John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

Apricot kernels: 30 August 2004: Rattigan obviously got to me because I a) bought some apricots, and b) cracked open the stone and ate the kernel inside. I expected to find something the size of an apple pip, but actually it's quite a large nut very like an almond, and it tastes like an almond too.
Paula: 28 August 2004: I'm completely outside my area of expertise here, but I saw the Olympic Team GB coach doing a very motivational speech, and I also saw Paula Radcliffe drop out of the marathon and, I just wonder whether what happened was her body didn't match what her head thought she was capable of. Whether she was helped to believe she could do better than she could. Maybe, given the conditions, she ran too fast because she believed she could do it.; For me, it's a small lesson that motivation management works, but you have to be able to do what you believe you can do or things can get dangerous.
Software Freedom Day: 28 August 2004: Good morning. It's Software Freedom Day today.; Hmm. I'm not sure that site delivers what it means to me, so here goes.; The most exciting day of my time at university was when I discovered sourceforge. It's a technical site, but I link to it for completeness. I'd been reading a book called The Hacker Ethic which outlined how it all started and it was all very interesting, but then Sourceforge said "it's not just interesting, John, it's right here, right now, it's huge, it works, it's happening, it's growing, everyone's using it, it's all around you. Open your eyes." Maybe finding sourceforge was my "God spoke to me" revelation.; Anyway, here's the point. Some people think that a piece of software is just an idea, and you shouldn't be able to patent ideas. If you'd been talking in the pub to your friend about how you'd worked out the best way to cook Kohl Rabi, your friend could go home and apply that idea. They wouldn't have to pay you for the idea, it's free. Except, I think you would, if you were a professional cook. I'm not saying I agree with this idea, I'm just saying how it is. I should link to The Free Software Foundation here but haven't worked it into the text.; Linked with this was the idea of open source development. Open source software is supplied with the source code, so you can change it as you wish. It's often licenced to say it's free, you can make changes to it, but you can never charge for it (apart from the duplication costs). Its supporters claim it's great to be able to change the source code. I'm not so sure. Often these packages are huge. Understanding their innards isn't going to be easy. Knowing the full implications of your change is going to be near impossible. And you're probably not going to be able to test it fully.; But testing is the key strength of open source software. The idea is that people give their time free of charge to be involved in the development of an open source software package. New versions are issued frequently, sometimes even daily. A large group of interested supporters and users download the versions and run them, feeding back any problems they encounter. Testing is therefore done en masse, in real conditions, in real time, and free of cost. This results in more robust software. Open source software is often more robust than usual commercial software.; Another strength is that open source software is often free of charge. Can't afford Microsoft Office? Use Open Office. can't afford Microsoft Windows? Use Linux. Can't afford Photoshop? Use The Gimp. Think Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are vulnerable to viruses? Use Mozilla. Using open source software it's no longer a challenge to put together a fully functioning PC without spending a penny on software.; Why would anyone put their time, free of charge, into developing an open source project? For two reasons. Firstly, those people are credited, so it's great for your CV if you've something to prove.; Second, the computer industry has great links with the American east coast hippy culture. It grew up in the sixties. Apple had that culture, certainly early on before John Scully messed things up. When I was adolescent I cycled to a commune in Wales for a look at how they operated. They had a "everything is communally owned" philosophy, even the children were of the commune and communally cared for. Two guys in that commune made their money writing software for a California company. Many people have made a lot of money from the IT industry over the years, and they're from an era where community matters. So they want to put something back.; If you don't like the idea of open source software, if you'd rather use commercial software with its support contracts and SLAs, well tough. If you use the Internet, you use open source software. The servers run Linux and Apache. Website addresses are resolved using open source software (BIND). Your email is delivered using sendmail. The Internet is built on open source software, and it works. You're already using it. Feeling free yet? Go on. Take off all your clothes, hang out the window and shout "Software's free, we can do anything!". You know it makes sense.
Mark Thatcher: 27 August 2004: Isn't the Mark Thatcher stuff fun? Journalists must love it. Maybe they could never penetrate Margaret Thatcher's armour, but they can hit the Mark every time. Channel 4 News said, as I remember it, "Mark Thatcher, whose nickname at school was Thicky Mark". I mean, LOL, that's just unnecessary.
Patrick Rattigan: 27 August 2004: The other day I went to a talk by Patrick Rattigan about alternative cancer treatment. I wasn't persuaded.; I've let my thoughts settle, and the impression I'm left with is that what we saw was an ego on display.; Not that he particularly seems egotistical, but that seemed to drive everything I saw.; As a kid I wanted to be a scientist. I wanted all my O levels to be science ones, and I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't living in the catchment area of the other school that did a single combined science O level. I never could figure out what they filled the other seven holes with. The universally acknowledged as useless General Studies would have been one. Anyway, I'd forgotten my scientific roots along the way, but my degree brought it back to me. Yay for experimentation! Yay! for falsification and verification and all that. So I may be looking at this with the zeal of a new convert, but Rattigan had no science backing him up. He was like a travelling quack.; He started by saying he used to be an engineer, and then trained as a Naturopath. Great, I thought. At uni, we were taught that what engineers did was apply scientific knowledge. We were engineers. I'm proud to call myself an Internet software engineer. Rattigan didn't seem to do that. He mentioned a trial at one point, so I asked "how many?" and he said "oh, thousands", with a wide gesture of his hand. It's not enough. It's not persuasive.; There was an old woman in the audience who said a few things, every one of which he didn't follow up, but simply moved on from. I found that disrespectful. Mind you, she did talk about bathing her grandmother's breasts. The woman herself must have been 95 years old. So how long ago was this?; To back up my ego accusation, it comes from the sum of many small clues. He said he'd not been to a doctor in thirty years (he rejects conventional medicine). He treats his own family (that would raise his importance). His children haven't been vaccinated (I wonder how they feel about that). He says he's a general conspiracy theorist (he also does talks on 9/11, and whether we really landed on the moon). It's almost like he rejects any group of people, he prefers his own opinion to that of others. He's just damned awkward. He spoke without notes, it seemed to me that he'd not done any special preparation for our talk. Were we not worth it?; The conspiracy of the day, though, was the cancer conspiracy. And the Aids conspiracy, but that's a side-issue (although he did talk about someone injecting themselves with HIV infected blood, live on tv, to prove his theory that it isn't HIV that gives you Aids, and he's still alive today).; Still, back to cancer. What would happen if we cured cancer? The pharmaceutical companies would hurt, the cancer charities would disappear. Is it not in their interest to provide long and expensive cures, but not to actually cure us? I'm naturally cynical and tend towards this kind of argument and then I bounce back against what feels like an air filled "don't be silly" cushion.; I also had a problem with him repeatedly mentioning conventional medicine's use of poisonous elements, where he kept pointing out their position in some poisons index (x is only just below arsenic). Well, doesn't homeopathy use poisons deliberately as an alternative therapy? So how poisonous something is isn't the point.; However. Some things did stick with me.; Firstly, he thinks the improved rates of cancer survival are down to early diagnosis tests coming out positive for things that wouldn't necessarily turn into cancer. False positives, in other words. The more false positives there are, the more survivals there will be (they never had cancer in the first place). The earlier the diagnosis, the less reliable it is. Those who have a false positive result and go through the treatment end up with a higher chance of getting cancer because of the chemical and surgical brutality of the treatment.; I'm sure he'd also balance mainstream medicine's improved rates against the increased occurrence and say we're actually losing the battle.; Anyway, his magic bullet to cure cancer? vitamin B17. When asked what we can get B17 in, it's in obscure things like apricot kernels, which he's found a source of and can sell to us. And in apple pips. So, eat your apple cores.; Faced with a cancer diagnosis, what would I do? You have to jump one way or the other, you can't do both. I'd love to think B17 would work but according to Wikipedia it won't .. or it might. I tend towards nutrition as my favoured therapy anyway. I think I'd want to use modern medicine's tools for measuring the extent and progress of the disease, while undergoing alternative medicine. I'd then set a point beyond which, if alternative medicine didn't work, I'd jump to conventional.; I can't get away from the fact that I've tried a number of alternative therapies and, frankly, they've never worked. Yet I go to my doctor, and the cure always works.; One other thing he did say was about vivisection. He said, they take genetically equal dogs, put them in controlled laboratory conditions, and treat them exactly the same .. same food, same times, and so on. Then they feed them whatever poison they're experimenting on, and the dogs die at different times, of different things. So if it's unpredictable within that controlled experiment, how can it be useful to extrapolate the results across species to us, and then out into incontrolled, real-life situations? Where was his data from? I guess we'll never know.; So, overall, what will I do? Will I eat an apple, and its pips, a day? You bet. I'd hate to think he was actually right, and I was wrong. That wouldn't do my ego any good at all.
Ponce: 26 August 2004: I just went into the toy/stationery shop on South Marine Road and bought a card. I said "I'm looking for a big tin of chocolates", he said "A tin? Not at this time of year." I said "Oh gosh, I hadn't factored in seasonality." He looked at me and the card and said "You hadn't factored in seasonality. Well all I want is £1.20".; The guy obviously has a problem with poncey blokes using long words. I'm not unfamiliar with that reaction. Pity though. Quite a few poncey students live along that road, and the local poncey university has a poncey English degree and masters course.; The chocolates were for Andy Whitelaw Joinery, who had to make do with two boxes of Heroes .. from a different shop.
Cause for celebration: 26 August 2004: It's a celebration morning. It's the first morning in a week where we haven't had to be ready to let windows people in at 8am. There are oases of sortedness in the house .. well, one oasis .. half the lounge is habitable. There are curtains up at the upstairs windows, so my g/f, who has a day off today, can stay in bed a while and watch morning telly even if the roofer turns up.; So just to review, Andy Whitelaw Joinery have really been great. Two guys Mark and Martin, and the bricky Paul have been very obliging and hard working, but particularly Mark has a very good sense of customer care - there was one moment when he asked his mate to lift the window he was working on so he could re-arrange the dustsheets under it so as not to scratch our floor. The windows themselves, built I think by Steve, are fantastic. They're single-glazed sash, and they're quieter than what was before. Quieter with regard to road noise, and quieter when it's windy too. Fantastic.; The good feeling is muted by the fact that, really, every room in the house is a complete mess. There's dust and dirt everywhere. Every room needs some decorating, including the hallway which is covered in dirty marks where they've had to transport windows through the house. But hey, nothing's broken. I removed pretty much everything, including the lampshades. Good job, I saw that when they lifted the dining room window into place, the top of the window would have broken the lampshade had it been there. But, had it been there, I think they'd have noticed and worked around it.; I was really surprised at how I got stressed by the mess. I guess I just like my routines. I couldn't do my morning yoga because the spare room was full of tools (but they asked if they could leave them there and I said yes). I couldn't run in the morning because they arrived at 8am and I couldn't get myself out before then. I didn't shave for three days, even though I knew where my shaver was and I could get to it, because there was nothing covering the bathroom window (which is plain glass rather than, what do you call it, misted .. ?) and it felt like shaving in the street. There was no-where to eat lunch so I ate it standing in the kitchen. Those kinds of things. Hardly Darfur stress levels, but I can only report how I felt.; So, yes, I'd definitely recommend Andy Whitelaw Joinery. The bad things, the mess and so on, would happen however you and whoever replaced your windows. I do have a friend who had a bad experience with Andy Whitelaw Joinery, however (she sucked her teeth pretty badly when I mentioned their name), something to do with them sawing into their beautiful new floor. But I think she said they'd outsourced the work. My experience was very good, and it's all over now. I'll post up a before and after pic in a week or so when it's really all done.; Anyway, I'm going to write a letter of thanks and take it in with a box of chocs later today.; Oh, and overall, it took two guys a day to fit two windows, so four days for eight, and then another day and a half to tidy up, add architrave, plaster, fill, put curtain rails back up and so on. Actually, I think that was part of why I felt stressed about it. I imagined they'd work, well actually I phoned to ask and the switchboard woman said they start at the top and work down "in case of breakages", ha ha, don't say that word two days before we start! So I imagined after say, day three we'd be able to clear up the top floor, move the cats up there, and live up there, in a tidy part of the house. But that's not how it works. On the first day they pick the nearest two windows from the workshop and install them (so they might start with any room), then do two windows per day, but leave all the tidying until last. Tidying includes sawing architrave and wandering around with plaster, both pretty messy jobs. So you have to wait until the very end before you can start putting stuff back. You need a lot of dustsheets.
I tawt I taw a puddy cat: 25 August 2004: I just had a "I tawt I taw a puddy cat" moment. Somewhere in my browsing in the last few days, I'm sure I've seen someone saying that There's Something About Mary is their best film ever.; Can there be people like that?; I should talk, I haven't even seen the film. I did watch a trailer tho.
Being fit: 25 August 2004: I guess most of the guys I know work, like me, in cerebral jobs so it's been interesting to meet and get on with the scaffolders, the roofers, the joiners who have been working on the house, and one thing has struck me. I thought it unusual when the first person said it, but now it seems to be usual.; They all seem to have physical hobbies. One surfs, cycles and on his days off is doing-up another house, another is seriously into cycling. I, on the other hand, try to find hobbies that are opposite to what I do all day .. the gym, drumming, running.; Talking about it with them, though, it makes sense. The point is, for all of us, to be fit enough to take on a day's work, and still be able to enjoy our evenings. There's little point in just flaking out in an evening because our job's taken everything we've got.; If you do a physical job, you have to be able to take it in your stride. Whereas after a few hours of window fitting I'd be dead on my feet, these guys need to be fit enough to do a full day of window fitting as if it were a walk in the park, because that leaves them the energy to enjoy their spare time.; Also, I suppose, if you are fit, then physical things come easily to you, so you enjoy them more, so you're more likely to take them on.; I imagined their hobbies would be different from their work. Reading Niesche maybe, new age spiritualism, but seriously, perhaps things to do with computing, music, languages and travel. I was wrong.; Physically, we all need to be a little bit fit, so cerebral workers should balance their lives with something physical. I'm not sure the reverse applies to the same degree.
Fahrenheit 9/11: 25 August 2004: I went with three others to see Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday, and we were all disappointed.; Regular readers will know I'm no fan of George W, but to my mind this film just isn't good enough.; I retain the Tom Peters rule that says you can extrapolate from seeing a coffee stain on the tray in your seat on an airplane that the airline isn't managing the quality of its cleaning routines, and if it isn't doing that, it's not managing the quality of any of its routines .. training, engine maintenance. I seem to remember Tom didn't fly twice on an airline that gave him a coffee stain; My coffee stain moment in Fahrenheit 9/11 was when Moore talked about the coalition of the willing. There were two things wrong. Firstly, he listed countries no-one has ever heard of, countries without armies. He never mentioned Japan, Spain, or the United Kingdom in the coalition list. So, he was playing for laughs. He certainly wasn't being factual. And if he wasn't being factual in this part that I know about, who is to say he was being in any way factual in the rest of the film. In other words, this film is entertainment, not truth. It's fiction. I can't trust a word it says.; The other thing wrong with that part of the film was that he did exactly what they did in that terrible film Godzilla. When he mentioned Romania he showed a clip from an old black and white horror film of a monster rising from the dead, when he mentioned Holland (not The Netherlands, I think), he showed a hairy youth smoking pot. Is encouraging ridiculous stereotypes the way to foster international goodwill?; I was reminded of something a friend said (hi Martin) in my early days of anti GM protesting when editing texts to go into our newsletter. He said, in essence, that we have to have the moral high ground. We must act within the law and use science and fact as our argument. If we don't, we're just as bad as 'they' are.; I went to a talk the other night about alternative approaches to cancer (I'll blog that another time) and a friend (hi Steve) got approached there by an audience member who tried to persuade him that the earth was only 3,000 years old. Steve said "but what's your evidence", and the guy just looked at him as if the answer was "well, you just have to have faith". The right (and I'm not talking about the political right, I'm talking about truth) must be demonstrably right, indisputably right, or we'll look like that guy, completely off our trolleys. That usually means using good science, even though scientific 'fact' is increasingly polluted by financial and political interests.; The other thing I didn't like was the use of music in the film. I know from working with John Pattison (sorry about the website, it was one of my first and he doesn't seem interested in updating it, and to be honest nor am I at the moment because it would be a freebie so I really ought to deal with my work queue first) how much music affects our emotional response to a film. Watch a film silently, and it's emotionless. Add music, and our emotions soar with the sound. Moore uses that to play our hearts. That's fine, if it's entertainment. But this is political. Of course, political advertisements do that in spades, but we know what that is. Fahrenheit 9/11 is styled like a documentary, and it isn't one.; Fahrenheit 9/11 bends the truth just as much as the Bush administration. Maybe Moore thought the American media bends the truth so much he'd fight fire with fire. For me though, I lost all trust.; Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it's entertainment and uplift for Democrats. Would waverers go and see it? At the end of the showing I saw, some of the audience clapped. They weren't waverers who had had their minds turned in the last two hours. So, as entertainment, yes it's certainly a jolly night out for Bush haters.; But hey. I'd rather this than the usual garbage that comes out of Hollywood. And where are the other artists commenting on the situation? Where is art in all this? Maybe this is what it takes to break ground. Maybe after this, more, better stuff will follow. I hope so.; Oh, and Britney's gone down in my estimation.; For the real thing, btw, if you can handle it (these are life changing people), start here: Monbiot, Pilger, and Chomsky.
Disgusting and fantastic in equal measure: 24 August 2004: AntiProduct .. wait a minute. If you're easily upset or have just had your tea, give this one a miss.; Still here? OK. The members of AntiProduct, a band, sell their own body fluids to their fans.; Perfect marketing to disaffected youth. Incredibly disgusting. That's why it's so good. Bad. Bleurgh, must go shower.; Oh, and the point is, they're the headline act at Scarborough's Soundwave festival tomorrow. I presume the staff of the Spa, more used to hosting "those were the days" shows for the over 165s, haven't read the press releases and will enjoy cleaning the dressing rooms after.
Web services: 24 August 2004: I'm delighted to be able to bring you the words of George W Bush, courtesy of the web service 'Random Bushisms'. Refresh the page to get a new one. Ready?; "I've got very good relations with President Mubarak and Crown Prince Abdallah and the King of Jordan, Gulf Coast countries."
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2003; More seriously, I just implemented a web service client to pick up a currency conversion rate for the Tin Shop.; For those who don't know, web services are software functions you can call across the Internet. So I can call the 'Random Bushism' function, and get a new quote whenever I want one. I can call a currency conversion service and get a live exchange rate.; We can also create web services. For instance, for The Tin Shop, we might provide a way for other shops to incorporate our stock, or for other retailers to add their stock to our shop.; It's all a bit early days though. There are issues with reliability, and also there doesn't seem to be a standard way of charging for your web service. Nevertheless it's funky stuff.
Pecking order: 23 April 2004: There's a lot of mutual micky taking going on with the two guys installing the windows, but it's clear who is in charge out of the two of them. But today, the boss man came down, and he turned out to be the chief micky taker. So I started to wonder about micky taking as a power thing. The boss man could take the micky out of one of the guys and his girlfriend splitting up .. personal stuff. I doubt if it were the boss man splitting up the micky taking would have happened.; Apologies to people called Micky, and all Irish people. What would be the politically correct replacement for 'micky take'. I mean, I'd usually phrase it differently of course, but, you know, my mum polices my blog so I have to be careful (hi mum).
McApparently: 21 August 2004: Apparently, the 99p McDonalds offer is a deliberate loss leader aimed at bringing people in to see the new, healthier, menu. So that's how come it's so cheap. I have insider knowledge.
The old English Grammar School: 21 August 2004: I've just been scanning in a picture of my mum's old grammar school. It's a line drawing, and underneath it says "Thingies Grammar School", and then on the next line "Nottingham." That full stop. What sticklers for punctuation they must have been. It's not even a sentence and they added a full stop. I wonder if the Give Way sign at their exit had a full stop too. They probably arranged a pea after each piece of carrot on the pupil's dinner plates just to make them feel that everything was right with the world. Well, certainly with all the pink bits anyway.; No bad thing. When I had a PR company, I received many job applications containing spelling errors. Every single one went immediately in the bin. I got howls of protest about that one. We were a PR company for chrissakes .. our output was the written word.; I wonder how long you could make a sentence that has the highest possible proportion of punctuation to alphanumeric characters.; And if anyone can give me a sentence containing five consecutive 'and's then they get a special prize. Pah! No they don't. Google has spoiled all those games.
PSP group: 21 August 2004: I've joined a Paint Shop Pro tutorial group to try to get some new ideas. The group itself is well, and rather differently, run. Basically, you're in the group so long as you continue to do at least one of the weekly tutorials and post up your results. It's a good rule, it builds the community feeling, you feel like you're working together.; Except that, there's a problem with the style. My g/f once went to night class to do pottery, and whereas everyone else was, well the fact is they were middle aged to older women, all wanting to do fine porcelain sculptures of birds and so on, whereas my partner wanted to make a pink, four foot tube with a spiral groove around the outside in which she was going to set a marble. And a fish the size of the kiln. I love her for that ("(my baby does) good sculptures").; Now there's nothing wrong with middle aged to older women. In fact, if we keep pushing oestrogens into the environment like we are doing, I might even become one one day, and thanks to global warming I'd be able to wear my bikini all year round.; Anyway, this class is a bit like that. I think every member is female .. absolutely no problem with that, I think I get on better with women, generally. But. But. But but but. Every single tutorial has that feeling of, well, lost romance. There are lots of frame tutorials. Frames! Who wants to spend time making pretty frames for their pictures? What are you going to do with it? Make a real frame for gawds sake! And the pictures they choose to frame .. invariably it's an attractive cartoon woman staring wistfully into the distance, or perhaps a soft focus fairy woman, or a cute kitten. If I see another unicorn it'll be one unicorn too many. White shirted gigolos holding fainting women in their muscular arms. It's all a bit Shirley Valentine (except that's a really good film, and she had a wonderful independent spirit).; Frankly, I've had enough of that. I don't know whether it's because it feels like they're looking back to their lost youth .. I really don't like looking back, there has to be something for me to look forward to, always.; Maybe it's the uselessness of it. Although some have said they framed a picture for a friend. Yeah, right .. "Oh, thanks Mary, yes it's really nice". I feel the same way about computer games. They take so much time, and they waste it for you. If you're going to spend time getting skilled at something, get skilled at something useful, learn a musical instrument, do some art, learn a language, invest in the stock exchange, start a business. Ahhhh, that's unfair, the point of the group is we're all learning PSP, so it IS useful, I guess.; Or it could be American taste. I know at least one person in the group is from the UK, but I think most of the others are in the US. Yet again I think there are subtle differences in taste.; Oh, I almost forgot the God stuff. Far too many of them have bible quotes as their signature. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son .. " etc. Maybe I should quote the Koran in my first submission. It's a big enough book I'm sure I'd be able to find a quote about not invading other countries for their oil.; Anyway, I was kinda hoping, in amongst this bilge, there'd be something useful I could rescue because I do like the concept. I would like a source of graphic design ideas, I'm too tight to buy Photoshop (which is what all the tutorials and magazines seem to write for) (that's not really true, I just don't have that much of a need for it), and I don't want to run a cracked version .. that would be naughty. Anyway, after several weeks there was a tutorial I actually quite liked because I could see that maybe, just maybe, I might use it one day.; Did I mention how irritable I am at the moment?; Update: I feel bad now. I submitted my tutorial and got a very warm welcome. Awwwww.; Maybe they think I wear a white shirt.
Dirt: 21 August 2004: Awww. I was just standing outside looking at our new windows (just the ground floor to do on Monday) and a friend asked whether I liked them, and I replied that I was too stressed about the house being upside down and covered in dust and dirt to enjoy them at the moment.; She said "Well, put it this way. Our house is upside down and covered in dust and dirt, and we're not having any work done." That made me feel better (really).
Bored: 20 August 2004: Right! I'm bored with building work now. I want it all finished and gone so I can get to my clothes again (I'm still dressed (in shorts) for sunny weather, and it's freezing). Anyway, six windows in, and the remaining two to go on Monday. They really make a difference to the house, it's almost like we're in a holiday cottage where everything's nice. Now the house demands some respect.; We did discover that originally the house had arched windows (tell me if I start to lapse into Play School isms).; I should say too that the guys from Andy Whitelaw Joinery have been very good, they've been responsive to our priorities and needs, and what I've seen of the work they've done so far I'm chuffed.; The roofer just knocked on the door saying the ridge tiles that have arrived are red. He ordered grey, but there you go. So just in case we wanted them. No-one else along the street has them, so nope, don't think so. No problem, it'll just be a few more days now till it's done.
Log cabins: 20 August 2004: I just went live with Premier Norwegian Log Cabins. I'm a little muted about it because from my perspective it's not ready yet .. the database isn't fully populated, there are pages to finish, the menu needs work, and it's not been tested. But it's better than nothing, and my considerations are not the only ones around. Business has its own priorities, and I respect that.; What I do like about it is that the selection of cabins works a treat. The database side of things works really well, and on most pages there's my usual trick of displaying a different selection of images on each page load .. when the database is fully populated you'll be able to click on a picture you like and see the details of the model, but that only works for one at the moment. I like the supporting information we're providing (which I've written), and as you can see there's much more of that to come. Oh, and the mirroring function is pretty good too .. if you navigate to the detail of a cabin and press the [mirror] button all the images will mirror, because you can buy the cabins that way around too.; I think it's an improvement on the main manufacturer's site which went live a few weeks ago.
Windows 3: 18 August 2004: I know this is kinda irrelevant stuff to anyone else, but my g/f can check progress while she's at work, so, here goes. The first new window is in (middle floor). You can also see the colours we were choosing from for the outside, we chose the bottom left one. The next pic shows the bathroom window mid replacement previous
Windows 2: 18 August 2004: The window chappies are in our second bedroom now. The way it seems to be working is, one will fire up a power tool, apply it for a while, then the other will shout "whoaaaa" in a way that makes me think "maybe he's just drilled that little bit too far". Then they do it all over again, including the same "whoaaaa".; Actually, there's a variation. Every now and then there's a "wooohoooo", in a "wow, this is fun, what happens if we do this" kinda way. I'd best go see what they're up to, they seem to be enjoying their work too much :-) previous
Vegan fayre: 18 August 2004: We went to an anti-animal-cruelty fayre at the weekend. Somehow it reminded me of Reeves and Mortimer's meat festival, although obviously it was a no-meat festival. There was a sponsored head shaving .. kinda Craggy Island.; Actually, it had a really nice atmosphere, I saw lots of friends (maybe friends no more after these comments), and more power to their elbow for organising it. I'll definitely be coming to the next one, if they'll let me.
Roof progress: 18 August 2004: The roof is progressing. In the end the fabric covering did let in quite a bit of water around the chimney stacks, but it really was an unusual few days of rain.; Mark's still doing a grand job. The slates look wonderful. . Apparently, one thing to watch is how much overlay there is between the slates, I think it's measured from the nails to the bottom edge of the tile above it. 2" is common, but insufficient. 3" is better. Obviously a lower priced job might mean you get 2" of overhang because it uses less slate.; On the two stacks where we'd had the leadwork re-done, Mark said the lead was, I think he said grade 3. The grade is the thickness, and this is too thin for the job. Lead being easily bendable, he said he was surprised it hadn't blown up in the wind. He'll be putting in proper thickness lead.; One chimney pot was cracked, so Mark's replaced that and concreted around the top. I couldn't believe he stood astride the roof with a petrol driven circular stone saw to remove the old concrete. Not me matey! previous
Windows day: 18 August 2004: Wow, it's windows day. Not in the computer sense, but today's the day our crappy old windows get replaced by wood sash windows.
McDammit: 17 August 2004: Dammit, I just got a McDonalds flash animated pop up advertisement thingy on my Yahoo page. The 'close' cross didn't appear until the final frames. It was doubly irritating because they were telling me about their free pedometer with a particular type of 'healthy' meal.; No, McDonalds. It's us that's telling you you're unhealthy. Not you telling us. You don't get special kudos for listening, you shoulda been doing that from day one and if you had, even then, that's just what should be .. no special prizes.
Faraday cage: 17 August 2004: Is our scaffolding working like a Faraday Cage? Since it's gone up, the telly that uses a set-top aerial hasn't been receiving television as well as before.
Bisch basch bosch: 16 August 2004: Bosch responded to my email. That's good. They said the machine will rinse three times regardless. That's bad (and so much for fuzzy logic). They then said they didn't recommend putting anything other than laundry into the drum. That's bad.; Then in their next email, they sent me a copy of someone elses enquiry. A chap from Basingstoke asking about canopy sizes. That's very bad.; Ali's not convinced about the eco-balls anyway, and I think I agree. Maybe for t-shirts and so on. But for towels? Underwear? I'll say no more.; Bisch basch bosch, incidentally, is a reference to, as I remember it, a song (was it a Song for Europe) called "Pish pash posh" written and performed by the two air stewards in "The High Life", an early, and enjoyable, Alan Cumming project. Or am I confused?
Keep it simple: 16 August 2004: I recently went to sort out my will, something I've done twice so far. Both times, I've explained what I thought were fairly simple requirements, and the solicitor has argued the case for keeping it simple.; Last time I buckled. This time, after me asking lots of questions and there being seemingly no real reason why he wanted it kept simple (it's no more expensive, the fact the some beneficiaries are minor isn't a major problem, the fact that the amounts might be small isn't an issue), I had to insist that's what we wanted. It's almost as if it's only a will, it's simple, legally, so he just wants to skip over it to the more interesting legal stuff. The complex requests take more time to type up and are more prone to mistakes.; I find it weird. This decision, of all, should surely be somehow sacrosanct. Where's the line drawn? If it's OK to try to persuade me to keep it simple, who is to say it's not OK to persuade someone infirm of the benefits of a much simpler will wherein all the money goes to him?
Mum: 16 August 2004: My mum just emailed and said "mummy says stop swearing on your blog". LOL. Funnily enough, I thought about that when I wrote it, and thought, hell, I'm 43, I should be able to do this :-); She also said there are speling errors here. Now that worries me .. she didn't say where.
Bosch: 12 August 2004: We have a Bosch WFF2000 washing machine, and have just bought and started to play with our Eco-Balls, a detergent-free clothes washing system.; We were recommended them by some friends (hi m&m). He demonstrated his t-shirt which looked pristine, with colour as good as new (am I sounding like a soap powder ad yet?), yet we both knew he'd bought it at a gig we were both at several years ago. It was pristine, he said, because they always used eco-balls, and it had never been attacked by washing powder and its bleaching agents.; Having used them a few times, we're not exactly sure yet. On towels, maybe we just need to get used to the fact that they don't smell perfumed anymore.; But we have another issue. We bought them for environmental reasons. But our washing machine seems to rinse just as many times as it did with washing powder. I'm not sure, with the balls, clothes need to rinse at all. We can't find a setting for 'no rinse'. It's got fuzzy logic, so the idea is it's supposed to know when to stop rinsing by sensing the soap content of the water. I'm wondering if the whatevers emitted by the eco-balls are confusing the fuzzy logic. Sometimes technology can make things so much more complex.; So I decided to contact Bosch to ask them. I tried their website. After telling them which part of the world I am in, and then which country, I thought I'd buy into the idea of "Your assistant in the Bosch Internet knows its way around and finds what you are looking for quickly and competently." I put WFF2000 into the box. It said "The Web Assistant is currently unavailable. Please visit again soon."; I thought I'd navigate through the product tree. Clicking domestic/outdoor appliances, seemed to have no effect, until I noticed, completely elsewhere on the screen, a tiny menu had appeared. I chose Household Appliances, which flashed up a screen and then disappeared again. I loaded it into a different browser. I tried entering WFF2000 into the "Please enter a product number or a keyword" part, and it said "The products you are searching for are currently unavailable. "; I thought I'd contact them. I got the number from the 'contact us' page. "Due to the high volume of calls, we are unable to answer your call right now". Fantastic.; I finally got an email address. I find this lack of service wild, I really do.
Faithless: 12 August 2004: I saw an awesome video on the gym tv last night, for Faithless' "I want more" which comprised a display by North Korean gymnasts. Breathtaking. I contacted the website and they identified it to me. Great. But the video's not out till next week.; Well. I've got the burn for this now. I want to see it again. So, in my innocence, I'm wondering, why does the music industry pre-release product to the media? I'm sure they'd say it's in order to build up demand so when the product is released, everyone buys it and it gets a good chart position. But, surely what it does is make people fulfil their desires by downloading the product illegally, or taping it from the radio or tv. Isn't it time, in an increasingly immediate world, the record companies changed this practice, for their own good? It seems a bit steep to create demand, and then not sell us the product. That's just asking for trouble.
Amazon moan, again: 12 August 2004: Amazon again. I placed an order for three items, one of which is "usually dispatched in 8 or 9 days" ten days ago. I've heard nothing since, and there's no indication of any progress whatsoever. previous
A Big Issue surprise: 11 August 2004: I bought a copy of The Big Issue a week ago and inside were these hearts. I've been trying to work out if they're printed or really hand-written, and so whether I've got something special, a one off special message, or whether I'm a dope for thinking that because hundreds of thousands of others have it too. All I need is a magnifying glass I suppose, to see the print dots, but I don't think I've got one.; A scan is the best I can do. Looks hand written to me.; Besides the God part, I love it. "Believe, love, listen, trust, prepare, persist, pray, change, choose, accept, act, smile, focus, forgive, wait, risk, relax. God loves you, pass it on." Maybe I will.
Roofing: 11 August 2004: We are having a new roof installed, and were strongly recommended Mark Ryan (he trades as Lonsdale Roofing (01723 503314)) by a friend who is a quality builder. We're about halfway through the project and so far so very good. He's a nice guy, and the longer it goes on the more confidence I've got in the new roof.; You know how it is, our roof's been leaking and giving damp patches for years and we've claimed on the insurance for storm damage and had slates put back and all the chimney stacks re-leaded. All, pretty much, to no avail. So you'll forgive me if I'm not excited about getting a new roof. To start with, if I think about what I really feel about this, past experiences have set up an expectation that this won't work, that the new roof will be as problematic as the old, and we'll have spent our money and still not got any peace of mind. Not only that, if it doesn't, I'll have done everything I can to make it work, so I'll be at the end of my roof road.; In 1992 the previous owners had had the roof sprayed underneath with foam by Roof-Tek in Weston-super-Mare, who still seem to be in business. I know I sound surprised, but there you go. I only came across their guarantee after we'd committed to having the roof re-done (but it wouldn't have changed our minds). It guarantees the foam will "perform its function satisfactorily in that it will prevent snow or rain ingress and prevent tiles or slates from slippage for a period of 25 years". Well, it didn't. We've had countless slates slip off, and I can think of three places where we've put pots and pans to collect drips. Mark says what often happens is the roof isn't repaired before it's sprayed, so the tiles get fixed into their bad and leaky positions. Every roofer who's worked on the roof has hated the foam treatment. They sigh and swear and mumble about roofs having to breathe.; Once the slates are removed, a breathable but waterproof fabric goes up, pinned by the horizontal wooden slats. After this came two days of torrential rain. Actually, the main storm came overnight. We sleep in the roofspace and slept right through it. The first I knew about it was when I went running the next morning, and the force of the water had lifted the personhole covers off all the drains around North bay and created gulleys across the beach to the sea. The roof fabric was watertight. Our new roof, consisting of just that fabric, was more watertight than our old fully tiled, sprayed and guaranteed roof. Wow.; So now I'm getting excited. Now I'm thinking, well, I'm happy with the roof as it is :-) How much better will it be with tiles on? Maybe, just maybe, this could be good. Watch this (roof)space.
It's over: 9 August 2004: Good. Big Brother is over. I think everyone is agreed the scheduling makes the program. It's there, essentially, at the end of the day. It's what people watch, in bed, before sleep. We would sleep before the end of Big Brother if it wasn't on, and actually I start getting sleep deprivation when BB is on because I lose about a half hour's sleep every day over it.; Anyway, what I wanted to say is that, although I really couldn't work out which housemate deserved to win, Stuart in his last week and when evicted, showed some really lovable qualities. That's a turnaround for me as I felt some personal resentment of him. Ummm, if I'm allowed to say it, he billed himself as the most intelligent housemate, being a straight As student, so straight away I felt an alignment with him. Yet in practical terms he couldn't string a sentence together. I sometimes have that problem too. I knew exactly what was going on in his head to stop the words coming out. It's not a stutter, it's that there's so much to think about, so many consequences of each thought, that the opinion hasn't been formed yet. So I felt that he was somehow being a caricature intelligent person, that he wasn't good PR for intelligence, he just emphasised the bad side of intelligence. Mind-you, he was better than that irritating bastard Tickle last year, even though be did display a practical use of intelligence by continually trying to improve things. Maybe if Stuart had not been so controlled by Michelle we'd have seen more of his character. In that case, he'd have been a clear winner.; The other thing I wondered, was, when he was interviewed by Davina afterwards and she asked something about his previous girlfriends he said he "hadn't really had a serious girlfriend before". It occurred to me. Did Stuart lose his virginity on national tv? That would completely explain his reticence.; Overall, I'm pleased Nadia won because it makes me proud to be British. I heard or read that in Europe they keep voting heterosexual middle class good looking white males to win their Big Brothers. I couldn't cope with that. So the British embracing diversity is shown once again, and that's a great thing. It's what makes British art and culture so interesting.; The only thing wrong with Nadia was her nicotine issues. I'm polarised on this. On the one hand, I'm completely irritated by her inability to make her cigarettes last, despite knowing how much she needed them. In the house, I'd have been thrown out because I'd have been seen as being boring and stuffy because I'd have not wanted to be around while all the smoking was happening. Not that I throw a wobbler at a single cigarette nearby, but it seemed to be constant in that house. On the other hand, my own self control is all over the place at the moment. I seem to graze for food all the time and can't stop myself. So I show no more self control, and over something that isn't addictive.; A couple of favourite quotes keep coming into my head. The classics from previous years are still around. "I like blinking, me", and "Am I mingin'?" are just so good. But from this year, "No naked Jacuzzi", "why not?", "because they'll be naked, and in the Jacuzzi". The other favourite was when Nadia got so mad she said she was "fumigating". Wonderful. previous
Cassini update: 7 August 2004: The Cassini stuff is really beautiful.
Don't bother turning your television standby off: 7 August 2004: A groundswell of opinion has formed around the habit of turning off the television when not in use. Right off, using the button on the front. The idea is that while the television is in standby mode it uses 75-80% of the electricity that it uses when fully operational.; I found that very hard to believe. If true, that would mean any power supply simply eats electricity while it's not doing much. If true, it would be a much bigger problem.; So I had a look around. My telly's a Sanyo, and the manual doesn't give the power consumption, so I raised a query with technical support. In the meantime however, their brochure for more modern televisions, available online, gives two figures. 123w for normal use, and 3w for standby.; Our electricity from Good Energy costs 7.31p per KWh. Let's imagine we watch television for perhaps four hours a day if you include morning television while Ali's getting ready, lunchtime news for me, and a couple of hours in the evening. Maybe it's more, but let's try that. 4 hours of 123w = 492 watts. 492/1000x7.31 = 3.6p for the day.; If it's on standby for the remaining twenty hours, that's 20 x 3 = 60w. 60/1000 x 7.31 = 0.44p .. less than half a pence for the day.; Now, OK, we have two televisions in the house, so that's maybe a penny a day for it to be on standby. And I'm sure if the whole of the population could be persuaded to switch their tellies off when not in use it would cut out a significant amount of CO2 emission.; But let's get it into perspective. A television on standby for a day uses as much electricity as a 60w bulb left on for an hour. I think if you're going to get serious about television standby, you need to be grimly fiendish about switching off your lights as soon as you're done with them, and change to an electricity supplier that gets its electricity from renewable sources.; Almost everything we buy, particularly household appliances, cars, furniture, magazines and newspapers, food from far flung places, petrol and air travel, clothes, CDs take energy to manufacture and cause environmental damage. The discarded old items then cause further damage. I suspect, although I imagine it would be a life's work to calculate it, cutting down consumption would have a far greater impact on the environment and our wallet.; Not that that's the key point. We should do what we can, of course, even if others don't. And if we can easily do a small thing, we should still do it, regardless of whether we do the bigger things too or not.; Frankly, I'm not that bothered. I'm not lazy enough to moan about having to stand up again to hit the button after having sat down .. I take the stairs not the lift, walk instead of drive, anyway. I'm old enough to remember when we had to stand up every time we wanted to change channel.; All I was bothered about was nailing down the facts. A television in standby mode DOES NOT use 75-80% of the electricity it uses when it's on. It uses 2%. I thought the charitable way of looking at this would be to think that maybe the statistic came from the idea that a television uses most of the total electricity it uses in standby mode simply because it spends most of its time in standby mode. It uses 12% of its total electricity consumption in standby mode (based on my example usage .. less if more television is watched).; The other interesting thing is that that great big chunk of hardware, its big screen and its speakers and amplifier uses barely more electricity when switched on than a 100w lightbulb. That's a triumph of engineering.; PS. There's a song title hidden in this blog, a prize goes to the person who spots it first and gives the band name.; 8 August 2004: Update: A friend (Hi Steve) read this and started thinking about all the things in the house that are on standby. He turned off: 1) Computer monitor, 2) ADSL router, 3) Stereo, 4) Stereo subwoofer, 5) Printer, 6) PC, 7) Video, 8) TV, 9) Digital box, 10) DVD player, 11) Microwave, 12) TV in bedroom. Bloody students, far too much gear. When I was first a student I was dead chuffed when my parents turned up with a gift of a pound of cheese. Anyway, I guess that means he could save 5p a day with a regime like that. I saw 5p on the floor the other day and couldn't be bothered to pick it up. But then we both worked out how much 5p a day would be by the time he was nearly dead. I reckoned about £1,100, but he got it to be much more when he added compound interest. That makes it sound worthwhile, and shows my attitude to money can still be improved.; Update: 11 August 2004: Two things really. Firstly, Sanyo never got back to me. Like I've said before, I take that stuff personally. HEY SANYO! I BOTHERED TO SPEND THE TIME AT WORK SO I COULD BUY ONE OF YOUR CRAZY TELEVISIONS, THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS ANSWER MY F***** A***** W***** B***** QUESTION!; Secondly. People are very het up about this issue. If I'd said "God sleeps with goats" I doubt I'd have caused anything like the same furore. I guess I'm about to find out. Simply, those are the facts as I see them. No-one has told me I'm wrong.; Actually, that's not true, they have. But they've not told me how or why yet. I agree we have to save the planet, I just think it's a bit wierd being all serious and concerned about turning off your telly standby .. 3w or not of green electricity doesn't make that much difference. But for the record, I am turning it off now when I notice it.
99p double cheeseburger: 7 August 2004: How is it that McDonalds can advertise a double cheeseburger for 99p, which is cheaper than pretty much any other high street meal, and it not be completely clear how cheap and nasty that meal must be?; How is it that the association between cheapness and low quality doesn't seem to stick to McDonalds?
I wasn't going to: 6 August 2004: I resisted blogging this, but then I had a thought about it I wanted to share. A friend (Hi John), sent me two links. One Funny Band Names shows humorous real band names, whereas this shows made-up computer generated ones.; I found the latter funnier. Which to me says that humour can be about jumping the thought rails. The laugh comes from the unexpected, and whereas human generated band names that try to be off the wall or unusual in truth follow tried and tested thought patterns, the computer just hacks together random (though chosen from an appropriate pool) words. The chance encounter of, for example, The Transistor Playwrights, Treachery Nights, Barb Therapy, Genre Fighter, and Bluffing all kinda work for me.; For me, it backs up the need for powerful creative thinking skills by illustrating how predictable our heads can be.
The learning curve: 6 August 2004: I never knew this, but it turns out (Wiredlife again) that 'the learning curve' stems from a piece of research in the 1940s into the reasons for the falling cost of the production of aircraft wings.; It turns out that the production cost was related to the total number of wings ever produced. In that sense it's different to the economy of scale which is about getting lower costs by making more things now.; As we work at something, so we find quicker, easier, cheaper, better ways to do it. The accumulation of these improvements leads to lower costs. Fantastically, it turns out that each time the cumulative output (total since day one) of an item doubled, the cost of labour fell by 25%. It turned out that rule pretty much applied to the unit cost (labour and non-labour costs) too. Even better, this turned out to be consistent across industries.; Is the learning curve, then, the major driver of progress in society? Is it because of the learning curve that we (well, most of us) have, and can expect, an ever improving standard of living?; Does this make 'cost cutting' a legitimate expectation? Can we bank on things getting ever cheaper?; Does this form the basis for an argument for age and experience over youthful enthusiasm?
Henri Cartier-Bresson: 5 August 2004: The death of master photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was announced today. While I'm writing, the Fondation's server is understandably overloaded, I found a few other resources .. the Washington Post, Magnum photos, AfterImage, and the Peter Fetterman Gallery.
Leeds: 5 August 2004: I went to Leeds yesterday and had a really special Indian meal at Hansa's restaurant. Definitely recommended, and within walking distance of the city centre.
Binary septicemia: 4 August 2004: Our cat had septicemia the other day, and I had quite a worrying discussion with Ali about its binary nature.; From her perspective, septicemia is binary, and she got backup from her workplace. You've got it or you haven't.; From mine, it's analog. I think it's a coverall term (as so many medical terms are) which covers a) a number of different infection causes, and b) a range of stages of infection.; I suppose, from the NHS' point of view, it's all about taking the correct action. They don't want people discussing the finer nature of the infection. They, and the patient too I'm sure, would like effective treatment fast. So once the problem is labelled, treatment can proceed. If you have septicemia, we do this to you. It's a black and white thing.
The beeping beeper: 4 August 2004: While you've got in mind our local geography, there's one person (among all the people) who has taken it upon himself to sound his horn before driving round our corner. I presume he thinks this allows him to drive faster because other road users will get out of his way.; At first this annoyed us, but hey, live and let live. It happens at 7:15am usually, which is quite useful as a backup in case we've overslept.; Today, though, we woke up in fits of giggles because he added doppler dog, his dog who barked out of the window, presumably as an added precaution.; This, at 6:30am. It appears to be illegal to do that, as with so many things.
More scaffolding: 3 August 2004: Wow. The scaffolding guys .. Craig and Shane .. have just left. It's just gone eight in the evening. They've been here twelve hours and, as far as I can tell, worked solidly, powered only by four cups of tea and a packet of crisps. Each, mind.; Thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever really witnessed hard work like that. I mean, I sit here all day, occasionally go to the gym, and have to take extra vitamins to manage that. They seemed to work cheerfully all day on fresh air and sugar.; I asked them to be careful about the pots and furniture in our back garden and, shock, they were. More than that, I was confident they would be.; Someone also thought about what they were doing too. It hadn't occurred to me that if they had build scaffolding around the corner of our house, the bin lorry wouldn't have been able to get past. Nor emergency vehicles for that matter. I'd have been pretty unpopular. They thought of that, and ran the scaffolding around the corner only at the top floor. Maybe it's the law or good practice, but I'm really impressed.; So, thanks again Acorn. If anyone's looking for scaffolding, I recommend them.
Scaffolding: 3 August 2004: We're having our roof and windows replaced over the next month or so, and the scaffolders (Acorn from Malton) arrived yesterday.; It's stressful. We live on the corner of a cul-de-sac containing maybe a hundred houses. They arrived with a lorryfull of scaffolding poles and parked it blocking the road .. it's all they could do, the entrance is only really one lorry wide. For good measure, they brought two smaller lorries and all but blocked Tollergate too.; Later, I realise why. They know they're blocking the street, and they've turned up in force to offload as quickly as they can. But in the starting moments, all I know is there are several blokes throwing poles and bags of metal off the side of the lorry onto the pavement outside our opposite neighbour, it's a hell of a noise.; It's not clear who's in charge, but when I work that out, he's very busy directing everything that's happening. I seem to be one of maybe three or four things he's juggling. It's a bit like a Monty Python sketch where I'm fluttering around trying to say "yes, but actually, you're supposed to be here next week" and by the time I've got the guy's attention, the scaffolding's erected.; Later, his phone rings with, I think, the "Ride of the Valkyries" as his ringtone. I found that funny. I imagine it's an attempt to say "I may manage scaffolders but I have a soul too". Hey, it's better than having the latest Beyoncé. But the thing that made it funny for me was that one of our senior lecturers at uni had the theme tune from Roobarb and Custard on his phone, presumably to say "I may have a PHd and lecture in Internet Computing, but I have a soul too".; The overall impression is of a large industrial machine which I'm not in any particular control of. I retreated inside. It's more stressful than I thought it would be, because it's my house people are climbing all over, my neighbours and I can't see where the control levers are.; But they moved the lorry so cars could squeeze past, without being asked, and they've been polite. Nothing's broken, and they appreciated the cup of tea I took out. They also worked until about seven, and they've just arrived now, at eight in the morning. It must be a very busy time for them. Working for a scaffolding company is one way to get fit.; I'd recommend them, actually. So far they've been nice guys working hard to get the job done. That's a stark contrast to the animals who came down from Middlesborough to scaffold the back of our house a few years ago. At the top, rear of our house, you can hear what people are saying on the street that's, well, a long way away. There's something going on acoustically that must amplify the sound. So we imagine people on the streets can hear us saying things like "look at that bloke with the silly hair". The previous scaffolders swore continuously, loudly, and using the worst words from the top of the scaffolding at the back of our house. They talked about the porn on their computers. All at full volume. They broke pots in the 'garden' and left me to fix a drainpipe they dislodged and disconnected.; So, yes, I'd recommend Acorn Scaffolding, Mill Barn, East Knapton, Malton, North Yorkshire YO17 8JA, Tel: 01944 728010. And I'd warn against scaffolders from Middlesborough :-)
Farrow & Ball: 2 August 2004: Here's a weird one. We are going to repaint the outside of our house. Since we are in a conservation area we wanted to find some traditional paints. There are none better than Farrow and Ball. We've used their paints before and, well, once you've used a Farrow and Ball paint you don't look back.; While I was filing, my partner went onto their website to place an order. I talked her through it and at one point she said "do I need the little padlock symbol", "not yet" I said .. "the next page".; Except, it wasn't on the next page. The one that's asking for credit card details. If we'd have typed our credit card details into that form, our credit card details would have been sent unsecured over the Internet.; There's a message underneath the form: "A Quick Note from Securetrading about Security If you look up at the URL of this page you will notice that it begins with https://. This means that it is on a Secure Server and all transactions that take place are encrypted between your browser and the server. Nobody is able to obtain your credit card details nor other information. Of equal importance is the security which surrounds the payment system. By making use of SecureTrading we have the most sophisticated online trading system available. It allows us to safely process your credit card payment with the bank, and complete the financial transactions securely behind protected firewalls. No personal or financial details are left unencrypted on a remote server, and such details are never sent by internet email. For more details about SecureTrading or to find out how you could have an automatic trading system like this on your own site, visit the SecureTrading web site at http://www.securetrading.com"; Except, it wasn't https://, it was plain, ordinary http://. Scary.; Not only that, the process of adding an item to the basket went something like this: Well, first of all, my partner couldn't see the shop on the site. It takes five clicks to select a product, followed by clicking [add to cart], then [confirm]. followed by a page containing the same product with an [add to cart] button (feel free to add it again if you wish, dear customer), and links to view cart, checkout, and product search. Not particularly tempting, and rather confusing. I want to add another paint pot. Product search is the only way to go. Now I'm into a search place I've not seen before. If I enter a word, I get reams of options. I can click 'shop home' which takes me right to the start again.; I decided not to order online, but to print out my online order so I could remember what I wanted. I requested the print and got one sheet telling me the date, another showing the navigation, another with the company logo, then the order I wanted, and finally a paragraph on their privacy policy. Five pages instead of one. Great.; Finally, on the product information dated 2003 (not too out of date), it says orders will be delivered free. Nope, they want £2.55 for delivery using the website.; It's annoying because I know there are many people out there doing their best to create well considered, accessible, usable, effective websites. And then someone turns out garbage like this and it just takes the whole industry down a notch. Damn them.; Update: 6 August: I wrote to them when I wrote this blog, yet I've still not had a reply from them.
IT's dirty little secret: 1 August 2004: August! How did it get to be August.; Anyway. IT's dirty little secret is that IT doesn't increase productivity. It never has. Whereas investment in industrial machinery increases productivity in multiples, investment in IT doesn't correlate to increased financial efficiency AT ALL.; I'm reading about this in Wiredlife: Who Are We in the Digital Age?. I've just started the chapter on this problem, so I'm curious how it will end. He quotes Paul Strassman, "for many years head of information at Xerox Corporation" who concludes in his The Squandered Computer that "there is no correlation whatever between expenditures for information technologies and any known measure of profitability".; I've been wondering for a while whether the Internet will actually change that. That ubiquitous access to a network and all it contains might finally provide productivity gains. It's too early to say, but I'll meet you back here in 2010 and we'll discuss it again.; Here's my take on why it's been that way for so long.; If you want to automate the manufacture of a physical thing, you develop machines to do it, and that's pretty much that. You take that investment and you work it as long as you can to get the most from it.; A computer, however, isn't a single function tool. So yes, you may do the same with a computer .. let's say you make a computer automate the accounts. But along the way, while you're finding out the requirements for the software, or writing the software, or implementing it, someone with a career to forge and a difference to make will pop up and say "if the computer's doing x, can it do y too?" If it's sending invoices, can it also provide management accounts? If it's providing management accounts, can we analyse the financial performance of our business in real time and provide it securely to management? If we can access data in real time, can we provide our customers with instant access to their accounts? If we can provide instant access to accounts, can we create a loyalty card? If we have loyalty data, can we analyse and understand our customers better and provide customised offers to them?; That doesn't happen with a CNC machine tool.; So, whereas the computer probably did make major improvements in the productivity of the invoice raising process, the possibilities it raised that were later implemented probably swamped those benefits, and the costs of implementing some of those ideas are not just in IT.; Possibilities will be implemented to the level that the company is capable of sustaining. IT, in other words, eats as much resource as it is given. The way to get productivity out of IT is to absolutely police the requirements specification and to prune away everything but the obvious productivity gains.; Not that it gives nothing in return. I don't mean to say that IT is inefficient. Just that it delivers our dreams, and our imagination is infinite.; It's not, either, that those additional things, those add-ons, those 'wants' are frivolous or wasteful. They may very well be vital market differentiators. A loyalty card isn't frivolous, it could make or break a company. There are very real market forces at work, whether you're first to market, or playing catchup. But it doesn't increase your company's productivity.; Information is a very important differentiator between your product or service and the next. Whether your shoes are made from leather from happy cows that agreed to be made into shoes when they died, or whether your shoes are just, well, shoes, makes a real difference to the buyer. One of the things that's happening here is that as a society, we expect more information associated with our products. Those that provide it can command a premium. IT handles information. So IT provides a constant stream of ways to improve your products, market them better, and differentiate them from your competitors.; That's got precious little to do with efficiency. But it has to do with staying alive. With staying afloat in a competitive market. Financial productivity, then, is the wrong place to look for the benefit of computing. It's actually a lazy place to look .. computers are fast so their main benefit must be in speed and speed equals productivity and cost savings.; It would be better to study the links between business longevity and IT investment.