tech 2014
Here's what I learnt at Silicon Valley Comes To The UK, in bite-size form...
Failing that, it has the cash to at least look into making a completely guilt-free iPhone.
Every hipster, hippie and hip-anything is as hooked on their Apple products as they are on extremely questionable fashions, facial hair and kale, which is just lettuce pretending to be hip, but don't tell anyone.
There's a trend in the #gratitude movement that really, really bothers me. And it's probably all over an Instagram feed near you. It's saying you're #blessed, or its more obnoxious big sister #soblessed.
Nope this isn't a diatribe on how Trip Advisor has too much power, or not enough. Nor is it a rant on how hotels and bed & breakfast don't have enough of a say on the matter. This is my tale of how I was recently able to use Trip Advisor to my advantage against a rather shoddy shack masquerade as a hotel in London.
By now you'll have probably heard of Breanna Mitchell, the teenage girl who posted a selfie smiling at Auschwitz concentration camp. Although she posted the photo some time ago (June 20th), it has only recently gone viral - clocking up more than 3300 retweets and a barrage of abuse over the past few days.
My family, it appears, are a 'bunch of ugly, sad losers'. My wife is so 'desperate' to leave me that she will '**** the next man she has a drink with'. My beautiful children are, variously, 'pathetic... spoilt... probably adopted' because I am 'unable to get it up... a waste of space... a miserable, untalented tosser'. Worst of all though, my kitchen is 'hideous'. So this is what being trolled feels like... The other week I wrote what I felt was a thought-provoking, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, confessional about my enforced 12-month sabbatical as a stay-at-home dad trying to set up a new business after sudden redundancy.
I had to change. I'd reached rock bottom. It was time to get a life and Groupon was my tool. A Narnia of discounts, a wardrobe into a magical otherworld full of adventure. And since then I've become a Lord, changed my name by Deed Poll to "Max Groupon", and bought property on the planet Mars.
It's not that there are more bands, it's just that the distribution method has evolved. To find new music takes more patience than ever. I find that Bandcamp and Soundcloud as a never-ending treasure island of amazing new music.
There is still some way to go before this futuristic vision is a reality, but the technology exists today - and all that remains is to make the right connections. We are tantalisingly close to a world where news can be broadcast instantly - 24 hours a day, from anywhere in the world - the moment it breaks.
Back in the day when I was an MP, I warned the House of Commons that the chances of an impact by a 'Near Earth Object' - more commonly known as a comet or asteroid - are 100%. Worse still, I claimed the chance of an incoming object large enough to wipe out most, or all, of the human race is also 100%. It's just a matter of 'when.' People laughed, a lot. They thought that this was one wacky campaign too many. One paper showed a picture of me with the title MP to blame for the end of the world. But I knew my ground, as my grandfather, Ernst Öpik, was one of the world's leading astronomers on this subject.