Sell-By Food Shops

I watched an item on the news this morning about "dumpster diving" for food thrown out by supermarkets simply because it's past its sell-by date. A shocking statistic flashed on the screen. The US alone throws out billions of pounds in weight of perfectly good food every year simply because it is "time" to do so.

In the UK, the big supermarkets have basically gang raped the hell out of our high streets, and local councils have held their coats while they did it. Up and down the UK, high streets lost small businesses as the likes of Tesco expanded into everything from dry cleaning to prescriptions. no one was there to help them and that was wrong of us. I propose a new law that taxes the supermarkets to fund a chain of high street stores that cheaply sell the "past sell-by" food they currently throw away.

Naked Mentalism 3

I don't usually talk about my magic books in this blog, but about 5 years ago, realised that I rather liked using my smarts to come up with new material for magicians. Perhaps the thing I'm most known for inside magic is Naked Mentalism, which has to do with using genuine psychological principles in magic - specifically mind magic or "mentalism". I'm currently readying Naked Mentalism 3 for sending out to trusted friends to read and pick apart, and I thought it'd be good to throw caution to the wind and share what it's all about.

Volume three marks quite a departure in the series. By that, I mean it focuses on the way in which mystery entertainers can exploit the naturally occurring "bugs" in the way we use common sense thinking. It is the business of experimental psychology to discover these bugs. Rather than showing how to avoid them, this book shows how to use these bugs to enhance effects of all kinds (not just mentalism effects) to make them seem more natural and all the more remarkable. As well as containing more traditional "Naked" effects, this, I think is the "breakout" volume of the Naked Mentalism series because it spills quite naturally into other areas where the techniques I reveal are also applicable.

Needless to say, I'm very excited about this book, and excited to know what the magic community at large think about it.

New Life

What's this? Hits on my little blog after all this time?

Hello new readers! I see you're predominantly coming from the Make It Macclesfield forum. Stick around, have a read and, hopefully, a laugh at previous posts while I try to think up some new ones.

Hmmm...

If the US has killed Osama Bin Laden, where's the body?

It's been a long time...

...but I think it's time I started this blog up again. The world's become even more stupid than it was a year ago.

The lost art of conversation...

So, the ISPs (including phone companies) have begun to retain data on our digital lives for 12 months.

Under EU regulations, the "where and when" of all digital communications must be retained. that includes all mobile phone calls, emails, etc. However, the content of those communications isn't being stored. The idea is that a web of associations can be drawn up to link one suspect with another, regulated by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act. However, isn't this the same RIP act that local councils have been using indiscriminately to detect petty crime?

I'm sure I'm not the only one to figure out that by simply eschewing digital communications, there are literally dozens of ways to avoid having your associations recorded. I suspect that any organised criminal worth his salt will be using face-to-face meetings in anonymous places at pre-determined times, for example. Maybe sales of books and DVDs featuring spies will increase. After all, such stories are filled with the techniques used by the very people whose job it is to avoid having their communications noticed.

The rest of us are simply filling yet another useless government database (of sorts ) with noise.

Jason Lewis Watch... part 94

Well, it's Sunday and, as predicted, the Daily Mail has published yet another story on its RSS feed by Jason Lewis telling us how our privacy is under threat. This is getting predictable. In fact, clicking on Mr Lewis' name shows a long series of sometimes scantily supported stories. 'A spokesman' could be anyone (or no one), for example.

Yes, the idea of Big Brother expanding its reach into the lives of innocent people is something that needs checking, but I keep thinking maybe it would be a good idea to extend my reach into the Daily Mail by calling and asking to speak to Mr Lewis, just to make sure he's real. If he exists, I have a few questions...