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THOUGHTS.
How much is too much.
8th September 2008.
The Large Hadron Collider has been in the news recently because it is due to be given its first run in a couple of days time. As one who has always followed science projects I could not resist reading about it. It has cost a colossal 6.4 billion Euros. A decent chunk of that came from the British tax payers pocket. This lead me to wondering if we would still be worrying about the cost and future availability of oil and gas if that much money had been spent on researching new sources of energy. Then I read that a Dr Chris Parkes of the Glasgow University said that sum still represents good value for money!!
I wonder how much it would have to of cost for him to say it was not good value for money?.
.....
Either ban keeping records on computers, or stop going on about the lack of security!!!
07th September 2008.
Another loss of data reported followed by the usual opposition party criticism. I don't wish to take political sides on this issue, but one should take into account that when the opposition were last in power you could not get memory sticks and drives of anything like the capacity you find common place today, so it wasn't possible to put a massive data base on media or equipment you could put in your briefcase. You hear comments like 'Not enough encryption' etc. but there is no point in collecting the data if it is not going to be used, so if you encrypt it and only give one or two top people access to the data it becomes of little practical use. We are in the computer age, but we are still only at the beginning. There will be some large jumps in the technology in the near future. We can expect to have computers so powerful that they could crack today's encryption systems in a few minutes. It is not just the government you should worry about. Every company is collecting data and using it to their advantage. A good example is the Supermarket. They offer you points worth a penny for every pound you spend if you join their customer card system. This means when you go through the till and hand over your card you tell them what you have bought. Over just a few months they have your spending habits on the computer. They can now using the data collected from thousands of customers tailor their special offers to persuade you to buy more of what they want you to buy. They can increase the price of an item and see who still buys the item despite the increase. So you have more to worry about than the governments security. Every one working in a bank has to have access to their customer records. How do you know that they are all honest people. When the opposition get into power they will have just as many problems because it is not possible to have a useful database that is both secure and useful.
......
Watch out there's a scam about.
06 September 2008.
If you get something like this pop up when you are browsing the internet then what ever you do,
DO NOT CLICK OK,
because if you click OK then you have said yes to installing a bogus Antvirus application on your computer that will be difficult to remove and very annoying. It will give you no peace until you buy their bogus antvirus programme. What actually happens varies. Some just use the cedit/debit card detail you give to buy it to rob your account. Others infect your machine so without you knowing they can use it to feed spam through your computer making the spam contain your IP address.
It will not go away when you click cancel and you cannot close the browser until it goes away.
The Answer.
Close the computer down and then restart it and don't go near that web site again. or if you know how use the task manager to close the browser.
.....
Busy PC's vanished from Whitchurch leaving his customers out in the cold.
4th September 2008.
I am getting people in Whitchurch Shropshire asking me where Busy PC's have gone. The shop recently closed and there is no new address on the door. I understand he has opened a shop in Sandbach. If he gives the people of Sandbach the after sales service I received from him then I feel sorry for them.
I am told his phone number is 01270761221. An internet search on that phone number came up with Old Hall Hotel, Sandbach, Cheshire.
Postscript
I have received a threatening email today from sales@busypcs.co.uk telling me to remove my comments or he would take me to court. He implied I was making money from the people enquiring, but I am not running a business; I help people as a hobby. I rescue old machines and give them to those who cannot afford a new computer. My wife is annoyed that he implied that I was defrauding the Benefits Agency.
......
Chrome, the browser by Google.
3rd September 2008.
Today I noticed a beta of Google's browser was available for download, so I started an old PC I use for trying things out on before allowing it onto my main machine. The first thing I didn't like was the download did not download the programme. It only downloads an installer which downloads it as it installs. I like to download, let the antivirus software inspect it and only when it reports that all is well will I decide to install it. When I install it I don't allow it access to the internet so it cannot download anything while installing. As I was using a test machine which I keep an image of the C drive so I can go back to before I did the test. I went ahead and installed it. When it ran the first thing I noticed was a lack of drop down menu's. I eventually found out how to set the start up web page and set it to this page. It failed to display the background image. This isn't exactly a complicated web site. I stick to classic HTML. Nothing in the settings seemed to allow me to get it to display the background image. When I looked for security and privacy settings I was unconvinced. Google seem to pride them selves on the fact it remembers the most visited sites, so if you are more concerned with your privacy you won't be using Chrome. I had had enough by then and will be restoring the test computer to before the installation. I will stick to firefox. I notice the later versions of Firefox no longer ask when you install whether or not you wish to allow feedback so I am not allowing Firefox to update to version 3.
Oh and the big sin in my book is not to fully uninstall. After uninstalling it I found about 18Mb of files. there was 44 DLL's along with googleupdate.exe etc. in a folder carefully hidden C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\local Settings\Application Data\Google ... Googleupdate.exe tried for an internet connection after I restarted the machine even though I had uninstalled the the application.
I wonder what else it hid on my machine.
.......
The E.U. stands for 'European Union'
1st September 2008.
Maybe they should change it to E.D.U. 'European Dis-Union' 27 countries join together to hold meetings about important issues, disagree, then do nothing. Russia can safely stand their ground knowing that the E.U won't agree to take any action against them.
......
Tesco have gone daft.
29th August 2008.
On the 26th of August I discovered that the cheapest loaf at Tesco rose from 37 to 45 pence, so I bought some elsewhere a few days later that shop increased the price to match, then on bank holiday Monday I found Tesco had dropped the price back down to 37 pence. Today I find they have put it back up to 45 pence again. I think the Tesco management have completely lost the plot.
.........
OK Russia, turn off the oil if you must.
29 August 2008.
I heard a news report that the Russians plan to turn of oil supplies to the west. Well, that was predictable. It will leave us with an even bigger shortage in the short term, but may well do us a favour in the long run. It will point out very clearly that it is not wise to rely on Russia for anything. The world needs to find alternatives to oil, and the harder it is to get supplies the more expensive it will become, which will hasten research into other energy sources. Once we have the new sources in place then the Russian oil won't be as valuable. leaving them with a much less valuable resource.
I also heard that Russia tested a nuclear missile the other day. Yes we get the message. The cold war is back on. Let's get real. It was never really off, was it?
.....
Tic-Tac-Toe.
27th August 2008.
The Western Governments don't like the Russian 'Peace Keepers' in South Ossetia, and say they should withdraw and if a peace keeping force is needed it should be a combined effort. The Russians don't agree. The west feel to let Russia get away with it is a bad idea. I guess they are thinking "Give them an inch and they will take a mile". If the west responds by sending troops into Georgia and there is an incident which leads to a shoot out with the Russian troops, then things could quickly escalate into war. This will be war between nuclear powers, and if either side think they are loosing the war they will in desperation use nuclear weapons. The result full scale Thermo Nuclear War.
There is an eighties movie that both sides should watch, or at least read the review. It basically concludes that like Tic-Tac-Toe nobody will win. In the film the computer concludes ...
The only way to win is not to play.
.....
What price a loaf.
26th August 2008.
I noticed Tesco increased the price of their basic load from 37 to 45 pence on the 20th so bought mine at Lidl. Later Lidl put their similar loaf up to match. Now on Monday I noticed that Tesco has return to the old price of 37 pence. What are they playing at?.
......
24th August 2008.
It's over at last!!!!.
OK, the Olympics is over, so if all the news channels will shut up about it I would be grateful. Oh! If anyone at NASA is reading this. I was wondering if you could arrange another manned moon mission in 2012, and send me. It must coincide with the 2012 Olympics and be on the far side of the moon for the duration of the Olympics so I cannot possibly receive anything about it..
........
Cordless or Green.
The BBC and others have a report about getting rid of spaghetti power cables. This report states the electromagnetic radiation can be used from several feet away, and suggests it could be as much as 90% efficient. What are they thinking? Surely it is better in these days of increasing energy costs to keep the cables and save burning that extra 10%? The tangle of wires could be reduced if each device of any size had an output socket on the back so we could chain devices together. These sockets could have a switch near them to control wether the power from this socket would turn off with the device, or stay on even when the device has been turned off. It would also be a good idea that equipment really did turn of when you pressed the off button on the front panel rather than go into a standby mode wasting energy.
......
Dave.
22 August 2008.
The BBC news channel came up with another non news item to tell us how much better the viewing figures where for one of their commercial channels called Dave since they renamed it from UKTV. Well there were are so many old episodes of Top Gear, and other programmes hosted by Jeremy Clarkson that they should have called it Jeremy. I have nothing against those interested in sport and cars, but they do take it to extremes. I did watch part of an old episode of Red Dwarf the other day, but I tuned away on the second advert break. I mean to say: Who wants to sit through something they have seen repeated on the BBC many time repeated yet again, but this time with added with annoying adverts? If they closed the channel called Dave down, I wouldn't miss it.
.....
The Supermarket Con.
20 August 2008.
The cheapest bread in Tesco was 37 pence. Suddenly they increased the price, not by a couple of pence, but by a massive 8 pence to 45 pence. My reaction was to pop into Lidl as it is near by and purchase my bread for 37 pence. Today I see Lidl have followed Tesco's and have increased theirs to 45 pence. I walked without a purchase.
When it comes down to it there is no such thing as competition. I really don't know why we have the monopoly commission. After all they all follow each other so closely that they may as well be one big company.
The BBC Radio 4 were no help. They were talking about the price of bread on "You and Yours" today. You can tell that the average employee of the BBC doesn't feel the need to buy cheap bread. They compared different loaves, mentioning prices that mostly exceeded a pound a loaf. and only mentioned the 45 pence loaf in passing at the end of the item, not bothering to mention the fact that it had just increased in price from 37 pence.
......
Junk mail from BT.
14 August 2008.
The postman delivered a piece of junk mail from BT today. This piece of junk mail at first glance makes you think it is a notice from the post office saying they can't deliver because you were out. I signed up with the Mailing Preference Service to stop junk mail but it seems BT take no notice of it. I decide to ring the number on the add and pointed out that my wife went running after the postman and had to apologies when she realised it wasn't from the post office. He responded that was the idea. I then went through the offer with him pointing out that my current service was still cheaper and better than they were offering, and asked I be removed from the mailing list. He gave some garbled reason for not been able to do that. Ofcom have removed some restrictions from BT to allow them to compete better in the market, but all they have done is kept prices above that of the competition and used it as an advertising gimmick.
.....
Charlie opens his big mouth again.
13th August 2008.
Because he is a member of the royal family he knows what he says will hit the headlines, and for that reason alone he should shut it. He is going on about GM crops now, and how bad he thinks they are. Charlie, you may be right, but you are probably wrong. As nobody is willing to admit that the world needs to control its population, then the only other answer short of mass starvation may be GM crops. The problem is your title gives you too much influence, so if you are going to be the next King then behave like one and cork up.
The thought of Charlie as King makes me shudder. It sounds like a good reason to change the United Kingdom into the United Republic.
....
Oh! England.
12 August.
What is going on?
I live in England, but it does not appear to be a good idea any longer. My electricity bill came today. It came from Scottish Power and was written in Welsh. I did find a version in English, but that had Welsh on it too.
A web site needing to know what country you are in offers a list of options. You won't find England on the list. We are expected to select UK.
I just read an article about invisibility at The Register's web site. It made me laugh so much that I am including an artists impression of the PM testing the device outside number 10.
.....
Russia is killing people again.
10th August 2008.
Russia are backing the separatist government of South Ossetia. They sent in tanks and troops on Friday. They have killed thousands of ordinary people that were going about their daily lives. Govenments start fights and the people die.
I must admit for a while there I was confused. Why would Russia back a separatist government? I thought. Then I realised. Ossetia are fighting Georgia, and Georgia are pro western. Why Georgia started a military offensive to take back the province, I couldn't say. Ossetia broke away in the early 1990s after a separatist war. If they wish to be separate then let them. Make friends with them. Trade with each other. That way nobody dies. As for the Russians. All they have to do is join in with the the rest of Europe and become part of a peaceful thriving community, but they would rather put up barriers and create conflict. I guess it all comes down to the same conclusion. Mankind is a greed ridden, aggressive species, and will probably wipe himself off the face of the planet fighting himself.
.....
The end of the world in Nigh!
8th of August 2008.
We have until the 10th of September.
You may have heard of the particle accelerator they have just completed. it is a nearly 17-mile-long circular tunnel, located underground on the French-Swiss border. The first try at making it work takes place on the September 10. Some say that it will be able to generate a small black hole. Now black holes are said to have such a powerful gravitational force that they even pull in light, which makes me think that if they generate one it won't take long to suck in the planet earth. This means I may not be able to add further updates to this page after the 10th of September.
Olympics Olympics Olympics Olympics Olympics Olympics.
7th August 2008.
ARGH SHUT UP!!!!!
If anyone wants to borrow a TV while the games are on then they can borrow mine!
It hasn't started yet but you cannot turn on the TV or the radio without someone talking about it. Bush is now stirring it up by giving speeches about human rights in China. Your speeches have always sounded pathetic, and you won't change anything so you can shut up too. The Chinese government is taking down firewalls that block its people from seeing sites such as BBC.co.uk. from China, and reporters are praising them. WAKE UP. As soon as the games are over the firewalls will return, and they will revert to their closed policy.
No Breakfast news from the BBC during the Olympics!!!.
06 August 2008.
I hear
the BBC are dropping the Breakfast TV news and suggest we use the BBC news 24.
That suggest BBC1 is going to have nothing other than the Olympics on until the
whole dreary business is over. BBC news 24 gets you the regional news for the London area wherever you live so I assume they are scrapping the regional news altogether.
I guess no one at the BBC can imagine that some people may not be interested in sport and the the thought of
blanket coverage of little other than the Olympics makes them feel like throwing the TV remote in the dustbin.
.......
Email the PM service suspended!
2nd August 2008.
I just discovered that the 'email the PM' service as been suspended while they work on the web site. I don't believe it. It would take the average Web author less than a day to set one up from scratch and put a redirect to it on the email the PM page, yet it has been off since the 23rd of June.
Gordon Brown
Your a clown.
There going to kick out.
Just you wait and see.
So why not resign.
and save your party.
......
Barry George Free.
1st of August 2008.
I am a bit of a loner in that I don't desire company. I understand that as someone who doesn't drink alcohol is very much in the minority. I don't have a mobile phone as I don't consider putting a radio transmitter to my head to be a good idea, which makes me the odd one out once again. I am also in the minority in that I do not believe in a god or an after life. I have a lot of pictures of Jeri Ryan on my computer, so if she happens to tour the UK and gets killed near my home, the police will arrest me as her killer.
Yes, It does sound stupid doesn't it?, but that is what happened to Barry George. He was then found guilty on flimsy circumstantial evidence and has been in prison for the last 8 years while his sister worked on getting a retrial. Had he not had a sister willing to go to that sort of trouble he would have been there for life.
Someone needs to look at the way the courts work, and try and put some safeguards in place to stop this sort of thing happening.
......
Let them stink.
24 July 2008.
I hear the government is considering forcing all households to have water meters. Why not after all the poor don’t need to wash. We are over populated so lets deny the poor single mum affordable ways to keep her baby clean so the kid will die from an infection.
Yes, I am being sarcastic.
I don't believe it for a minute, but if we are that short of water then ration it, so the poor and the rich get the same amount. Actually there is plenty of water in the UK. What we need is providers that invest in laying pipes instead of relying on the old leaky pipes that have been in service for far too long. Back when I was at school in the 50's I used to read science fiction that marveled at how wonderful the world would be by the twenty first century. How wrong they were. Yes mankind has cures for some more previously fatal illnesses, and has made some marvelous progress in some of the sciences, but the caring post war governments have been replaced by the power hungry, and money grabbing self interest. Mrs. Thatcher started the rot, by privatizing the water supply, and the railways etc. The only real success that came from the mass of privatizing she did was the telephone network which has improved no end, although there are some questionable tricks going on there too, but that is another topic. Just about everything else has got worse. What is today's governments answer? Start expensive to run government departments at the tax payers expense to regulate these once government owned companies. The result is poor service delivered by private companies that reward their directors with fat bonuses, for doing nothing good, and regulators that fine them causing them to increase charges to their customers to recover the money paid in fines.
.....
The BBC's stupid programme protection.
23 July 2008.
If I download a programme from the BBC web site I have to install special software, download updates for the Windows media player, then after all that if I don't get around to watching it fairly quickly it deletes itself. If you have made a backup, it won't play after about 30 days!!
Despite this the BBC tell us their I player is popular.
I cannot understand why it's as popular as claimed. After all, I can set up a VCR or DVD recorder to record a programme from the BBC and forget to watch it for a couple of months it doesn't matter. It plays perfectly.
Even if the protection managed to stop people keeping copies of programmes to play when they wished it would be pointless because there are now hundreds of TV channels, and they only way they can keep all these channels going is to repeat programmes again and again.
Back in the mid 90's I bought video tapes of Star trek. I should have saved my money because the episodes I purchased have been and still are being repeated so often I never play the tapes.
.......
Easy does it.
22 July 2008.
I just heard on the BBC radio news that a Indian restaurant calling itself "Easy Curry" has been threatened with legal action by the company that runs "Easy Jet" amongst other things. It seems no one else can use the word 'EASY' in their company name now. That is terrible. Maybe someone should challenge them with misrepresentation as "Easy Jet" is no easier to fly with, than with other airlines.
.....
1981.
17 July 2008.
I just heard on BBC news 24 that our chances of being a crime victim in the UK have never been lower since records began in 1981.
Are they saying that the police records kept no records before 1981!!!?
I don't believe it.
......
I was given a computer the other day.
10th July 2008.
The case was a wreck, but the motherboard, power supply etc. were in good condition. It wasn't slow either, and had a gig of RAM on board. I found another case and moved it in, found a hard drive for it, then as a test put XP onto it. It worked fine although it needed drivers that I could not find so would not go on line. XP had shown the computer was working, so as I didn't have a licence for XP I installed Ubuntu (Linux) onto it. Linux may be a pain to use, but it didn't need a single driver. It went on line and function perfectly. If someone would automate the application install process on Linux so you could go to the real player site for example, download the player and double click on it to install it then it could get popular. Unfortunately it is a pain in that respect. Downloading the Linux version of Real Player was easy, but installing took some doing. When I finally got it to install and tried to play a stream from the BBC7 web site It wanted to play it with another application, and I could not get it to use Real Player. I guess I will learn how to use it eventually rather than shell out another fortune for Windows.
......
Nothing happened outside the tennis court.
7th July 2008.
Anyone listening or watching the UK news this morning will get the impression that the whole world stopped to watch tennis. Even people that know me well and know I have not the slightest interest in sports seemed to assume I watched the tennis. Well, I didn't, and I don't want to know. The other headline was about the the G8 meeting in Japan in which the news channels pointed out it had just started and then proceeded to tell us what would happen. I guess the world leaders needn't have bothered going. All they need have done was ask the news teams what the conclusions of such a meeting would be.
Lower down the headlines in the UK, Gordon Brown tells the people they are wasting food, by purchasing more than they need and throwing a lot away. I agree with him that we shouldn't waist food, but if that is the best our Prime Minister can come up with, then we are in trouble, because we saw that item in the news when the wastage of food was announced weeks ago.
.......
Another bloody Sunday.
6th July 2008.
If you are an atheist and want to listen to a non musical station on the radio in the UK on a Sunday then you are out of luck. BBC Radio 4 gives you a short news bulletin before going to some church service. If like me you don't want your news dominated by sport then you can forget BBC Radio 5 as an alternative. So far the news channels on the TV have not gone too far down the religion road, but I guess they will get around to it.
Every morning except Sunday I listen to the news on the radio because if your hearing isn't perfect then BBC radio 4 is much better than the BBC TV effort, because they insist on superimposing the speech on a music like drumming sound track that makes the speech you are listening to difficult to hear.
Oh yes, While I am having a goon moan about the BBC...
In the days before the 24 hour news channels on TV I used to think it would be a good idea because they would have time to go into detail when reporting a story, but that has not happened. They seem to have decided that all the news should be repeated every 15 minutes, so I don't watch it for long. If a story takes my interest I have no choice but to go to the internet for the full story because the TV producers think their news channels have to jump from one story to another quickly to keep the interest of the those with a short attention span. Yes, they have fallen into the dumbing down trap.
.........
Tesco over charging. Is it deliberate?
4th of July 2008.
24 hours ago I purchased 2 cartons of orange juice from the Tesco Whitchurch Shropshire. The stack was clearly marked at 58 pence. When I got home I noticed I had been charged 63 pence each for them. Today my wife went in to buy more and they were still over charging. They refunded me double the error, because I had the receipt, but I wonder how much profit they made in the time the till was over charging customers. The fact no one complained shows that most people do not check their receipts. Something should be done about this
practice. One cannot prove it wasn't just an error, but it looks like a good way to
increase the profits to
me. Maybe an inspector should look at their accounts to find out how much extra
they made and fine them 10 times the extra profit they made.
......
4th of July 2008.
Internet speed.
If you want to see your internet speed approach what was sold to you then get up before the world wakes and test it. I wish it were like this during the day and evening when we are using it. I am on what they call an up to 8Mbit/second deal. The distance from the exchange was likely to mean around 6Mbit/sec, but in practice it is more like half a Mbit/sec during the day.
.....
Higher charge for our water?
2nd of July 2008.
It has been reported that the Water Authority have fined the Severn Trent Water Company £35.8 million pounds for deliberately falsifying reports. Surely all that will do is cause Severn Trent to charge its customers more to cover the fine. What are the Water Authority going to do with that £35,800,000?
......
Internet speed con trick.
27th June 2008.
I pay Tiscali for an up to 8Mb connection.
The connection to the exchange show a capability of 6Mb.
I am getting less that half a meg.
What a con.
.......
Water Metering, a good thing? I don't think so.
26th June 2008.
Have you ever heard of Joseph Bazalgette? He was the Victorian who made the greatest single improvement to public health in British history. He developed the sewerage system and piped water supply. The result was the elimination of waste through sewer pipes and supply of clean water to every home which we now take for granted. This innovation cut down the spread of disease and the abundant supply of water meant people could keep themselves clean.
All that has changed with the privatisation of the water companies by Thatcher in the 80's; now in more and more homes the water bill depends on how much they use. That is not a problem when people have money, but with the sudden rise in energy bills, they will be looking for ways to cut expenses.
I can see it coming. They can save money by:
not washing as often
not washing their clothes as often
not flushing the toilet every time.
Soon we will see the return of old killers like cholera and typhoid.
There is no shortage of water. When did anyone see large rivers like the Thames and the Severn run dry?The problem is, they have not updated the water supply system.
.....
Freesat Not so free.
25th June 2008.
I have finally received a reply that makes it clear that the FREESAT receivers will decode some of the channels rather than making them free to air even though they are free to airon the terrestrial FREEVIEW system.This means to use FREESAT you will have to purchase a special receiver rather than use any of the general satellite receivers many of us already own, and as these receivers tend to cost in excess of £100 (much more than suggested on the FREESAT web site) it looks like a way to sell hardware to me.
If you cannot get a signal on FREEVIEW and need to use the satellite, it is probably a better choice to sign up to Sky for the minimum term to get the SKY box, as this will then continue to get the channels including 4 and 5 after you stop subscribing. The Sky box will also get channel 5 which is only promised for the future on FREESAT.
At one time I would have found it hard to believe FREESAT is a BBC project, but the BBC isn't what it was, and would die on it's feet if it wasn't for the licence fee forced on everyone with a TV in the UK.
.......
Tesco Self Service Tills.
23 June 2008.
I just went to Tesco for some potatoes. When I went to pay for them I found my self at a self service till consisting of a touch screen, a surface that looked like a scale and various card and coin slots. It spoke when you did an operation but not loud enough to for me to hear, and it did not put what it said onto the screen. Because this was a new thing there was a young lady there helping, but as she was dealing with more than one till I did not get my club card points for the items. Well Tesco if you make too many of the tills like that then I will shop elsewhere. I looked on the Tesco web site for a feedback email address but there were only postal addresses and telephone numbers. Pathetic!!!
......
Run the programmes backward.
20th June 2008.
Having a gap in my day I turned the TV on and found an episode of the series called "Goodnight sweetheart" had just started on ITV3. When it ended they did that irritating trick of playing another episode of the same thing. This seems to be a common practice in these days of too many channels with very little programme planning, but this time ITV3 came up with a new slant.They showed the episode that lead up to the story in the episode they had just shown.
OK morons. Why not run the actual episodes backwards.
Narnia.mobi.
16th June 2008.
I just heard in the news that an American lawyer representing Disney rang an English family and threatened them with legal action if they did not hand over the domain name they bought for their young son so he could have Narnia in his mobile phones address. Politely asking them would probably have produced a better result. They say they did not buy the name to sell it at a profit, although I don't personally see anything wrong with that. If anyone should be responsible it is the companies selling domain names that include copyrighted words or company names. If it goes to court it will be in a British court, and the American company will hopefully discover that the British court will not be impressed by the bullying tactics shown by this American cartoon company.
David Davis, what a Wally!!
13 June 2008.
This Tory idiot resigned his seat in protest about something his party voted against he says in protest of the 42 day detention plan, in order to force a local election so he can win against a Labour candidate. He has arranged with the LibDems who promised him not to contest the seat. It is clear that he is just trying to get himself into the media. The Labour party have not made many good decisions recently, but this time Gordon foiled him by saying they won't contest his seat either, and just to add to the fun the editor of a popular newspaper has announced he will stand against him. If I was in his constituency I would vote for the newspaper editor. I hope most of the voters vote against him, because this guy is so full of himself. He really needs to be taken down a peg or two.
12th June 2008.
What would you do with the ever increasing amount Nuclear Waste?
The British Government are planning on burying the highly dangerous Nuclear Waste under our feet.I can't say I like that idea, so I asked myself what I would do if it were my decision? My first thought was to launch it into space and send it to burn up in the sun, but what if one of the rockets failed?The waste would fall back to earth.I eventually decided that I would encapsulate the waste into spheres of glass so it could not dissolve into water, and then drop it into the deepest oceans such as the Mariana Trench which is about six and three quarters miles below sea level.
9th of June 2008.
Is your ISP spying on you?
I understand that Virgin (formally NTL) are quite willing to shop you if you download anything that breaks copyright. They are currently the largest UK ISP, but I don't see them staying that way. I used to use them when they were called NTL, but moved for a cost advantage. If I was with them now I would be browsing for another deal and demanding the MAC address needed to move my connection to another company. It seems to me Strange that I can set up some equipment to record a TV show, so I can watch it later without breaking the law, but if I have missed the show and I use file sharing software to download it from others on line then I am breaking the law. I read that the ISP I am with (Tiscali) where going to do the same thing but discovered the BPI were not willing to pay for the work done, and no business man in his right mind deliberately adds to his costs, particularly when it detracts from his customer service. If the ISP I was using was to try it on, then I would Change to another ISP right away. If I still had some time to go before I had been with them for the minimum contract time then I would start downloading files and deleting them as soon as they came in, forcing them into cutting me off thereby breaking the minimum contract time, so I could start up with another ISP.
Richard Branson started the Virgin company, and he has always seemed like a fair chap, until now. I am amazed he is willing to treat his customers this way.I hope your customer base moves away in droves. Do the decent thing Richard. Stop spying on file sharers and concentrate on stopping natsies like child porn on line and you might get into our good books again.
.....
2nd June 2008.
Where is the actual Money.
I was watching the BBC TV news this morning. They told us of Bradford & Bingley problems. Yes, another bank losing share value and asking share holders to buy more shares to rescue it. I was about to turn the TV off when this financial expert made a statement. He said that the banks can no longer borrow money and a reasonable rate, and continued by saying "The banks cannot lend money for mortgages if they cannot borrow it."
"WHAT!!" I said in a loud voice to the TV.
I always thought that banks loan out the money that people put in their accounts. If the mortgages are being financed by taking loans from some other company. It makes me wonder if the money they are borrowing wasn't borrowed from yet another source?
Maybe the money doesn't actually exist!!
.....
29th May 2008.
Wake Up World, It’s Time To Pay Back.
I remember when I was a youngster in the 50’s my father deciding to buy a record
player on credit. He first had to save one third of the cost of the record player as the regulation stated you could not borrow more than two thirds on what was then called Higher Purchase. To borrow money from a bank to make a private purchase was un heard of and the credit card had not popped up it’s head. Then
later as a young adult I tried to buy a house I spotted that looked like a good proposition, but could not quite get the minimum deposit together.
Over the years credit has gradually become easer to get, and up until the last few months a mortgage was easy to get. Now due to the bad banking practice of passing on bad debt disguised as good debt to other banks the housing market and just about every other market has suddenly become difficult. Borrowing costs have gone up. The dollar has gone down making oil price’s rocket. Add to that more countries trying to buy the available oil, at a time when the oil on the planet is getting harder to find.
Add to that: Food prices are climbing too. All of the above is pushing up the cost of living, and the Government is adding to the pressure by adding green taxes to discourage the use of the larger car etc.
What is needed is a new source of energy, but as there is nothing new on the horizon they will build a lot more nuclear power stations. It takes 10 to 20 years to build power stations and almost as long to get planning permission where you wish to build them.
And where are they going to put all that nuclear waste?
....
25th May 2008.
Is there life on Mars? AGAIN!!
I just heard of another mission to Mars announced on the TV news. The purpose to see if there is any evidence of life. Is it not time we stopped searching for life on other planets in our solar system? We should be looking for resources we can use when we send people to colonies the planets.Man cannot rely on earth for resources for ever, and once we have exhausted the recourses on this Earth we will need to move to other planets or die out.
7th May 2008.
FREESAT.
The
BBC and ITV have announced Freesat. A satellite alternative to the terrestrial
freeview. I have a satellite receiver I purchased
sometime ago from Lidl to get the free channels from the Sky satellite without
having to buy an expensive box from Sky. I discovered that while the BBC and ITV
channels are free to view. Channels 4 and 5 and their associated cannels are
still showing as encrypted after the launch of Freesat.
Do we assume from this that the new Freesat boxes decrypt these channels or is
it that they have not switch to free yet?
I hope it is the latter and they are not making people buy new receivers using
Bskyb's excuse that it stops people on the other countries getting programming
only for the UK because it would not be difficult to export a Freesat box.
Or is it a way of selling more equipment?
.....
6th May 2008.
I decided to buy some new hard drives for my PC.
I rang Misco (The company I had decided to buy from). Just before giving the information required to take the money from my account, I asked when they will be delivered, she replied "We will text you to let you know when to expect delivery"When I told her I don't have a mobile phone, and asked if they could email me instead. She said she couldn't do that, so I said does that mean I have to wait in for 3 days, she said "No, we will text you when it is to be delivered." I responded "Listen!!" and repeated "I do not have a mobile phone so you can't text me. Can you let me know when it is to be delivered now, or by email or do I have to wait in for Three days?"
Guess what the stupid girl said.
She never did?
Oh yes she did...
She said.
"We will text you when
it is to be delivered."
I said "Forget
it" and put the phone down.
.... 4th
May 2008. AVG. Those
of us that use AVG antivirus have probably noticed that they are recommending an
update to their version 8, so I did this and they have added some very clever
features, such as checking the search results in your browser to see if they
appear safe or not.There is a snag to these enhancements.It seems
to slow down the operation of some applications on my computer. So much so that
I wished I had not updated, but going back to the old version isn't an option
because they will no doubt stop the old version working. Sadly I decided to
change to another Antivirus application. Maybe if I had the latest super fast
computer I would have been fine with AVG which has kept the nasties out of my
machine for a few years now. ..... 3rd
May 2008. A protest too far.
I can well understand the
people of England voting against the government at the local elections in
protest at the incompetent Prime Minister. There are few in the country that
wouldn't like to see Brown go, but the Londoners went a step too far, by
electing a clown as mayor for the next 4 years. Boris Johnson has never run
anything of any size in his life. Despite this Londoners have given him control
of the city. Tiscali (an update) It seems I finally managed
after being wrongly cut off to shout loud enough to be heard at Tiscali accounts
department. They reconnected me the same day. I thank my friend Sue in Wem who
contacted them on my behalf. What ever you said Sue. It worked. The accounts
page for Tiscali customers is rarely updated, so that still shows me in debt. It
states at the bottom of the page that it will be updated on the 6th of May. If
they get it right I for one will be pleased. After 4 months of trying to get
them to get something right, I am not getting my hopes up. The apoligy phone
call I was told to expect never arrived. It was a good job I didn't hold my
breath. .... 30th
April 2008. TISCALI
CUT ME OFF AFTER TAKING A PAYMENT!! I got
up this morning to find that I have no internet connection. On trying to ring
Tiscali I find I cannot make calls either. I
could not get them to take a payment from me so after many attempts to pay I
wrote to them and posted a copy to Ofcom. I then got a call from a Tiscali
employee who gave her name as Kathy Fullwood. I explained what had been
happening and she assured me I would not be cut off. She rang about a week later
o tell me all was well. Then about another week later she rang again asked me if
she could take the outstanding £70.80 from my card. I said of course. That is
what I have been trying to get Tiscali to do.She took the money and it
has shown up on the credit card statement, but it seems they still did not
connect that payment with my account and they have still cut me off. OK
Tiscali I have had quite enough thank you. I have arranged that my phone line is
to be transferred back to BT. The BT chap said it will happen on the 16th of
May. That will get my phone working again. I will in the mean time contact Ofcom
and tell them what has happened and get them to force Tiscali to give me the
required MAC address so I can book with a different Internet provider. The
above could take a while so I have no internet for some time to come. So
what ever you do when you see the TISCALI adverts offering cheap internet. It is
cheap, but it is also useless!!!! I am
now going to take my laptop to a friends so I can send this to my website. It is
now 16:00 local time at after much complaining it is back on line. According to
the accounts guy I will be receiving a phone call to apologies. I won't hold my
breath though, and I don't feel inclined to cancel the transfer of the phone
back to BT. Having all my eggs in one basket isn't such a good idea. ..... 26th
April 2008 Amy
Wine O The
headlines are full of reports that the singer Amy Winehouse, was arrested on
suspicion of assault after reports that she scuffled with two men during a wild
night out. I
understand she is already worth £10,000,000, but what does she do with her
life. She goes out drinking to the point where she loses all self control, then
'according to reports' attacks people around her. Imagine the fine life style
she could have with the money and fame she has. Most people won't earn anything
like that sort of money in their life time. What
a stupid young woman she is. ..... 25th
April 2008 It's
a mad mad world. It
was reported that many
major retailers and two tobacco manufacturers are facing an investigation over
allegations of unlawful cigarette pricing practices, meaning that smokers may
have been charged more for their cancer sticks. If it
had been a necessary product
such as food I would be in favour of stopping the price fixing, but tobacco!!
Inflating the price may have reduced the amount some people smoked which has to
be a good thing. ..... 22st
April 2008. I
just heard on the BBC news that a man now has a criminal record for over filling
his wheelie bin!!!!. Another example of how councils are encouraging fly
tipping. He could have a avoided the fine by dumping his rubbish elsewhere, and
news items like that will encourage people to do it. 21st
April 2008. An
unexpected phone call. On
the 19th
March I typed in an Item called Dizzy heights. Where I told of the TV aerial erectors
who didn't like heights. In this Item I mentioned the name of the shop where I
booked the erection of the aerial. Today I received a phone call from the
company in question saying that my entry would take there business away, and
letting me know they no longer use that aerial erector. As the caller seemed so
concerned I have removed the name of the shop from the item.I didn't
realise this page was so widely read by the locals. I never check the number of
hits my web site gets. It has never interested me. It just goes to show. You
never know who is reading your blog. By the way. A window cleaner finally put my
new TV antenna up for me,and the height didn't bother him at all despite
the fact he was doing something very different at the top of his ladder to
cleaning windows. ..... 20th
April 2008. Future
Budgets Darling. In
the mean time the low paid can starve. Why should he care? He has plenty of
money! It
isn't as Darling said, complicated to reverse a decision, but they are more
concerned with being seen to do a U turn than they are for the people. This is
the clearest declaration of the death to the Labour party. It has been replaced
by a greedy bunch of self interest politicians. I doubt the old Labour
supporters will be fooled, and the next general election will see the return of the Tories
into power. The only thing that worries me about that is, they may bring back
that disgusting occupation of the rich called fox hunting. 17th
April 2008. Fly
tipping. It
has been mentioned in the news recently that there has been a large increase in
the amount of rubbish being dumped at the road side and in the country side, and
to be honest I am not in the least surprised.The local authorities put
more restriction on what the refuse collection service will collect every year. Here
in North Shropshire for example. We have been supplied with a grey bin for non
recyclable rubbish for land fill. They also supply a green bin, and 2 black
boxes for recycling. According to a leaflet left with the bins, we are to use
the bins as follows. In
the green bin we are to put all food waste, garden waste, cardboard, and
shredded paper in the green bin. Excluding
plastic (including biodegradable), Tetra paks, juice cartons, soil, stones,
foil, wallpaper. In
the black boxes we are to put Newspapers, magazines including glossy paper, catalogues,
junk mail, and envelopes (tear out windows), cans tins and clean foil (washed
and rinsed), mixed glass, bottles and jars. Excluding
broken glass, pyrex, drinking glasses, window glass, cardboard, plastic,
photographs, and yellow pages. In
the grey or black bin we are to put non recyclable rubbish. Excluding
recyclables, garden waste, DIY items (paint and oil), Hazardous waste (baits,
poisons and garden sprays). The
first thing I notice is that I cannot put a can of paint and a few other items
in any of the waste receptacles, so what am I suppose to do with them?Keep them for eternity?Most people have to go out each day to earn their
living, along with many other duties, and haven't the time to spend separating
the waste. In
our house we have a Rayburn (solid fuel heating) which produces ash. When they
first introduced the black bin we were told we could put the ash into it. then
after a year or so they said to us they will only take the ash if it is put into
plastic bags. I took this to the ombudsman as buying plastic bags to put ash
into to go straight to land fill seemed stupid, but they ruled against me. No
wonder people give up and load items into the car and when driving through a
quite spot, dump it on the side of the road. The
only way to stop fly tipping is to guarantee to take anything away, but they are
too stupid to realise that. ..... 14th
April 2008. My
laptop wouldn't boot up today, and when I tried the rescue function on the XP
disc it said there was no hard drive, so I used an old DOS boot and installed
DOS without any problem. the fact I could install DOS on the hard drive
suggested it wasn't a hard drive fault, but something was wrong so having bought
the machine less than a year ago I dropped into the shop where I bought
it. He wouldn't even look at it!!! So if
you live in Whitchurch Shropshire and you want the sort of after-sales service
for your computer I got, go to the shop called Busy PC's on Green End. 12th
April 2008. Des
Brown. What an irritating prat. I
just heard the interview of Des Brown on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday the 12th of
April which concluded just before 8:30am. It made me wonder why we let people
like that into any positions of power. The only thing he seemed to be an expert
in is AVOIDING ANSWERING THE QUESTION, and waffling on in an attempt to stop the
interviewer asking anything more. When the interviewer did force a in question
he was accused by Des Brown of talking across him, then continued to talk and
talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and
talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and
talk and talk in a monotonous monotone voice Saying nothing. I did
not catch the name of the interviewer, but I am amazed at that mans patience. A
lesser man would have told him to F*** off out of the studio and never return. 10th
April 2008. The
PM lets us down yet again. I
read on line that Gordon Brown would boycott the Olympic games, and I actually
thought well of the man for a few ours, but this morning the BBC reported he has
corrected this impression saying he never planned to attend the opening
ceremony, but will be attending the closing event, so once again our PM lets the
majority of the British people down. How
did useless moron ever become the Prime Minister of the UK? Food prices in the
shops are rising at an alarming rate, So does he try to help the poorer people
in his own country? Quite the reverse. He increases the tax on the poor, and
then announces he is giving £300,000,000 of tax payers money to spend on
mosquito nets in Africa on an American TV show! Hey
Brown. The houses of parliament is not a reality show to make you famous!!!!! 7th
April 2008. Vive
le Tibet libre! Je
voudrais féliciter nos amis d'Outre-Manche pour leurs succès, ayant éteint
quatre fois la flamme olympique. Bravo! 2nd
April 2008. Social
sites to be told to include the police emergency number for children. Unfortunately
in the UK it is 999 or 112. In the USA it is 911, and the internet is global. I
don't know how many other emergency numbers there are in other countries around
the world, but surely the telephone companies could easily redirect foreign
emergency numbers. I don't intent to try it to find out but surely British
telecom redirect 911 to 999. If not, then maybe they should. ...... According
to news
bulletins Virgin are now denying having made any agreement with BPI
regarding file sharing, while Sky, and the loathsome Tiscali are rumored to have
implemented the 3 strikes and you out agreement already. It is enough to put you
off the internet altogether. I am
coming to the conclusion that if I am to be spied upon by my ISP, and be afraid
to download anything in case it turns out to be breaking someone's copyright,
that the internet may not be for me much longer. I am finding that I am only
using it to check the TV listings, and news bulletins, send/receive a few emails
(which is mostly Spam), and Upload this page.I chat on Skype, but a good
telephone deal with free calls could replace my Skype calls. I have not even
seen much worth downloading recently. 31st
March 2008. I can
see Virgin Media loosing a lot of customers. The
Daily Telegraph (A UK paper) is today reporting the Branson-owned group has
declared its intention to work with music trade body the BPI to crack down on
illegal music downloads taking place on its network. I gather they are going to
implement the '3 strikes and you are out' policy against illegal downloading
such as P2P file sharing. There is quite a lot of legal file P2P sharing out
there too, so I hope they check what is being downloaded before jumping on any
valued customer who is daft enough to stay with Virgin after such an
announcement. I am with Tiscali who don't seem to be able to manage to draw the
monthly payments from my credit card, so I don't advise them to try implementing
such a policy because they are bound to get it wrong. When Tiscali finally cut
me off for none payment despite my efforts to get them to take the money, I will
be looking for a capable ISP, but won't be considering Virgin. After all
torrents etc. are used to make available files that are OK to download, so how
is one to know if it is OK to download a file? What are you suppose to do? Email
the site first and ask if they have permission for their site visitors to
download the particular file, and only download it if they reply with some sort
of proof that it is OK? ..... 29th
March 2008. Oregon health care lottery. ...... Tory
clown to run for mayor of London. I
have seen it reported that Tory leader David Cameron will be throwing the full
weight of the Conservative leadership behind Boris Johnson's campaign to become
London mayor. It amazes me that anyone voted this male version of a blond bimbo
into a political seat at all. If the voters of London vote him into power then
the population of London may as well put on red noses and get ready to laugh
their way into total chaos. 28th
March 2008. Tiscali
are threatening to cut me off because they will not take the payment. My
ISP is Tiscali They have my payment details which I have double checked using
there accounts system on their web site. They did not take any money. Instead
they sent me a reminder by post. I rang them and emailed them pointing out the
above with little response. I have now received another letter by post. It is a
notice of suspension.I have tried
my best to get them to take the payments, but instead it looks like they are
going to cut me off. So if you are considering starting an account with Tiscali.
Think again. To my
friends: If
you cannot get me on line then you know they have gone ahead and cut me off. 27th
March 2008. Flattery
will get you everywhere. The
new French president comes over on a state visit with pretty wife on his arm and
tells us how grateful France is for saving them during the last 2 world wars,
and how France will never forget, and our PM falls over himself to hail a new
relationship with France. I am sorry to be suspicious, but when someone starts
praising me to my face my first thought is: "What
does he want?" 25th
March 2008. The
N.U.T. really are nuts!! I
heard in the news that the National Union of Teachers said that all faiths
should be taught in British state schools. What are they thinking? On
the contrary. No religious crap should be taught to children. Schools
should stick to teaching skills and facts to children, and put a stop to
teaching religious rubbish. The teaching of any religious belief or superstition
should be banned. The majority of people seem to have a belief in a god of some
sort despite the lack of evidence. I guess they just take up the religion their
parents have instead of thinking it out for themselves. I used to have to go
into assembly each morning when I was at school and pretend to pray to a god or
face being punished. I used to rebel by deliberately changing the words when we
all had to recite the lords prayer. Our father who farts in Devon, Harold be thy
name. etc. Childish? Yes, but I was a child. I see now that I was one of the few
that bothered to think for himself and could see what rubbish it was. 24th
March 2008. 4000
solder dead in Iraq in 5 years. It
all started with George Bush and his non existents weapons of mass destruction.
4000 dead and a hell of a lot more crippled for life.How many more lives
is that moron going to get killed rather than to admit he got it wrong and pull
them out? 23rd
March 2008 New
embryo research. The
roman catholic members of parliament are campaigning for the whip to be dropped
and a free vote be allowed on the bill about New embryo research.While I
disapprove of any member being forced into following the party line, and think a
free vote should always be the case in the house, I don't think medical research
should be blocked for religious reasons. The
idea of such a reason for blocking research infuriates me so much that I have
decided I will only vote for Atheists candidates in future. ..... 19th
March 2008 Dizzy
heights. 16th
March 2008 The
British Solution to Save Petrol/Diesel ..... 14th
March 2008. Global
Warming. While
the population of the world increases at the present rate there is no way
Renewable's, long life bulbs etc. and cutting down on plastic bags are going to
save the planet. Start
a campaign to to reduce the world population. ---- 12th
March 2008. Budget. As
expected the budget increased the price of tobacco and alcohol. While this will
annoy many people, at least they are taxing something you don't need to live. I
don't smoke or drink so it won't affect me personally. The expected fuel
increase of 2 pence per liter has been postponed for 6 months, and for we over
60's get an extra £50 towards our fuel bills. Most of the budget seemed to be
stating what they would be doing many years ahead. Not worth saying any more
about it. .... 10th
March 2008. MONEY. Have
you noticed that most of the adverts these days are for insurance or loans.
There are a few adverts for products, but not many. The money spent paying for
all these adverts must put up the cost of the insurance/loans they are selling. Another
thing. 'Cash back' They
tell you how much you have to pay and then add you will then get so many pounds
cash back.I first met with this idea when on holiday in Canada. It is
evidently common practice in Canada and the United States. This idea seems to be
creeping into the UK. When I have the cash back told to me, I just respond with
'Why not just reduce the cost by that amount now?' They usually say no in a long
winded way, so I respond with "No thanks. I prefer people who deal
straight." and shop elsewhere. The
one thing everyone will have noticed is the rise in the cost of living. Fuel for
your car or fuel for heating the house has risen by an enormous amount. The only
thing that hasn't risen are wages. 5th
March 2008. Conned
by the government again. I see
the vote in the houses of parliament voted against giving us the chance to vote
on the EU treaty. We were promised a referendum on the constitution, so they
rename it treaty to avoid giving us a vote. It makes one feel like voting for
one of the radical minority parties at the next general election. Old Labour no
longer exists. New Labour is like old Tory. New Tory said they would re
introduce fox hunting if they get into power, so I will never vote for
them.The Lib-dems abstained so no one really knows what they stand for. 27th
February 2008 I see
the EU have fined Microsoft another large chunk of money. It won't
bother Microsoft of course. They just add it to the purchase price. It already
costs someone in the UK twice what it costs someone in the US. Increasing the
cost doesn't get people moving to other operating systems because despite what
is said most find it very difficult to do anything like as much on their PC
using Linux, because Linux is an operating system that works fine for the guys
that write applications for it, but it is different, and unfortunately any help
you might find is written for the guys who write code, and is so much
gobbledygook for the average computer user, so they pay up the extra money for
Windows. The high price probably encourages pirating which is not good for any
industry. I
suppose the EU could spend the fines employing someone to write easy to
understand user help files for Linux, and offer incentives to computer suppliers
that supply computers preinstalled with Linux rather than Microsoft installed. ...... .... 25th
February 2008 Are you
comfortable working with China? That
seems to be the topic when talking about the Olympic games. They say they are
concerned about China's record on human rights. No country seems to be concerned
about human rights when it comes to buying electronics from China. There cannot
be many desktop computers in the world that don't have a large amount of Chinese
hardware inside them, purchased from China because they can supply cheaper due
to the very low rates paid to their workers. If there is a profit to be had then
no one mentions working conditions or human rights. ..... 20th
February 2008 Google
is sorry I keep
getting the following text back when trying to search on Google. ... but your query
looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware
application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the
meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you
might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your
systems are free of viruses and other spurious software. If you're continually
receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your
Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please
consult your browser's online support center. We apologize for the
inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google. I have
set up a yahoo search on this site. If after a week I still get problems on
Google I will replace all the Google searches with other search engines. Pity as
Google use to be very good. 20th
February 2008 There is
some talk in political circles about making the vote compulsory. I know
it is like that in some other countries, but part of our basic freedom in the UK
is the freedom to decide if you want to vote.Even though I live in an
area that is a safe seat for one party meaning that a floating voter like me
makes no difference because we don't have proportional representation, I usually
do vote. If they
make it compulsory however I will never actually vote again, except to vote for
a party that promises it's first action will be to repeal compulsory voting. If
non of the parties make such a promise then I have a choice. I could avoid
trouble by going into the polling booth writing "I refuse to be forced to
vote" on the ballot paper, or I could become an activist and refuse to
vote. When they fine me I could refuse to pay the fine, then when they send
bailiffs, I could use violence to defend my property and end up in prison. Not
wishing to spend time in prison I would probably go for the first option, and
look around for a truly democratic country to emigrate to. What
with the planned introduction of ID cards, and the attempt to convert the UK
into a "Multicultural society", I feel like leaving the country
anyway. Of course, Not being filthy rich, finding a country that has real
democracy that would accept me would be another problem. Anyone
got a space ship for sale? ..... 18th
February 2008. We have
to pay a license fee to the BBC only to be treated like dirt. I Filled
in a contact form on the BBC web site and received an auto reply and later
another reply. I replied their reply and got an auto reply telling me to use the
on line form.I get the impression the BBC are trying to irritate the
public. I am not going to go onto their web site and search for that contact
page again and type another reply. INSTEAD I WILL STOP WATCHING THE BBC NEWS and
get my news from other channels. They seem to be employing a load of morons
these days. It is
time they had to compete in the real world rather than be supported by a license
fee that we have to pay even if we never use their rubbish
'service'. ..... 4th
February 2008. I don’t
drink. 3rd
February 2008. Just
build loads of nuclear power stations and to hell with the human race. 17th of
January 2008 Why? If I get
together with other companies offering the same service and agree to price fix
rather than be in competition with each other then by all means stop me, but
what I charge for my service or product should be entirely up to me. ..... 4th
January 2008. My
question is "Why are they looking for alien intelligent life?" I
am still looking for intelligent life on Earth. I don't think we can consider a
race of beings that use any excuse to murder each other as intelligent which is
what the human race seems to do. New
years day 2008 New
years eve. My new
year’s resolution is a negative one. ...... 27
December 2007 Two
Western officials have flown out of Kabul after the Afghan government expelled
them for holding meetings with Taliban leaders. Maybe
they wouldn't be so keen to kick a British political advisor out if we
retaliated by taking the thousands of our troops out. The very troops that are
protecting that government from the Taliban.I really don't know why we
put our solders at risk in these countries in the first place. None interference
would be my choice. Groups like the Taliban were formed to retaliate against the
west because they see us as a threat to their way of life. Yes, their ways do
seem strange to us. Their religious based governments says things like
"Women are not be allowed to show themselves in public" etc. seems
wrong to us, but it is their way in their countries. Ifwe stayed home and
used our military to make sure they never came into our countries with their
ways then things like 9/11 would not happen. Why our
young men volunteer to join the forces baffles me. I can understand joining up
to defend our homeland, but joining up to get killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq
or Afghanistan, makes no sense to me. 16
December 2007 I
happened to catch Click on BBC news 24 today.
The
whole show was devoted to comparing a satnav with a taxi driver. They even
left out Kate Russell. Oh for the old click on line. I used to watch it
religiously back then, but this Spencer Kelly guy has ruined it.
BORING!!!!
25
November 2007 A leap
of faith A BBC
news item this morning spoke of why Tony Blair kept his Christian believes out
of the public eye, saying it would make him look like some sort of religious
nut. I agree it would, but then this person they were interviewing about it said
"We all believe in something and to be an atheist required a massive leap
of faith." what a load of RUBBISH All it
requires is the application of logical thought. Lets face it, "Having
faith" is to believe in something despite the evidence against it. ..... The
poppy I have
heard the question on the TV "Should Muslims wear the poppy?" several
times recently. The
poppy is sold to collect funds to help ex forces personnel. If
governments send people into wars then they should look after them. Charity
should not be needed. When a young person joins up, he/she does so to defend
there own country. The government should not be sending them to get crippled or
killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. If the Prime Minister responsible for sending
troops out had to serve with them on the front line without special treatment
for at least 12 months, he may not be so keen to send them. It isn't as if it
does any good. There have been far more people killed in Iraq each year since
troops were sent in than there was before, and what is it all for. They say it
is to establish democracy. I don't imagine most of those who were killed or
injured would have said "I am willing to fight and die so others can
vote" if asked. <
Some one should interview him off air while letting him think he is live on air
just to see how long it would take that moron to stop talking, then announce on
air that they did this and how long he kept talking.
....
I would like to congratulate our French friends for their successes, having put
out the Olympic flame four times. Well done!.
The USA is considered to be a richer country that the United kingdom, yet the
people of Oregon are having to take part in a lottery to try to win some health
care. It seems health care is only for the better off if you live in the USA.
The American government should hang its head in shame. Here in the UK we have
had health care for all since 1949, and while it isn't perfect, I am very
pleased I am a UK citizen rather than an American.
I have no head for heights so if anything needs doing on the roof, I call in the
experts. There are 3 TV sets in this house, but only one of them had a suitable
broadband antenna connected to it. The other sets still had the old antenna's
which will not pull in all the new digital stations. I was recently given by a
friend a high gain antenna suitable for freeview antenna, and was planning on
finding someone who could replace one of the old antenna's with it. No rush I
thought until the one antenna that is suitable for freeview went wrong, so I
arranged with A local TV dealer to have their erectors come along
and remove all three antennas and put up my new one and using a distribution box
feed all the TV's from the one antenna. An appointment was made about a week
from my enquiry they arrived as arranged. Our house is a 2 story house but is
probably as tall as a modern 3 story house might be. They told me they could not
do it due to health and safety rules, saying there is not room for the ladder at
the side of the house, so I said OK, then just do the one on the main chimney.
He then said "That isn't easy to do either.". "If it was easy I
would not have booked you to do it." I replied.They left without
doing anything. How Pathetic can a company get. They should advertise that they
only do bungalows.
I am now looking for an aerial erector that isn't afraid of heights with the
skill to do the job.
.....
Brown wants us to cut the amount of Petrol/Diesel we use.
The best way to stop using so much Petrol/Diesel is to deport 3 million illegal
immigrants! That would be 3 million less people using our Petrol/Diesel. The
price of Petrol/Diesel would come down. Bring our troops home from Iraq to guard
the Channel. When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the Channel, hand him
a canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq. Tell him if he wants to
come to Britain then he must serve a tour in the military. Give him a soldier's
pay while he's there and tax him on it. After his tour, he will be allowed to
become a citizen since he defended this country. He will also be registered to
be taxed and be a legal resident. This option will probably deter illegal
immigration and provide a solution for the troops in Iraq and the aliens trying
to make a better life for themselves. If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq
anyway, without the canteen, rifle or ammo. Problem solved.
The only chance for the human race is to stop encouraging people to have kids
with things like
giving family allowance. Stop the government encouraging people to have children
so they can tax
them to pay the pensions to the old.
The world cannot support the current population so if we don't reduce the
population then the
food and resources will run out, and when that happens there will be massive
world famine. Wars
over the few resources left will start, and millions will die.
In other words if we don't reduce the population the good way, the resultant
lack of food etc.
will start wars that will do it the nasty way, and if it goes nuclear then the
human race could
be wiped out.
This is not what you wanted to read so I won't be surprised if you don't take
any notice. I am in my 60's
and have no offspring to worry about, so I will be long dead when the trouble
really starts.We're sorry...
Alcohol that is. I just saw on a TV programme that non drinkers amount to only
9% of the UK population. That surprised me.
I have no strange reason for not drinking. I just don’t like the taste of it.
I also don’t want my body damaged by it, but the second reason came later.
When I was a young teenager I was fascinated by electronics, and this hobby kept
me indoors building radios rather than going out and getting embarrassed into
drinking until I acquired the taste for it.
After all it is a poison. Before you decide to argue that fact, remember some
poisons are prescribed to correct medical conditions, so don’t assume because
a doctor tells you it can help certain conditions in small amounts that it is
not a poison, but drinking it for pleasure is definitely not good for you. It
can over the years reduce brain function, and cause damage to your kidneys.
....
What made me type the above? you ask?
I just read an article that said the E.U are considering banning patio
heaters, and to my astonishment a lot of people think they are acceptable.
I do not see the point of trying to be green when so many are not
interested. You can do your bit recycling, using low power light bulbs
etc.
only to find that public houses are heating the out doors so their
customers can keep warm when they go out for a smoke.
If they want to go out and ruin their health smoking they can make
themselves
ill by getting cold in the process. Not use up valuable resources heating
an
out door area.
Countries can’t agree on ways to reduce the impact we are having on the
planet. The governments want the population to increase so they will have
enough tax payers to pay to look after the older people, when we should be
controlling the population to reduce the load on the planet, so we may as
well not concern ourselves with the long term problems we will get from
increasing piles of nuclear waste. Lets build plenty of nuclear power stations
so
that we can live in comfort until the planets resources run out completely
and the human race quickly dies out.
....
Why is it some people 'clever enough to write code' are also stupid
enough to write malicious code?
The main source of virus infection has in the past been attachment on emails.
However with the help of javascript a website infection is spreading and so far
experts have failed to stop it. See
mysterious_web_infection_continues
In the mean time I have told my browser (Firefox) notto use Javascript.
This means that web sites that use javascript tolink to other pages
rather than a straight forward link will provedifficult to browse.
My recommendation to the general user of the internet is to disableJavascript. My recommendation to website authors is not to useJavascript
links if you want people to safely navigate your website.
....
15th of January 2008
Ban everything!
In the UK there is a case going through the courts to decide if the bank charges
charged by banks are too high. If they decide they are too high the banks will
be forced to reduce them.
What happened to free enterprise? If I as a company am offering a product or a
service, then I should be allowed to price it. If you think my price is too high
then you don't have to deal with me.
A Ms. Tara Brabazon (The professor of media studies at the University of
Brighton ) has banned her students from using Google or Wikipedia. She insists
that her list of books are to be used and referenced.
OK, Google, Wikipedia, or any of the search engines are by no means perfect, but
as long as you check several sources to make sure the data you received is
correct then it seems a perfectly valid way to get information.
I guess Ms. Brabazon is living in the dark ages. How do people with closed minds
get into such high positions in education?
My spell check wants to replace the name Brabazon with baboon. Maybe computer
are intelligent after all :-)
Drugs.
I have never understood why we have laws against consuming certain items. We
have a law forbidding me to take a number of drugs. They added an extra to the
law forbidding me to have any of these drugs in my possession, with greater
punishment if I was to sell these drugs.
I have voiced this opinion occasionally, but have always been disagreed with and
dropped the subject, so I was delighted today to hear on BBC radio 4 Richard
Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of the north Wales police saying that he thought
that taking drugs should not be against the law, and going on to explain why. He
made a lot of sense and made me feel my attitude isn’t so wrong after all.
I am told these laws that try to stop people taking these drugs are there
because the drugs are bad for your health and can be addictive, and yet there
are many drugs that are bad for my health and addictive that are not included.
Tobacco and alcohol being the most obvious.
How about leaving it to the individual to decide what to consume. To do this
would stop the criminal organisations from making massive profits by supplying
drugs, and would allow those who despite advice decide to take drugs, to
purchase them from a reputable chemist. After all the seller of these drugs can
add other substances to the drug to make it look more and therefore make more
money, and the substance used to dilute the product may well be worse for you
than the drug itself.
I don’t take drugs. Not because it is against the law, but because I don’t
want to make myself ill, and don’t want to get hooked on a drug. I don’t
drink alcohol or smoke tobacco either.
I was brought up in the fifties by my mother and father who both smoked, so as I
got older I assumed it was good to smoke when you were older and took up
smoking. There were no warnings about it being bad for you in those days. Many
years later when the warnings that it was bad for you and could cause lung
cancer came along I eventually forced myself to stop smoking.
I was luckier with drink. As a teenager I couldn’t go out without the peer
pressure persuading me to drink, so I agreed to have a drink, and had to stop
myself pulling a face when drinking this bitter weird tasting drink. I realized
most young lads drank because it was the grown up thing to do and they didn’t
like it at first either. It was an acquired taste I decided not to acquire so
have not consumed alcohol since those days.
I understand that some countries have decided drug taking is no longer a
criminal act, and actually managed to reduce drug taking and the crime committed
to fund the habit.
Lets hope the British government can look past the traditionalized way of
policing and replace the banning of drugs with education about these drugs.
......
I resolve not to buy a DAB radio. DAB stands for Digital Audio Broadcast. It was
introduced a few years ago along with Freeview Digital Television. I remember
when I was a kid the introduction of VHF FM radio. All new radios in the shops
had an extra VHF FM position on the band switch. The advantage of FM was better
quality sound. And it was. DAB however is different as it offers extra radio
channels as well. These new channels are also available on a Freeview television
set top box, and via the internet. DAB however is not proving popular. This
doesn’t surprise me. A DAB radio cost a lot more than the equivalent FM/AM
radio and like most digital devices consumes a lot more power. If you do decide
to get one make sure it will plug into the wall socket or you will forever be
replacing batteries. The only advantage in getting a DAB radio would be for the
extra channels, but as these are available through Freeview and on line. Other
than in a car I can see more disadvantages than advantages.