Artificial Intelligence: What exactly is it and does it contain any E numbers?

Hello hello!  So, after 4 years of my personal blog, and 50,000 followers later, I been asked by quite a few of you (thanks Mum!), to share my thoughts on the wonderful world of Analytics that I’ve been living in for the last 25 years, with a focus on where the industry is going, and explaining in ‘Min Language’ all those techie phases that you might may have heard in that last meeting you had with the data scientist you’ve just hired (as that’s what your competitors did), or you overheard the topic being discussed by the youngsters on the H12 to Harrow on your way home when they weren’t on Snapchat.

Let’s tick them off: AI, EI, Machine Learning, Neural Nets, NLP, NLG, RPA, VR, AR, MFI, that kind of thing. Ok, I made the last one up, but you get the gist. “EI”…didn’t get that one? That’s Emotional Intelligence. More about that later…

I believe we are entering the most exciting times of mankind right now, as we finally are at a stage where the stars have aligned around us having the necessary raw computing power, access to large amounts of storage in the shape of that fluffy cloud and finally access to data.   

I thought I’d kick off a topic that Hollywood and Bollywood has been bringing to our screens since the invention of the silver screen. That topic is ‘Robots: Friend or Foe’. I’m sure you will all have a view as if you are in the Terminator camp (the first one when he was a bit naughty) or iRobot where our silver friendly humanoid was on the side of Will Smith. There is a great debate by leaders such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk (my hero!) and Steven Hawking who say we need to be really careful that the current AI path we are on could lead to the biggest risk, that we face as a civilisation,  where Skynet is a reality and we are ruled by computers. Yes folks, a bigger risk for mankind than the effect on our brains of us all secretly watching that last season of Love Island, though we would never really admit it to our friends.   As homework for this blog, I watched a BBC programme that was on last week called Hyper Evolution: Rise of the Robots.

It was a fascinating watch to see how over the last 100 years the robots have got much more intelligent, having taken over many of the tasks we used to do like making cars, walking up steps, and playing the piano…For me, I was most interested in how through the use of Artificial Intelligence, robots have started to learn all by themselves, by using previous conversations and continuous feedback to improve, whereby they know the difference between a tea cup and an orange. (hint, you can’t dunk your biscuit in the latter).

So what do we actually mean by the phrase Artificial Intelligence, and is that different to Machine Learning and what about Deep Learning? How deep is deep? Well, I’m glad you’ve asked.  

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that aims to create intelligent machines that work and react like humans. For example, the computer has certain traits such as Knowledge, Reasoning, Problem Solving, Perception, Learning and Planning. All the lovely things we do without really thinking about, like that time when the driver of the Met Line tells you the tube is now terminating at Wembley Park as he’s going on strike and you now have to work out how to get to Moorgate!

So a subset of AI is Machine Learning. (It’s not something to use interchangeably, unless you want the geeks at the next Hackathon you attend to roll their eyes at you). In essence, Machine Learning is a technique where the machine is ‘trained’ using large amounts of data and algorithms that gives it the ability to learn how to perform the task. They do this by detecting patterns in existing data, identify similar patterns in future data and then make data driven predictions. Still don’t know what I’m talking about? Let’s try bringing it to life. The next time you are on Google and you misspell a word (very likely these days thanks to reliance on autocorrect), and you type ‘Ficebook’ as it’s lunchtime and so that’s fine as you are covered under Human Rights legislation. The machine learning algorithm, will suggest that you probably meant ‘Facebook’. It even works if you type ‘FB’. Smart huh.

Ready for another example? This time let’s have a look at one of my favourite sites that I love to show to our clients when they come and visit our lab, here at Concentra (www.concentra.co.uk).

https://www.captionbot.ai/  Here, it’s using some more powers within the AI family, specifically computer vision and natural language to describe what’s in a picture. Now for humans, that’s easy peasy, but up until now, really hard for a computer to do. The website uses an image library from all the pictures stored on Bing as it’s frame of reference as well as a super smart emotion algorithm to describe if a human in a picture is laughing because they are still remembering that MFI joke.  The site has some sample photos like the one below, and what’s really impressive is that by using these natural language generation techniques, it stiches a sentence together like a human would by understanding the different objects in the picture to work out what the context could be.  What’s great is that the system is continually getting better by the users giving  a ‘how did I do’ score.  I remember last year,  I tried testing the system with a picture of Donald Trump (before he was President), and at the time it thought it was Louis van Gaal, the Ex Man United football manager. So I gave the machine one star and no dinner and now as you can see below, it’s much more accurate…

Woah, I’ve just realised that I’ve written quite a bit already today on this super topic and as it’s probably time for you to get off the tube now, or go to that meeting, why don’t we leave it there, and we can pick up again next week to continue this topic.

Please let me know if there are any other topics that you would like me to demystify like ‘Are we really living in the matrix’, or ‘Will my kids need to bother how to drive’ or ‘Is your name really Min or is that some kind of geeky statistical inside joke’…that kind of thing.

Right, let’s leave it there, and I wish you a lovely sleep,

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Sunday 2nd July 2017

Well hello hello! Yes, I know it's been ages since my last blog, but I've been meditating...

As many of you know, I had a month off before starting my new job in the City. I had a long list of 'bucket list' activities. Things like finishing Grand Theft Auto 5, waking up when the time is double digits, and do some of the chores that I've been promising Mrs Min for the last 23 years...

The month came and went, and let's say I ticked off a third of the bucket list (yep the middle one), though now on 39% rather than 35% of GTA!

The good news is that my new commute will still be on the Met line! To be honest, when I was looking at which company to take my analytics and comedy powers to, I asked the computer to only select potential employers within a 5 minute walk of Met Line stations. 

The algorithms ran for 2 nights straight, and it used the contents of my previous blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and the "Forbes list of companies to work for before your 49th Birthday", and decided that I should work for a company called Concentra, that had created some awesome software products, had a super smart analytics team and a family feel to the organisation. The algorithm noticed that I always run out of time to finish my blogs, so having the 2 extra stops to Moorgate meant I wouldn't have to finish mid joke. The added benefit also being that my chances of getting a seat on the way back had increased by 14.78%.

So now we are all up to date, let's take a look at:

Advert of the Week:

Wowza, these guys are good. Every Body...everybody, see what they did there. Bet that took months to come up with...

TV show of the Week

I watched that Metropolitan Police programme a couple of days ago (available on iplayer) and learnt a lot about our awesome city.  There was this man who had been arrested because he had stolen a car. The yoof tried to get out of it by saying that he needed it to get to work, to which the policeman said, 'why didn't you take the bus?' to which he replied....'I don't have a driving licence to drive a bus'...boom!  Missed me huh...

Gadgets Review

And onto the main part of the show! So a couple of weeks ago I received an email from the British Gas Hive people saying that they had read the blog and knew that I had hooked up their Hive system with the heating system and lights. They had just invented a new product, and because of my blog and 50,000 followers, wanted me to send me their latest product, the Leak Sensor.  And before you ask, it's not because I'm turning 50 next year, and the bladder isn't what it used to be, but something to alert you when your house is about to turn into a swimming pool. I thought long and hard about if I had the time to do this, noticed it was free (Indian innit), and they should send it immediately!

The box arrived a couple of days later and I watched the video of how to install the sensor which was nice and easy. In essence, you just clip it onto your stop gap tap, and it shows you where that may be in your house. And before you ask, it's not something you have between meals, but rather likely to be in your kitchen.  You then connect it to your wifi, and use the HIVE app to install the device. Simples and another thing that the FBI can now monitor for me from the Pentagon. 

That reminds me, as part of my month off, I spent rather a lot of time watching Netflix and getting some value out of my neighbours £7.49 subscription. (Password was Cricket...who would have thought it!).  Rajvi told me about this series called 'Person of Interest' and I was totally hooked. All about how this man with glasses who had invented a computer program that would predict a crime before it happened, a bit like that Minority Report movie, but with someone taller than Tom Cruise. It tapped into all the electronic sources of data like CCTV, mobile phones, Google and what your aunty at the local community centre was talking about. The catch was that it didn't know if the person it identified was the person doing the crime, or having it done to them. I thought if only they had this leak sensor data, maybe that would have made the difference.... Anyways, there are 5 series, each had around 24 episodes so that's going to keep you out of mischief on the Met line for quite a while. 

The Sensor is super duper and I get alerts like this now:

Min marks out of 10. 8.97656. Get it if you have a HIVE and whilst it's still free, because as you know, there's no point crying over spilt water...

Gadget Review 2: 

As it's been ages since my last blog, I've amassed quite a few gadgets, so let's do one more. Picture the scene, it's night time, everyone is asleep, and you need to go to the loo as you've just turned 43 and well, that's the way it is. The only thing is that you don't really want to turn on the toilet light on as that wakes everyone up as it also makes the extractor fan thing turn on and make a noise for the next 3.5 mins, so what to do? (Did you do that last bit in an Indian accent and wobble your head a bit?  Err racist...)

Well I have just the solution for you my dear blog reader! It's a little device that you just place on your toilet bowl and it has a motion detection sensor. I was going to do a motion detection / bowel joke just now, but some of you may be having your breakfast or dinner whilst reading this, so I won't do the plip plop joke right now...

The device is super awesome, just requires 3 AA batteries, and you can select which is your colour preference, or if you fancy having a disco every time you do a number 2, then it just cycles through all the colours known to man. People who may pass the bathroom as this is happening may wonder if it's something out of 'Encounters of the Third Kind' or something, but I guess that serves you right for having that kebab on the way home...

Delivery was super quick from the boat from China and it's for the grand price of £2.50! Bargain or what!  Min Marks out of 10.  9.876873

Finally, thank you all for your lovely well wishes, and likes on FB and Linkedin and promise not to leave it so long for the next blog!

Have a great sleep and keep smiling!

A small man called Min.

Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Thursday 14th July 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all?

Yes, I know it's been nearly 2 months since my last blogfession, so thought it was time to make sure that those rumours that I've left the country after the vote thing were put straight.

Wowza, what an eventful few weeks we have had people! I've had to charge my Apple Watch every few minutes, due to it buzzing and notifying me that yet another person has resigned!

That Friday when the Brexit vote was announced, everyone on the Met line was deathly quiet and I think it was like 2pm before anyone even spoke in the office. Even Siri said he was unavailable, but that may have been to the wifi issues we sometimes have in the office...

So many questions were running through my head regarding the implications regarding what had the 'great British public' done. Things like, can we still take part in the Euro's, the Eurovision contest and what are the NHS gonna spend that £375m a week on?...

I was obviously gutted about the vote, as was my polish builder. Let's just say that our neighbours thought we were related as he's spent the last 10 years doing something to our house...

The other reason for dropping you a few lines is that after that Tesla autopilot crash, I've never had so many emails from the world and his wife to check I was still alive and to keep my hands on the wheels. It certainly a very sad event, but the chap was known for being over confident with the beta Autopilot version 1 and known to really push it to its limits. I've been using it for ages, and in fact I've been typing this whilst KITT drives me home. (Not really). There were over 130million miles done on autopilot and this is the first fatality, and it's been proven already to be twice as safe than letting the human drive and it's only going to get better and safer.

What else

Reading the Evening Standard and it's telling me that Cameron has moved into his friends £17m Holland Park home. Ah bless. As long as he's ok...

Advert of the week:

Only Gatwick can make Britian's runway plan concrete. Nice! When did they get into the concrete business? Might ask if they can do our driveway...

Gadget time.

So yesterday was Prime day, no not that numbers thing where the number can only divide by itself and 1, but Amazon Prime. It's kind of like Black Friday but not on Friday and not black and just applicable to Amazon. 

I checked out the amazing deals they had and once I managed to get into the app, decided to see what lovely bargains were on offer. (Indian innit...)

The first bit of tech I brought were some Gillette Mach 3 blades. Now these are normally £15 in Superdrug on the old Harrow town centre, but for us prime members, it was a bargain £9.99. Happy days.

Obviously I also had to buy a proper gadget, something with a plug right so I decided to also get a wifi booster. Picture the scene, it was the Euro's and I thought let me take the Sky Q box (see previous blog for a review) into the garage/cinema room so I can watch the lovely matches in HD. 

Unfortunately it didn't work as it couldn't  connect with the router which is 100ft away under the stairs where Harish Potter lives.

So when I saw this amazing deal on prime day for a wifi extender. What caught my eye to this particular one I hear you ask? Well it was £26.99, reduced to £19.99 and because it was prime day, further discounted to £13. That and the fact it was the no. 1 seller previously.

What's not to like, plug included!

The gadget it super awesome, very easy to set up and you can move it around the house and fits in your pocket (don't put it in your back pocket though as it's got a 3pin plug). If you every fancied taking your wifi to the garden, to the attic or just feeing guilty of using the neighbours wifi as they haven't secured it, then get this one. Min marks out of 10. 9.555

Joke of the week. Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary...

Right, off to the garage to watch some TV, so let's leave it there! 

Wishing you a lovely sleep,

A small man called Min.

P. S. Thanks for all your beautiful comments regarding my lovely lab YouTube video. We now have over 32,000 views! Wowza!!

https://youtu.be/IjDeE2Jn5tE

Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Tuesday 11th May 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all? And did you enjoy summer?

I'm pleased to say that the 18:00 Semi fast to Watford has departed on time so that's rather nice. Unlike yesterday when there were big time track failures and I had to lean on someone for about an hour and 12 minutes! When you are my height, let me tell you my fellow passengers, can you wash those armpits before walking down to Farringdon please.

Looking around the tube, there are lots of  people looking busy, even the chap wearing sunglasses and I can see he's actually asleep. One lady is on her blackberry (remember those!) and tip tapping some emails about restaurants in Singapore to her work colleagues. I was going to recommend Saravabhavan to her, but perhaps not...

We also have a gentlemen looking at this

Hurrah! It's a story on Leicester City. My home town. Everyone thought I'd just jumped on the bandwagon, but realised that I may actually come from there as I say 'innit' after each sentence! Well done Leicester, you have put us on the map and we can move on from saying Leicester was famous for Daniel Lambert the fattest man in the world...

Anyways, on with the show.  

App review: Mondo. So a few months ago, someone in the lab told me about this super cool startup that was disrupting the banking industry called Mondo. Not heard of them? Neither had I.  I knew they must be doing something interesting as the Tesla UK CEO mentioned them on Twitter, so I went to their website and discovered it was more a case of 'shall we give you a card as you need to be supercool to have one' than dishing them out like they are some kind of new sweet ready for market testing. I applied and it said thanks a lot, your jokes are kinda of funny so we will put you on the shortlist at position number 37,365. Damn...Then at a recent Tesla Hackathon in the city, I met one of the developers, did the secret handshake and he let me have a card straight away. Yay! 

So what's all the fuss I hear you ask? Well I been testing it for a few weeks now and it is rather marvellous. In essence it's a card you top up from your regular bank account and then magical things start to happen. Being Indian, I thought, yeah I'll stick £10 on it and see how it works out. However, I discovered that the minimum initial top up is £100. Remember that's supposed to be a small amount for cool people and they must presume you have saved that whilst you wait it in line by saving 3p a day or whatever the maths say. (Sorry the analytics lab is shut now for the day)

As the developer chap said as he handed me the card, "I can activate your card right now if you like", I gritted my teeth and tapped in the bank account details. Well I used Mrs Min's bank account. Indian innit...

The card is beautiful looking and I've found just by pulling it out of my wallet leads to 23 people running over to be my friend. Yes it's that cool.

In essence the app that comes with the card notifies you with everything that's going on. For example, you use it at the ATM...it tells you. You use it at Tesco to buy a cheese and pickle sandwich. It tells you. Not only that...it shows you on the map where you used it. Hurrah! No more what is this transaction on the 17th of April with a cryptic name of AnSumrs...

It's kind enough to automatically classify the type of spend as it knows the shop (or merchant in posh language).

And the best bit, and this is super awesome, you can take a pic of what you brought or the receipt if you are billing that sandwich back to the company as you were kinda thinking about work stuff as you were eating it...

And there is more. You can use the app to send or receive money from other card holders and also a very nice feature where you can chit chat online to customer service. How wonderful, so I suggest you start saving those pennies now as at last count that queue is now 110,000.  Min marks out of 10.  9.87333

Quick look to today's Evening Standard and rather shocked to read that apparently someone gets stabbed in London every 53 seconds....Poor guy...

Boom, let's leave it there.

Wishing you a lovely sleep,

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Thursday 14th April 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all?

Yes I know it's a bit late today, and it's 18:19pm but I've been rather busy at work today...

Anyway, it's been a wonderful 24hrs and yesterday I had a lovely guest come and see my "Small man called Min" show at that prestige venue, yep, the Harrow Arts Centre (the one next to the Waitrose).

It's been a few weeks since my last blog, so thought I should scribble down some of the things I've been up to.

So, cast your mind back to 31st of March. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about right? The world's most important launch of a product was taking place. Humanity was counting on it...

I couldn't get to a store as I had some work stuff all day so decided to order on line. The official launch was 8:30pm California time, and they decided online bookings would start an hour earlier.

Picture the scene...its 3:30am. It's dark, it's cold, I can't see cos I had taken my glasses off and the Apple Watch gives me a secret buzz on my wrist to say it's time!  Fumbling around, I pick up my iPhone and my credit card  (as you do) and tiptoed  into the toilet, so as not to wake Mrs Min.

I'm rather glad she didn't wake up, especially after that last misunderstanding of me in the toilet with my phone and card and a lovely woman on the other end of the line...

The registration was open and quickly tapped in all my details and provided the company with one thousand of my British pounds!

Job done, and went back to sleep, till 4:30am...the main event!

Still no idea what I'm talking about right? Well it was the launch of the Tesla Model 3, the mass market version of the Tesla Model S. 

Yes folks, I was one of the 115,000 people around the world who had reserved a car that no one had seen, but just wanted to be part of something special. (Being Indian I had read the small print and seen that the deposit was fully refundable so that was all good. Come on, we Indians don't like to take risks you know, and explains why we don't leave the house once Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi starts at 9pm...)

The car is launched and it's an absolute beauty and rather than the gossip that they will only show pictures of the design, Elon Musk showed the world actual drivable cars! Yippee and shabash!  

The cars have a lot of the features of big brother Model S, but likely to have the next generation of autopilot, has supercharging, minimum 215 mile range, a 15" display shared between driver and passenger and there is talk that the car may have a heads up display! Wowza! Not bad for a £35k car that also looks very cool!

Turns out that quite a few people also thought that and there are now 335,000 pre orders. Even though the car won't enter production till late 2017, and unlikely to come to the UK till 2018 or later. Still as an existing owner, I will get first dibs (or it could be just that they are making the ones with the higher seats first...). Min marks out of 10....10.

Ok, so now the real reason for the delay in bringing you the blog. It's taken me a couple of weeks to deal with a trauma event.

So, I had being doing a comedy tour of Europe and had just finished in Amsterdam, teaching some youngsters how to do comedy, and I was flying back from Amsterdam.

We all get on the plane. It's packed. We all buckle in and 10 minutes later, there is an announcement on the tannoy saying the pilot will be arriving shortly.

15mins go by and eventually the dude turns up but he is accompanied by a dog and wearing dark shades and holding this stick!

Nice one I thought, watching him from the first row (need the extra legroom- worth paying the extra), he's obviously read the blog and trying the comedy...

20 mins later we make it to the runway, and the plane is getting faster and faster, and I think any moment now it will pitch up and take off...errrr nope. Still getting faster and everyone starts looking at each other wondering what's going on.

10 more seconds go by and I can see the edge of the runway. (If this was a scene from that Fast and Furious movie, it would have been fine as that runway lasted about 15 minutes of the movie!)

As panic started to increase some people start to shout and scream! 

3 seconds later, and the plane finally lifts off.

The captains door was a little ajar and I overheard him say...."one of these days, they won't scream and then I'm going to be in trouble"....

Boom! Thought I'd do something a bit longer than my usual one liners.

Sorry it's a bit long today, and it's nearly midnight but we did have a lot to catch up on.

Wishing you a lovely sleep,

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? Min's MinIT update. Saturday 5th March 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all? Yes, I know it's Saturday, and I'm not actually on the Met line as we speak, but I did a blog last night on my way back, but my phone crashed just before I had a chance to post. :-(

But as Spiderman said, "with great gadgets, comes great responsibility", I knew the right thing to do was to have another go at doing it.

I have two topics to talk to you about today my lovely people. 

Gadget 1 - Sky Q

No, this isn't the the new name for the "sponsored by" James Bond tech man, but the next generation Sky box. As you would expect, I spent some time doing extensive research (youtube) to see what it was all about, and because I know how you depend on me to advise all 10,000 of my followers on these things, I took one for the team and decided to upgrade my old box. 

I decided to get the Sky Q Silver version rather than the basic one as if you are going to upgrade, then you might as well do it properly right? This one comes with a 2TB capacity (that's 350 hrs of HD recordings!...and if that still too hard to imagine, well it's about 3 bollywood movies, or a couple of star plus episodes including the 349 hrs of adverts of 'it's claim time yaar'.

And then we have 6, yep 6 tuners, rather than 2 in the old box. That means you can record 4 different programmes and then watch a 5th!, as you do!  You can also watch picture in picture whilst doing this, as no one just watches TV anymore without thinking, surely there must be something better on...

So, now we are recording all those programmes, move onto your tablets, as it lets you watch 2 different programmes on that too. Wowza!  They have this thing called "Fluid Viewing", which means you can pause a programme downstairs, and then continue where you left off on another TV, or device. It also lets sync to your ipad so you can continue watching the programme on the Met line. A bit like we have been doing with Netflix for a while. However, this is nice, as it copies it down, rather than relying on streaming it.

There are some other features that will be launched later in the year, such as 4K, and using your voice to control the remote control. The new interface is so much nicer and very easy to use. 

Check out the remote control. It has a touch pad in the middle which is great to use. It comes with a regular more traditional remote as well, so you can cover that one with plastic my indian friends. 

When the Sky people came on Monday, they said I was the first customer to get it (excluding Sky staff), as that because of my blog fame, Rupert had said something along the lines of 'make sure the small man from Rayners Lane gets it first'.  It came with a new router hub, which is miles better too, and the multibox old sky box upstairs was replaced with a new mini hub, which also works as a hotspot, so you get a better signal upstairs too!

So, I'm sure you are wondering, how much does all this tech cost, do I need to get another part time job in Iceland to cover the extra premiums. Well, that was the nice surprise. As we have lots of the sky package, TV, phone, Unlimited Fibre Internet, 2 sky boxes, those indian channels etc, the additional premium was only £1.50 a month. Neat huh. 

Ok, so you have to pay £150 for the Silver box and installation, but that was always going to be a one off cost, that I will tell my accountant to depreciate over the next 3 years...Min Marks out of 10...9.3562.  

Gadget 2 - Tesla Update

As some of may know, as I've kind of mentioned it every couple of minutes, one of the best things about owning a Tesla is that every couple of months, it learns new powers. As you may recall from a previous blog, it recently learnt kung fu...

Anywhoo, yesterday, we finally received the Summon update. They got it in the US a couple of months ago, but the rest of the world was waiting for regulatory  approval. 

Imagine the scene. You are in St Ann's Car park in Harrow, and there is only one space left that everyone else has left, as it's the one next to the big pillar and the man with the Range Rover (why do Indian people always feel they need to have the biggest cars?) who has also parked over the white line as he can't see that far down, so the parking space is even tighter. 

Well, worry not, now we have Summon!  Simply line up the car and then everything 'get out' (did you do that last bit in the terminator voice) and the car will go and park in the space by itself! You have to use the app to press the button and the sensors will make sure that you don't go crazy and reverse it off the top of the building...It also means that now when I get to my garage, I can just get out, as it opens the garage by itself and pops itself in there by itself. Well done KITT, shaabash and well done. 

Ok, people, let's leave it there! Wishing you a lovely weekend and a lovely sleep!

A small man called Min

Got anything new to report? - Min's MinIT Update. Tuesday 9th February 2016

Well hello hello! How are we all?

Here we are on the 17:52 Uxbridge train and yep it's rammed. Lots of busy people doing busy things. Let's have a look...

Woah, got worried I got on the wrong train for a sec as the chap was reading the Sunday Times on his iPad. He's scanning the property guide and I've learnt that houses in Cornwall are cheaper than in London. Not sure if my zone 5 ticket will work that far out though...

The man opposite is reading some kind of academic paper about scalar products. He's yawning a lot so it's probably as exciting as it sounds...

Tech Product of the week: As many of you know, I'm rather into saving the world at the moment (that was my business case for getting the Tesla), and last week I had some solar panels installed too. I did all the research regarding the tech (as you do), how they work, how long the payback, if the Sun shines in Rayners Lane, that kind of thing. I was umming and arrring about it the last few weeks and then decided to go ahead and get them fitted. 

And what was the killer reason I hear you ask? Was it because it's a good thing for mankind to do as fossil fuels are running out? Was it because the govt had annouced that they were cutting the rate you would get for generating electricity back to the grid?  Nah, I only discovered that it came with an iPhone app!!  

It's rather fantastic, and It's great at telling me all kinds of amazing stats that I'm wowing my fellow met line passengers with each day. Things like how much CO2 gases I've saved, the number of trees saved and how much money I've made thanks to the sun. Yeah ok, so I've only made £1.73 so far, but that's because we have used most of the juice generated in powering all the other gadgets in the house! 

Advert of the week: Here's to flexible working. Wowza, that's so clever...flexible and then some people doing flexible things..Ho Ho my sides....not...

It's a bit dark outside, and I forgot to charge my watch this morning, so just asked this chap standing next to me from Sotherby's what the time is. And he goes 6.18...6.18...6.18...6.19...6.19...

App of the week: MSRQD. Yeah, ok doesn't roll of the tongue but it's a cracking app. They actually showed it  on the One show yesterday. First useful thing I've learnt watching it. Picture the scene, you always fancied yourself to look a bit different to how you actually do. I for example FREQUENTLY get mixed up for Leonardo Di Caprio ( if I had a £1 for everytime someone stopped me to ask how I made it alive on the Titanic)..and with this app I can be him, or a Mexican. The app is really cool (and yes Indians, it's free too) as it augments the face onto a live feed from your camera. You can make videos too, so I may do my next blog as a vlog appearing as a polar bear. Let me know if that would be of interest! Min marks out of 10. 9.8654

TV update: I watched a programme on iplayer about some people who had become celebrities and started to earn millions of pounds by filming their daily lives and showing the world how they went about their day including highlights such as brushing their teeth and going to the shops. There was this chap from Watford who started off just showing himself playing Grand Theft Auto and now he has expanded to being a rapper and doing concerts! Wowza! He earnt £4.5m last year and he doesn't even do one liners...

Ok, time to check the solar app again to see if I've made £2 yet, so let's leave it there!

Have a lovely evening and a great sleep!

A small man called Min.