A few questions were answered. A few questions were made up specifically to be answered. The questions that nagged at us for six seasons however, pretty much remain unanswered. The ending felt like a cop out to me, yes they’re all dead now, what we thought were “Flash Sideways” were actually still Flash Forwards, but showing the Lost crew in their afterlife. The place where they go and meet up, before moving on. Wait, didn’t I see this finale just last week, in Ashes to Ashes? I’m sure I’m not the only one who want’s to know what actually happened on the Island with Hugo as ruler, and Ben as his No.2 and what happened back in Society when the rest of the crew returned home (again).

The mysterious Polar bears were just some Darma experiment. Nothing mystical about that.

The Darma Initiative themselves we spent 3/4 seasons wondering about, were just a pointless group of scientists trying to harness islands power. They had no place in the finale. Neither did “The Others” who were just another group of miss-lead people, trying to protect the island from outsiders.

The Light at heart of island keeps was on of those questions made up at the end of this season, in order for the writers to have something to answer. The light itself keeps the island static.

Attach a wheel to this light and you can travel through time/space.

Apparently if you remove a stone from the light, the island falls apart. It has been suggested that this would cause the end of civilisation - but there was no evidence of this when the stone was removed in the finale.

It had also been suggested Jacob’s Brother (who I refuse to call the Smoke Monster or Man in Black – surely the guy has a bloody name?) was Evil incarnate and released into the world would also cause the end of civilization as he corrupts society. Not sure if that’s actually true, since he was just a boy, like Jacob, who happened to be raised by a loony islander. There was no Good vs Evil battle here, just two misguided sons, doing what they think is right by themselves and/or the island.

Jacob isn’t mysterious, he’s just ignorant. His job is to protect the light from outsiders and to prevent his brother from leaving the island.

Somehow the light turned Jacob’s brother into a smoke monster that can take the form of others, although his body was physically dead. Only Desmond can walk on the light because he has a resistance to electromagnetism. Saying that, Jack somehow survived the light – he didn’t die or become a smoke monster.

Drinking water and incanting a spell makes one invulnerable. Magic!

Questions I’m left with are;

If everyone is dead now (Jacob, Jack, Hugo), who’s protecting the light?

Who was the woman who used to protect the light, where did she come from? How did this all start?

Where was Michael / Walt at the end. They played pretty prominent parts throughout the series, but were nowhere to be found when the rest of the gang met in ‘purgatory’ during the finale.

How could ghosts appear to Huge, especially if they don’t remember that they are dead. Was it Jacob impersonating Hugo’s dead friends, or Jacob’s brother?

[Update]

There’s a great round-up at MSNBC.

I’m so frustrated about this ending. The flash-sideways were a timeless afterlife, therefore they meant nothing. We learnt nothing about the past 5 seasons of the show, none of the mysteries were solved. The only answers we received were to questions made up in season 6 with the specific purpose of being answered.

When it comes down to it, Lost was poorly planned. The writing was both fantastic and absolutely shit, at the same time. While it kept you gripped, with a suspense there was no payload at the end – six years of questions, and absolutely no answers. Disgusting.

The worst thing is, I know I’ll be buying the DVD set, simply because they’ve promised to provide some answers as extra features. But the fact that they’ve had to do this, instead of gradually providing answers over 6 seasons, or even during one epic finale, simply proves the poor writing of this show.

What brands do you love?

Google. Always innovating!
Apple – I love Apple’s products

What brands do you hate?

Apple – Yeah, I have a love/hate thing with them. I really can’t stand their company ethics. The way they restrict everything and practically force you to use their products in the way they dictate.

Microsoft. I know it’s cliché, but I can’t agree with the business tactics they’ve used over the years, and their products do tend to suck. To be fair, I’ve been hating Microsoft long before it was cool – I’m by no means an Apple fanboy.

Motorola – They’ve always made really ugly products, I’m a fan of good design.

3 (Three.co.uk) – Worst mobile network, poor signal coverage, incredibly poor outsourced customer services

Sega, for what they did to Sonic.

What brands CARE about you?

Google. They’re the only company I know that’s truly out there trying to make a differece, at their own cost, without looking for profitability.

Le Web

Paris is an amazing place for a web conference. People from all over the world gathered together in this beautiful city to network and attend some really interesting workshops. There were a lot of top industry people speaking at the event, but none of that compares to the appearance of Her Royal Highness, Queen Rania of Jordan – who’s on Twitter! Queen Rania spoke about changing the world with online media, it was an inspiring speech, which I’m sure is on YouTube somewhere.

hanukkahLDN

So the idea was simple, let’s host a party for the winter holidays and raise some money for charity. We acquire the splendid G Casino in Piccadilly Circus, MoonBingo sponsored the bar, and we gambled, drank and had an amazing night of fun and stories. We raised money through Poker & BlackJack, which went to support JHAfrica.

XmasCrunch

Another fantastic 2pears event. XmasCrunch ended the year with startup pitches, presentations and drinking games. There was the now traditional 3 minute pitch, followed by a very odd one minute pitch. I’m all for short pitches, but I feel the one minute pitch barely gave presenters enough time to say the company name and tagline – stick to the three minutes I say. Speakers and Pitches video content is available on TC.

After all the official business was over, the 2Pears/TC party got under way. We had the TC Air Guitar Competition, Raffle prizes, lots of free booze and the traditional ‘run around with Mike Butcher around on our shoulders’ to congratulate him on another good event/year and say thanks. All the video proof is here. Really, really fun event in a great choice of venue; Gilgamesh (Covent Garden) offers something a bit different. The event ended in the AM, which was followed by a pub crawl around Covent Garden.

Great end to the year. May 2010 bring many more.

We proudly present hanukkahLDN 2009. Join us from 7pm ’till Midnight at G Casino, Piccadilly Circus on Monday 14th December to celebrate the festival of light.

From 7-9 PM we will be hosting a charity Poker Tournament. To enter the tournament you’ll need at least 1,250 chips. The top two finishers with the most chips will win a prize. (There will be re-buys available, through Twitter.)

Concurrently, we will be running Blackjack and Roulette tables using hanukkahLDN chips.

All chips won during the gambling portion will be considered legal tender for partaking in our Auction.

The Charity:

Jewish Hearts for Africa is a New York based charity [501(3)c] that purchases Solar, Water and Clean technologies from cutting-edge Israeli companies and donates them to African villages that do not have any electricity or running water.

Their projects include providing electricity for clinics, which enable the clinics to provide vaccinations and medical care, as they are actually able to refrigerate the medications. JHAfrica also installs solar-powered pumps to drill for clean water located beneath the ground.

hanukkahLDN has decided to raise money to bring electricity to schools and orphanages, so we can truly make this a Festival of Lights for everyone.

We have opened the possibility to sponsor.

Okay so call me a Thatcherite prick if you must, be I honestly think there’s no reasonable time to strike.

Striking is like blackmail. “I’m not coming in to work until you give me what I want. I’ll disrupt your business, and everyone else’s, I don’t give a shit. Until you give me what I want.” It’s a ridiculously selfish attitude.

When the Unions for Transport for London workers and Royal Mail workers decide to strike, they’re not only disrupting TFL/RM, they’re putting the whole Capital, if not the whole Country on hold for their own selfish purposes.

If you want more money – get a better job. It’s just that simple. If you don’t have the qualifications, flipping earn them. If for some reason it’s too late for you to re-qualify (which I understand may be the case), then I’m sorry but that’s your business. Don’t make it mine.

When a Union strikes because of reform, that’s even more frustrating. You’re then not only holding back businesses, but you’re holding back our society. If the Royal Mail has some ideas to improve the service, but this means more robots and less workers, then so be it. Yes there may be some job losses, but there may be a whole load more created in the robot manufacturing warehouses.

You have to remember, this is not your business. I don’t have the right to come into your business and tell you how to run it – so why should you have the right to tell them? If you want to be the decision maker, run your own damn  business.

I’d fire the lot of them. Simples. The Royal Mail have hired 30,000 temp workers to maintain the service whilst the strikes take place. If I were in the top position, I’d fire all the workers on strike and hire the temp workers.

In this recession there are too many people out of work, trying desperately to find a job. Then we have these idiots striking and QQing. If you don’t like the job, give someone else a chance.

Striking hurts the economy. The last RMT strike (TFL workers) cost London businesses £100,000,000. We’re in a flipping recession – think about it!

Striking is a lame tool, that’s over-abused today in the UK (and France for that matter), I think we need to clamp down. For anyone who disagrees with this statement, I end this post with two words: Bob Crow

Get your twitter mosaic here.

We only see this time once per century, per time zone and right now in the UK it’s officially 12:34:56 7/8/9 BST. Totally pointless, but at the same time flipping brilliant! One of those things you can brag to your unimpressed kids about.

Where were you at at 12:34:56 7/8/9 and what were you doing? I was in the office, taking a screenshot to acknowledge the moment.

Ah, how we find the most unimportant things fascinating. I’m sure I could write a whole post about how numbers rule the western world.

Today I got a ltter from TFL appologising again for the idiots that are the RMT, and providing me with a £10 goodwill payment. How nice

I applied for this on the TFL.gov.uk website around the time of the strikes and had totally forgotten about it until today. I do love when big companies are honorable enough to provide goodwill gestures.

Okay so I’m still feeling guilty for missing the European Elections yesterday. Terrible.

Just for reference, here are my Vote Match results. These things aren’t completely accurate of course (we’d need far more questions, plus it’s not uncommon to disagree with your party on certain aspects), they are just a bit of fun. Oh, I’m a Libdem by the way.

Get your own results here.

I’d just like to thank everyone who supported me. Thanks for sponsoring me, your money will make a difference to those in need of it.

A quick shoutout to Toni and Guy in Farringdon for neatening me up a little and sorting me out with a wash&dry (cheers Michael).

Thanks to Desire and ITProPortal for publishing the story, and the rest of the Net Communities office for all the support. Cheers Mark for doing the actual shaving lol.

If you want to view the recording of the event, click here to go to the Red Nose Day page.

You can still sponsor me – donate to Red Nose Day and make a bit of a difference.

Cheers people,

C