From BST to GMT again.

25th October 2009

Once again we have to put up with the clock settings being changed. Why? Because it is supposed to reduce accidents in the morning etc. If some people want to start later in the morning so it will be lighter then they can do that by deciding to start an hour later. We don't need every one to change the clock settings. I find it irritating. It has just gone 10 am, but 24 hours ago it was 11 am, so I will have to wait an extra hour before it is time for my lunch etc. It will take a while to get used to the change, then spring will arrive and they will change them back again.

......

Microsoft fools them again.

22nd October 2009

Even Microsoft can't fool all of the people all of the time, but they do seem to have the knack of fooling most of them most of the time. Vista was a flop so instead of bringing out Vista Service pack 2. They call it Windows 7, and the people queue up to buy it.

I give up. This machine was supplied with Vista. It was so horrible to use I upgraded it to XP.

...... 

World hunger

22nd October 2009

It sounds cruel to say it but hunger will never be abolished just by feeding the hungry.

Some say that Bioengineering would increase the food supply enough to abolish hunger, but it doesn't matter how much food we grow. The instinct to breed is natures way of making sure the species survives, so when the western countries feed the starving people saving lives, they are keeping alive people that will go on to have children. Keeping them alive by feeding them is just making the problem worse next time there is a shortage. The only way to stop famine is to educate these people that having a lot of children is causing the problem. I just watched a news item where they interviewed a farther in Ethiopia. He said he went away to earn money to feed his family, but while he was away he was worried about his seven children.

7 children!!

 In the west we are educated and it is unusual for a family to exceed 3 children.

.......

Airport starts trial of 'strip-search' scanner

13th October 2009

I understand this scanner uses Xrays.

X-rays are dangerous, so if ever I go through customs and am asked to go through the X-ray machine. I will respond with I would rather strip naked in front of everyone than be exposed to Xrays. If there is a medical reason making an X-ray necessary then fine, but in an airport. No thank you.

It should be illegal.

I just saw an advertisement on the TV for a loan company who offer short term loans. In the small print on the bottom of the screen was the typical interest rate charged. It was 2356% APR.  At first I thought they had left the decimal point out, but they really do charge an annual percentage rate of Two Thousand, Five Hundred, and Fifty-Six Percent!

Why is this allowed?

......

Freeview cockup.

The freeview retune did not lose any channels in my area, but they have made a mistake. They moved ITV2+1 to a different channel number Nothing wrong with that except they lost part of the name in the process. It now shows up in the list as ITV. Before the change we were continually presented with text overlaying the picture reminding us to retune. Those like me that thought they would vanish after the retune were to be disapointed.

......

Freeview retune disaster.

The freeview retune required tomorrow is going to be a downgrade for most people. They will be removing quite a few channels including ITV3 and ITV4. Why are they doing this? To make room for HDTV. To get this high definition TV you will need a HD capable TV and don't expect your current freeview receiver to get HDTV. If you have a HD TV that doesn't have a Freeview HD receiver inside it you will need a new freeview box too. Most people on freeview don't want HDTV but they have to suffer the loss of channels to satisfy the tech freeks at the BBC. I have just spent the morning setting up a satellite TV box that will allow me to receive the free to air channels hoping ITV4 will be broadcast there. 

......

PM determine to stay.

The PM Gordon Brown in his speech at the Labour conference made it clear he would not give way for to someone else, and that he remains determined to be PM when the next general election comes in June. Well, I think we can safely predict that he will lose. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the Labour party didn't end up in third place. People won't forget the budgets where he worded changes that gave the casual listener the impression he was reducing income tax when he was actually increasing it for the worst off, and that was before the banking disaster where he started giving tax payers money away and is still doing it. He doesn't have this money. He is generated a massive national debt, so large that the taxes we are paying will probably not even cover the interest on the debt.  How did that old folk song go? Oh yes "He won't lie down, he's dead but he won't lie down".

.......

Doctors that Kill.

In Ohio USA, news reports tell me that doctors have failed to execute someone by lethal injection because they could not find a healthy enough vein. The part of that report that astounded me was doctors killing!

I understood that doctors swore an oath to do no harm, called the Hippocratic Oath.

I guess these doctors swore a hypocritical Oath.

......

Unfair Awards.

According to the Telegraph web site Virgin provide the fastest broadband, and received an award for it, but I feel they are not comparing like with Like. Virgin have a large number of people connected through their cable TV system, which is capable of delivering much higher speeds than a ADSL connection through your telephone line. My advice to anyone considering changing their broadband supplier is to spend some time looking at the various deals on offer, and watch out for the old trick of hiding the real cost in the small print.  View the headline price with suspicion. It may increase wildly after the first few months, or it may look cheap because they don't mention something else you need to make it work. One trick is to sell a package for less than £10.00 a month and only mention in the small print that you need their telephone line connection costing more than another £10.00. Lastly check what the usage limit is and ask what happens if you exceed the limit. Some companies make a massive extra charge for every gig you exceed the limit by. If it says unlimited use then read their terms and conditions, because unfortunately they can say what they like in the headline advert and renege on it by stating something different in their Terms and conditions.

.......

Product placement to be allowed.

I just heard on the TV news that product placement is to be allowed on British commercial TV. Thankfully I am not a soap watcher, but I can imagine what is to come. There will be a lot more breakfast scenes where it is made very clear which cereal they are eating and the label on the sliced bread will be zoomed onto if only for a moment. Just imagine it. "Mum have you seen my new phone I bought from XXXX's that only cost me £xx a month?  No love, but it was so reasonable that we can always buy you another."

........

Legislation Without Thought.

I wonder what this world is coming to. Our government in an attempt to protect children has decided that anyone having anything to do with children will have to be checked up on, and unless it is unpaid work they are doing they will have to pay for this check into their past. An amazingly stupid example is that if a supply teacher is not employed for more than 90 days he/she must pay again to have the check redone.

Talk about stupid government.  It is basically saying to all those considering teaching or health care to look for a different career move. I predict a massive shortage of teachers etc. within the next 10 years.

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Son of Gaddafi, SHUT UP.

7th September 2009

Before Gaddafi's son criticizes British politicians he should remember our politicians may not be perfect, but at least they are in power because they were voted in by the people, unlike his father who took over the country by force. The only reason he has a voice is because his father killed and murdered people in his own country to get into power. If the Libyan people had their way he would be in prison awaiting the death penalty.

.......

Stupid @ PC World.

6th September 2009

A while back I went into a branch of PC world to purchase a rather expensive monitor. They had 2 makes in stock, but one was still in it's box, so I asked a member of the sales staff if I could see the other so I could choose between them. He said no. I was astounded at his altitude having been a shop salesman for many years selling Hi-Fi, so I complained to the manager of the shop. To my amazement he agreed with his salesman. They lost that sale and I have refused to set foot in the place again. I have since heard from many people regarding bad after sales service, confirming my decision as a wise one. Now I read in the news that their staff have been calling their customers stupid on Facebook. Hopefully those customers they insulted will take their custom elsewhere, and sales will drop. The staff will end up in the dole queue. I wonder if while waiting in the dole queue they will realize who really is stupid.
.......

The Touch Screen Madness.

5th September 2009

Have you noticed how a touch screen ability is been highlighted as a benefit in advertisements for new phones, computers etc? I avoid touching my screens for any reason to avoid the mess it makes of them. The natural oils in out skin are excellent for keeping the skin in good condition, but make a right old mess on the plastic or glass surface of a computer screen. As for these 
mobile phones they sell that can browse the web. I don't want or desire one, but should the need arise I would be looking for a keyboard version myself.
........

How many more solders must die?

4th September 2009

In the 7 July 2005 London bombings 56 people were killed, including the bombers, and 700 were injured. If we hadn't sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan the bombing probably wouldn't have happened. Over 200 British solders have been killed in Afghanistan so far. We are told this is to stop things like the London bombings happening again. That is nearly 4 times as many solders as bombing victims. It looks like soldiers' lives are not considered as important as civilian lives.
.......

The Tobin Tax.

The FSA backs a global Transaction tax. The financial community won't like it of course, but as long as it is at a modest rate it would do no harm and the Governments of the world could recoup the tax payers money handed out to save the banks. A small transaction tax (About one percent) would make sure the banking community paid the money back and could be increased if the banking community started grabbing massive profits at the expense of the rest of us.

.......

NHS v Private insurance.

14th August 2009.

There seems to be a row going on in the USA. Those with a vested interest in the USA are feeding the public the worst stories about the British health service they can find and have even managed to get a Tory MP to say how bad the NHS is.

Well America, don't you believe the propaganda. I wouldn't swap the British health service for the American system for all the tea in China.

I am a British citizen and was born and have lived my life in England. If I need to see a doctor then I can see him for free.

If I need hospital treatment then I  am admitted to hospital. No one checks to see if I have insurance to cover the cost.

Around 46,000,000 people in the US have no health insurance, because they don't have the income to pay for it. If one of them is taken ill then they just might get some sort of basic help from a medicare or a charity. Now if you have a disability that required long term health care then the cost of the insurance will shoot up in price. If you can't afford insurance and have a long term illness then you will just have to die.

In England you are charged a small amount for your prescribed drugs, but there are plenty of safe guards to make sure those who cannot afford even that small fee are excluded from paying. When you reach 60 years old even the prescribed drugs are free. The NHS is paid for by a tax taken from your earnings. The amount is based on what you are earning.

I could still buy private health insurance if I wished to, so I really don't understand why the average American would not prefer our system.

The insurance companies in the USA don't want an American health scheme like ours put in place because they will no longer be able to make loads of money from insurance.

......

Eating Out! No thanks.

7th August 2009.

The report from OFCOM saying that people would rather do without going out for meals than give up broadband is reported as if it were a surprising piece of information.

Had I forgotten to take food with me, I would go hungry all day rather than eat out. You have no idea what has gone into the preparation of the food purchased ready to eat in cafes and restaurants. I prepare my own food at home, and never buy pre prepared food. The only way to be sure of what you are eating is to buy the raw ingredients and cook it yourself. Buying a ready meal is to buy the low quality food. If you put the meat they use to make meat pies and sausages raw an un minced into a butchers window, it would be more likely to make passers by throw up than be tempted to buy it. Have you noticed how perfect the raw vegetables are on the shelves of a supermarket? When you grow your own carrots, potatoes etc. and see the strange difficult to clean shapes of some of the vegetables are when you harvest them, do you ever wonder what happens to the misshapen ones. Well they are power washed to get the worst of the dirt off them then chopped up and used in ready meals, grubs and all. They can hide a multitude of sins in a sauce or a gravy.

.......
Gary McKinnon.

26th July 2009.

If I was in the American position regarding Gary McKinnon, I wouldn't be trying to send him to jail. I would be employing him as an security manager. For a guy on a PC in his bedroom to be able to hack into more than 90 government computers suggests to me that they don't know how to stop people hacking into their government systems, and therefore need someone like him on their team improving the security.
......
Beware of Mobile broadband.

26th July 2009.

If you are considering getting one of those USB dongles that allow you to browse the internet through a mobile phone network then be warned. They don't advertise the fact that you can be charged a hell of a lot of money if you exceed the limit The company called O2 are the highest I know of at  œ200.70. Three.co.uk charge œ102.40. I was considering buying a phone from 3 but having read the above on the PCPRO site , and checked out the Terms and conditions on the 3 web site which effectively says that they cannot be held to anything, I have decided not to bother.

I wish someone would sue a company that uses a disclaimer statement in the small print to cancel what they are offering. ISP's offer unlimited use, but say it is not really unlimited in the terms and conditions. That is deception, and needs challenging in a court to set a president.

......

  Chinese hack Australian web site.

26th July 2009.

The Chinese have hacked into the website of Australia's major film festival, in protest at plans to screen a documentary about the exiled Uighur leader, Rebiya Kadeer. There are two questions that come to my mind. 

1) We continue to deal with China. They close us out, and block worldwide news from their people, so why doesn't the free world stop buying their goods until they behave themselves?

2) What was the password to that Australian web site? default

Unfortunately you don't need a sense of decency to develop skills in programming, so there are some programmers out there who write applications that keep trying different passwords until they get in, so if you don't employ decent security you will get hacked. Use random letters in upper and lower case with a some numbers mixed in. You should not use short passwords either. The longer the random mix of letters and numbers is the more combinations there are for these programmes to try.

.......

Credit madness.

25th July 2009.

I heard someone on the radio say that the economy won’t recover because banks are unwilling to lend money, so people will not buy.  It amazes me that so many people spend next months wages by borrowing money when it costs so much more to live that way. When I want to buy something I buy it with my own money. If I do not have the money now then I put off buying it until I have collected enough money. I have done this all my life.  These people that buy things on credit have to pay for the item and the interest on the loan. By saving for it you not only have no interest to pay, you can often get a discount for cash. This means you have spent less for the items you have so you can save the difference for the next thing you need to buy.

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Shut up about Helicopters and get our lads out.

17th July 2009.

If we kept our noses out of these countries they wouldn't bother us. They refer to the bombings in the underground as the reason for having troops in Afghanistan, but if we had not been interfering in that part of the world it wouldn't have happened. They consider us invaders, which makes us an enemy, so they try and hit back at us by recruiting people to their cause in the UK. They instruct them how to make a bomb and convince them they will be heroes in the next life if they blow themselves up in public places.  Just before the cold war ended Russia was in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban,  and we were helping the Taliban fight the Russians by supplying arms to them!!!

 We are not getting our lads killed to reduce the threat of bombings in the UK. We are doing it to politically please the American government.

.......

Free speech?

10th July 2009.

Call me stupid if you like, but I am confused. I am sure most people have heard the saying "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it". I have regularly added to this web site my thoughts on many subjects, assuming that as a British citizen I am allowed to say what I think. Having heard the news about the imprisonment of Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle, I am wondering if I do have the right to free speech after all. I understand what they said and published on a web site was horrible, describing and showing pictures that made out that certain people should be hated because of their colour, religion or race. But if they didn't physically attack anyone then they must have been jailed for what they said . If they had treated the Taliban, rather than the Jews, to this verbal abuse would they be in prison?

I want to make it clear that I do not agree with what they said. I would never put down anyone for reasons of colour, race or religion. As an atheist I consider worshipping some imaginary god to be daft, but if people do believe I don't feel the need to denigrate them.

I would really like an answer to the question.

Do we have free speech rights in the UK?

.........

 Global warming warning.

9th July 2009.

They keep holding talks about global warming. They decide to hold a meeting and call it something like "The G8 summit", then leaders from around the world burn air miles for themselves and their bodyguards. They hold the meeting. They fail to reach a real agreement, so they compile reassuring statement for the press and and they all fly home adding once again to the carbon in the atmosphere. This time they agree they should cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, but  cannot agree who is going to cut what.

If global warming is going to have such a large impact on the globe, but we have until 2050 to achieve this 80% cut, then it is clear it won't be a major problem in my life time. I am in my 60's so am unlikely to be alive in 2050 and have no off spring to worry about, so they can continue to argue about it until it is too late.

There is little long term hope for the human race anyway. The planet is already over populated, yet nothing is being done to control the birth rate. The planets resources are dwindling fast. Little has been done to build a technology to take us to a new planet since the moon landings 40 years ago so the human race is going to die out.

.......

 Luna mad.

7th July 2009.

I heard that Neil Armstrong (first man on the moon) now lives a hermit-like life, refusing to acknowledge the existence of the rest of us. So while I still envy those who have the money to buy themselves a trip to the space station, I am pleased I was not the first to land on the moon as the result of that seems to be a sort of madness. OK so its 40 years since that day. Back then I was 24 years old and imagined men would be camped out on Mars by now, but I guess they need the threat of a communist state claiming Mars as their territory to get them to even try.

....... 

The Whitchurch Herald reports fast broadband.

5th July 2009.

They tell us that Virgin Media are to install a fibre optic into Whitchurch in Shropshire. Reading the various reports has lead me to the following conclusion It will be provided down the phone lines and will cost from œ35 to œ50 a month. They do use that terrible get out phrase 'UP TO' which is a little off putting. When it actually arrives I will look at it again.

.......

DAB radio and FM.

3rd July 2009.

It has been announced that as soon as the coverage of DAB is as good as FM they are going to take the main BBC stations like BBC Radio 4 off FM. Well, that will be the day I stop listening to radio. The only radio station I listen to these days is Radio 4 and even then I switch it off as soon as they start broadcasting religious crap. I heard one idiot say that if you don't want to buy a DAB radio you can listen to it on line or through a free view Digital TV. Running a computer or a TV set to listen to a radio station is far from green.

DAB radio cost a lot more than AM/FM radios. They use far more power, so a battery operated radio would always be requiring replacement batteries. The argument that improvements in design is reducing power consumption carry little weight, because it is a far more complicated process converting the digital signals into audio that it is with FM/AM radio. I hear the German and Italian countries have said no to DAB. Very wise.

I have many radios around the house, and one in the car. Imagine the cost of replacing them. a few years ago I bought a portable radio that gets used in the kitchen every morning for œ5 and rarely have to recharge the batteries I fitted it with which means I don't feel the need to plug in into the electricity supply reducing its portability

Turn off Radio 4 FM and they lose millions of listeners, probably forever.

......

The Richest family in the UK.

30th June 2009.

I heard on the news that the total cost of keeping the monarchy increased by œ1.5 million to œ41.5 million during the last financial year. Why should the tax payer pay the Royal family œ41,500,000. It is not as if they were poor.

It really is time to drop the Kingdom bit from the UK. We certainly don't want that loud mouthed son of hers as king.

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$2,000,000 file sharing fine.

20th June 2009.

I heard in the news that an American woman has been fined just under two million dollars for file sharing music on line. From what I have since read, this woman is not rich and is unlikely to earn that sort of money in her life time. What is the point of fining someone so much money that there is no way they can pay it?

If I was fined a few hundred pounds, I would pay it to avoid the bailiffs coming in and taking my furniture away, but if I was fined far more than I would be likely to be worth in my life time, I would burst out laughing and not volunteer a penny towards the fine. As for the record companies that took this woman to court. They are going to have to realise that the internet has changed the way music and films can be distributed and come up with new ways to get money for music. I always thought the amount of money made out of pop music by the singers and companies to be way over the top for what they do for it. When I was a teenager enjoying pop music I used a tape recorder to record music from the radio as I couldn't afford to buy the records. We were told we were breaking the copyright to do this, but had it been enforced I would not have bought the records.

...........

Ubuntu to you.

19th June 2009.

I have done it at last. My laptop now has Linux on it, and it is working OK.

I did this having tried out a beta of Windows 7. The laptop came with Vista installed which is so horrible to use that I had XP put on it by the retailer. Windows 7 is just as horrible to use, and as XP will not be supported for much longer meaning any future new machine I may buy could not have XP installed onto it.

I paid for the Vista licence in the price of the machine plus a fee for XP, so in future I may as well learn Linux rather than Windows 7 doing away with all this money going from my pocket to Microsoft. Linux is free, and the software you need for it is also free. Buying a machine with Linux or nothing at all on it so I can install Linux will save me at least œ100.00 for the operating system and a hell of a lot more for other required software.

Yes Linux takes some getting used to but once I have, I will never have to pay through the nose for software again.

......

Lord Carter wants Ofcom to spy on us.

17th June 2009.

Lord Carter isn't really interested or knowledgeable regarding the internet, but it seems he was given the job of coming up with the final Digital Britain report, to stop files sharing. It seems he wants Ofcom to police it and force the internet providers to spy on us. For an ISP to see if we are file sharing would not be difficult, but to see what we are sharing would mean compiling all that comes and goes from your connection and checking each file to see if it is copyrighted. Details of any file sharers to be kept on record to be supplied on request to the music/film company for use in a prosecution.

File sharing uses a protocol called peer to peer which is also used by other computer applications for completely legal operations, so if for example you use Skype it will indicate to the ISP you may be file sharing meaning, they will be obliged to spy on you.

He also said that certain web sites will be blocked. Oh but didn't our government criticise the Chinese for blocking web sites.

There is another report in the news about a œ6 tax on every telephone line to pay for improving the speed of the internet. If they implement what Lord carter proposes they won't need to improve internet access, because people, not wishing to be spied upon will stop using it.

If the above is implemented I am going to install some file sharing software and use it to download legally free stuff like images of Linux install discs and other open source stuff. Then when I get a warning letter I will reply telling them what I download and tell them where to stick their internet connection.

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Virgin Magic or just lies.

15th June 2009.

According to the BBC TV news the Virgin internet provider is offering a pay for music addition to their service. The magic part is they say they won't spy on their customers but will temporally suspend their internet connection if they do illegal file sharing. If they don't spy on their customers then how they going to know if they are file sharing illegally? Well Richard Branson that statement will put a lot of people off subscribing to Virgin Even if they don't want to file share.

Anyway, there is no need to use file sharing software to get free music these days. You will find you can play it for free on sites like Utube and Spotify then once is is coming out of the sound port of you PC you can record it either by feeding it into your laptop and running an application that will record it, or if you only have the one computer then you can always spend a little on an application such as Total Recorder which will save any sound your computer can produce.

.........

Apple

14th June 2009.

The last time I bought anything with an Apple logo, it was a vinyl disc of the Beatles. I really don't understand what keeps Apple computers and phones so popular.

They are over priced, and there is usually a non apple product that outshines them on specifications for a lot less money.

..........

The advent of digital TV

BBC news channel cockup

11th June 2009.

The advent of digital TV meant lots of new TV channels, so when the BBC started a 24 hour news channel I thought it would be great. I imagined being able to see reports about a lot more items rather than just 3 or 4 stories they chose as the top stories, but I was of course destined to be disappointed. The BBC decided to repeat the news every 15 minutes which meant there is less room for stories that there was on the old 30 minute six o clock news.

Today at 10 AM I tuned to the channel to hear a football club had been given a ridicules amount of money for one of its players, so at ten the gave us the headlines. They then spent until 10.09 on the football story, leaving only 5 minutes for the rest of the stories. before reading the headlines out again at 10:15 followed by a repeat of the long drawn out report about the football player.

How can a company like the BBC make such a mess of such a great chance to give us some good news coverage.

........

Just politics

8th June 2009.

In the UK there was a woman's body found dead in a wheelie bin and a pregnant woman was stabbed in the back killing her last night. I know this because it was briefly mentioned in the very early news when I couldn't sleep. Since then I have listened to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, but all they have talked about is the Euro election and how it will annoy Gordon Brown.

...........

It was 20 years ago today that China murdered some of its people at Tiananmen Square.

4th June 2009.

It was a terrible thing to do, but what did the west do?

It traded with China despite their murderous ways.

Why did the democracies trade with China rather than boycott it for what it did?

Because they could produce goods cheaper than we could.

Why could they supply goods so cheaply and become a rich and powerful country?

Because they paid their workers a pittance.

Oh yes, the shooting of the protesters in

Tiananmen Square was a vile thing to do, but supporting the murders by trading with them wasn't the way to protest.

........

Microsoft try to grab Google's territory.

28th May 2009.

In yet another attempt to beat Google Microsoft have announced another attempt at a search engine. What Microsoft forget is Google haven't charged us for an operating system which complains every time we alter the hardware in the computer and wants reactivating. Google haven't then introduced an inferior version of that operating system and forced computer manufactures and retailers to supply their computers with this new inferior version.

Yes Microsoft have been greedy and have built up a lot of ill feeling amongst the public so they are unlikely to switch away from Google, who have supplied a brilliant set of continually improving services for a number of years at no cost to the user.

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