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concrete.comment@uea.ac.uk
Issue 287
22/10/13
Comment
Central heating suggestions Are smartphones creating a new generation of gamblers? meet cold responses
Rosie Foot Comment Writer It’s 2013. An age when heating is no longer a luxury. It’s there. It’s working and we love it. Gone are the caveman days when we had to huddle around the fire after a hard day chasing a woolly mammoth. Today, if we really fancied it, we could stroll around in our underwear in tropical temperatures during a winter storm and not think twice about it. Then of course, there is student living. Now, budgeting is needed, I realise that. But is it right to sacrifice comfort for the sake of saving a few pennies? Perhaps. I’ve recently just moved into student accommodation and within hours of my arrival there was a feeling of uneasiness in the air. Breaking news. No sufficient working boiler. Parents aghast with panic, I turned to my housemate in hope of reassurance and instead I received an unconcerned look: “It’s fine,
I don’t mind a cold shower”. Astounded and certain pneumonia was just around the corner, I quickly came to realise that I had unnecessarily panicked. The truth is, after waving my parents off (content they could return to a steamy waterfall at their balmy abode) I realised how easy it was for me to adapt to a cooler climate. Granted, I know it’s not minus seven outside yet, but there are little things we can all do to stay warmer without the function of central heating. For instance, wearing extra layers and using hot water bottles are simple and easy things we can do to save money and turn off the heating. We shouldn’t need it on all the time. It’s a waste of energy and money. Plus, if you spend the majority of your day at university, then your heating should only be needed in the evening for a couple of hours at the most. Despite the fact we’d all like to have the feel of Hawaii in our student hutches, it’s something we should be realistic about. Post-broken boiler, central heating is taken a lot less for granted in our house. Stuck for weeks without hot water gave us perspective. Use it, but don’t overdo it; it’s not needed. Stripping back to necessities isn’t that bad. We can survive. Suck it up students and put on a jumper. Underneath all that well-groomed bravado, your primitive being awaits for some hardcore student living. You just don’t know it yet.
despite the government line, we are certainly still in) bookies do incredibly well. Take a walk down your average high street and look at the shops. Your restaurants and quality shops
“In times of economic despair, bookies do incredibly well” Thomas Diamond Comment Writer @ThomasALDiamond Love them or loathe them, mobile phones are now an increasingly important part of modern life, with phoning being only one of their many uses. However, are they now causing a new and serious problem? In recent years gambling amongst young adults has been vastly increasing, many becoming problem gamblers. A new study suggests that this is caused by gambling through smartphones. The study argues that the increase is fuelled by the simplicity and ease to which many younger people can now access betting. In short, smartphones cause gambling addictions. The theory is simple but strong. It is also, however, wrong. In times of economic despair (which
may be taking a turn for the worst, but amongst the pound shops and pawnbrokers you will now see many betting shops. It’s hardly surprising that disillusioned people, with what they see as almost no chance in gaining proper employment, turn to betting in the hope of transforming their lives. With young people being one of the biggest losers in terms of government cut backs and unemployment (plus the Tories promise of further persecution through the benefit system) many have turned to gambling. In the digital age, however, young people no longer go to the high street to make their bets, but use their smartphones. This is not to say that smartphones aren’t making the problem worse, but to argue that they are the cause of the problem is a thorough misinterpretation of the times we live in. The cause of the problem is poverty, something far harder to change than technology.
NSA vs the Media:The ongoing battle Dian Atamyanov Comment Writer Ever since Julian Assange first made an appearance on the social-political stage establishing the world-renowned organisation WikiLeaks in the image of a civil liberties superhero, public distrust of government-sanctioned surveillance departments has skyrocketed. Following the Guardian’s reports on US and British intelligence gathering operations, and the subsequent annihilation of mounds of hard drives containing potentially threatening information concerning the NSA and Britain’s very own GCHQ, large media conglomerates are in the uncomfortable position between its obligations to authority and safekeeping the very integrity of journalism – to inform the public and freely express the truth, barring the consequences. It was in June this very year when the Guardian published the first article based on top secret leaked information by Edward Snowden, the former CIA
and NSA tech specialist, yet it seems like the scorching hot topic of foreign and domestic surveillance has been smouldering for years with no one to put it out: neither the civil rights organisations, whose bite is as meagre as its bark, nor the pro-government folks whose arguments simply don’t hold water. However, unlike any other, the report caused an international scandal on an immense scale - it made shocking revelations of the amount of power intelligence organisations hold, uncovered the underlying mistrust between supposed allies, and shed new light on a not so distant history of similar practices. What made this particular situation explode could be traced all the way back to Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, the infamous whistle-blower and former US army soldier, who made her country’s government blow a fuse when hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and war logs were illicitly passed onto WikiLeaks. The same media outlets that exposed the States’ questionable military actions and
foreign policies were now again meddling in their shady affairs. Yet another informant was humiliating them, and the fact that he was smart enough to seek Putin’s loving embrace for shelter did not alleviate the frustration. Quite the opposite, public outcry against intrusion of privacy is increasing in size and intensity. Countries with close ties to the US and the UK are seeking an explanation for this blatant breach of mutual trust and confidence, and those who don’t find the snooping tag team trustworthy have even less incentive to do so now. Private communication corporations have also been unable to evade the bad publicity sledgehammer, which took a full swing at multinational corporations in the likes of Google, Verizon, Microsoft, and others. To make things even spicier, both the NSA and the GCHQ have begun pressuring the news companies involved by holding them liable for their alleged transgressions, even going so far as to detain and
interrogate your average citizen. This was the case for David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald (lead Guardian journalist for the NSA investigations), who relates in his own words: “They said I would be put in jail if I didn’t co-operate.” To some this may seem a legitimate concern for the efficacy of national security agencies, for others, this is crossing the line. The question of whether or not there is a line to be crossed here, and who exactly draws that line, is open to a sorely needed debate.
Photo: wikimedia