do eventually get to our heads. 

Why does Drum and Bass Music Make you Feel Doped?

The interesting thing about music, is its ability to change your mood. This in itself is obvious, but most of us only see this through the physical genres ie RnB and Rock. Of course, one will become to feel rather sad if they spend the day listening to depressing My Chemical Romance or angry and aggressive if they only started listening to Slipknot. But have any of us noticed that the rhythm at which we do things is affected by the tempo of the music we listen to?

Right, so i was typing on the computer during an IT lesson the other day, whilst listening to my all time favourite artists Pendulum. I suddenly begin to notice that the rate i type/second was in time with the music and that my heartbeat was working so much faster, almost in fact trying to keep up with the rhythm of the song. I realise that everything i was doing, i was doing much faster, almost as if i was high.

You may be thinking that this is just plain weird, but the ironic thing is, most hypnoticians do it and so do Shamans. Shamans specifically beat drums that have this tribal feeling to them. Once you have heard them enough, you kind of become entranced (think of Jesus Walks by Kanye West). I know this because my old Religious Studies Teacher tried it on us, and hes not exactly qualified in Shamanism. Hypnoticians similarly swinging a pencil of a pocket watch in the air, gives us this sense of controlled rhythm which takes us over.

How to Avoid Having Your Phone Outdated Within a Week

Let me spend a minute here setting the scene, you've just walked out of a phone dealership feeling excited whilst holding a bag containing your new mobile, after combing the mobile phone industry for your perfect contract, (although you want a lot of minutes and texts, you wouldnt for once mind having a phone that your mates would immediately shout "WHOA! thats a nice phone"). However, the point you go home and into work the next day, your phone is already obsolete from the rest of the world in terms of having the most updated handset. 

Now the problem here is that mobile phone companies are pumping out models every other day, new technology is being developed at the click of a finger and yet, you are being caught up in this as you are frequently pulling out the check-book for yet another gimmick targetted at you. What you effectively need is longer-lasting models (ie. ones that dont go out of fashion so easily). You could go for the next Motorola or Nokia, but these people seem to pump out upgrades every 6 months, so you check out Vertu. However, you will be disdained to see that they are probably well above your price range (<£1299). So no, We need to go back to the drawing board.

Firstly ask yourself what features in a mobile phone do and dont last:

1. Build and Style. Good looking and heavy built phones seem to stick nicely to people.
2. Interface, Does it bore you? or is there something nicely hidden for you to exploit, afterall, the iphone interface is definately  interesting but then so are most touch phones.
3. Open Sourcing abilities, take my phone for instance, Nokia n95, s60 OS and therefore i can get really cool freebies from http://mosh.nokia.com/
4. Camera, nowadays with 8MP cameras, its worth considering that this will be outdated. Fast.
5. Look for Touch Screens, I know that touch screen phones are technically a technological factor, but it aids with the interface, touch phones are not usually boring to play with. The novelty may over time deteriorate for instance the iphone, but then consider the App store. Thus alleviating any signs that you can get bored of the iphone. Please comment if you are bored of an iphone and why.

I could go on forever, but there seems to be a basic principle that we can gather. Phone designs are not "fast fashion" and therefore do not go out of fashion as quickly as technologically enhanced phones. Sure it took them a while to exceed 5 MP; but they have now. If you are looking for a handset which wont be outdated in the next week or so, look for ones that look nicer than looking for one that has all the "gimmicks"

Obituary for Jade Goody

Unfortunately, Jade Goody passed away on the Early Hours on the morning of Mother's Day. Now I dont know about you, but it is quite sad that she felt the need to publicise her story so much, she just couldnt simply pass away in peace. Although this is what it may seem at first, people forget that the reason she sold her story like that was in the interests of her children. Successfully leaving £1.6M behind for their upbringing seems like a more appropriate manner of seeing Jade. It may not bring anymore awareness to people about cancer, odds are everyone of us knows about the tragedies of cancer and sure people will cry for Jade, but the most important thing is that at least she can rest in peace finally.

Barack Obama's "Gaffe"

Right so here we are, Mr~President Barack Obama was on talk show and he makes the remark "bit like the special-olympics or something". People are getting uproared over it because they feel he has made a joke at their expense. However, not everyone is considering the "alternative perspective" surely. I mean if anyone actually watched it, firstly it was quite subtle and maybe he wasnt joking about it. Maybe he was expressing that patronising feeling that the talk-show host was giving him; comparing it to the patronising atmosphere behind the "special-olympics". It is quite easy for me to notice that the media is already trying to bring him down, but isnt that the role of the media anyway. Bringing people up through the use of the media, then scrutinising their every actions; in an attempt to reduce them to no more than a humiliated bystander on the high street.

The Psychological Problems of Thinking of Business Ideas.

Right, so here i am with my Young Enterprise Company "Ace"trying to think of something during a tuesday lunchtime in my Careers advisor's Classroom, trying ever so hard to think of product ideas for our company. We were all stuck. Afterall, the only thing i could think of inventing, is something that can spontaneously generate ideas for a business. How were we supposed to do that? This eventually led me to think; How on Earth do people with such innovative ideas think of them? The answer was simple, Just don't think of it and try hard to lead your life normally without constantly thinking of products to invent. There will no doubt be a time when you do think of something (normally one that solves a problem or just makes the process easier).That may also be a million dollar idea (or pounds in my case)

Why does a DVD from Harrods cost so much?

There are few places i can say have the prestige that the Harrods chains have. Specifically the one in Knightsbridge, located somewhere in London. There are also few places selling the diverse range of foods that Harrods sell. Yet, I have never come across such high prices for such a shop. Recently whilst visiting, i noticed that the SALE price of the film, "the Water Horse" was nearing £15. The same price that every generic chain hypermarket do for almost 5 pound cheaper. Now if you have read up to this point, you are probably thinking something overtly intellectual, something along the lines of they put the premium of the price even higher so during the sale, their still making the same amount of money as our supermarket chains are. There is also a prestige to going to Harrods, if you happen to have bought a Harrods bag (50p where sold) you can now consider yourself almost nearing posh, and yes the jewellery is bedazzling and the cars are bloody brilliant but is it really worth buying from that shop? i somehow dont think so.

Stumbling Upon This Blog.

If you happen to be sitting here reading this post, you are probably sitting at work "Googling" random things like the word Bored. Social Networking sites like Facebook are probably not available to you because your nasty work authorities have blocked it for you; so that means you cant play Mafia Wars. You also have a report to be getting on with and have a sinking feeling or nervousness and apprehensive kind of joined together. I am in the same predicament as you, (or at least i was) just in a classroom listening to a teacher shouting at one of the lads because they forgot to tuck their shirt in. Yes i wear school uniform and by God does is suck.