Health and safety conscious employees would go ballistic at this point.

My decision was to grab some paper towels and mop up some of the water, and then to put a series of plastic cups on the floor in a semi-circle around the pool, so that it was clearly visible to anyone who may come along next. Knowing that the cleaners would clear everything up the next time they came around, I made my coffee, left the area, and got on with my evening.

I don’t think there’s ever any need to make a bigger deal out of health and safety than that.

This one’s explosive. Enjoy!

After watching another amazing season of The Apprentice, with enough new tasks, lessons to be learned and humor, we witnessed the climactic final of a series that tragically hadn’t been well enough thought through.

We were reminded by the ever-inspiring Lord Alan Sugar at the start of every show this season that “this is not a job”. Instead of receiving a six-figure salary, in this season the candidates were competing for an investment of £250,000 into one of his or her business plans. The idea being to use the show’s influence to inspire entrepreneurs throughout the country to start up their own businesses despite these tough economic times. Lord Alan Sugar, a keen Labour supporter and friend of the ex-prime minister, Gordon Brown, have been keen voices calling for new business ventures as the best way to work out of a recession. The whole idea of this season was to support this concept.

Yet the way the concept was executed was deeply flawed…

The investment opportunity was interesting when compared to the business show of a very different format, “Dragon’s Den”. In “Dragon’s Den”, it’s common for candidates to ask for around £60,000-£100,000, and give up a 40% stake of equity in the company. In “The Apprentice”, the stakes were far higher at a guaranteed £250,000 for the winner (at a cost of 50% equity), but strangely in a company that was barely even an idea (let alone started), and at an entrance level where candidates’s characters were judged before their ideas (as opposed to the other way round), and where the investor pledged to invest in exactly one business (no matter what!). A stark contrast to a traditional investment style. Strange, considering the show is supposed to be representing business.
In fact, I felt that the show started to feel very much like “Dragon’s Den” once Lord Sugar’s aides finally started grilling the candidates on their business plans. Perhaps the next series should find new ways for each of the episodes to tease out the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates’s business plans, as well as the current format currently manages to tease out the character’s personalities.

Time after time again throughout the show, and again on the after-show, “The Apprentice: You’re Fired”, we were reminded that Lord Sugar was looking for a business partner, and whoever he guided through the process would possess the greatest business skills. Unfortunately, looking for businesses skills is only one side of the coin. Any candidate with a demonstration of exceptional businesses skills is a worthless candidate if he or she doesn’t have a decent business plan. What is it that the candidate actually intends to make money with? Is it a viable, feasible, worthwhile solution? How much money will the business realistically generate? These three questions were completely and utterly avoided through the entire twelve week period, leaving only a single week, a single final, a series of interview sessions, to hone in on what would make up 50% of Lord Sugar’s decision. Completely flawed.

By the time the final came around, Lord Sugar was faced with selecting from one of three candidates.

Jim had shown considerable business skills, but came up with a business plan specifically and blatantly tailored to what he thought would suit Lord Sugar’s taste. In fact, Jim’s judgement about what Lord Sugar was after in this process was completely wrong. Investing in a non-profit business attempting to educate schoolchildren about business makes no logical sense, and having devoted the series to inspiring good, money-earning, get-up-and-go businesses, investing in a business that teaches other people about business makes no logical sense. Business should be taught by people who have created businesses, not by paradoxical businesses that educate businesses. Investing in this business is not what the show, nor Lord Sugar, was hoping to achieve.

Helen demonstrated that she was clearly the most employable candidate, yet her business plan, like Jim’s, completely bombed. It wasn’t well enough thought through in her connections, in her experience and in her passion of the industry she selected. It was interesting to see Lord Sugar “not being able to express enough” his “disappointment” in her business plan. He’d really hoped for this candidate to come up with some that would match the exceptional candidate, and he was left with something that he couldn’t possibly invest and maintain a credible reputation as an investor. Helen tried a second business suggestion in the boardroom, but there was no way Lord Sugar could have gone with Helen and the second business plan without looking inequitable and devious to the other, competing, candidates. Unfortunately, and regretfully for Lord Sugar, Helen put herself into a position where there was no way she could be invested in.

Susie looked to me like a likely candidate for investment, yet her estimates and figures were scrutinized and deemed wildly unrealistic, seemingly so much so that it made investing in her inconceivable.

This left Tom, the kindest, most energetic candidate in the series, with a passion and spark that was clearly in the nature of the ideal candidate Lord Sugar was looking for. His business plans seemed incredibly problematic, similar to his fellow candidates. But it was the stories of his previous inventions, his nature, and his entrepreneurial spirit that Lord Sugar chose to invest in. Here, he managed to find a glimmer of light that he could perhaps cling onto and harness, making his investment worthwhile. It was interesting to see Tom mention in excitement on the after-show, “You’re Fired”, that he could, see Lord Sugar thinking, “Don’t talk about the chair!” and the camera angle changing to show Lord Sugar quickly looking away. I assume Lord Sugar wants to draw as little attention as possible to the embarrassing business plan he’s supposedly invested in.

After laying down these thoughts, I have to stress that I’m incredibly pleased for the winning candidate. Tom represented entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists amazingly well with his kind heart, manners and drive to succeed. Exactly what the show was created to demonstrate. If the next series (of which I very much look forward to), the show’s format may need to be more significantly altered, in order to bring more focus to the candidate’s business plans and to offset the current ratio of characters to plans from 12:1, as well as to give Lord Sugar the best selection of business ventures to invest in.

I’ve got to a stage in my life where I think that I’ve seen a fair few things. I’ve seen philosophies and beliefs. I’ve seen morals and ethics. I’ve seen right and wrong. I’ve seen doing and being. And I start to think to myself, “what is it that my life is going to be?” What is it that I’m going to do with my finite time in this world? It’s a huge question that I believe most of us actually spend our lives trying to avoid, and maybe the rest of us simply never manage to figure it out.

But I think that by now, aged 21,  I’ve got a few ideas straight. I know that in my life I shall avoid worrying about things, for today is never the end of the world. I know that I shall try to free myself as much as possible. I shall question any new idea. I shall consider myself a citizen of the world, not of any particular nation.

And that’s what life is all about. It’s about an endless journey of discovery and experience. I know that I’ll never be exactly how I want to be, but I think that this is what life is all about. It’s about trying. It’s about making the best effort possible to achieve what it is that one wants to achieve. It’s about following your heart. And I hope that I shall live my life in this way. Always exploring, always daring, always questioning, always changing, always adapting to my own new self-beliefs, always trying to maintain freedom, gaining wisdom, thinking logically and observing beauty; striving for excellence and my own personal view of perfection in an imperfect world.

Because you, and your heart, should never be so far apart…

Supporters of the video game will proclaim that game developers have the right to freely develop and publish games involving any content, and that gamers have the right to enter the fantasies of the digital world, a place far from reality, and enjoy that experience. This argument would typically hold against games such as Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2, and Counter Strike: Source, as well as many, many other games. It does not, however, hold in the case of shooting at NATO troops. Every week come back the reports of the sacrifices that have been made in Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban, every week families are affected, and every week we live in a safer world for their valour.

Defenders of the game then become keen to point out that I’m happy to play Call of Duty 2, and other world war games. Is it really that different to be playing a modern conflict than a historical conflict? Well, yes it is. Because historical conflicts don’t affect our lives right now.

Where does the boundary lie in what’s acceptable video game content? How far will game developers continue to push the limits? What makes a video game disrespectful? Will next year’s Medal of Honour game involve players flying airplanes into the twin towers? For me, the boundary is about to be crossed for the first time in October. I never believed that I’d be disputing the content of a video game. But I never would have imagined a developer would make such a tasteless game like this.

Video editing! Didn’t that used to strain powerful computers? And now it’s available on a phone!

That’s pretty incredible. Check out the webpage here, or see iMovie in the iTunes app store here.

1. Arrival

The first thing I did after getting through passport control at San Francisco airport was to take a taxi to the Apple store. “That’s weird… normally it’s hotel or something…” muttered the taxi driver after I asked him to take me there. As my first experience of a taxi ride in San Francisco, I’d like to account that this was not at all dissimilar from playing the video game Crazy Taxi. The driver even scored a few $ for performing some crazy drifts through the four-lane highway. Alas, future cab rides were not to be as fun as this one.

2. The iPad

Once I got to the Apple store I asked the nearest genius for an iPad. To which he replied, “we’re all out of stock”. So after $40 taxi ride, after an eleven hour flight, after a three hour wait, after a two hour flight, after a three hour wait, after setting off at 1:30am; I couldn’t get hold of an iPad…! I would later join a two-week waiting queue in order to get a reserve one at my nearest Apple store in Valley Fair. In order to pick it up I would have to queue for an hour outside the store, and all this after three months of the product being released. So what’s all the hype about? Well, what we have is a device that is once again changing the way people are envisioning portable computing with a combination of tremendous functionality alongside superb interface design and ease of use. Despite the generous size of the multi-touch screen, the device itself can be lifted between two fingers positioned on the bezel of the screen and tucked into the smallest of bags. But what really threw me about the iPad was the amount of functionality that’s its taken from my laptop. It’s amazing how much you can actually do on an iPad, and I believe I can do about 80% of my daily computing activities on the iPad, such as browsing the web and sending emails, reading books and watching YouTube. And of course the phrase, “there’s an app for that” applies to even more now than it did on the iPhone, and my favorite couple of apps at the moment are Air Video (an app to stream videos from a PC or Mac to an iOS device, with video conversion on the fly), and Fruit Ninja (a humorously fun, fruit-chopping game). I really do think that this is the beginning of a shift away from laptop devices to slate devices.

3. American Life

Alongside technological discoveries, I’ve become a bit of a baseball fan. At first, my roommate’s endless love for the Yankees (he never misses a game) put me as a New York Yankees fan, but after going to my first baseball game at AT&T Park, San Francisco, I’ve immediately become a Giants fan after they beat the Dodgers 6-5. I’m also loving the Fish and Chips alternative… Burgers! Burgers are everywhere and ranging in value from a $4.99 drive-thru to a $30 gourmet, and “I’m loving it”.

The whole geography of northern California is pretty awesome. Silicon valley has been seeing light clouds in the morning which blow over to reveal a perfectly clear blue sky by about 10:00am, and a consistent high temperature of 25°C. Moving further north to San Francisco, the temperatures drop as soon as you reach the city. Some areas of the city will be shrouded in fog, whilst others will be completely clear, but one thing across San Francisco varies more than the weather itself; the elevation. I’m pretty sure I received a free workout trying to find my friend’s car after watching the July 4th fireworks.

4. Apple

My work at Apple seems to be going pretty well, and the iMovie product is both captivating and thrilling to work on. Of course I can’t write about anything specific I’ve been doing for Apple, but I can say that it’s great to see some of the changes I’ve been making working, and to know that some day in the future they’ll be out there on every Mac computer. I’ve already learned a tremendous amount about software and programming, as well as how to work within a company, and I’m sure I’ll continue to cram my brain with new techniques and skills right up to the last day of my internship in late September. I thought I’d share one of the most important things I’ve learned using an analogy that springs to my mind…

5. A Closing Thought

A swimmer is trying to swim from a beach to a nearby island. When the swimmer first enters the water, it is hard for them to drown. The swimmer happily enters the cool water and begins swimming, the journey begins. The simmer may reach the island at some point in the future, but the important thing for now is that he or she keeps moving forward, and keeps his or her head above the water as much as possible. Very regularly, large waves pass over the swimmer, plunging them underwater. The swimmer can’t see or breathe for this considerable lapse of time, until he or she reemerges from the water. Then, everything becomes clear again.

When I’m introduced to a new topic or area of knowledge, I most often feel completely overwhelmed by this lack of understanding, I think to myself that I may never fully understand, or that it’s going to take me a prolonged, tedious and stagnant period of time to eventually learn. It’s these moments that are always the hardest to get through.

Please feel free to drop me a comment about any of the stuff I’ve discussed in this post.

Please feel free to drop me a comment about any of the stuff I’ve discussed in this post.

I’m living with new friends, Steven, Yamir and Dan. Steven’s been bugged my friends form back home to set up a blog detailing his American adventures, so be sure to check it out too for closely related updates!

Tomorrow’s the first day of my three month internship at Apple – exciting times!

The first menu the game came up with was nothing new. Choose a team; red or blue. In Counter Strike it’s terrorists or counter terrorists. In Day of Defeat it’s allies or axis. It was on the second menu that the big difference in this game lay; I was faced with a selection of nine different classes, each with its own distinct look, feel, weapons and abilities. Situated in the centre of these choices stood a huge, muscular man who, with my mouse hovering over him, lifted with all his might one of the biggest guns I think you’ll ever find in a video game. I’d just met the heavy.

From the moment I entered the battlefield (of what can be only described as uttermost carnage) on the first day of the Team Fortress 2 beta release to now, several years later, I can honestly say that I have loved every moment of it. The other eight classes each have their own, brilliantly designed features, and can be instantly distinguished from just a simple shadow. The pyro, with his scorching flamethrower, a class to flee from. The speedy scout, an asset to the infiltration of the well-balanced bases of ctf_2fort to steal the enemy intelligence. The demoman, with his sneaky spider mines and explosive grenade launcher. I can honestly say that there is no game which provides the same adrenaline rush generated by playing as the spy. I can hear my heart pound as I sneak up on an enemy sniper, ready to perform a well timed back-stab before quickly cloaking myself, invisible to the enemy. I stealthily plant sappers on the engineer’s constructed turrets and dispensers, whilst deceiving enemy medics into healing me. There’s never been so much unique diversity in a first-person-shooter.

The beautiful cartoon style (a rarity in video games) creates a stylish appearance, whilst placing further emphasis on the game’s entertainment factor. My favourite features of the game’s look are the character expressions and phrases. Engineers will cry out, “that spy’s sappin’ my sentry!” Heavies will ludicrously laugh at their foes as they empty 200 high caliber rounds into the enemy team as spies complain that, “they’ve got blood on their suit,” after knifing a soldier!

It seems that the game has been brilliantly designed to allow for players who perhaps wouldn’t normally play first-person-shooters to enjoy a slice of the action. The heavy requires little instant-reflex skills. The medic provides a largely non-combat role whilst providing a crucial asset to the team, whilst the engineer adds a more ‘RTS-like’ style of gameplay. Everyone seems to have been catered for, and new players will quickly become attached to their own personal favorite classes.

The game’s meta-critic score reached 92/100. The game has succeed in providing huge multiplayer diversity via its combination of a class system and superbly designed maps to allow for complex strategies. Valve has been consistently at work on the game since release, providing many patches as well as new maps, gamemodes, weapons, and achievement. There’s never been such a blast of quirky multiplayer mania as this – a thoroughly recommended game, and by far my favorite. It’ll be a long time before an online multiplayer game tops this.

Steam on Mac runs like a dream, and the new interface displays and manages all your games far better than the old one. Although, I have to say that I was more than a little disappointed with the initial line up of games for the Mac version of the platform. Valve had strongly implied that their catalog of source games would be readily available for Mac users. I found that this was a false assumption I’d been led to make, and when I loaded Steam for the first time, I found that only Portal was available of this collection of games. As awesome a game as Portal is, I’ve completed it about two years ago, and don’t really have any inclination to play it again! It turns out that apparently every Wednesday there are a series of new games released for the Mac. Effectively, every week there’s a random probability that the games I want to play, such as Counter Strike: Source, become available.

But I should put this aside, as the platform is a very enjoyable experience. I’ve found there to be a large amount of games available, and more are coming out all the time, and this is very good news for us Mac users. For the entirety of this weekend both Mac and Windows users can play one of the first cross-platform multiplayer games, Altitude, completely free! A game I may well have overlooked had it not been available to try, Altitude is a fun little 2D combat flight game with some typical game modes including ‘death-match’, ‘soccer’ and ‘demolition’. The most addicting feature of the game is its leveling and experience system, very similar to that found in Call of Duty 4. Kills, goals, level completions and achievements gain the user additional experience points, and at particular intervals the user gains an additional level, unlocking new planes, abilities, skins, and more! There’s definitely a lot to this initially simplistic-looking game. My house mate and I have just finished playing our first hour, I’ve reached level 10, and we’ve both gone straight to Steam‘s online store to purchase it for a currently discounted price of £3.50 – what a bargain!