MONKEANO
A
few weeks ago I criticised Roy Keane for his blasé
attitude towards filling the vacancy left by Giovanni Trappatoni. He
had been asked whether he felt flattered to be linked with the
Ireland manager job and in typical Keane fashion replied “No, not
really. I shouldn't be flattered by that, should I?” At the time
no-one seriously thought he would be considered for the role but his
stance was galling given his managerial record. Now look at him. John
Delaney is his new bessie mate and I think I actually saw him smile
during ITV's Champions League coverage the other night.
The
issue of Roy Keane and his patriotism - or lack of it some might say
- has long since been the subject of national debate. There are far
too many arguments and viewpoints to list them here but suffice to
say his involvement as Martin O'Neill's assistant will have
infuriated as many as it thrilled. But now is the time to forget
about the past and put all those tiresome mantras to bed - it's
boring, let it go. For me it's always been quite simple: Roy loves
his country, fuckin loves it he does, but he hates 'the suits.'
Those
suits were the same ones he railed against in Saipan and again during
a press conference filled with invective following Ireland's
elimination to the Hand of Henry. And now they're his bosses. Or is
Martin O'Neill his boss? In fact can anyone ever really call
themselves the boss of Roy Keane? And therein lies the problem with
this appointment. It's great that Roy is all buddy buddy with the
FAI, and it's great that someone with so much love for his
country is part of the fold, but there's no way it'll end well. It
just won't. Somewhere along the line Roy's instincts will take over,
he'll see something that he doesn't agree with, and he'll want to
change it – only to be told he can't because that's not his job.
And when you tell Roy Keane he can't do something? That's when the
trouble starts.
Personalised shopping
Do
you know what cookies are? No, not those chunky segments of biscuity
delight, online cookies: the ones that are tailored specifically to
your needs? I bet some of you don't. Essentially what cookies do is
track your Internet browsing history and, in theory, make your online
experience a more enjoyable one. That ad for a peephole bra from Ann
Summers which seems to be constantly at the top of your screen?
That's there because you're constantly looking at sexy underwear ya
feckin' tramp. But are cookies invasive? Do they impinge on our
privacy and violate our rights as human beings? Probably not - and
anyway you can always turn them off.
Alternatively
you could go out in the real world, where cookies don't exist, and browse around Ann Summers all you like. Or can you? It would
appear not. At least not when you're going to Tesco anyway. The
supermarket chain is installing the 'OptimEyes' system at 450 of
their petrol station forecourts across the UK. So what does it do?
Put simply it scans the face of each customer, estimates their age
and subsequently tailors adverts to that person upon future visits.
So if you're a woman in her early thirties you're going to be most
likely bombarded with ads for Pampers, and her male counterpart can
expect to be treated to videos extolling the virtues of Regaine. In
theory anyway.
At
this early stage in it's development OptimEyes works quite crudely,
we are all thrown into one of three gender groups and then targeted
based on what people of that age generally like. Which in turn means
that a large proportion of those scanned won't be subjected to
adverts that interest them. Instead it'll be the same mind-numbing
content you see on television every night, if you're gonna invade
our privacy at least fucking do it right. Create an X-Ray machine
that can tell how much money I have in my pocket, or better still
hack into my back account so you can see what's in there. Then, when
that's done, find a way to read my mind so you can see what I really
want. And hey presto, I'm walking through Tesco with a fiver in my
pocket thinking how great it'd be if they made gravy flavoured
chocolate bars and I see an ad for? Yep you guessed it.
Only a bitta crack
Barack
Obama admits to smoking a joint or two and is considered cool, the
Mayor of Toronto confesses to dabbling in crack cocaine and is
castigated by all-comers – where's the justice in that? Okay, okay
I admit it, crack is probably a teeny weeny bit more serious than
cannabis and Rob Ford indulged in recreational drug use just last
year rather than in his youth, but still, a bit of perspective here
people? Oh alright then Mr Ford is clearly a bumbling buffoon
incapable of fulfilling his duties or stringing a coherent sentence
together even on his good days, but look at the picture below, he
seems a right laugh.
This
is what we need in politics, not half-hearted dilettantes like Ming
Flanagan who won't even put their weed where their mouth is, but
deviants like Ford. All we ever do is moan and criticise about those
in power so why not put a total headcase in charge; it worked for
London, they're having a great time giggling at Boris Johnson's
antics. I'm not suggesting we make the local drunk An Taoiseach,
that'd be folly - just appoint him Tanaiste or something similarly pointless. It
would lighten the nation's mood at a stroke, we could still grumble
about the inefficiency of our Government and call them all a shower
of bastards, and then we could watch our pride and joy cartwheeling
around a NATO convention while flashing his cock at the wife of the
Japanese Prime Minister.
God complex
Synthetic
biology or synbio has been summed up by one expert as “essentially
about how we design life.” Remember Dolly the cloned sheep? Well
synbio is like that, only way more fucked up. Human's giving birth to
dolphins, mice with the personality of Elvis, that kinda fucked up.
By using the DNA of one organism and then merging it with another
synbiologists are able to create....well just about anything really.
So far this has only resulted in armpit cheese and e-coli bananas but
those at the forefront of this new radical science claim that the
possibilities are endless, going as far to compare the birth of
synbio to The Enlightenment.
They
claim that by fusing Elvis's DNA with that of a rodent we could have
a suspicious minded mouse on our hands. That sounds great but it'd be
circus freak fodder at best. More interesting is their belief that a
human body could host an animal foetus. Worried about the decline in
Siberian Tigers? Well give birth to one if you care so much. How far
this thing can go is as of yet unknown, the ethical implications
alone should stop it from ever progressing beyond the cheese/banana
stage. But it's good to know that the option to create a spider-baby
is out there should we ever need it.
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