Where is my driverless car, Google?

I'm a person who mistrusts corporations. They work with the premise that they exist to make profit, and in economics terms, that means the purchaser gets a worse deal. If a producer of a primary product (raw materials) adds profit, then a manufacturer makes things and adds profit, then a retailer adds profit, the end consumer is paying the profit margins of three companies. This isn't inherently bad if each is adding value.

The hardest one to argue for is the retailer. In essence, they buy finished goods, put them on shelves and allow you to purchase them. Their added value is choice and convenience; perhaps after sales or maybe even advice presale. However, if we think of a market like the supermarkets, this does point to the only areas of value added are choice and convenience. I won't go all Veblen or Marx on you here, that's for another post, but I thought I'd make my standpoint clear from the start.

Google have announced today they're making driverless cars, and I immediately loved the idea. It's like Sci-Fi and I want one now. I don't understand people who reckon that they enjoy driving. It's brain numbing monotony and repetition, I only look forward to driving now as I am an odd ball who is wise enough to drive an automatic transmission vehicle (I can drive a manual car, I did for many years) as I see no one manually cranks their cars to start or manually adjusts the choke to change fuel air mix when starting.

This last thing is probably lost on most people born after 1980, cars used to have a knob to pull out when you started it, on the steering column. It changed the fuel air mix and as you drove and the car engine got hotter, you pushed it back in. My first car (C registration Vauxhall Nova)  had one and on cold, wet mornings, they were a nightmare: push it back in too early and the car would splutter and stall. Mine had a spring that pulled it gradually back in and if you got to traffic lights before it was hot, the car just conked out, kangaroo style. So I augmented it with a wooden clothes peg that I clipped on to hold it out.

Anyway, Google's car sounds awesome. Yes, it'll make taxi drivers redundant for car owners who have a drink, but that was said about email - apparently email would make Royal Mail bankrupt, but of course it was their pension scheme, not the universal postage costs to blame there. In the end it takes us away from doing something we'd rather not do and gives us more time to do things we'd rather do. So instead of paying attention to the back of a truck on a winding country road, we can admire the gorgeous views to our side.

This is where my unease comes in usually with companies. I mistrust them but Google seem to give us toys and gadgets we like. This can be said of many firms, but for me Google's approach is something special. Yes, they have a monopoly on search. Inherently that's a bad thing, but while I could use another service just as easily, I find myself not doing. The reason? Their search is better. A monopoly based on a better product is something to knock from its pedestal, and no one seems to be able to no matter how much Microsoft throw at the problem, so I'm comfortable with it.

I end up with the same conclusion whatever Google does (some specific examples omitted): they make something I'd actually use, they make the best of breed and they give it out on an advertising funded model or use the data to better understand you. I wish Tivo actually did this, but it seems to always tell me I'd love stuff on channel 5 or something with James Corden in. With a slight unease, I accept Google's products much more readily than other corporation's products simply due to them using science, maths and software engineering to make better and better things.

It's going to be a long time until they're on the road, but the Google car is a step forward and perhaps the battle to make them legal will make them better still. I look forward to driving one. Hang on, don't I mean riding one?

Voting 2014

I seriously have no idea for whom to vote today.  I can vote in the European Elections, but there's no other ballots in my local area.

Too Long; Didn't Read version:

I think I'm going to vote Labour tactically, as I do not believe in their party at all, but it'll help keep out the nasty and racist parties (you know who I mean).  Perhaps if you don't know how to vote either read this for inspiration, but free kisses available from me to anyone that bothers to vote today.

I'm Bored, I Want Your Poorly Qualified Opinion version:

A short hop around my voting history sees me voting for the first time in the 2001 UK General Election as I grew up attracted to the values of the Labour party, but my vote for them left me feeling a small part of the blame for military involvement in Iraq amongst other things.   I vowed never to vote Labour again, even though later I quite liked Gordon Brown as Prime Minister.  

In 2005 I voted Liberal Democrat, as I did in 2010.  This had the unintended consequence of feeling that my vote supported a Conservative government through the Coalition Government.  I never imagined that Liberal Democrats would form a coalition with the Conservatives.  One saving grace is that my constituency of Ribble Valley returned a Conservative MP with 50% of the vote so my vote didn't count anyway.  I'm therefore not looking forward to voting in the 2015 election as it's a lost cause, but with our MP being Nigel Evans, this might rock the Conservative vote a bit.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribble_Valley_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

Back to today.  Here's my choice of candidates:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27126227

We can quickly discount a couple from the ballot paper.  I'm pro-Europe, so I'd never vote for the parties centred around even slight anti-Europe sentiment.  Furthermore, I'd remove any restrictions on immigration if I had my way, as I only vaguely acknowledge the concept of arbitrary lines on a map designating national boundaries, so the parties who campaign for tighter immigration laws as their raison d'être are out.

The younger me might be tempted by either the Socialist Equality Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Equality_Party_(UK)) or even Pirate Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_UK) but that would be a mostly wasted or, at best, a protest vote.

So sensibly, I'm left with Labour, Liberal Democrats or Greens.

I am turned off by past experience of voting both Liberal Democrats and Labour, so I resign myself to considering the Green Party.  However, while I agree with most of what they say - as much as you can take to heart what political parties say - I disagree with one major bullet point in their manifesto (http://issuu.com/lifework/docs/minimaniissuu?e=7496317/7612527).  In it, they talk of ending building Nuclear Power Stations.  I can't abide this stand point and so I cannot vote for them especially as their share of the result will be too small; I can go into why but that's not the point of this post.

I really want to use my vote, but that would mean choosing between sensible and 'wasted' votes.  So after paring it down, my vote would be best served voting Labour.  Not for one moment because I support them, but because I want the nasty parties to stay out.

You see, I don't want my constituency represented by the flag waving thugs and morons who hide behind a veneer of political respectability in order to appear in the media alongside other parties; or the 'entertaining' lunatics who are unfathomably averse to simple things like change and social cohesion thus appear on television and radio so often I'm frightened my sanity can't take more of their incomprehensible pseudo-naïve bigotry.  You know who I mean.

So, Labour it is for me as the Liberal Democrats are a weaker choice if you're trying to keep minor parties out.  I wish there was another option, but I can't waste my vote on a protest, or vote on a genuine match for my views when both of these would essentially be a vote for the people I'd hate to see in any government.

No matter how little your vote goes towards the end result, no matter how little you care about politics, I implore you to vote today if you can.