Life has been full of illness and hospitals and for once not really about me, although I have had weird withdrawal symptoms as I cut down one of my meds.
We have, I hope, got a window of about seven days before it all starts again.
It now ages since we heard from Sarah who was visiting sites in Nicaragua- she was due back at field base on Saturday that got pushed back to Sunday for reasons I guess I had better not put in my blog as it won’t ever appear on the public Raleigh blog. However it then turned in to I don’t know when I will get back. Her only communication was a rural internet connection which was very bad indeed. So she is out of touch altogether now dealing as one of the leaders with a situation.
How I long for a cheeky wee email.
Now here is a strange thing. You know I have plugged away for yonks with internet radio stations on Live 365. Well I am going to close them down two are already going and the third will go next year when the contract run out. It is all legal to broadcast there. I have had most of today precisely 0 listeners. Now about a month or so go I decided to broadcast via Shoutcast and do it live and relay that station to Live 365. So it is a level playing field.
I keep on maxing out my listener slots on Shoutcast. I can only afford a few slots but I am regularly hitting my limit of 15 simultaneous listeners. Now this is technically illegal as I am not paying royalties as I was in my fee to Live 365. HOWEVER it makes no difference to listeners listening to Internet Radio is not illegal in anyway. There thousands upon thousands of Shoutcast Stations.
I can’t work this out at all why one medium is successful and another sucks.
Just go to http://kafkasworld.com if you want to try it out. It is live and mixed for a good overall experience.
Currently playing is Carmen McRae and cued is Glenn Miller. That of course will have moved on by the time you read this.
I currently have 1700 songs to play!
Maybe on Sunday we will grab three days holiday.
Maybe.
ps on a diet.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Death of An Old Friend - A Reflection on Old Technology
The Guardian and others announced today the death of an old friend. To be perfectly honest I didn’t know the friend was still alive but there you go, time moves on and you forget. Seems however the old friend won’t actually have the life support pulled until January so there will be time to a final visit.
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/16/teletext-to-be-pulled-tv]
So allow me a little wallow in an old technology?
I first came across this trusty friend in 1974. It was called Oracle. Gosh it was exciting technology! Blocky little diagrams and snippets of hard to read news. Hard to believe now but it lasted nineteen years before it lost out to the now better known but not long for this world Teletext which took over in 1993.
Mind you even by 1993 it was beginning to look a bit long in the tooth. The same technology was used to drive the BT Prestel/Micronet service and I remember fondly spending hours working on those teletext type pages. They had two sides - literally. One for public view and one for manual editing of content routes and prices! This was the cutting edge of technology in those heady and far off days. The days when you stuck a BT handset into rubber suction cups and roared along at 300 baud if you were lucky although Prestel did offer the super high speed of 1200/75 baud.
In common with the Ceefax and ORACLE teletext services provided by the BBC and ITV television companies, the system used a modified television to display information in a non-scrolling window of 40x24 text characters, with some simple graphics, conforming to the 1981 CEPT1 standard. Unlike the restricted number of pages available on Ceefax and Oracle, Prestel offered an extensive range of information that had been supplied both by a Prestel department at the Post Office and by third-party information providers.
The range of Information Providers (or IPs) was wide, including: news services, travel companies (serving both the public and travel agents), estate agents, banks and financial services, those providing stock market information, the government and Parliament. The IPs entered their information on a central computer update, "Duke", located in London.
The computers we accessed were located in major telephone exchanges, were known by code names such as "Dryden", "Kipling", "Derwent", "Enterprise", "Dickens", "Keats", "Bronte", "Eliot" and " Austen "!
Prestel was launched as I recall in 1979 and was then sold as a domestic product with the advent of Micronet and Timefame from 1983 onwards with the arrival of home computers like the ZX Spectrum.
So it came to pass I went online in 1983 and haven’t been off it since!
This old technology had its darker side in my life as well here I was involved in my first and only hack, if we can call it that!
Access to online services was expensive phone bills were huge never mind the cost of viewing the actual pages. They were also similar systems throughout Europe. We had a little computer club running on a certain remote Hebridean island known for its whisky. We shared the modem! One night in the long world of innocence one of our members arrived at my house with said modem and we logged on and went off to explore the German service. I was horrified at the thought of my phone bill until the said member a BT engineer told us that had visited the exchange on his way to my house and a matchstick was in place stopping my calls being noted. High tech crime!
Anyway with these fond remembrances I pay my respects to the last relic of that old technology as it quietly goes off to that great mountain of old technology to rest in peace.
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/16/teletext-to-be-pulled-tv]
So allow me a little wallow in an old technology?
I first came across this trusty friend in 1974. It was called Oracle. Gosh it was exciting technology! Blocky little diagrams and snippets of hard to read news. Hard to believe now but it lasted nineteen years before it lost out to the now better known but not long for this world Teletext which took over in 1993.
Mind you even by 1993 it was beginning to look a bit long in the tooth. The same technology was used to drive the BT Prestel/Micronet service and I remember fondly spending hours working on those teletext type pages. They had two sides - literally. One for public view and one for manual editing of content routes and prices! This was the cutting edge of technology in those heady and far off days. The days when you stuck a BT handset into rubber suction cups and roared along at 300 baud if you were lucky although Prestel did offer the super high speed of 1200/75 baud.
In common with the Ceefax and ORACLE teletext services provided by the BBC and ITV television companies, the system used a modified television to display information in a non-scrolling window of 40x24 text characters, with some simple graphics, conforming to the 1981 CEPT1 standard. Unlike the restricted number of pages available on Ceefax and Oracle, Prestel offered an extensive range of information that had been supplied both by a Prestel department at the Post Office and by third-party information providers.
The range of Information Providers (or IPs) was wide, including: news services, travel companies (serving both the public and travel agents), estate agents, banks and financial services, those providing stock market information, the government and Parliament. The IPs entered their information on a central computer update, "Duke", located in London.
The computers we accessed were located in major telephone exchanges, were known by code names such as "Dryden", "Kipling", "Derwent", "Enterprise", "Dickens", "Keats", "Bronte", "Eliot" and " Austen "!
Prestel was launched as I recall in 1979 and was then sold as a domestic product with the advent of Micronet and Timefame from 1983 onwards with the arrival of home computers like the ZX Spectrum.
So it came to pass I went online in 1983 and haven’t been off it since!
This old technology had its darker side in my life as well here I was involved in my first and only hack, if we can call it that!
Access to online services was expensive phone bills were huge never mind the cost of viewing the actual pages. They were also similar systems throughout Europe. We had a little computer club running on a certain remote Hebridean island known for its whisky. We shared the modem! One night in the long world of innocence one of our members arrived at my house with said modem and we logged on and went off to explore the German service. I was horrified at the thought of my phone bill until the said member a BT engineer told us that had visited the exchange on his way to my house and a matchstick was in place stopping my calls being noted. High tech crime!
Anyway with these fond remembrances I pay my respects to the last relic of that old technology as it quietly goes off to that great mountain of old technology to rest in peace.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
That darn Widget
For years now I have wondered what that widget was all about! You know the one in beer cans! Designed to give you a nice foaming head?
I have imagined all sorts of things inside that can.
A wee keg that releases CO2 and allows the froth to develop on the Guinness.
A hi-tech twizzle stick or perhaps in my wilder imaginations a little elf hard at work pulling the pint for you.
I have often thought of looking but assumed somehow that the widget disappeared after use or would explode if examined.
Having reached a grand old age I feel I can now afford to take my life into my own hands and risk all.
I reached in to the drawer and withdrew my favourite and necessary kitchen gadget the battery operated can opener. I placed it on top of the Guinness can and then retreated behind the handy kept in the kitchen cupboard 4 inch thick anti radiation blast proof wall (another favourite gadget) and ducked.
I heard it whir and cut and rotate, I waited.
Finally silence. A clean cut is achieved. Nothing has happened. So far so good. I approach the now open can and in great trepidation and curiosity lift off the top of the beer can.
At this point I wept.
A grown geek of a man broke down and wept like a wee lassie.
That mysterious widget lay before me in all its glory.
It must have taken years of development and all just to give me a nice creamy head.
What does it look it?
A white plastic marble.
What is it?
A white plastic marble.
Sigh.
I have imagined all sorts of things inside that can.
A wee keg that releases CO2 and allows the froth to develop on the Guinness.
A hi-tech twizzle stick or perhaps in my wilder imaginations a little elf hard at work pulling the pint for you.
I have often thought of looking but assumed somehow that the widget disappeared after use or would explode if examined.
Having reached a grand old age I feel I can now afford to take my life into my own hands and risk all.
I reached in to the drawer and withdrew my favourite and necessary kitchen gadget the battery operated can opener. I placed it on top of the Guinness can and then retreated behind the handy kept in the kitchen cupboard 4 inch thick anti radiation blast proof wall (another favourite gadget) and ducked.
I heard it whir and cut and rotate, I waited.
Finally silence. A clean cut is achieved. Nothing has happened. So far so good. I approach the now open can and in great trepidation and curiosity lift off the top of the beer can.
At this point I wept.
A grown geek of a man broke down and wept like a wee lassie.
That mysterious widget lay before me in all its glory.
It must have taken years of development and all just to give me a nice creamy head.
What does it look it?
A white plastic marble.
What is it?
A white plastic marble.
Sigh.
What's the Difference?
What’s the difference? That is always a good question to ask anytime of the day or night.
So what is the difference between a geek and an a$££$le?
Well a geek like me complete with beard,cardie and occasional pipe, would take his Mac to bed and lie awake thinking of gadgets and dreams of coding the perfect iPhone App or wondering if he could ever afford the estimated $150,000 to buy all iPhone apps.
I might be found fiddling with a remote control Thomas the tank Engine or a scale replica of a Dyson that actually sucks (ok I have a grandson to indulge).
What I won’t be doing is inventing or worrying about a tag for tracking rubbish. That isn’t geekdom or even tech savvy that is being a grade A unmentionable word!
To what do I refer?
Quote :
“The ebb and flow of thousands of pieces of household rubbish are to be tracked using sophisticated mobile tags.
It is hoped that making people confront the final journey of their waste will make them reduce what they throw away.
Initially, 3,000 pieces of rubbish, donated by volunteers, will be tagged in New York, Seattle and London.
"Trash is almost an invisible system today," Assaf Biderman, one of the project leaders at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told BBC News.
"You throw something into the garbage and a lot of us forget about it. It gets buried, it gets burned, it gets shipped overseas."
The Trash Track aims to make that process - termed the "removal chain" - more transparent.
Friends of the Earth's Senior Waste Campaigner Michael Warhurst said the project could be a "useful tool" for highlighting the impact of rubbish.
"[Waste] doesn't simply disappear when we throw it away, and all too often it ends up causing damage when it could be recycled instead.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8149183.stm
With apologies to Waste Aware Scotland and the fine folk who work there (waves to daughter) this is the work of the crazies! I don’t mind recycling. I don’t mind composting. But why are we spending money tracking rubbish?
What a rubbish idea!
So what is the difference between a geek and an a$££$le?
Well a geek like me complete with beard,cardie and occasional pipe, would take his Mac to bed and lie awake thinking of gadgets and dreams of coding the perfect iPhone App or wondering if he could ever afford the estimated $150,000 to buy all iPhone apps.
I might be found fiddling with a remote control Thomas the tank Engine or a scale replica of a Dyson that actually sucks (ok I have a grandson to indulge).
What I won’t be doing is inventing or worrying about a tag for tracking rubbish. That isn’t geekdom or even tech savvy that is being a grade A unmentionable word!
To what do I refer?
Quote :
“The ebb and flow of thousands of pieces of household rubbish are to be tracked using sophisticated mobile tags.
It is hoped that making people confront the final journey of their waste will make them reduce what they throw away.
Initially, 3,000 pieces of rubbish, donated by volunteers, will be tagged in New York, Seattle and London.
"Trash is almost an invisible system today," Assaf Biderman, one of the project leaders at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told BBC News.
"You throw something into the garbage and a lot of us forget about it. It gets buried, it gets burned, it gets shipped overseas."
The Trash Track aims to make that process - termed the "removal chain" - more transparent.
Friends of the Earth's Senior Waste Campaigner Michael Warhurst said the project could be a "useful tool" for highlighting the impact of rubbish.
"[Waste] doesn't simply disappear when we throw it away, and all too often it ends up causing damage when it could be recycled instead.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8149183.stm
With apologies to Waste Aware Scotland and the fine folk who work there (waves to daughter) this is the work of the crazies! I don’t mind recycling. I don’t mind composting. But why are we spending money tracking rubbish?
What a rubbish idea!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
99p Film Rental From iTunes
Perhaps one of the best kept secrets on iTunes is the 99p film rental deal.
Every Tuesday a new film is flagged at 99p for rental.
The films can be kept on your computer,iPod,iPhone for 30 days before they are deleted and once you start to watch them you have 48 hours of viewing before deletion.
Recently I have watched The Royal Tenenbaums, The Pink Panther (Steve Martin version), and currently they are offering Starship Troopers for week beginning 14th of July.
While it is usually just one film they did in June offer a double Clint Eastwood package.
Now I like watching these films on my iPOD touch but this will also produce an excellent televisual experience if you watch via a component cable set up on an HDTV.
How to find them? Simply log on to the iTunes store and go to films and there is banner ad at the top.
Every Tuesday a new film is flagged at 99p for rental.
The films can be kept on your computer,iPod,iPhone for 30 days before they are deleted and once you start to watch them you have 48 hours of viewing before deletion.
Recently I have watched The Royal Tenenbaums, The Pink Panther (Steve Martin version), and currently they are offering Starship Troopers for week beginning 14th of July.
While it is usually just one film they did in June offer a double Clint Eastwood package.
Now I like watching these films on my iPOD touch but this will also produce an excellent televisual experience if you watch via a component cable set up on an HDTV.
How to find them? Simply log on to the iTunes store and go to films and there is banner ad at the top.
My Favourite Gadget
Last night I curled up in bed with my favourite gadget.
It is small, discreet and slips easily into pockets and other places. ;)
Most of all I like stroking her soft smooth surface.
Last night I was feeling in a really low geeky place so I needed to be read to sleep.
She whispered poetry in my ear and then a nice fairy tale.
I woke up cuddling her and she told me what the latest news was, how many emails I had and let me listen to my very own radio station.
She is a lovely little thing, cute and black although I keep everything but her face covered in a tight rubber outfit just to be safe it also makes her easier to hold on to.
Recently late at night she has been showing me lots of Wentworth Miller in Prison Break.
I love her dearly. If she could provide me with a tad more than a virtual cup of coffee I might toss the other occupant of the marital bed out on to the floor at night (I just typed marital as martial wonder what Freud would say about that).
My exciting and geeky life has been transformed by my 8GB Apple iPod touch.
Apart from all the wonderful things she can do with music and video when you are in range of WiFi this is first class little laptop in reality allowing full web browsing at lightning speed and excellent email facilities allowing me among other things to keep in touch with daughter number 3 who is in the jungles of Costa Rica.
I have owned MP3 players {and tape players before that} of all sorts and varieties since they first appeared but this little beauty has stolen my heart and she goes everywhere with me.
[for the really geeky ancient bearded and sandaled - listening to the radio via the tiny speaker is as exciting as listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bed clothes on your tranny fun in the 60s}
It is small, discreet and slips easily into pockets and other places. ;)
Most of all I like stroking her soft smooth surface.
Last night I was feeling in a really low geeky place so I needed to be read to sleep.
She whispered poetry in my ear and then a nice fairy tale.
I woke up cuddling her and she told me what the latest news was, how many emails I had and let me listen to my very own radio station.
She is a lovely little thing, cute and black although I keep everything but her face covered in a tight rubber outfit just to be safe it also makes her easier to hold on to.
Recently late at night she has been showing me lots of Wentworth Miller in Prison Break.
I love her dearly. If she could provide me with a tad more than a virtual cup of coffee I might toss the other occupant of the marital bed out on to the floor at night (I just typed marital as martial wonder what Freud would say about that).
My exciting and geeky life has been transformed by my 8GB Apple iPod touch.
Apart from all the wonderful things she can do with music and video when you are in range of WiFi this is first class little laptop in reality allowing full web browsing at lightning speed and excellent email facilities allowing me among other things to keep in touch with daughter number 3 who is in the jungles of Costa Rica.
I have owned MP3 players {and tape players before that} of all sorts and varieties since they first appeared but this little beauty has stolen my heart and she goes everywhere with me.
[for the really geeky ancient bearded and sandaled - listening to the radio via the tiny speaker is as exciting as listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bed clothes on your tranny fun in the 60s}
Thursday, July 2, 2009
An Update on an update
First things first thank you Rache so much for sending whatever it was you sent to Sarah it has arrived in Costa Rica and was very welcome and waiting for her when she came back from a run.
Secondly Bunny and Joan want to argue from the POV of the WW2.
Fair enough and this is always brought up.
So let me ask this, what caused WW2 was it not WW1? So would there have been a WW3 if there hadn’t been a WW1 and all the other wars waged by this country and others for dominance of sea and land or commerce?
At what point do we stop?
Yes maybe we did have to fight WW2 but would have had to have such a war without all that went before?
Bunny said...
I don't know where we'd be - or IF we'd be - if we hadn't gone to war in 1939.
JULY 2, 2009 1:22 PM
Joan said...
I agree with Bunny.
Secondly Bunny and Joan want to argue from the POV of the WW2.
Fair enough and this is always brought up.
So let me ask this, what caused WW2 was it not WW1? So would there have been a WW3 if there hadn’t been a WW1 and all the other wars waged by this country and others for dominance of sea and land or commerce?
At what point do we stop?
Yes maybe we did have to fight WW2 but would have had to have such a war without all that went before?
Bunny said...
I don't know where we'd be - or IF we'd be - if we hadn't gone to war in 1939.
JULY 2, 2009 1:22 PM
Joan said...
I agree with Bunny.
War what is it good for?
War what is it good for?
WHAT’S THE POINT ANYMORE?
The US army says it has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in south Afghanistan's Helmand province.
The US military says about 4,000 Marines as well as 650 Afghan troops are involved, supported by Nato planes.
Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said the operation was different from previous ones because of the "massive size of the force" and its speed.
A Taliban spokesman said they would resist in various ways and that there would be no permanent US victory.
Qari Yosuf Ahmadi added that "a large number" of Taliban were in the area.
"I cannot accept the fact that 4,000 US troops have taken part in this operation," he said, quoted by the Afghan AIP news agency.
"I consider it a part of a psychological war, but if 4,000 US troops really are taking part in the operation, they will not have any permanent victory."
Meanwhile the US military reported that a soldier had gone missing in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday.
______________
I read this and wonder what has changed since Edwin Starr sang the blatantly anti war song War in my young days.
Over the years swayed by politicians and emotion I have vacillated between a reluctant support for military action and out and out pacifism.
Finally it seems to me that all this military action produces only one result.
More WAR.
Edwin Starr :
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y'all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
Ohhh, war, I despise
Because it means destruction
Of innocent lives
War means tears
To thousands of mothers eyes
When their sons go to fight
And lose their lives
I said, war, huh
Good God, y'all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, it ain't nothing
But a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Ooooh, war
It's an enemy to all mankind
The point of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest
Within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die
Aaaaah, war-huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it, say it, say it
War, huh
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y'all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, it's got one friend
That's the undertaker
Ooooh, war, has shattered
Many a young mans dreams
Made him disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much to short and precious
To spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life
It can only take it away
Ooooh, war, huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Peace, love and understanding
Tell me, is there no place for them today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there's got to be a better way
Ooooooh, war, huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
You tell me
Say it, say it, say it, say it
War, huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
Stand up and shout it
Nothing
WHAT’S THE POINT ANYMORE?
The US army says it has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in south Afghanistan's Helmand province.
The US military says about 4,000 Marines as well as 650 Afghan troops are involved, supported by Nato planes.
Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said the operation was different from previous ones because of the "massive size of the force" and its speed.
A Taliban spokesman said they would resist in various ways and that there would be no permanent US victory.
Qari Yosuf Ahmadi added that "a large number" of Taliban were in the area.
"I cannot accept the fact that 4,000 US troops have taken part in this operation," he said, quoted by the Afghan AIP news agency.
"I consider it a part of a psychological war, but if 4,000 US troops really are taking part in the operation, they will not have any permanent victory."
Meanwhile the US military reported that a soldier had gone missing in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday.
______________
I read this and wonder what has changed since Edwin Starr sang the blatantly anti war song War in my young days.
Over the years swayed by politicians and emotion I have vacillated between a reluctant support for military action and out and out pacifism.
Finally it seems to me that all this military action produces only one result.
More WAR.
Edwin Starr :
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y'all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
Ohhh, war, I despise
Because it means destruction
Of innocent lives
War means tears
To thousands of mothers eyes
When their sons go to fight
And lose their lives
I said, war, huh
Good God, y'all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, it ain't nothing
But a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Ooooh, war
It's an enemy to all mankind
The point of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest
Within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die
Aaaaah, war-huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it, say it, say it
War, huh
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y'all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, it's got one friend
That's the undertaker
Ooooh, war, has shattered
Many a young mans dreams
Made him disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much to short and precious
To spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life
It can only take it away
Ooooh, war, huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Peace, love and understanding
Tell me, is there no place for them today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there's got to be a better way
Ooooooh, war, huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
You tell me
Say it, say it, say it, say it
War, huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for
Stand up and shout it
Nothing
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