On the buses
There is something about buses, maybe it is the low revs or just sitting over the suspension but it has a certain ‘effect’ on a number of gentlemen. It may well act as a similar stimulus for women as well but not being female or having witnessed a ‘Sleepless In Seattle’ moment I can’t be certain.
This tends to drive some men to do things on the top deck that upset children and small animals. Wop your mod out instead. Sure, bus companies take a dim view on vaping (because bus driver can not distinguish between an unregulated device and 20 Benson), but there’s nothing to stop you fiddling with your air control ring or gently thumbing a vent hole.
Run, Forest, run
Not all of us competed for glory during London 2012 and most of us will suffer day-to-day misery by virtue of failing at life. When I say ‘most of us will’ I mean ‘I’.
I accept that I will never be Demetrius Pinder but I can get three friends, once I make three friends, and hare around Northampton town centre passing my Paps X to one of them. Slumping on the bench outside Greggs, gulping lungs of oxygen, I can watch my mod vanish off towards the library as pastie-clutching hordes congratulate my performance.
Play the funky music, white boy
When I was younger I spent most of my time going to watch bands play and although the frequency has tailed off one thing remains true: there is always a stupidly tall bloke or an idiot woman in a big hat in front of you.
A reel of Kanthal and a pair of Hana mods: you instantly have the ability to convert your shoes into platforms and piss off the person standing behind you. But ignore them, for the first time in ages you can see the stage.
Not just this, but when the annoying bare-chested young man tries to form a human pyramid or the dumpy girl sits on her partner’s shoulders you can take them both out with a regulated mod to the temple. In this eventuality you will probably find that everyone else at the gig buys you drinks all night.
That offends me
Society is now chockablock with people taking offence over anything; the wrong type of oxygen in the air, the offensive colouration of some wood or the sound of water all number in the big list of things that upset people so much they have to write to the Daily Mail’s editor.
Get angry no more, upset folks: sub-ohm clouds are here to save the day.
If it’s a noise then the cloud will deaden it, if it’s visually offensive then the cloud will obscure it from your eyes. Not only will the general public become happier overnight if sub-ohmers start billowing their vape into people’s faces but ‘The Vaper’ will be raised to the lofty heights of ‘Super Hero’.
There are no limits to what we can achieve.
There was me thinking that all of the extra hundreds of thousands of vapers would press down the cost of stuff as companies tooled up for larger production runs. There’s me believing that, with all of the new entrants into the manufacturing game, competition would push down the recommended retail prices.
We went off to the Lake District in September, being the family and me. It was lovely and all that but notable for two main things: sat-navs and signposts can never be trusted.
We were in the car on our way back to the youth hostel, having had a bracing hike across Hardknott Pass, and, at a junction, were being advised to go back up a mountain. Even though my mind was telling me that it was logical to descend – the signpost was indicating a return to going up.
Lies. Just like the lies the sat-nav told us when entering the Lake District and we found ourselves aboard the world’s most expensive (per mile travelled) ferry. £4.30 to travel a distance I usually cover when leaving the lounge and going to bed. I’ve not actually checked it’s the world’s most pro-rata expensive ferry but I believe that if you scaled up the distance to a cross-Channel ferry you’d need to be David Beckham rich in order to catch one.
I could be wrong, like the signpost and the sat-nav.
Loads of children, my Dad included, were evacuated to the Lakes during the war (clearly not a war on prices if the ferry is anything to go by). Our Hardknott sign must have been turned around back then to confuse German spies and someone forgot to put it right again. That, or some errant sheep up to mischief.
I swear I remember some politician or economist or someone telling me (in the 80s) that increased competition leads to a squeeze on prices. I’d put money it being one of the reasons given for selling off the railway system so private enterprise could ensure everyone travels cheaply, in comfort and on time.
Like they now do so it must be true.
Well, if you’ve laboured through “Consumer Benefits from Increased Competition in Shopping Outlets by Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag” like I pointlessly did for this article, it is true.
Ish.
The thing is, and I could be well wide of the mark here again with me not being an economist, I’ve been waiting for a price drop on mods and attys. We’ve all seen the flood of new manufacturers coming to market; we’ve all had a good online browse and the overall price appears static or even going up.
I give you exhibit A: the regulated device that does the same as every other regulated device, as seen on a popular auction site. Or how about exhibit B: the ever-increasing prices of each new release from the company who put the sting in ray?
Just to clear up any confusion, I’m not angry with this; my therapist has cleared up all of my cognitive dissonance-related temper issues. I’m perplexed. I don’t blame makers for finding the price the market will bear, it is just that it seems as though the market will bear almost any price for new mods whereas the second hand market is far less forgiving. How often have you seen someone struggling to sell a much-loved Megan 318 or a Paps X? Both being outstanding mods.
Roll on a time when I don’t have to be troubled over such thing. Roll on a time full of jetpacks and hover cars. As long as they are free, worrying about residual values is enough to drive me to holiday in Butlins and read Jeffrey Archer.
Apparently, according to the Penn Med Soc. (PMS), the entertainment industry glamourizes and endorses vaping. “Electronic cigarettes should not be on television or in the movies”, said pulmonologist Dick Bell.
The errors in the stance being adopted by PMS can be summarised through a couple of quotes by Jacob Sullum from his recent Forbes column “Marijuana Edibles, Flavored E-Cigarettes, And The Folly Of Child-Proofing The World”.
“This argument (for regulation), although couched in the language of moderate and sensible regulation, should be a non-starter in a free society, because it reduces adults to the level of children,” he writes.
But hang on a minute, is there one among us who has not had an aspect of their lives ruined by Hollywood (and I’m not just referring to the mental anguish of having watched a Jennifer Aniston rom-com)? Maybe there’s mileage in banning stuff that might be dangerous to children and adults?
Are you one of the individuals Thelma & Louise convinced that it’d be cool to drive off a mountain? Perhaps you number in the legion of poor folk who bought into the lie that you could walk around a city centre with a sword killing the people you believed to be vampires? Maybe you tried to despatch your friend’s son, believing him to be the reincarnation of Satan? Possibly you loaded up with guns and had a shoot out in a wood just outside of Basingstoke after returning from a harrowing time in Dagenham?
The cinema and television clearly have a lot to answer for having influenced all of us weak-willed individuals to copy the stars so blindly.
But it can’t end there.
Some doctors have proven themselves to be dangerous to society with their mass murdering tendencies; clearly the medical profession has to be banned to in order to protect everybody. Yep, I know it isn’t all doctors and nurses but remember – this is all about protecting children. You aren’t allowed to nit-pick when it comes to child safety.
Add on to that list truck drivers, taxi drivers, shop owners, rivers, trees, building sites and traffic wardens. I’m not sure traffic wardens have ever been responsible for the death of anyone but it pays to be safe.
And how about those who inflict actual abuse on children? Politicians, teachers, doctors (again), the police, hospital administrators and council officials – the list goes on and on. If we are to have any semblance of a safe world then we need to remove this risk forthwith. Banning these professions is the only sensible course of action if we are to save children.
Logically, we ought to give serious consideration to banning adults from having families too. I am convinced that this measure would lead to a planet safe from vapers, Hollywood and the Pennsylvania Medical Society.
Referring to the whole ‘gateway’ nonsense, Jacob Sullum concludes: “In other words, [they] are prepared to sacrifice the interests, and potentially the lives, of verifiably real adults for the sake of hypothetical teenagers. This is where the logic of regulating “for the children” leads. Attempts to child-proof the world do not necessarily make kids any safer, but they always makes adults less free.”
Further reading:
“Life” said John Cleese, “is a terminal disease, and it is sexually transmitted.”
Sub-ohmers have taken a fair bit of stick of late on the forums and social media groups I look at. Some insult them for wanting to show off big vape, others decry them for inviting legislators to clamp down upon us all. Is it really fair?
For many, the finest smoke one could achieve was the post-coital fag of celebration. Now, and I’m sure it reflects upon my performance, I can’t say I ever got that urge to spark up afterwards – I couldn’t, I was far too busy ushering the animals back to the zoo. But even if I had enjoyed the luxury of being able to spread out in my jelly-filled paddling pool afterwards I’m still not certain a smoke would have been more preferable to another slice of pizza.
But is it even worth the effort to indulge in the ultimate experience?
Point Break’s Johnny Utah encapsulated the desire to take in the ultimate despite the fact that it would culminate in him crashing to his death. Now, if it had been Keanu Reeves I could have been tempted to help out by part-sponsoring the surfboard but I’m left pondering why any high would be worth the ultimate sacrifice.
I’m happy to hold my hand up and say I’m now of a age where some decent slippers and a nice cup of tea is preferable to raucous entertainment. In fact, if you add in cheese and biscuits you probably have the makings of my perfect vape right there.
As a biker, the greatest ride for me is the B6047, being at one with the machine and the road through the bends – feeling a part of the environment you are travelling through, smells changing by the field and the temperature of the wind on your face altering with every dip and rise. All at reasonable speed, unlike the leather-suited racer boys, time to smile and take in the experience.
And that’s where I come from when trying to comprehend sub-ohming. While I might enjoy a Zen-like biking experience there are many other who seek the adrenaline smack in the face; some career around A and B roads with an apparent desire to discover if God exists while others will perch on fat-wheeled bombs just fly in a straight line faster than middle-aged woman at a January sale.
If we pop back to sex for a minute (middle-aged woman at a January sale always do that for me) I’d like to consider the more risky practices some people indulge in. I’ve been married for the length of time it takes a glacier to carve a Welsh valley – not for us the madness of Sting’s tantric nonsense. What man of middle age would take such risks during congress? I feel my back aching and my dodgy knee hurting just thinking about it. But I’m happy for him and, to be quite honest, anything that keeps him away from the recording studio is a plus in my book.
I’m confident that there are multiple aspects of life that reflect our differing desires for exploration and recreation, all with an aspect of risk attached to them. I wonder if Rubik’s Cube addicts decry the activities of speedcubers for dragging their interest into disrepute?
Isn’t it time we accepted that an expanding vaping community will create subsets of interests? Anyway, I have more important things in life to get upset about than sub-ohming; the knitting circle is objecting to my extreme loop and stitch technique.
I say ‘it will be made’ quite confidently as everything is now made into a film. I blame WarGames, without the Internet that film would never have been made. Without films like WarGames I’d never have been forced into watching The Social Network.
Bill Gates, Anonymous, Wikileaks or Paul Allen – it doesn’t matter how boring the subject is for most viewers it will be turned into a film for YouTube or a documentary on The History Channel…like the painfully compulsive Triumph Of The Nerds.
For lovers of stories we are being swamped with them on an almost daily basis. The original genesis, the customisation boom and the rampant juice market have all got their tales to tell. We have online forum love stories to manufacturer trysts. Like the tales of computer tech, this is an industry creating itself from nothing at a huge rate – it’s exciting and nerdy in equal measure.
What stories do we have?
Invention gives way to production and redesign; profits have become impacted by companies from other sectors suffering the loss. We have greed, desire, strokes of genius and examples of altruism. We share, we hoard but (most of all) we exude passion for the product.
Just like the computer geeks of the 70s we coalesce, we bind together on the Internet in order to share our loves, discoveries and opinions. We learn from each other and push the community forwards. And nothing brings us together like the indignation created by some idiot with a tea towel or a doctored mod demonstrating that the Darwin Award is a wonderful thing.
Our garage engineers are now branching out and contracting production facilities, our vendors are spending their waking hours trying to find new angles and products. Hobbyists are becoming businesses and business is becoming BIG! We even have a little political party dedicated to vaping! How cute is that?
But if we consider the computer stories we know that there’s things yet to come. There are companies that will be crushed by growth, there will be leaders yet to emerge and just as cloned machine did for IBM the copy dilemma has still to be resolved in the vaping world.
Originals are fighting clone vendors by ripping payment systems away from them; politicians are fighting with common sense and good science. The only thing that’s missing is a decent cast list.
So who should be up for casting?
Clearly John Goodman has to be demanding people taste his juice at some point. Our Minister for Health has a history of spouting bizarre views, harbours wholly unscientific opinions and hid the truth about his ‘agent’ – now if this isn’t a shoe-in role for Tom Cruise I don’t know what is.
What’s that? He’s too American to play a Brit? That’s movies for you; they take poetic licence with actual events. I’m sure the War on Nicotine won’t actually involve evil Professor Glantz (Michael Douglas) destroying the Houses of Parliament while battling ECITA girl (Salma Hayek) but it’s going to look great and grab higher audiences. Anyway, it’s not like the anti-vaping lobby have ever made an effort to play with the truth so why not just look on it as commentary.
This piece has been constructed based on Doctor Farsalinos’ recent interactions with the global vaping community in forums and online vaping media, following the release of his latest piece of research.
On vaping:
“In my opinion, there is no doubt that e-cigarettes are less harmful, we just do not know by how much. I think they have less than 5% the risk of smoking (which is a huge benefit for smokers).”
On conflicting interests:
“I do not own any e-cigarette company and I do not own any analytical chemistry laboratory.”
On the contents of eliquid:
“I believe that vapers are entitled to know if their liquids contain diacetyl and acetyl propionyl, or not. And they can then make informed decisions.”
On the danger posed:
“The e-cigarette is much less harmful than smoking, even if diacetyl and acetyl propionyl are present in the liquid. It is less harmful despite the fact that formaldehyde and acetaldehyde is released to the vapour.”
“Just because e-cigarette use is still safer than smoking does not mean that we can put anything in the liquids.”
On who should assess the dangers:
“We have to admit that vendors are not qualified to assess the dangers of anything. Like in every other business, it is not the businessman who makes such assessments. In every case (beverage industry, food industry, whatever) there are experts who judge or disagree about such issues.”
On diacetyl and acetyl propionyl:
They “are avoidable and removable, because they are flavour ingredients or contaminants. I think that any avoidable risk should definitely be removed.”
“The data we have about diacetyl is pretty convincing.”
“We have sufficient evidence to support that diacetyl can cause harm to the lungs when exposed long-term.”
“Vaping is better than smoking, even with diacetyl.”
On acrolein:
“It is more associated with cardiovascular disease rather than for respiratory disease. You need to heat glycerin (which is present in oils of course) to high temp levels to produce significant amounts of acrolein.”
On PG:
“We have no evidence that it is harmful because we have evidence that it is not. It may cause some irritation, but irritation does not mean disease.”
On VG:
“Studies have shown that it is not toxic, but they should be expanded (vapour testing).”
On nicotine:
“We found that toxicity in live cells (heart cells) was not dependent on nicotine concentration in the samples. We just need to expand this research (one or few studies are never enough to resolve an issue) and of course we have to wait for several years to see the real effect in the population.”
On the public’s right to know:
“Just provide to the customer (with) the information he/she deserves and let them make the choice. It is about time to stop having price and taste as the only criteria for choosing e-cigarette products.”
On juice testing in labs:
“Every supporter of e-cigarettes suggests that there must be some kind of testing and standards, to assess the quality of the products. Quality does not mean good taste or declarations by manufacturers. We fight so that any standards are proportionate, cost-effective and will provide realistic information.”
“It is unrealistic to expect that the current situation of having no obligation to test anything will continue for long. The key issue is not to have very restrictive regulations, not to stifle innovation, not to restrict variability of devices & liquids and not to ban flavours.”
On whether this is an anti-vendor stance:
“I have nothing against vendors, because their interests are similar to the interests of public health: there must be a variability of products and competition in the market so that the products improve and develop.”
On what the future holds:
“Unless the industry changes mentality, I predict that only Big Tobacco companies will remain in the market, and this is not good for public health (they will not compete, they will just share the market).”
“Research and knowledge is continuously evolving, and for every answer new questions arise. Do not expect that e-cigarettes will be cleared without any doubt at any time soon. You should be prepared for a hard battle, which is currently done by few people who are supporting e-cigarettes and their potential, and we are continuously under pressure and are battling against very strong groups who try to discredit us (but fail).”
On reasons for making the effort he makes:
“For us, supporting e-cigarettes as a public health benefit, we believe that simply telling the truth works and will eventually prevail. There is no reason to hide anything under the carpet. Our goal is not only to explain and show the benefits of e-cigarettes but also to detect potential risks and provide a solution to solve any problems.”
“It is our commitment to present everything in an unbiased, independent and purely scientific manner. We will continue in the same way, even if we find bad things for e-cigarettes. The latter should be considered not an attack against the industry but an opportunity for improvement. We are committed to present every finding of our studies, and this is good for everyone (the public health and the product).”
Thank you, Doctor, from all of us.
Instead of being obsessed by sex like every other person I’ve met. Which, in turn, leads me to wonder exactly what 86 people found so offensive about an ecigarette advert and what impact they thought it would have?
“You know that feeling you get, when something’s great? You can touch it, hold it, even see it. Well, now you can taste it.”
As covered in Campaign marketing magazine this week, the lady speaking is being overtly sexual in the advert – rubbing her thigh and mouthing big O’s but then Sid and Bernie took Joan and Anthea to see a film about naturists. There was more nudity in that film than this advert.
To that end the Advertising Standards Authority agree as complaints that the ad was offensive were not upheld. The 86 complaints claimed: “they believed it was overtly sexual and irresponsibly sexualised e-cigarette use.”
Freud the psychoanalyst, were he still alive, would explain that the cigarette (electronic or otherwise) acts as both a penile and nipple substitute, leading to one of the reasons it has a relaxing effect on the mind of the user. No surprise that an advertisement treats them as such then.
As a result the advert has been cleared for airing but only after the 9pm watershed because, as we know, all children are in bed by that time.
The thing is, children are being bombarded with adult themes all of the time. The reason it’s OK is that children simply don’t understand the meaning. Wallace & Grommit’s Were-Rabbit contains a scene in which Wallace is wearing a box labelled “May Contain Nuts”. In the film Cars the lemon ones have a party a lemon party. In all probability, many adults would need to use Google in order to ascertain quite how ‘adult’ that hidden joke is. Pixar have a long history of sneaking in adult content to their productions.
Now, some would argue that the advert objectifies women and is offensive for that reason alone. Not the boss of a rival ecigarette company, he refers to this sexualised campaign as having an “attention-seeking nature”. Blu chief executive Jacob Fuller said: “Some of our competitors have made ads which hurt the industry due to their bad taste.”
What is an advertising campaign if it isn’t seeking attention? Isn’t that the sole purpose of advertising? Mr. Fuller wouldn’t be mad because his agency didn’t think of it first, would he?
What do you think? Does this do vaping a disservice or is it just frippery?
The advert is here for reference purposes only. Please only view it in a darkened room, on your own, after the children are asleep.
Fortunately for boys, we spend our formative years doing things of such breath-taking stupidity that we become inured to pain. We climb things in order to fall, we pick up stuff that should remain untouched on the floor and we like to run in corridors without looking where we’re going.
As well as not complaining I’m not one to apportion blame but no one erected a caveat sign on my desk. Having said that, the mod didn’t arrive with an instruction manual informing me of any dangers. Nor did the Kayfun. And I’m not even going to mention the wire provider.
Now, I concede, there is the possibility that warning leaflets may have come with the mod, the atomiser, the wire and the wool. It could be that they went into the bin to keep the flat-pack furniture instructions company. But this hasn’t prevented me from going to Boots demanding compensation.
Some would say I am making too much out of a seared finger/Kanthal incident, some think that you can’t legislate for stupid some phone the police and say “Can you please leave our store.”
I don’t care – this is public health and safety we are talking about. For decades health and safety has been widely recognised as the most important facet of our society. Seeing as I’m a member of the public this makes my suffering important to society, even if the management of Boots don’t seem to agree.
So why aren’t the European Parliament and World Health Organisation doing something about this? OK, the answer in part is that it only happened yesterday and although they might act like omniscient deities I am coming to the rapid conclusion that they aren’t.
I’m not calling for a pity party, although if one is thrown I am formally requesting prawn vol-au-vents; I am demanding action be taken to help people like me, the cast of Geordie Shore and George Bush from doing things we shouldn’t be doing.
I realise that vaping campaigners have a lot on their plate at the moment. I hope it isn’t prawn vol-au-vents; I’m fixating on them now I’ve thought about them. I realise there is legislation to be fought and everything but someone needs to take responsibility for 1,000 °C of suffering and that someone isn’t going to be me.
It’s at times like this I wish I was American, they have laws to assist people like me. I may not have understood it at the time (or since) but the Albuquerque hotel bar staff were only looking after my wellbeing by stopping me from buying more Guinness after the fourth pint. Clearly they understood the hazards of allowing me a fifth far better than I am still able to comprehend.
Maybe ECCA could consider providing an on-call person for every time when someone is setting about a new coil? Maybe phone support or something but, as I say, I’m not making a big deal about it. What saddens me is that it is the children who end up suffering. Because of the reckless nature of companies I am going to be unable to do the washing up or prepare a nourishing balanced evening meal – I’m worried that I will even have to put off taking up ironing even longer.
I will return to my games controller to take my mind from the agony and use a cold medicinal beer to alleviate the suffering. Thoughts of goodwill and offers of support can be forwarded to me via Facebook.
I used to consider myself pretty tech-literate. Admittedly that feeling began to fade when my son started caning me at Xbox but I still clung to the notion that while I retained the ability to code I could wear geek glasses with pride.
Bitcoin existed in my peripheral vision but on-going problems with PayPal (not to mention the dreadful new interface) have led me to believe it is time to explore new options. The recent adoption of bitcoins by major online merchants such as Expedia and Overstock peaked my interest.
Reported sales, in a recent Reuters article, paid for in bitcoin ran to less than 1% but it has lent the medium a greater general acceptance. Indeed, a representative of Expedia sees bitcoin as being a major player in online sales and they want to be on the ground floor.
So, what is bitcoin?
It is an online software-based payment system. Bitcoins are stored in a wallet with a unique identification number and there are companies who can hold the currency for the user. I have Hive now installed on my desktop but a lack of Internet (thank you Plusnet) is preventing me from having a play.
When you wish to buy from a website you click on the bitcoin option, a pop-up window will appear and you can type or copy-paste your wallet ID number.
What are the advantages of this? For the seller it means instant payment and low costs for the transaction – which, if it becomes even more popular, could in turn lead to vendors being able to be more competitive on price.
The drawbacks? There are a few at present: for a start there is none of the protection afforded by payment systems such as Paypal – if the vendor doesn’t ensure delivery or there is something wrong with the product there is no one to cry to. Also, as the payment to the vendor is converted into US dollars, the transaction is susceptible to a high volatility in bitcoin-dollar conversion rates. This volatility is produced bitcoin payment processors such as Bitpay and Coinbase, they sell on bitcoins to the market to offset there potential loss from holding too many if something went wrong.
It is this uncertainty that feeds into the slow uptake of bitcoins by the general public, coupled with payment systems that work and people’s love of credit cards. At the outset there were also concerns over the payment processors themselves but Bitpay and Coinbase both have a lot of venture capital stacked behind them.
Currently there are 63,000 merchants who accept bitcoin with a prediction of that rising to 100,000 by the end of 2014. Sales using bitcoin, from wallets held by BlockChain.info, run to around 75,000 transactions per day and have a value approaching $85,000,000. Those who use bitcoin tend to be tech-savvy, high net-worth individuals.
It is predicted that come the end of 2014 eight million of us will be holding bitcoin accounts. Without having to worry over transaction charges and lower exchange rates, with the wider incorporation of bitcoin cashpoints to come and protection from banks going bust or investing your money in dust maybe it is time to give bitcoin a closer look?
