Hey, look! More cool stuff I can't afford!

In my general perusals of the internet, I've stumbled across a little gadget that I'm finding myself somewhat taken with.

And, if the pledges it's racking up on Kickstarter are anything to go by, I'm not the only one.

The video on it's Kickstarter site is really comprehensive. Obviously, that bit is designed to convince me it's a good thing, that it's worth backing, and so it will have some element of bias in it. But until the thing has been finished and reviewed, it's all I've got by which to judge it.

Regardless of how the actual gadget turns out, I have fallen in love with the concept at it's core.

The Light Phone, invented by a company called Light, is a credit-card sized gadget that only receives phone calls.

Which sounds a bit useless. But there is a lot more behind it.

It's not a replacement for your smartphone. It's for when you want a break from it.

It works with the phone you already have. You download the app, you leave your phone at home. You don't have to put up with notifications from Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat or whatever else you have installed on your smartphone that will inevitably buzz at just the right time to interrupt an important conversation or ruin the mood.

More importantly, your friends don't. Or colleagues or boss or interviewer or lover. Or whoever else gets irritated when your face is in a screen all the time you spend with them.

Your phone calls get redirected from your phone to your Light Phone, so that if there is something really important happening, you can still be contacted. People can still get through to you in emergencies.

But that's it.

You don't have to deal with the rest of that crap. You don't have to worry about Twitter notifying you that someone else said something that doesn't pertain to you at all, and perhaps not even interest you in the slightest. Which my Twitter has been doing recently. I don't like it.

I do like the Light Phone.

I know I'm broke right now, but I'm contemplating getting one. Even though there are a load of other Kickstarters I want to back that I could get more stuff from for less money. Even though I'm skint enough to buy basically only Morrisons own brand food.

And pretty much everyone I know except my nan (who doesn't have a smartphone, so is still good company) will be getting one for Christmas.

I'm twenty two years old. My generation is the one that suffers most severely from smartphone addication. I think I'm reasonably distanced from my gadgets. I recently went a week without a laptop and craved Blogger more than anything else. I'm happy leaving my phone at home when I go out. But I am close to a lot of people who can't handle doing those things. Who will be sitting in a room full of close friends and stare at their phones.

I want one, even if it just to ward off potentially ending up like that.

And I want other people to have one. I want to not feel like a third wheel when I'm hanging out with one friend. Ever.

I love that this thing is so close to existing. It's cute and it's cool and, if it all goes right, could be saviour of many, many relationships.

Free Money Day!!

How awesome does that sound?? Seriously, free money!! Who wouldn't want to be a part of that? After all, it does sound a hell of a lot like this...

Actually, if you're participating, then you're giving away money, and capitalism teaches us that that's bad, but it's not, really. It might seem silly but, once you think about it, this is actually a very lovely idea designed primarily to get people to take a few moments out of their day to connect with at least one other person. That's quite sweet.

I came across this when Stephen Fry tweeted about it. Isn't he a babe? It seemed intriguing - who wouldn't click on a link entitled "Free Money Day"?

The plan is that, all over the world, on September 15th, people will stop people in the street and offer them two pieces of money (i.e., two coins) and tell them to give one of them to someone else, some other random stranger. It does not have to be a lot of money - two 20p pieces, or something - because the point is not to give away monetary wealth. Instead, this is intended to inspire conversation, which is the point of the exercise, but it also gets people thinking about the nature of giving and sharing as well as attitude towards money.

It is organised by the Post Growth Institute and the point is to get people to think about what money means and to learn to appreciate the non-monetary things that people give, like smiles and conversations and friendship. There is no political or religious undertone and, although there is some agenda in the rethinking of trade and commerce, there is no really outspoken idea.

It is purely a voluntary venture. This means that anyone participating will be giving away their own money, but it also means that no one is pressured into doing anything. A lot of people seem to be willing to participate, judging by the response on Twitter, and the website makes everything perfectly clear to anyone with any queries. It explains that the general idea is to get people to think about the economy and its effectiveness in society.

 The philosophy of the concept and the progress of the event itself can be found at http://www.freemoneyday.org/ as well at on it's FaceBook and YouTube channels. It is quite an interesting social experiment, if nothing else, and I, for one, am interested to see how it goes.

So I was going to rant about 50 Shades...

... but this pretty much sums up everything I would've said.

I mean, mine would've been more sweary, probably, and far longer, but wouldn't have said any more, really. You would've come away with the same impression.

If you are going to do some Googling for better erotica, might I suggest the lovely Leone Ross.