max_randor_speaks

Thank You

2008-11-04T08:25:00.001Z

Thank You America, thank you for voting for Obama.
Now we have a chance.

You have restored my faith in Democracy.

Reading Obama's victory speach almost made me cry.

Thank You.

Colour Wheel

2008-04-11T19:57:00.004+01:00

For my chemistry notes I needed a colour wheel which can be used to work out the colour of a pigment or dye when the wavelengths at which light is absorbed are known or to work out the wavelengths that are absorbed on when the colour is known.

The opposite colour across the wheel is the complementary colour. A red pigment absorbs green light. A dye that absorbs yellow light appears violet.

I coloured in the diagram linked to below using gimp.

The original diagram

This continues my series of educational resources. Google did not find what I was looking for straight away, hopefully now it will.

Electrophilic substitution reactions of benzene and it derivatives

2008-04-08T21:28:00.003+01:00

Following up on my organic reactions post here is a diagram of the Electrophilic substitution reactions of benzene and it derivatives
This diagram includes the reactions that turn benzene into chlorobenzene, bromobenzene, benzenesulphonic acid, cyclohexane, [alk]ylbenzene, phenyl[alk]anone, nitrobenzene -> phenylamine -> benzendiazonium chloride.

Files for download
exported: png, pdf, svg
source: odg (open office draw) , chemtool

Organic reactions

2007-12-18T12:30:00.002Z

As part of my revision I have created a diagram showing all or almost all the organic reactions that link the organic molecules relevant to my course.
The molecules included in this web include amine, primary and secondary amides, primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols, ester, acyl chloride, carboxylic acid, aldehyde, ketone, alkane, alkene, nitrile and halogenoalkane.
This diagram is not perfect or complete and most definitely could be improved.
So I will attach all the source files as well as exported final versions.
exported: png, pdf, svg
source: odg (open office draw) , chemtool

Linux Ubuntu successfull

2007-08-02T12:00:00.000+01:00

I have been using Ubuntu on my laptop for a while now and this post has been a long time in coming. I much prefer it to Windows.
Now which part of Ubuntu's amazingness should I start with...
Perhaps with what came first.
It was free to download the .iso which I burnt to CD.
The live CD checked itself, could check my RAM and booted up with a fully working OS running from the CD. Now I know it is possible to get a version of windows running from a CD using ubcd4win, which is useful for fixing windows. But Linux does it beautifully, you can install programs etc. and apart from the slowness caused by the fact you are running off CD it works perfectly.
After seeing that it worked I installed it so that it dual booted with Windows.
Ubuntu does screenshots better than windows it lets you save them to files much more easily, without having to copy and paste them into paint.
Ubuntu does installing software better than windows the great Add/Remove programs interface actually adds programs which are downloaded from the repositories and so checked to make sure they are safe, the downloads are securely verified. There is also Synaptic Package manager for admin type program managing, and apt-get or aptitude for people who like the CLI.
Of course you don't have to use the repositories you can download .deb or .bin files and install them.
Ubuntu does updating software better than Windows, all software you install from the repositories can be updated through the same interface so no silly background processes like qtask on windows periodically checking to see if there are any updates for one program. Instead one unified secure system, with different user interfaces to suit tastes. And no silly automatically rebooting the computer when you leave it for 5 minutes, I hate that so much in Windows I have lost work from that. instead there is a little icon on the panel that just sits there quietly until you are ready. And it is very rare that you need to reboot anyway.
Ubuntu does file browsing better than windows with easy searching inside the current folder just by starting typing - like with webpages in firefox. nice GUI where am I and navigation which is much easier and useful than just having back and forwards, which it also has. Oh and bookmarks are cool.
There are so many other things that are cool in Ubuntu like the great software it comes with like the Disk usage analyzer and Open office and Firefox and lots of games and a better interface for finding programs than the stupid messy all programs list on Windows.
Ubuntu is just great.
:-)
And there is a new version every 6 months each better than the one that went before.

Now I was going to write this: 19/12/06, so I have been using Ubuntu for almost a year.

The teaching of English

2007-08-01T20:17:00.000+01:00

Recently while writing a letter I came to the realization that I had not actually been taught much English at school, despite having studied it to GCSE.
For instance we still had not been taught how to write proper english, or what a sentence is or a lot of grammar. We had mainly just practiced not studied english as an academic subject nor as a vocational one and thus my command of the english language is not as great as it should be, so I will have to get a book and teach myself which is annoying.
I should have written this nearer to the time, I had a great many more ideas and much stronger feelings about it then.

This is what one year of plastic looks like

2007-07-31T20:51:00.000+01:00

Over the last year because there is no plastic recycling in Inverness we have collected all our plastic, and because there is no milkman that is a lot of plastic bottles, now our attic has a whole years worth, it is quite impressive.
Attention Highland Council, please could we have plastic recycling in Inverness Invergordon is too far away for it to be sensible to take plastic there.

09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

2007-05-03T16:45:00.000+01:00

09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

just one more data point, perhaps the most popular 16 digit number on the internet
:-)

irrepressible

It seems our nation crumbles

2007-04-26T19:45:00.000+01:00

It seems our nation crumbles
the rock on which we stand
slowly chipped away
by those who should protect it.
Screaming in frustration
as another rock falls
from a wall build over ages
built with bones
and sealed with blood.
And broken by fools
with little pieces of paper
by cameras in dark corners
by whispers in the street
for in the dark halls of power
fools are undoing
what took wise men years.
clinging to power
by destroying democracy,
with a war on terror
not seeing
that if you know no fear
you are not afraid
if you are not terrified
you are not terrorised
if you stand for truth
you cannot tell lies
If you stand for justice
you cannot see injustice done
if you come in peace
you cannot leave in war
If you live for greed
you will die with nothing
and your legacy
Tony Blair
FALIURE.

I fear the coming of the night

2007-04-26T19:41:00.000+01:00

I fear the coming of the night
Who will light the sun when morning comes?
I fear the coming of the night
fear the last flames will die
who then will light the sun when
the morning comes?
I fear the flickering of the flames
as the fire dies, the embers
grow cold.
Fear the cold and icy water,
eroding the rocks on which it stands.
Fear it slipping sliding downwards.
For, from flames like these
the sun is lit
when morning comes.

Who will bear the fire
in their heart
through the darkness of the night.
Who will hold it deep inside
never let it go out.
Who will let their bones be the rocks
from which to build
another stronghold of the light.
Who will use their blood as mortar
to bind the bones tight.
And who will fight
to hold this rock
to save this place.
Built from the bones of so many
sealed with the blood of ages
who will feed the fire with
their words.
Who will fight the cold
fast waters.
Who will warm themselves
by this fire,
built so long ago
and carry the torch onwards
building new fires
on distant shores
hold the day and save us from
the night.

One life
one chance to change the world
one chance to hold the fire
and pass it on
don't let it falter
don't let it go out.
Hold back the water
stop breaking the ground

You have not yet passed
the fire to me.
And yet you let the
ground crumble
the fire die
and my hands cannot hold it alone.
You must give it to others also
and carry it yourselves
until it falls
from your old dying hands
into the hands of those
who will come after me.
Only together can we
hold back the night
the cold dark waters

hold the fort
we have not yet truly arrived.
We are ready to take our place
to bear the fire
to man the walls
to give of ourselves
to hold this place.
For the sake of those
who went before
and those who will come after
and for ourselves.

We have yet to receive our sword.
But we are ready
we will fight for our lives
but you must hold back the night
we must hold back the waters.
Maintain the fire
even thought the night falls elsewhere
here it must be day
or who will light the sun
when the morning comes?
But you must give us our sword
and teach us to use it
to use our vote
to save our democracy
words are not enough.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

2007-04-24T20:48:00.000+01:00

This is a very good article.

"From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all"

It made me very sad to see how a once great nation has fallen so low, and made me fear as I see my own country follow on behind.
Long live Democracy. Let its fire burn through the darkest night. For a fear on this evening as darkness falls that this may indeed be a dark night and it may be a long time until the dawn, and if the fire does not burn all the night through who will light the sun in the morning?
The eternal darkness of a broken world...
:-(

Keeping yourself safe online

2007-04-24T17:36:00.000+01:00

If you spot any personally identifiable information in this please report this so I can delete this, this is converted from an internal publication and should have had all personally or corporate identifiable information removed before online publication. According to my own rules.

I am going to start from the bottom and work upwards.

First, if you can use your own computer, only then can you know it is safe without keyloggers or spyware hidden on them.

Second, if you can stand the hassle (I can't) use a BIOS password[3] if you forget this you are stuffed but without one anyone can with physical access to your computer access any of your files change your password etc. without knowing anything about your computer.

Third if you can don't use Windows ~~, unfortunately with the some networks that means you have to use mac (which is expensive) or use Windows (which is slightly less so) and the more secure Linux is not allowed the internet :-(~~ Things are looking up here linux can get internet now. [4]

Fourth, if you must use Windows using anything before XP on the internet should be a criminal offence within, minutes it will be turned into a spam bot. Only use a fully patched XP computer on the internet (or don't use windows) and preferably from behind a firewalled router. (XP gets taken over in an average of 16 minutes if connected directly to the internet after just being installed). Vista well I won't go there but it is unstable.

Fifth, don't use any programs that come by default with Windows to access the internet[5], Internet explorer 6 which comes by default with Windows XP spent 280+ days of 2006 with unpatched security holes that would let viruses etc. in (it is still used by most computers). Internet explorer 7 is better but I would still advise against it. Firefox is probably the best it only spent 6 days of 2006 with unpatched security holes.

This goes for email as well don't use Outlook, use Thunderbird or some other email client, or use web mail.

On Windows you must always use the most up to date antivirus and antispyware software.[8]

Sixth, never use your real name online. Unless, you trust the site you are connecting to completely and when you are using it there is always a padlock sign (https:// will be at the beginning of the URL) somewhere on your internet browser (Firefox changes the colour of the address bar as well) and only those on your contact list are allowed to view the page. e.g. If you set your msn space page to be only viewable to people on your contact list then only the people on your contact list, Microsoft (M$) (and any of its subcontractors it allows) the US secret service, anyone spying on your internet connection and anyone who hacks any of the above will be able to view it. (So only a few thousand people (If they could be bothered)).

Seventh, encrypt your connection when on an untrusted network, if you are using a network you don't trust or are using a wireless network[1] and you have information you are accessing that is not encrypted (remember padlock sign). If you don't want to share what you are doing with anyone who feels like listening then you need to get yourself an encrypted connection to a proxy. For real anonymity (rather than security of the actual information) I would recommend the TOR network. (Warning you must trust the proxy you are connecting to completely it can be being used by a hacker to steal your information).

Eighth, Use as little personal information as possible (this includes photos of people).

Ninth, format your computers hard drive before selling it or giving it away. [2]

Tenth, Trust no one and go to a mental institution suffering from Paranoia.

Really I don't expect you to do everything on this list, I personally don't. But remember if you connect to any site (including hotmail) that does not encrypt its traffic then what you read can be read by other people so...

Glossary

Keyloggers: programs or devices that record which keys you press in order to extract information such as passwords, user names and credit card details.

Spyware: programs that spy on you and your files to make money out of you somehow (or just to be evil).
Firewall: a firewall prevents connections coming into a computer or network unless they were asked for by a computer behind the the firewall or have been otherwise allowed.
Router: a router is a device (can be a computer) that takes all the connections to it from one network and funnels them into another network (e.g. The internet). Simpler than a proxy.
Proxy: something that does something on behalf of someone else in the context of computers it takes requests for webpages from one computer and makes them itself to the site in question and then passes them to the computer that asked for them.
Unstable: in the context of computers this means that it has errors, crashes and otherwise does weird annoying stuff that it should not do.

Footnotes

If you are using wireless then anyone who knows the network key can listen to your connection. If it is WEP encrypted (rather than WAP (which with a good password can take a very long time to crack)) then it can be cracked in 15 minutes. If it is open then anybody can listen.
Some criminals make a living by stealing personal information off old computer hard drives, formatting will remove everything but you will need a disk of some sort to do it with as windows will break if you try to format the disk or partition it is on. You will need to fill it with random junk and then delete and reformat 9 times to be sure that all the data has been actually removed (deleting a file does not actually remove it, the computer just forgets where it put it.)
A BIOS password can be set by entering the BIOS settings (how to do this will be displayed the moment your computer starts up) then poke around until you find it, If you forget this you are stuffed completely. Alternatively a physical lock works quite well :-). Note that fingerprint scanners offer no extra security with the right disk your computer can still be cracked within 20 minutes.
Tests carried out to determine the security of different operating systems found that it was easy to hack into a newly installed Windows computer, slightly harder to hack into a newly installed Mac OS X computer and much much harder to hack into a Linux computer. (search on slashdot)
The reason you should not use windows programs to access the internet is that the bad guys specifically target flaws in these programs to break into your computer (and there are a lot of flaws). I would also advise that using M$ office is probably a bad idea, though not to the same extent and you should probably use OpenOffice (this is free) instead.
Social networking sites are sites that allow you to connect socially with people on the internet through commenting on each others sites and chatting online and numerous other things.
Blogs (origin web log) are many and diverse in what they do but generally they involve people writing things (these can be like articles) and putting them on their blog (usually they are ordered chronologically) they are used to provide information about anything from news to the movement of ants.
At least one person I know is going to have to have their hard drive formatted and windows reinstalled after getting viruses over easter. However users of other operating systems may not need antivirus programs e.g. I used Linux all Easter which does not need antivirus and consequently I was safe. I did not use windows once.

Note: people who know enough about computers and windows computers in particular become slightly paranoid about them or know what to do if they were paranoid but cannot be bothered to do it. (I don't even have a password set or use Ctrl+Alt+Del to enter an administrator account on windows :-)(On Linux I have a password but it logs in automatically the password is only required if I want to do something dangerous))

Oh and the only reason people could hack the pentagon was that people there were really stupid and could not be bothered to change their password from the default of “password” this same flaw allowed lots of hackers in over a long period of time, it might have been fixed by now. Bebo is just as secure as the weakest user that is allowed to view the page (probably quite weak but who could be bothered to hack a silly social networking site?). Then again thousands of people had their Myspace passwords stolen (someone hacked the crackers and told the world) but the Myspace passwords were stronger than those used by employees of companies (who were cracked by the same people).

Bug #1 in Ubuntu "Microsoft has a majority market share"

2007-03-26T19:32:00.000+01:00

Status: Confirmed, In progress
Importance: Critical

Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace. This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.

Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.
Steps to repeat:
1. Visit a local PC store.
What happens:
2. Observe that a majority of PCs for sale have non-free software pre-installed.
3. Observe very few PCs with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed.
What should happen:
1. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu.
2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and benefits would be apparent and known by all.
3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.

he he he he he :-)
Ubuntu is a great Linux distribution, which I use, it is a amazing, and this is so funny :-)

Microsoft to be fined again

2007-03-01T15:08:00.000Z

"The European Commission has warned Microsoft that it could face further fines for failing to comply with its anti-trust rulings.

Brussels criticised the software giant for not changing its behaviour since it was fined 497m euros (£331m) in 2004. "

""In the 50 years of European antitrust policy, it's the first time we've been confronted with a company that has failed to comply with an antitrust decision," a Commission spokesman said."

My best advice: Don’t Touch Vista

2007-02-28T21:33:00.000Z

(There is a glossary at the bottom)

“The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history” Peter Gutmann (IT security expert)

Vista is the new Windows operating system. It is not worth getting, ever. It is like running a large video game rather than an operating system (without being fun). 95% of computers are incapable of running it because they don’t have enough RAM to fit it in (requires 1GB RAM just for itself). It uses 15GB of hard disk space (more than half my hard drive) ten times more than XP and more than 15 times more than (at least) one Linux distribution. It takes a whole minute just to get to the login screen – because of the speed at which data can be moved from the hard drive to the RAM. Have you ever had a large (new) video game running and then tried to browse the internet at the same time, while having several documents open and your emails? No? You don’t want to try, think of treacle (without the sweetness).

It will, like all windows systems before it, have many security holes that will be found over time, but since it is new and much of the code in it has been written from scratch there will be many more especially at the start. It has 9 different ways of being turned off! So you have to relearn how to turn off a computer. It produces security warnings much too often so you are likely to automatically approve them without thinking (according to a security company) it does not tell you how dangerous it thinks the alerts are. It is not built to be secure, it is built to let other computers do stuff that you don’t want them to do to your computer against your consent (such as stop everything except Internet explorer working), so that they can manage your digital restrictions (DRM). “DRM causes too much pain for legitimate buyers [...] There are huge problems with DRM” — Bill Gates. (Yet Microsoft still spent millions integrating it into Vista)

There are 6 different versions, costing from £180 – £370. All of which are about twice as expensive as their US versions, just because they like ripping off British people.

The Licence agreement (EULA) says that you are not allowed to fix the problems with Vista, because they might be deliberate.

Many even new expensive and top of the market sound and graphics cards do not support the DRM and so are disabled by vista causing them to not work. “No-one has been able to identify any Windows system that will actually play HD content in HD quality”(1) If Vista does not like your computer your graphics will be “slightly fuzzy” and your audio “fuzzy with less detail”.

No one will be able to write programs to run hardware (drivers) for free anymore, preventing it from working with anything other than Vista (unless you pay money separately), because all the details have to be secret to stop people avoiding the downgraded quality on Vista.

Vista will disable worldwide any devices anyone manages to make produce the ‘premium content’ without DRM. So if one hacker breaks in anywhere, it stops working for everyone everywhere. And fixing this problem could cause the anti-piracy measures to be implemented, killing your entire computer.

Oh and the hackers got round the whole thing on the day it was released Microsoft spent millions the hackers? Pennies (5).

3 Hollywood studios must approve every single bit of hardware. Why?

A small jolt or slight inconsistency could cause the entire graphics system to reboot (freezing or turning off the screen for a few seconds) and probably crashing programs such as computer games. (This does not happen on any other OS.

Companies are not allowed to include Debugging (problem finding) abilities in their drivers, because this might tell people about the system.

SSL type encryption (used to connect to online banks etc (https)) is used to connect to different pieces of software, this is weird, and slows the computer down e.g. out of 11 different bits of data 9 are just for the DRM and 2 are for the audio and video, 550% more work for no reason.

Every driver has to wake up every 30 microseconds and tell Vista that nothing is happening, just to make sure nothing is.

Vista will release PIN numbers, credit card details etc. but it carefully encrypts video, they care more about Hollywood than the user.
Vista: “an operating system that is insanely paranoid” - Leo Laporte

If your hardrive crashes, you have to re-buy all your CDs, DVDs and online music, if they have DRM.

“The sheer obnoxiousness of Vista's content protection may end up being the biggest incentive to piracy yet created.”(1)

Microsoft could have put all the effort it put into encrypting all video and sound into making Vista secure instead, encrypting content that the user wants encrypting and stopping malware programs from doing nasty things, so much effort wasted on making things worse for the user.

Any other OS will run faster than Vista. Stick with XP (if you use windows) until 2011 when support for it runs out (Vista support runs out in 2012) then move to Linux. Linux is better than windows, it is inherently more secure, it is sane, it does cool stuff, (almost) anything Windows can do Linux can do better, free updates forever, free upgrades forever, thousands of free programs. There is even a version designed specifically for education: Edubuntu. Oh and did I mention it’s free. I now have both Ubuntu and XP on my laptop, as soon as I get the schools (Linux based) proxy server to let me out I’m leaving Windows.

References

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html (readable despite being sometimes technical, very informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista
http://badvista.fsf.org/ (provided picture)
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2851 (this really is very good)
Paraphrasing boingboing.net “AACS took years to develop, and it has been broken in weeks. The developers spent billions, the hackers spent pennies.” (this site is good, but not always in the best taste)

Glossary

RAM = Random Access Memory, this is where the computer stores stuff it is working on.
Hard disk space = the amount of space to save files into.
DRM = Digital Restrictions management
Graphics card = the piece of electronics that turns electrical signals into pictures on your screen. HD = High definition, you will probably have seen lots of TVs saying they are HD Ready (not that there is any HD telly or will be for another 3 years)
Driver = a driver is a program that runs a bit of hardware, e.g. you have a graphics card that is run by a graphics driver.
Malware programs = evil programs e.g. spyware, adware, viruses, worms, Trojans…
OS = Operating System e.g. Linux, Mac OSX, oh and Windows.

See also:

Edit: fixed formatting problems... again.

e petitions

2007-02-28T20:02:00.000Z

I have signed several e-petitions on the 10 downing street e-petitions site, I have got a response :-)

Freeinformation - epetition reply
28 February 2007
We received a petition asking:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Reject the restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act proposed by the Department of Constitutional Affairs."
Details of petition:
"The proposed changes will restrict the number of requests individuals and organisations can make, and allow Government Department to include 'reading time' in fees calculations, greatly increasing the scope for obstruction of legitimate requests. As the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee concluded, there is no need to change the existing fees regime. Indeed, the cost of the Freedom of Information Act is less than was originally projected by the Government, and the transparency provided by the Act can only benefit efficient government."
Read the petition
Petitions home page
Read the Government's response
The Government recognises the importance of public participation and understanding of the functions of Government. The intention of the changes proposed is not to hinder legitimate requests for information or to reduce the effectiveness of the Act. An independent review commissioned by the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs to look at the impact of the Freedom of Information Act showed that a small minority of requests and a small minority of requestors account for disproportionate amounts of the cost of answering FOI requests. The proposals are designed to address this issue and to ensure public authorities can balance access to information for all with the delivery of other public services.
On 14 December 2006 the Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, opened a public consultation on the draft fee regulations. The Government is keen to engage as many stakeholders aspossible in this consultation. The consultation paper is available at: http://www.dca.gov.uk/consult/dpr2007/cp2806.htm. Responses should be sent by 8 March 2007 to:
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Information Rights Division
6.16 Selborne House
54-60 Victoria Street
London
SW1E 6QW

basicaly it means, blah blah blah blah. oh well.

Newsbites

2007-02-05T22:46:00.000Z

(this is slightly old now, I wrote it for something else but will post it here now)
This is a section of lots of short news items (on this occasion on data protection) that I though warranted a brief mention.
The taxman now has the power to listen to your phone calls, read your mail, place bugs in your house and car. Apparently this is something to do with fighting serious organised crime, something that apparently the Serious Organised crime Agency SOCA cannot do – it has these powers and more.
If you fly to the USA your plane company has to give them your credit card details. I know the US has a lot of debt but I don’t think many people would be happy if they started paying for it using peoples credit cards.
If you get a passport/ID card with a RFID chip in it the only way to stop people walking off with your personal details just because you walked within 25cm of their scanner is to hit the chip with a hammer (this will break it) and they will no longer be able to steal it. It is illegal to do this with US passports and although the passport would still be valid, the UK Passport agency would probably not be too happy either).
Some people want to use the NHS national database to get accurate results on obesity, apparently people are not telling the truth about how much they weigh when responding to surveys so instead the people want to take the data without your consent. It is of course vital for your health that the national obesity level can be reported.
The police have the DNA of over 1 million innocent people on record just because they can.
CCTV cameras may have microphones installed so that the security people can listen to your conversation as well as watch it.

And a Happy New Year

2006-12-31T20:26:00.000Z

To all of you.
May you make more of a difference in the coming year than you did in the last.
May the route to peace be found.
And the road towards the saving of the world be trod upon.
May life succeed where death has failed.
And may the love of God shine upon you.

my namesake

2006-12-30T22:28:00.000Z

I chose my pen name surname from that of a character in a very good book that I read ages ago by Douglas Hill the character appears in the Last Legionary series and is called Keil Randor.
Someone was asking about my name so I went and looked and so here you have it.

Merry Chirstmas

2006-12-24T20:31:00.000Z

A very Merry Christmas to you.
Have fun, sing carols and remember its true meaning.

Creative commons licence

2006-12-19T17:39:00.000Z

Everything on this blog which I hold the copyright for is now available under the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Creative Commons (cc) licence.

be Free! :-)

World's biggest offshore wind farm approved for Thames estuary site

2006-12-19T17:24:00.000Z

From The Guardian
Plans to build the world's largest offshore wind farm off the coast of south-east England were approved by ministers yesterday in a move that could eventually bring 341 turbines to the Thames estuary.

Nanowelding

2006-12-19T17:18:00.000Z

Nano-welds herald new era of electronicsNew Scientist
Tom Simonite
The world’s smallest construction site is taking shape in a laboratory in Switzerland, thanks to the development of new welding techniques that work at scales of a billionth of a metre.

Worldforge Screenshots

2006-12-19T11:51:00.000Z

I have uploaded many more worldforge screenshots to my picasa webalbums and you can find them here.

Expansion at Heathrow and Stanstead.

2006-12-17T17:36:00.000Z

Guardian article
The government has approved expansion of Heathrow and Stanstead. This is bad, air travel needs to be reduced not increased. Hypocrites, *sigh*.
What can I say.
STUPID POLITICIANS PUTTING MONEY BEFORE LIFE.
There now I feel a bit better. :-)

Post offices closure

2006-12-17T16:31:00.000Z

Guardian article
Ministers unveiled plans to close 2500 Post offices.
My local post office may be among that number. But even if I still lived in London I would despair at this. thousands of people rely on these post offices, some places have terrible public transport (like around here) some people cannot drive and have no one who can drive them, these people are unlikely to be able to afford a taxi regularly(few people can).
All the profitable work that post offices and the royal mail did has been taken by other companies in the name of a free market and so it only has the unprofitable stuff left and so looses money because it HAS to do the unprofitable stuff if it is asked to.
Pensioners used to et their pensions from post offices but they were (almost) forced to have it sent to bank instead - and banks are even less common than post offices, especially in rural areas, many of those who need post offices are not computer literate and would be confused by telephone banking.
It is very Sad to see all these post offices being closed.
and that the post offices are loosing £200 million a year.

Back To Blogging

2006-12-17T16:27:00.000Z

It is the Christmas holidays now
I have more time.
I can blog again with no fear of being caught and blocked from blogging.
And there is news that definetly needs blogging about
there has been some very bad news recently and I must stand up and be counted.

Headache

2006-11-15T19:38:00.000Z

I have been suffering from a headache that consists of feeling like my brain is too big and too hot because cotton wool has been shoved into it.
Twice today I had two crushed paracetamol tablets suspended in a small amount of water, this tasted foul and had to be washed down with a couple of large glasses of water, which made my stomach feel pressurised as well :-)
This evening another attempt to alleviate the pain 3 sachets of infant suspension :-) calpol and a tissue with a few drops of eucalyptus aromatic oil (smells like some sort of sweet possibly a type of mint - brings back childhood memories) the calpol tasted very nice strawberry flavour.
Aroma therapy is a placebo, but perhaps a clever one because though it has no actual physical effects it works on the brain - which is what painkillers do in a physical way. It is quite possible that different smells can create different feelings, certainly smells affect us more than we think.

sorry for the lack of posts busy ill CBA syndrome

Making CVS work

2006-10-28T11:37:00.000+01:00

I finaly got CVS to work enabling me to checkout all the source code from WorldForge. once I admitted defeat and checked it out to my desktop and then moved it to the folder I wanted it in it worked perfectly and page on CVS by worldforge was very useful and worked perfectly - when I did the checkout form the desktop.
22,811 files and 147mb of source code. I am impressed.

Firefox 2.0

2006-10-27T22:14:00.000+01:00

Recently I upgraded to Firefox 2.0. which is even better than Firefox 1.5 - which after Firefox 2.0 is the best browser. Firefox is the best browser available - and I have looked at IE7 - it just is not good enough in conparison with FF 2.0.
Note that the screenshot I have posted has been fiddled using both config tweaks and customistation so that i only have 2 rows despite having the google toolbar - and I get to use that really annoying big empty space between Help and the connection thing - something I would like to be able to do in word etc.
Firefox Is cool!

64 Windows Updates

2006-10-27T21:49:00.000+01:00

When I got round to updating my windows using windows update I needed 64 updates it took ages to download - and even longer to instal. I was quite surprised.
Windows has way too many holes that need - and needed filling.
one of the reasons why I tried to make a liveboot of Linux

Scottish English Independance

2006-10-27T21:36:00.000+01:00

Apparently many Scottish people want independance from England. What they don't know is that it should be the other way round. Scotland won it is a Scottish(or prehaps German but definetly not English) Queen who sits on our throne. It is England that pays tribute to Scotland not the other way round - it has more money to spend than it collects in taxes.
Somewhere along the way they forgot they won and were persuaded that they should fight for their independance. Fools, there are more scottish MPs (Scottish people are MPs in English constitunancies but not the other way round - and note that Blair is a scottish name and Gordon Brown is definetly Scottish). If you get your independance your economy wil collapse. silly silly people be quiet before someone notices and hope everyone forgets or you will get something you certainly don't need and definelty won't want.

Train Again

2006-10-27T21:25:00.000+01:00

"This Train has been fitteld with improved air conditioning for your comfort"
The loud whirring noise will send you to sleep. :P
First Scot Rail
Power sockets and free wifi should come as standard on all trains traveling more than 50 miles. rather than neither legaly. (some trains have a few plugs you are not allowed to use)

This train has been delayed due to a trampoline on the line.
Its been very wind up here. honest its true!.

Most ridiculus things blocked

2006-10-27T21:20:00.000+01:00

Negative numbers
Resources for explaining the complexety of helicopters not crashing (e.g. helicopters crashing) www.boreme.com
Chatzilla instalation link - firefox extension
Foxyproxy instalation link - firefox extension
Switchproxy instalation link - firefox extension
Downloading realplayer by normal methods - e.g. following links on main site.
A picture of an undead squirrel - and all other pictures on the svn worldforge media depositary. (includes pictures of acorns)
Uranus
Science quiz questions - physics class was doing an online quiz on the interactive white board - one of the questions was blocked. learning is dangerous :)

Scottish weather

2006-10-26T21:30:00.000+01:00

We have been having some pretty bad weather in Scotland today (26th Oct) flooding in Dingwall (pictured - bbc) cut of the A9 and the railway which cut off much of the far north of Scotland. The worst flooding since 1954 which was worse because the tides we had - highest since then were combinded with a worse storm than we had. no one died this time - many did last time. congratulations to the emergancy services.
We had 3 short power cuts (less than 1 min) power cuts are a definet incentive to put wind turbines up - it was very windy:) the only problem being that since the power available increases to the cube of the windspeed we might make more than we could deal with - but I think they have dealt with that.

What shall I write about

2006-10-22T15:05:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the long delay before this sudden burst of bloggin - no excuse.
I have a lot of stuff to write about so I will tell you what I will write about - and in the process work out what I am going to write

64 windows updates.
Firefox 2.0
making CVS work
making an Umbuntu live boot disk
~~initial impressions of Umbuntu~~
Guess my DofE Hobby.
Got sear to work
Got ember to work

Australian Asylum seeking policy

2006-10-17T20:39:00.000+01:00

This from an Australian

"We have pleanty of space for asylum seekers - we just don't like foreigners - especialy if they are illegal and cannot do anything for our country. like asylum seekers."(note quoted from memory)
leaning slightly to the right?
comes of being decended from a bunch of convicts :-)
Australias policy on asylum seekers and illegal immigrants is not particulary nice.
Oh well.
at least they don't go round hunting tribes into extinction any more.

Friday 13th Lucky for some

2006-10-13T20:47:00.000+01:00

Today Friday 13th which is supposed to be unlucky - because thirteen dined together and the next day (friday) Jesus died on the cross is supposed to be unlucky. However by dying Jesus saved us. I count that lucky.
Today was A very very good day for me. The best day I have had at this school.
I GOT MY LAPTOP BACK TODAY. YEY!!!!!!!!!
And lots of other cool stuff happened quite a bit of which I can't post here because privacy.
And the sky was abseloutely amazingly beautiful. I like it here.
Soon I will have better internet - e.g. on my laptop. then we talk.

The laptop will return! YEY!

2006-10-11T21:19:00.000+01:00

after an intense email dialouge that lost me another day of having my proper laptop back and iansyst saying they would not give me mine back unless I swaped it for the loan one. I finaly convinced them that since they had said last time that I could have both at the same time in order to transfer the data that they would let me have both at the same time.
*sigh of relief*
I am now very happy.
Very very happy.
I just can't wait to get cogs turning agian.
to regain direct internet acces to my laptop.
to poke the schools filitering with installed programs - with the aim of breaking it (for me at least).
:-)

Sorry for not posting recently intense email discussions take time and I don't have much internet time.

given up on spam

2006-10-08T21:42:00.000+01:00

I have given up on deleting the contents of my spam folder - or even looking at it - google carefully puts all the spam their and no real mail has ever landed there - 46 items there now and google can delete them for me at the end of the month.

my hotmail one has never received any - but my hotmail one is attached to the real me and consequently has few outings into the world wide web.

Google has only ever let two spam messages through to the inbox - the rest - and there have been lots have been successfully fielded.

Comment moderation

2006-10-08T21:38:00.000+01:00

Comment moderation has been disabled to enable freer debate. The people who caused chaos when this blog first started are probably no longer watching - and if they are I hope they have grown up. I did not like having the moderation on but it was forced on me.
I am still being notified of comments so if rude and offensive ones do appear they will be removed hopefully within a couple of days.
Thank you

Teaching teachers Ipods are evil

2006-10-06T21:14:00.000+01:00

UPDATED:

Recently I helped (or rather explained that DRM, Ipods, Itunes and Apple were evil while someone else who knew what they were doing helped) a physics teacher get music from one computer onto her laptop without deleting all the music she already had on it. This was done by plugging the ipod in, choosing not to let itunes synchronise it (and delete everything that the computer did not have) and then going onto options and secleting manage things manualy. This means that all the music you want to transfer accross has to be dragged and dropped (in the larger selections the better) rather than happening automaticaly. but it does beat the DRM.
In a recent survey reported by the BBC (cannot be bothered to find the link) it showed that people who use the internet lots were significantly less likely to have an ipod than the rest of the population - the reason given was that there is a limited choice of stores for online music for ipods. No the real reason is that people on the internet are more likely to know that ipods (and DRM) are evil.

There is a whole campaign - called Defective by design (ipods are defective by design) (ooky picture.

Glossary

DRM means ~~Dynamic~~Digital Rights Management and is where evil companies prevent you from being able to copy music onto devices etc and impose limitations on it through their evil software.(thank you Zzorn for the correction - others see comment)

Iridum makes rubbish laptops

2006-10-06T13:50:00.001+01:00

I have extracted the name of the manufaturers from iansyst. Iridium make really rubbish laptops do not buy Iridium laptops they break!
Iridium laptops do not have the screws stuck in properly so they fall out, the CD/DVD drives fall out and they generaly break.
Iridium take ages to fix laptops because they run out of parts due to so many laptops being broken
Don't buy laptops from Iridium!
even if they look cool.

annoying IT

2006-10-05T21:38:00.000+01:00

he he :-) I enjoy annoying IT by asking them why stuff keeps on being blocked or not working (such as Nasa image of day and mp3 files and BBC radio player) not that they have responded...
They like feeling loved. They just keep blocking stuff until people notice (wry smile)
(smiles sadly)

(from the worldforge IRC channel)

On the plus side iansyst say they have my laptop back and want a couple of days to 'thoroughly test it' I hope for the best

The chapel stirs

2006-10-04T21:04:00.000+01:00

The chapel stirs
As trickling through the door
The rising murmur
As the people
Arrive
The church waits
For the word
Waiting expectantly
For the joyful rejoicing
For the heart felt praise
Of so many hearts
To the one who makes
Them rejoice
The one who made them.

‘The most important issue we face’

2006-10-04T20:59:00.000+01:00

‘The issue is urgent. If there is one message I would leave with you ..... it is one of urgency.’ PM Tony Blair.*

A while ago I did work experience at BP(Alternative Energy)
I was asked what could stop Global Warming. I went through the list: solar, wind, wave, tidal, geothermal, heat pump, random kinetic, biomass, hydrogen, carbon sequestration, ENERGY EFFICIENCY.
I ran out, many of these technologies are in early stages and cannot be used on large enough scales quickly enough. 300km2 of today’s solar panels could power the world if they were in the Sahara desert – but we don’t need power in the Sahara desert and who would foot the huge bill? It would not be enough anyway of the resistance in wires.
If we really tried, an Apollo program sized push, war production levels, we could do much, enough? No.
That is my conclusion – we cannot save the whole world. Hundreds, perhaps hundreds of thousands of species will be wiped out.
We will get 3 degrees more – even if we stopped now – and we can’t. 1degree is too much for the permafrost, bye bye permafrost. Catastrophic comes to mind, Positive Feedback Loops!
Millions of people will die, for all the efforts of humanity. The whole world will suffer for our folly. All we have left to decide is whether millions die or hundreds of millions. The difference between a major catastrophe and an absolutely massive humongous catastrophe. It will be bad. Do you want your World horribly over cooked or burnt? That is the decision You must make.

*I do not often preface my work with a quote from a fool but here at least he is saying the right thing – even if he does not act upon it.

Thrice stupid but not forever dumb

2006-10-03T21:24:00.000+01:00

Today I felt very stupid on 3 occasions.
This morning I found that after lending my laptop to someone the night before they had watched a DVD on it - I thought the sound was broken and that after exaustive checking for software volume things that the problem was with a slider thing on the side and that the person who I had lent it to had found this straight away. I had come to the conclusion that the sound driver was broken because it was coming out realy realy quiet and had to be boosted on headphones to be heard at all.
In core maths I got my indicies muddled up and ended up with 6^-3/2 - 6^3/2 = k rather than 6^3/2 - 6^3/2 = k = 0 and the problem was not managing to do 2 - 1/2 which is pretty stupid.

After deciding that my bedroom floor was much to dirty and I would have to hoover it, going and finding a hoover in a cupboard and carefuly hoovering the floor (and the desk because it was getting dusty in places) and taking the hoover back to the cupboard where I found the cleaner who said that she was going to clean my room tomorow this made me feel very stupid.

But I got 23/24 in my chemistry test and got my little fighters AI in my computer game to make it so that they only shoot if they are pointing near the enemy (to within 40 degrees each way) the only bug with that is that it does not shoot if it is pointing at the second nearest one but not the nearest 1 ( but when it is attacking it is pointing at the nearest one so this won't matter unless the fighter is being attacked from multiple directions anyway - and with object avoidance and being shot at from each side it is probably dead anyway) Not dumb just sometimes stupid.

The darkened fields

2006-09-28T09:13:00.000+01:00

The darkened fields
go flying by
hidden by the rain
and gathered cloud
as the sun sinks
unseen
far far away.

Out of the mist
trees loom, quickly passing
as the train travels on
passing on
as the light fades
futher
on the humming rails
over moors
through valleyss
Scotland passes by
the glass pane
a barrier
growing stronger
as the light fades
reflecting an enclosed world
Striving to keep out reality.
Failing.

The world reaches
into hearts and minds
will not be held out by
a pane of glass
but while the journey
travels on.
through a landscape
of beauty seen
though a clouded pane
clouds low lying
dropping their load
gently onto the
expectant hills

and though I know
the world trembles
here it steems only
the train.

Knowing the folly
of mankind could
destroy it.
hoping it will be saved.

not ready, not yet
not now.
'will you ever be ready
will you truly be done
the time's been set
the day will come
and you'll not be
ready
but you might be saved'

One should not sleep through ones alarm

2006-09-28T09:08:00.000+01:00

It is a bad idea
It causes breakfast to be rushed and muscle burn to occur in the muscles of the jaw. This is an interesting experience.
Thankfuly someone started practising music after they had finished breakfast and this woke me up. My first thought was 'what a nice way to wake up' my second was 'what is the time' my third was 'ahhh!' further thoughts were muddled by high speed dressing followed by running followed by fast eating. but everthing was fine so everythind is alright.
:-)
I do have other posts to post - I just don't have all of them with me.

When the sun is shining

2006-09-24T15:05:00.000+01:00

When the sun is shining
and I'm having fun
I'll cycle cycle, cycle on.
or cross the fells traverse
and over sparkling water go
and down the frothing river

but when its
raining dreary
wet.
I'll stay inside
or as yet
walk between the drooping trees
and think.

Or prehaps.

When the sun is shining
and I'm having fun
I'll cycle cycle, cycle on.

but when its raining dreary
wet.
I'll stay inside
or as yet
walk between the drooping trees
and think.

People listening to music on the train

2006-09-23T17:17:00.000+01:00

on ipods with big speakers

Background music on trains?
Ugggh. And not even good music just annoying music – since when have we had to listen to horrible music on trains? People can listen to their own music that they like but forcing everybody to listen to horrible music… why? And it does not ven stop for the announcements. The guard of the driver fancies themselves a DJ? Not that there is any talking but the music changes a lot.

Actually it was the person sitting in front of me with big speakers bouncing it off the ceiling that made it sound like it was coming from the overhead speakers. But it seemed so strange that I stood up to check and saw instantly. Has this person no concept of personal space or noise pollution? On busses in London they sometimes have posters asking people not to be too noisy with their music and play it through their headphones so loud that other people can hear – to be considerate. But here on the train someone is using speakers.

But it is a grown up and I have not the courage to ask them to stop. From hair colour estimating 40-50+(and he listens to Bob Dylan not the worst but dates him) White Male. There is hardly a peep out of anyone else. *sigh*. He is giving such bad press being so inconsiderate. Occasionally he sings along and that is even worse – oh and explanation – he brought his own alcohol not that he is drunk just slightly less in control.

Oh well enough complaining already.

Enough complaining for a while in fact.
I will make a concious effort to be positive and to make your day more enjoyable.
The world may come crashing down but we will go down fighting - with a smile on our face.

Spacefighter will rise again

2006-09-23T17:00:00.000+01:00

better and stronger than before. We are doing in maths vectors and differentiation again and so I will go back to basics an rewrite my problematic gravity code. I worked it out on paper anyway.

It is really annoying to have lost the sourcecode though the only link still working to internet based ones is the googlepages one that is the exe and the only one I ever gave to someone else to test was an exe. Though perhaps if I am lucky there might be an early version on the main computer J my hopes rise again.

Ha I found an old version - it was before I invented planets or lots of graphics and types of ships - but I have the minimap and the player conroled ship. Yey.

annoyed at the stupid manufacturers

2006-09-23T16:59:00.001+01:00

Now I can be even more annoyed at the stupid manufacturers not only did they format my Hard drive when it did not need formatting but they failed to fix my laptop. They sent it back to Iansyst who when they were trying to reinstall found it still had problems – I had got all my hopes up thinking that it would be back Thursday or at the latest Friday but I will probably still have weeks to wait. AHHHH!!!

While my laptop was being fixed Iansyst had said that it probably would not be formatted and that it was very unlikely that it would be. When they got it back they said that of course it would have been formatted that is what Manufactures do. Ahh!

Accidental deletion.

2006-09-23T16:56:00.000+01:00

While trying to delete the old version of windows messenger from my computer I accidentally deleted among other things Windows Media player and Internet Explorer. But not Windows messenger. You have to UNCHECK the tick boxes in the add/remove Windows components and I unticked everything I did not want to unistal. OOPS. Well I managed to get Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer reinstalled again - but I think some other things on that list won’t come back with out the disk – because rechecking the boxes and doing it again did not work – got windows media and internet explorer back but not some other things – it said files that were there weren’t there - I could find them and look at them but it said that they were not there. *sigh* I don’t use Internet Explorer I used Firefox but there was a gap in my desktop where the windows Media player icon should be. It took me a couple of minutes to work out what had happened and a couple more to work out how it had happened (I did the thing that did this earlier and it worked on restart (I am not really that supid)).

Oh well Panic over.

I won’t be making that mistake again. One should be careful what one does to ones operating system. – but that wizard was really stupid it was as if they thought that no one would try to use it, not designed for someone who had never used it before to use.

Hardrive formatted

2006-09-20T21:34:00.000+01:00

My laptop which I had to send of to be fixed has had its hardrive formatted.
I am still shocked - there was nothing wrong with the hardrive.
I now have 22 programs to reinstal!
and I have lost the source code to Space fighter - after all that work - and all the graphics I had made and collected for it.
And anything else that was in program directories.
ahhhhhhhh!!!
wah!
I wanted to do something when I found out though I am not sure what I found out Monday or Tuesday I have calmed down since then. I am still angry at the stupid manufacuters though. when I find out who they are I will write a post about how terribly bad they are.
wahh.

Oh and I found that my new list of links to posts not constrained by time is broken. I will try and fix that.
Edit: It was just the one link that was broken and that is now fixed

Poshness in Private schools? (especially boarding schools)

2006-09-18T20:43:00.000+01:00

This topic came up for discussion during my art games option (I don’t do art but I get to do it for my games option at least until the swimming pool opens (the terrors of sub-contracting)). People who go to private schools generally are more arrogant and posh (tweed, polo etc.) It comes from it costing lots of money. This does not mean that they aren’t nice people. Everybody is really nice – but then by about 5th form people started growing up (I had despaired that they ever would) and by the end of 5th form everybody was friendly so the feeling that people might be slightly nicer here than they were at my old school is probably to a significant extend biased by the fact that I am now in LVI. But here you have to live with people every day you don’t want to get on bad terms with them.
I would definitely send my children to a state primary school and then to a school that would stretch their abilities – be that comprehensive grammar or if I can afford it private. I would not however send my children to boarding school until at least LVI unless I really had to and only would at all if they would benefit from it. I go because I did GCSEs which tie into A-levels not Highers (and A-levels are better anyway J).
So I have rambled on long enough I think.

Munro Club

2006-09-18T20:39:00.000+01:00

Recently I went on the Munro club and it was fun.
We climbed up two mountains! A small one and a big one next door. We climbed vertically 1200m (lots of down in between the ups (a computer program calculated this we are not that sad))
For the majority of the time we were climbing through cloud. Which meant we missed the wondrous beauty of the Scottish countryside in terms of the views. “When the weather it good there is nowhere I would rather be” to quote one of the other people. It was still fun even if we were walking through cloud. The pace was faster than I am used to when hill walking with family and we did not stick to the paths so much – more taking a short cut straight up and scrambling along sheep paths. There were some nice bilberries en-route and we were provided with pack lunches which contained a sandwich, a piece of fruit, a bag of crisps, a chocolate bar, a can of fizzy drink (cococola zero is just as disgusting as the diet) and I was given at least 2 snack sized chocolate bars when I ran out of food. I also took 3 chocolate digestive biscuits with me and half of one escaped into the bottom of the bag and was crushed into a paste over stuff that was in the bottom – not nice.
When we had lunch we had it in a nylon shelter thing which is a bit like a large upside down bag that you sit inside – there were five boys in total + one leader (perhaps girls don’t like hill-walking?). It was amazing how much warmer it was inside the shelter with the wind taken out of the equation and 5 people inside (not enough space for the leader to fit in as well).
My trainers are still soggy and I should be using walking boots next time though even people wearing those got soggy feet. It did not really rain but the damp was penetrating.
All in all I enjoyed it – though I hope for better weather next time.

I HATE FILTERING

2006-09-16T15:55:00.000+01:00

The IT department is preventing me from saving changes to the layout of my blog!
So I am stuck with stuff in the wrong place and looking stupid.
It does show off the new link list I have made but that is supposed to go right down the list below archives - bah.
curses on filtering by IT departments and on DRM because that is evil to.
And They block BoingBoing which I think could tell me how to get round the filtering - they were right they said they were being filtered by filter companies and they are - evil filteres.
haha I managed to add boing boing to my google homepage - so if they tell me how in a new post then I can use that.
They also block a page that tells you how to instal a program to get around filtering called circumventor.
so this is the page to get around stuff.

I have found the list of things you can be blocked from or for

Inappropriate software – password crackers, credit card fraud utilities etc.
Time wasting
Denial of service
Explicit material
Bandwidth consumption
Spamming
Hacking
Software piracy
Unauthorised use of confidential documents

Representatives of the BPI Anti-Piracy carry out surveillance of Internet sites and traffic, looking for instances of illegal music use, with a view to possible prosecutions.
For your information, the following activities are illegal, if done without the express permission of the copyright owners, and could lead to prosecutions and disciplinary action:
· Making a copy of a CD that you own, (done)
· Copying songs from a CD that you own on to your hard drive or any other storage device,(done)
· Making a cassette tape from a CD that you own, (I have copied music from a casset to my computer does that count?)
· Copying a CD belonging to a friend,
· Sharing music files across a network,
· Engaging in file trading of music,
· Downloading music from the internet to your hard drive or any other storage device (done but legaly)

All music is owned by someone. A company or an individual owns copyright to the music. There is copyright in the composition, the lyrics, the arrangement and the sound recording. The term of copyright protection lasts for 70 years after the composer dies, so all the music you are likely to download or copy will be protected by copyright. Under the law, only the copyright owners have the right to reproduce their music or sound recording.

WHAT ABOUT FAIR USE?

For example: it is a violation
to misuse Internet Relay Chat (IRC) software to allow users to hide their identity, or to interfere with other systems or users (the purpose of IRC is to allow conversation between people without them having to know each other or be sure of the others identity)
to send chain letters (oops I have done in the past - but only good ones)
to leave your computer logged on and unattended (I have certainly done that - not that it is connected to the internet or passworded or anything)

Oh and the stupid IT department has managed to write protect the folder we are supposed to put stuff in we want to share with other people at school. silly people.

Watching Rugby: school Rugby.

2006-09-16T13:36:00.000+01:00

Loud
Violent fast moving game.
Lots of people jumping on top of each other in big piles. I don’t know the rules.
I do know that every player playing is better than I would be, and that must confer some kind of respect.
I am watching two games simultaneously though I could be watching three. I don’t know the score or who is winning. Apparently the relative school sizes are important and are against us. I think the tide is against us on at least one of the games though we are putting up firm resistance.
The ball just smashed into the stand beside me and a few moments later it was tumbling from great height down the slope in front of me and hit someone on the back.
Ohh first injury one player off. That is why they need subs. I did not see what happened. In the game with the first injury we had been forced into our 22 and the other side scored a try 5: nil down the other game is going much better only 1 : nil down. (I know a little of the technical terms from a bit of rugby training I had before I got myself transferred out to do other things instead).
There is definitely a reason why they wear weird helmet things, crashing headfirst towards the ground does not look fun.
70 minutes is a long time to sit in the cold – mental note next time wear a coat; this is Scotland.
Now I see why the headmaster told us to be courteous and sportsman like in assembly rugby is an emotional game.

Award assemblies – long and boring.

2006-09-16T13:31:00.000+01:00

Prize giving and book signing ceremonies where you have to clap continuously are tiring as well as tedious.
Followed by class crosswords! At last my reading of fantasy comes in useful the person who stands in duel(I have not explained this well) is called a second. And I know what tacky means (like glue was the clue). Anyway I know words. :) (note both pictures are random)

Kayaking!

2006-09-16T13:27:00.000+01:00

Recently I did my first kayaking on a river which was also my first kayaking for a while. It is much more interesting kayaking on rivers than on lakes. Much easier to capsize – you have to adjust your edge using your knees especially when crossing the current if you let the current side lean down then the pressure will build up and you will flip.
I managed to do the whole long trip without capsizing despite not having a bung (I did not realise this till I got out). I did however have to get out and walk for a shallow bit – I was not going anywhere and was only damaging the bottom of the kayak.
Kayaking is fun.

The etiquet of Kilt wearing

2006-09-14T09:16:00.000+01:00

Today (last Sunday (notepad post)) was the first day I had to wear a kilt. I found there is more to it than I first thought.
Firstly you have to wear a sporn with your kilt otherwise you are not decent (despite wearing a pair of shorts and pants underneath) secondly you have to wear garters on you socks to stop them falling down. The socks are long reaching almost to the knee.

Wearing a kilt is an interesting experience. The bobbles on the sporon beat like a small drum as you walk. I can easily se the disadvantages of wearing skirts when you sit down you have to smooth your kilt underneath to prevent sitting on it in an uncomfortable way - and crumpling the back. Also it is more airy than trousers and so chilly in cold weather. Which makes it hard for me to see how it came to be the national dress of Scotland which is often cold; especialy in the morning. I can however see that skirts could be an advantage in hot weather.

When Kilts were first made they were big enough to ve the blanket for two people and they were more like togas and therefore much warmer.

Kilts can cost from 200 - 400 pounds (the pound sign is not working when you press it you get # ahhgrh) but I got mine for 40 pounds on the inerenet (nylon rather than hadmade wool) . You also have to wear a kilt Jacket with it and that cost over 100 pounds - extortionetly expensive, and very itchy. I feel more than slightly stupid wearing a kilt.

It is a long way ot Edinburgh in a rattling bus, nice scenerey and sky though.

Please bear with the low frequency of posting - I don't have much time and getting to an internet connected compueter is harder than usual.

Still no scanner working! and all they need to do is login! :(

Boarding school

2006-09-07T10:48:00.000+01:00

I have now started at boarding school for the first time and I will now tell you about it.
Boarding school is... interesting.
The boarding house is far enough from the main buildings for it to be worth cycling there - but you aren't allowed to but it is not to far to walk.
~~I like the IT department better than the one at my last school already~~ - despite their accidental failure to create an account for me at the beginning was swiftly remedied and I found that the space available on the system is all that you will need and that the only limit they put on you is that if you put lots of music on it then it will be deleted.
Also it is apparently possible to install programs onto the computer without administrator access. something I am thinking of taking advantage of before they fix it - if they intend to fix it.
ahh it seems that hole may have been fixed humbug.
But complete school coverage with wifi network and lots of space still great - I think I should recommend them some free software software seems to be a department which is lacking.
Okay the IT department is lazy and incompetent.
it still has not managed to make the @ key work - it is still found under the " key.
It still has not managed to get a single scanner to work - and all it needs to do is to log on as an administrator and then plug the stupid scanner in.
It has discovered all the problems with cloning - even cloning computers - a computer stuck in continuous restart was cloned and so the poor teacher lost address books and stuff. at least one computer does not have a sound card - how is a teacher supposed to show a video without one?
Food
The food is certainly more fatty and salty than I am used to - worse than my old school and much worse than home (where salt and fat are down to fanatically low level (DAD)). Chips every day this week for supper - and a couple of times for lunch as well (cook was ill or something and this should not happen normally) but fried eggs, hash browns, cream, bread and butter pudding made with butter (it does not need the butter). The food is however quite nice, and I can have grapes with every lunch meal. which is nice.

Sorry for the late arrival of this post - I started it ages ago but my loan laptop has no Internet connection as it has no wireless ability and it is not worth upgrading it as when I get my normal one back after the inordinately long time they have spent fixing it. More to come soon.

The smell of burning chicken stock

2006-09-04T10:24:00.000+01:00

Is not very nice and if you smell it just before going to bed it is a very good Idea to go to the kitchen and turn off the hob. That bit I did right but poring water from a glass onto the smoking chicken stock was not such a good idea. but everything was all right in the end - though very smelly.

I have been a bit busy getting ready for going to bording school and have been distracting myself from nervousness with webcomics which I will tell you about when I can but at the moment I have to go. hopefuly I will be able to post again soon.

Inverness Swimming pool Highlife

2006-08-30T21:18:00.000+01:00

This is an email I have sent to info at invernessleisure dot co dot uk but information contained within it is important to remember generaly.

I am writing concerning the security of the personal information provided by users of the High Life membership scheme. This information contains a photograph name, address and telephone number and credit card details which could be used by identity thieves if it is not properly secured. Is the data encrypted at the storage level? Who has access to the data and are they vetted for a criminal record etc.
The use of remotely readable cards to carry information is dangerous as it is possible to create a fake remote readable card if the card has passed within 25cm of a thief's (boosted) RFID scanner. A criminal could also wipe or change the details on the card.
It is very important that all personal information is securely held and as limited as possible because Identity theft is a self perpetuating crime where the criminals are making so much money that they can afford to have their own research and development people to work out how to extract personal information in order to make more money and unless those companies who are collecting the money keep it securely they could have the data stolen and their customers would loose money and the company would loose face and possibly be sued. You have my personal information (under my real name) and I want to make sure it is well protected.

Yours sincerely
--
Max Randor

read the sign it says

2006-08-28T16:06:00.000+01:00

Paper Only!

I was recycling some paper and look what I saw inside the recycled paper container. If you look carefuly you can se expanded polystyrene sheets. There was also some cardboard which you can just see in the top right of the opening.
We removed the polystyrene sheets and cardboard (with difficulty) but someone is very stupid and rude or cannot read putting polystyrene sheets in the paper recycling could corrupt the whole lot and make it unusable. It is also illegal since someone who did something similar to their concil recycing (we don't have door to door recycling) was charged for corrupting 300 peoples recycling. (recycling in the Highlands is not very good the only place to get paper recyclins is Invergordan there is an industrial estate there where someone does paper recycling.

Sometimes I feel...

2006-08-28T11:55:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I feel like someone is inventing new stuff and then changing the past so that it has been there years. On this occasion I heard about House yesterday and saw an advert in a magazine today – apparently lots of people have been obsessed with it for ages – but I don’t watch much TV especially not Channel 5.

I found out about IRC on Worldforge and saw it mentioned in a blog a few days later.

I know this feeling is wrong it is just that you don’t always see things until you know they are there and also because lots of clever people are inventing things and they may have been around years before they reach my attention and by that time they are probably going somewhere in the world.

Thus ends my pad of paper blog posts series. 1660 words. I hope you enjoyed it.

but the title just cried out for this
... Sometimes I don't :)

The return Journey

2006-08-28T11:48:00.000+01:00

The continuing tragedy of Virgin Trains (episode 2)

The local train from the station near the camp was fine with plenty of space and luggage room (this was a not a virgin train).

However the Virgin train to Edinburgh was terrible fully booked with seat reservations all the way to Edinburgh and despite my seat reservation I ended up sitting on my bag in the vestibule, there was an elderly man in the seat I had reserved and he needed it more than I did. It should not be possible for all seats to be fully booked and the additional passengers which pay more for valid tickets which work all day have no where to sit. Also neither of my bags would fit in the overhead racks and the small luggage sections were full to the ceiling. There were additional complications caused by an irate passenger (who had also been annoying on the previous train) who complained that she would faint or have an epileptic fit if she could not be provided with a seat. (standing up causes epileptic fits? I think not). She resorted to insulting England and English people. Slightly loopy I am afraid. Oh well.

I asked if it was possible to advise the management of Virgin trains that not allocating all seats through reservation and then having additional passengers but instead reserving a few seats for the additional passengers might prevent repeats of the severity of the problem.

I was told that I could try but that there were “government plans to reduce the number of trains running and so it would only get worse and I should make the most of it”[approximately] this from the manager of the train. (what the government has to do with the decisions by virgin trains of how many trains they run I do not know – though perhaps they could be reducing the amount of subsides paid to Virgin)

Soon afterwards the slightly loopy lady complained that the train manager had been extremely rude to her after the manager had managed to create a seat and persuade her to move and sit in it (the lady did not want to squeeze along the corridor). The lady then proceeded to be rude to surrounding passengers which I later learned caused much hilarity. The train manager was not even in the same carriage when this supposed rudeness occurred. As I was originally writing this the train manager was phoning up to see if a policeman could get on at the next station and remove the lady because she was “upsetting everybody”. I pity the poor employees who have to deal with this.

One of the train crew agreed that ‘it is often like this’.

Train crew and passengers should not be subjected to this for the greed of the higher management.

Oh and the doors do not check whether anyone is between them before they close – lots of slightly squashed people. :)

A policeman came aboard at Carslie to try and remove the loopy lady sensitively she left but the manager was unsure whether she had reboarded but then she saw that the lady was on the station as we were leaving and so someone else will have to deal with her.

The plastic bag the lady left behind was disposed of in the bin, no one wanted to find out what was inside.

All the vestibules I can see are packed with standing people.

But Virgin does have Fair trade sugar. PR I think.

I took them up on there offer of a complementary drink and the orange juice and biscuits distracted me for at least 10 minutes.

At Lockerbie the train got even fuller and I do not think many people got off – though lots got on.

1 hour on the train from Lockerbie to the next station standing in a hot overcrowded vestibule. I do not anticipate this to be fun.

I usually like travelling by train, less hassle (especially with all the airport security checks) better for the environment… but travelling by Virgin trains is pushing it. Ahh my poor knees I will delve again into my in search of knee braces and hope that the weird pins and needles like pains that assault me after wearing wetsuits don’t get too bad.

The Scottish countryside however is living up to its usual beauty.

I think seeing me scribbling away in my notebook may have unnerved the crew slightly but they were all nice. I pity them the most as they have to do this every Saturday and probably have other journeys on other days. I know that this is the last weekend of the Edinburgh festival but this is no excuse if more people want to travel run more trains.

The strain lessened slightly at Haymarket but it is only a few minutes from there to Waverly.

Freedom at last 1 hour 20 minutes to eat my packed lunch before my connection leaves.

Thus ends episode 2 of the Tragedy of Virgin trains.

My GCSE Results

2006-08-28T11:46:00.000+01:00

can be viewed by those who know me on my private MSN blog.
it boils down to 4A* 6A and 2 B

What would I do with £200 million?

2006-08-28T11:39:00.000+01:00

(this was brought on by hearing that someone got £200 million in a divorce payment – impossible to spend?)

First I would put it in a bank – or perhaps several and make it a trust fund with myself as trustee and use the interest above inflation for renewable energy projects for peoples home offering and additional 30% grant on top of what the government offers which would be paid back twice in the excess electricity sold back to the grid or a fixed payment until it is paid back twice (if the electricity sold back is too low) – the payment would still be cheaper than buying the electricity or heat. I would also use it for other worthy causes and to make a state of the art energy efficient house when I need one. Putting the money back in later of course.

Virgin trains (episode one)

2006-08-28T11:31:00.000+01:00

Not Enough Luggage Space!

Trying to fit more people in by having smaller luggage racks. I most definetly do not understand why the overhead racks are curved so that bags don’t fit in them. (perhaps the air conditioning?) argh, and I had to wait ages for them to open the doors – not as if they were doing anything inside. But having electronic displays rather than paper tickets stuck into the seats to show reservations could be good but the way they have done it means that a seat can look like it is vacant if someone has not used it for one part of the journey you are on but the fact that someone else has booked it later is not shown – and the positioning means that people sitting in the seats cannot see it. And also the insissent announcements encouraging you to upgrade to 1^st class for ‘£10-20’. Fortunately the company was good do it was still an interesting journey and the scenery was great as well.

I had an interesting read of “Disciplines of a Godly Man” more of that later when I have finished it.

Ahrg overzealous air conditioning making it so cold you have to wear a coat is stupid and the doors cannot stay shut when the train rocks and open slightly before shutting again.

Paying toilets

2006-08-28T11:24:00.000+01:00

It is not good that the toilets at Edinburgh Waverly are paying ones and that you have to scrabble around in your pocket for a 20p piece then wait in a queue before getting to some dirty toilets with no toilet paper, especially since most of the users will be spending a large amount of money on tickets anyway.

The Journey out

2006-08-28T11:23:00.002+01:00

“All luggage on seats will be charged at the full adult fare’! I suppose that is one way of increasing the number of available seats.

Why did the guard pull all the luggage out from the racks by the door up onto the overhead racks. A little old lady could not reach her luggage (though later when she wanted to get up she did manage to get it down with difficulty).

The reason I did not put my bag in the overhead rack was because it was big and heavy and I did not want to drop it on someone’s head when I took it down or to lift it up in the first place

While I was away I wrote posts onto a pad of paper and I am copying them up onto Blogger.

2006-08-28T11:23:00.001+01:00

Going away again

2006-08-18T21:06:00.000+01:00

I will be away on a scripture union camp from tomorrow (saturday) until the following saturday and so I will not be able to post during that time sorry.

Also I have moved to the blogger beta because it has categories which should remove the need for several blogs and copying and pasting between them to make it easier to find stuff.
so there are still a few problems in the beta such as the navbar and normal blogger users posting comments under their user name. unfortunetly it is impossible to change back and so I hope these problems are fixed as soon as possible.
Hmm now where do I assign categories - I will go exploring.
See you next saturday and have fun!

Update:
Ahhgh I cannot find it and I don't have time to look through the help files now. - but they have feeds for comments! yey! and also for individual posts! :)
Update2:
I need to use their new template layout things as well - and I definetly don't have enough time for that now. bye

3/4 of Palestinian children want to be suicide bombers!

2006-08-18T10:01:00.000+01:00

3/4 of Palestinian children want to be suicide bombers!!!!!

According to a survey of 1700 Palestinian children by a psychologist in Palestine. This data is from last nights newsnight which you can watch or listen to online. This is very very bad news, if the children are ready to die then this conflict will not end. It will continue forever unless everything changes. Both sides are locked in conflict and held there by the conflict itself. Either Israel which is the only side which is coordinated enough to change changes its entire strategy and reaches out in love rather than in hate, of there will be war between them forever until one side is completely destroyed down to the last child. There are 1 billion Muslims. Israel cannot kill them all and if it tried then we (the rest of the world) would have to stop them. They would have to perpetrate a holocaust 333 times worse than the one they suffered. If they are not capable of this they could not do such a thing and would not want to do such a terrible thing. but after many generations locked in this struggle they would be destroyed. There are more Arabs than Jews and their number is growing faster. When one father has four wives! and 54 children! and the Jewish people are more restrained then they cannot hope to succeed if nothing else they will be outnumbered and out-bred. In the long term Israel cannot win, in the short term it can kill lots of people but in the long term they will loose. Israel I know your history I know that with God 300 can defeat thousands but is your God with you? Will he rain down meteors for you? Will he change the flow of time for you. Did he clear away your enemies before you? Does he prevent you from stumbling? Does he bring down fire from heaven at the call of your prophets. Where are your prophets? Where are your Judges of old? The anointed kings you demanded. Is he with you. At the end of a 2000 year exile you cried out to him and went home. With him you can withstand anything but throughout your history you have been conquered and exiled you turned away from him and so after warning you and when you ignored his warning he turned away from you. Only the guilt and pity of the West has sustained you thus far. But you have made enemies more numerous than yourselves. Enemies who will fight to the death and with their blood poison you.

Israel you must find again your appointed king and with your God you must wage the war of ideas you must love your enemy or they will destroy you. Or are you prepared to fight to the death? Knowing that you will loose? The only way out of this mess is love. And if you fail your God made you from one man children of Abraham remember he had another son Ishmael remember also Esau. Where are their children? in Palestine? Lebanon? Jacob fought Esau in their mothers womb. But would he kill Esau? Will you kill his children's children?

And if your enemies are not the sons and daughters of Abraham. they are the sons and daughters of Noah and before that Adam and Eve. Will you kill family? However far removed or will you mend again the broken bonds and stand together. There is only one way for Israel to win the war and it is harder for every missile they fire. Winning the war would I think be the greatest achievement in the history of humanity. Remember if you have the Creator of the Universe on your side anything is possible for he so loved the world that he sent his one and only son to die to save the world.

Will you choose love and life or hate and death?

Will you hear me at all?

A shock to the system

2006-08-15T12:40:00.000+01:00

My recent move to Inverness from London has been a bit of a shock to the system. You should not have to wear a jumper and two pairs of socks in august!
However that was only for one day. The rest of the time then one pair of thick socks and a jumper suffices inside and putting a coat on is good for outside. There have only been about 2 days in which it has not rained in the three weeks we have been up here. That does not mean that there has not been lots of sun it just means that the weather is more unstable - it changes more every time you look out the window the view is different because the sky has changed and whether or not you can see which of the distant mountains.
It is usualy much more windy but some days the sea of the moray firth is as still as a sheet of glass with hardly a ripple. The Sea! Still! watching a sand castle (they do have sand up here) assulted by a sea with no waves is quite scary even without waves it easily overwhelms the defences that can be thrown up with sand - eventualy it over tops them (the only sand on the local beach is near the bottom and the tide rises several meters above the highest point of sand).
It is beautiful up here and there is a different walk for every day of the week with a few spare as well. It is 8 minutes to the nearest Tesco (though bread fish and other perishable stuff is half rotten or stale by the time it reaches Inverness) so going to the nearest farm shop provides nicer food that actualy tastes of something - but they do not sell everything.
In short I like it up here but it will take a while to get used to the temperature. I am sure Global warming wil sort out the temperature at the expense of making the weather worse and doing so much damage to all sorts of things that it is not worth it.

My position on the Middle east Crisis (updated)

2006-08-14T20:25:00.000+01:00

Belated publication yes but long held

Firstly Israel is making a huge mistake.
The military option is not an option that can solve the problem it will only cause further terrorism and it will achieve that through causing immense suffering.
Secondly even if Israel had decided to be so stupid as to decide on the useless military option they are using entirely the wrong tactics and strategy they are playing right into the hands of the terrorists. You have superior technology and firepower use it stupid don't bomb people and cities and villages and bridges and roads and infrastructure. Don't try and put Lebanon back 20 years in time you stupid fools. If you are going to blow anyone up blow up the people firing the rockets. You have the technology. You have cruise missiles that can travel almost at the speed of sound and hit the correct target with devastating power. You have radar systems that can track a tennis ball traveling at mark 3 hundreds of miles away. And that is with one warship that warship (launched recently from somewhere in Scotland the HMS Illustrious) can then hit that tennis ball with a missile. Why then does Israel not make its radar systems capable of detecting and tracking every single missile that Hezbollah launches and calculating the position of launch hit that position with a cruise missile in less than 30 seconds(It doesn't because each cruise missile costs £1.2 million and each Hezbollah rocket costs a couple of hundred). Turning every missile launch into an expensive suicide mission would quickly lower the number of strikes (and any computer connected to the Internet could then become an air raid warning speaker). I place this plan just to show the stupidity of their current military plan (except I did not consider the cost) . Of course this plan would not work it would not stop Hezbollah it would just win the battle and not the war. In the process it would bankrupt Israel and anyone who was prepared to support them but hey.
The Palestinians and Lebanon are the victims victims for is not the bully frequently one who was bullied? This is not an excuse but it is the cause all through their history Israel has been persecuted it was exiled to Egypt, Babylon, Persia and by the Romans all over the world. 2000 years being its longest period of exile and all through that it was persecuted. Then again it returned and this time as when they spent a while in Egypt their land was populated by another people and this time as before they drove the people away. They could have lived together in peace but they chose terrorism - Israel became a nation through kidnapping soldiers and blowing people up. If only Israel had listened to its prophets long ago instead of killing them. But so would any people.
Israel must reach out its hand in peace to the government of Lebanon if they are not strong enough to fight Hezbollah and disarm it if they are not lords of their own castle then Israel must help Lebanon it must stand beside Lebanon and ease its path letting Lebanon choose its own destiny and then helping it get there. Rather than putting Lebanon back 20 years it should put it forwards 30 for all they destroy must be rebuilt. They must not make another victim. They must be and raise up Lebanon as a beacon of peace, freedom and prosperity in the Middle East. They must ask for forgiveness and repair the damages they have made. If terrorists stand against you be not terrorised. Open your hearts and let the whole world see the love inside. And if the unruly and dirty children laugh at you and throw stones take them by the hands and wash their feet feed them and give them clothes teach them justice. But if you close your hearts and kick them in the face they will hide behind the tree and mug you when they are grown.
A cause is not an excuse but it still needs to be solved.
But I am like another prophet speaking in the desert and we all know what happens to those - they get their heads chopped off. and for this I think a wry smile.
Remember Solomons temple was built with cedars from Lebanon provided by the friendly king of Lebanon let it again be as it was before with Lebanon and Israel united in trade and in war against a foreign aggressor let them fight together the battle of ideologies together they may defeat terrorism but divided as so many dry twigs they will be broken.

Update
Okay this post has been updated scram-jet has been changed to cruise with the corresponding change in speed because scram-jets are not yet anywhere near production. I also learn't that cruise missles cost £1.2 million and this means that my plan would be ruinously expensive. My excuse is that I thought that since such a large volume of military material is being bought for the wars in the Middle east the price must have gone down.
Apparently the HMS Illustrious does not have such a good radar as I thought I thought from what I was told that from Scotland it could track a Mark 3 tennis ball over the English Channel - maybe I misunderstood.
Ooh and look pictures of big explosions nice and dramatic.

Slough

2006-08-14T20:02:00.000+01:00

by Sir John Betjeman (1930s ish)

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town -
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half-a-crown
For twenty years,

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washed his repulsive skin
In women's tears,

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives fizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales

Now this Is quite an old poem and so some of the words may not be known to all readers
Cad is an impolite word for someone who chases women (I did not know this one)
I do not think there are any other particulary dificult ones and if you don't understand them read more old stuff some old words really are quite good.
I hope you enjoyed this poem because I did.
An aristocratic home grown terrorist? No I think I agree.

Rose Tinted Spectacles

2006-08-10T20:08:00.000+01:00

Shall I look upon the world
With rose tinted spectacles
Seeing not the pain and sorrow

Or shall I with ice coated ones
Stare out upon the world
Seeing not the joy and laughter

Or with mirror coated ones
Thinking only of myself
And hiding from the world
See not the love of others

Or with ones that look behind
Seeing only mine and others pasts
Not caring for today or the morrow
Seeing not the changes coming

Or in short sightedness
Living today for tomorrow we die
And seeing not the bigger picture

Or again in long sightedness
That the smaller joys in life are
Hidden
And caught by misty cobwebs

I would see the good, and the
Bad – not to dwell on but to change,
Learn from the past
But look to the future
And here and now I
Will write this poem
Seeking a very strange
Pair of spectacles
For my eyes are not enough.

I’mmmmm Back

2006-08-10T19:43:00.000+01:00

I am very very sorry for my extended absence but Orange and BT conspired against me and the wheels of corporate beaurocarcy took almost a month to turn. I think it was BT more than orange because they could not cancel the old people who used to live in the house we have moved to's broardband account until we had been here two weeks. But orange did not tell us we would need to do this when we called ten days before we moved and so we spent 13 days waiting for the line to be cleared and only one waiting to be connected - but orange had those 13 days to get ready.

Getting ready for moving and the moving itself took up another few day as well.
I would also like to mention their stupidity and time wasting nature of the system and the fact that domestic users treated as second class and have much longer delays than commerical users.

Anyway I will be getting back to exisiting on the internet again. I tremble at the thought of reading through my feed reader it will have grown very long indeed for such an absence.

I will be blogging soon.

Visit to BP - AE

2006-07-14T13:16:00.000+01:00

Recently I did a days work experience with Alternative Energy BP's alternative energy company. It was very interesting and I learnt lots - and got lots of freebees - including a 128MB USB flash drive.
I learn't for example that they think that the oil spike will be between 2015 and 2040 - depending on whether demand increases or decreases and on how much new supplies are discovered or made accessible.
I got some more idea of just how big the problem is - they think we would be lucky to stabilise CO₂ production in 20 years rather than the suggested 10 to prevent catastrophic and uncontrolable warming. We have already caused a 3 degree rise - it has just not caught up with us yet - now we must decide whether we want the total to be four or six - bad or terrible.

Laptop down

2006-07-14T12:58:00.000+01:00

One of the reasons why I have not posted recently is because on Tuesday my laptop broke. progressively it would not turn on properly all that happened was that the power light went on and the fan and hardisk whirred. So anyway iansyst got it collected today. Hopefuly they can fix it.

So sorry for not writing but I have to deal with annoying sisters and brothers and parents now. especialy silly sisters.

Microsoft could be fined 365,000,000 euros

2006-07-08T16:13:00.000+01:00

Microsoft could be fined 365,000,000 euros by the european commision - 2million a day for the past 6 months - see here
They probably won't but they could
'Under the ruling, Microsoft had to supply rivals with information about its Windows operating system.

On Monday, Microsoft said it had begun to provide the information Brussels had demanded, but the Commission has signalled the company acted too late.

In December, Brussels informed the software giant that it had failed to comply with the original ruling it issued in March 2004.

At the time of the warning, the Commission said Microsoft would face fines of up to 2m euros a day if it did not comply immediately.'

Look What I found on my desk when I came home

2006-07-07T20:59:00.000+01:00

I found this on my desk when I came home I think it might be slightly out of date - though it was only published in 1991. I think code has moved on since then, still the principles are the same.

Old Sear Works

2006-07-06T07:56:00.000+01:00

The old version of sear - 0.6.1 has suddenly started working - rather than crashing. but the new one 0.6.2 which has lots of good bug fixes just exits itself when it loads the world. oh well.
look screenshot!

I now have a Web album just for screenshots - look here.

The Death of a blog

2006-07-06T07:10:00.000+01:00

In case anyone is worried it is not this blog which is in danger. Rather it is my Images_Max_Randor_does blog that I think I will phase out - at least I will not make any new posts to it.
I now have the Piscara Web Albumbs thing and have uploaded I think all of my pictures for the blog there. You can find it here.

I am writing to you via a broardband wirelessconnection in leeds. I last posted from Yorkshire and before that I spent a week in inverness and before that a weekend in the Lake district. I have traveled a lot recently.

I am very very sorry.

2006-07-03T20:42:00.000+01:00

I am very very sorry for neglecting you and not subjecting you to my limited talents. I thought I could explain on the friday before last but I did not have time to get onto the internet. I thought I would have internet connection from Monday onwards but the place where I was doing my work experince was too restricted when it came to the internet. I am trying and will continue to try to post nearly every day.
My sincerest apologies - not that anyone has commented in my absence - but oh well.

I am away this Weekend - and all next week

2006-06-24T20:21:00.000+01:00

Posted by time traveling blogger who changed the date to a past one so that he could post a post he should have posted already.
I will be at my uncles wedding in the lake district this weekend and then on to Inverness to do work experince. So will not post anything after Friday - no internet connection :-(.
I thought I would be able to post this on Friday but I could not. Sorry. I thought I would be able to post it on Monday but I could not. Now I am on a limited dial up connection and it is the following Monday.

Dentist

2006-06-21T12:30:00.000+01:00

I have just come back from a trip to the dentist to have a filling in my rear right molar - and that whole side of my face and tongue is numb - which I can blame for any stupidity in the next hour - anaesthetised right side of brain! :-)
I have some advise - floss your teeth twice a week and brush them thoroughly twice a day - and if you get any ulcers or pain use mouthwash.
When the dentist is fiddling inside your mouth close your eyes and pretend to fall asleep - it is much less scary than having strange people leaning over you with strange pieces of equipment - the thing that keeps your lips open looks a bit like a hand drill with a big bit on the end.
Go to the Dentist once every 6 months - at least while you are free on the NHS. (children)
Anyway I hope this second post provides some support for my previous claim of blogging more often. :-)

The picture is not me - just some random people I found on a google search

What Have I been doing

2006-06-21T12:05:00.000+01:00

What have I been doing while I have been neglecting you of my (poor) talents?
Well there was revision
and exams - which went well - but they finished Friday.
Then there was Revive (church weekend away)- from Friday through to Sunday - Which was great fun and we learned lots- back in time to see Doctor Who - an interesting one.
Then there was Whales - I discovered and was won over to the cause of saving the whales - (this was while the exams were still happening).
Tony Junipers article was where it started from there I was given a link to this article about the human perception of intelligence and how whales are actually quite intelligent. I sent some campaign emails to the people on the list here. I started a actionnetwork (BBC) campaign to save the whales - after finding that this one was dead (still no response) - though I did post feedback on it.
Then there was this blog article which I also have comments on.
I got a site which you can find here - and I have improved my knowledge of HTML.
I searched the internet for a free open source online computer game - and via wikipedia found WorldForge - which is very nice - though I haven't got it to work yet - for that I have stuff on these three forum topics.
Anyway I should be blogging more frequently now.

Climate chaos: Bush's climate of fear

2006-06-05T16:12:00.002+01:00

There is a very very good investigation by Panorama that you can watch over the internet and is available from here.
This investigates claims that Bush and the White house have been censoring, editing, removing and delaying reports and papers by the scientific community on Global Warming. And also telling top scientists not to give any interviews or talks or publish anything without first getting permission. There is a great deal of censorship around - even in supposedly democratic countries like the USA.

Google Reader starred feed

2006-06-04T10:57:00.000+01:00

I have made my starred items from Google reader public - so you can subscribe to them as a feed and read stories I find interesting.
This has been added to the sidebar as well so you can look at it when you are on my blog.
I have put the feed here - by clicking on the - read in Google reader - button you can subscribe to the feed somehow. Anyway I hope you find it interesting.
The following link is to read in google reader

This link is to read with any other feed reader.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated

irrepressible.info

2006-05-28T11:48:00.000+01:00

Amnesty International has launched a new campaign against Internet censorship. You can sign up to the pledge below here (via Guardian and Blogzilla):

'I believe the internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or interference. I call on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the internet, and on companies to stop helping them do it.'

This is why there is now a fragments label on the sidebar showing snippits from censored blogs and websites. Long live Free speech and Democracy.

It’s a long way to fall

2006-05-27T14:33:00.000+01:00

It’s a long way to fall
From that great height
But fall you must
And fall you will
For the mountain you build
Its falling apart
The rock its crumbling with lies
The mortar eroded by corruption
And another great
Democracy
Falls down
Locked in an
Everlasting war
With an enemy
It helped to make
With each blow it makes
Its enemy grows stronger

And it grows weaker
And this once great
Democracy
Destroys itself
From greed
For all empires fail
And this is past
Its time
And I
In an empire already
Fallen
Look on you in pity
And wonder
How far you will
Pull us down
With you
For you
Our child
We have leant upon
And now you crumble
As we did
And we fall to

Perhaps take comfort
Your successor
Has built their empire
With rotting wood
And already
Begins to shudder
But the whole world
Leans on them
Perhaps another
Of our wayward adopted children
Will succeed you

But the future is not known
To men and women both
And so we shall wait and see
For anything could happen
Even in America

There is always a price
For freedom
Don’t let the price be
Freedom.

part of my inspiration can be found here.

Politics

2006-05-25T19:35:00.000+01:00

My sister said something very interesting today

poly in ~~laitin~~ Greek means: many
ticks are small irritating bloodsucking animals
ians - are people who do what the words before say
politicians - many small irritating bloodsucking people

oh dear

of course not all politicians are stupid fools
just lots of them
Some of them are actualy quite clever and sensible
unfortnetly it never seems to last.

Democracy is however the best political system available - it might be better however if it was more democratic.

Sorry for not posting recently I have been busy with exams.

oh and BBC's Have Your Say is very interesting http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/default.stm

The last day of school

2006-05-18T18:55:00.000+01:00

Today was the last day of school.
True the GCSE's still lie before us but school is over.
I will never again have a lesson at my current school - I am moving to Inverness and will be going to a mixed boarding school in Scotland.
no more English :-)
no more history :-(
no more geography :-(
no more German :-)) !!!! Yey!!!
no more DT :-(

It is the end of an era - for me.
I would encourage people from school to check this blog reguarly as I intend to post nearly every day.
Good luck in your exams and have fun.
God Bless

Goodbye. - I will miss you.

Nuclear power - the fight is on

2006-05-17T19:12:00.000+01:00

There is a very interesting debate going on here , here and it seems that sanity is winning and the majority are not in favor of new nuclear power stations but rather in renewable energy which being renewable is Obviously the best option considering that nuclear will run out in 50 years and take 15 years to build while renewable can be done now and will not run out for several billion years.
(several billion years is longer than 50 and is such a long time that we cannot comprehend it)

There are also some very interesting ideas going round - like LSP - you will have to read the comments to find out what it is or read this.

Enjoy

Freedom of speech and nuclear power

2006-05-16T19:14:00.000+01:00

Today well before I posted this post I was told I should be 'careful what I say' about China 'especially on the internet'. By an English person concerned that the Chinese government might not like it and I might get in trouble. But I demand my right to freedom of speech. If the Chinese government is encouraging wrongfully imprisoned prisoners to be cut up while they are still alive and without adequate doses of anaesthetic because the transplant industry is worth a lot of money and if they are then using the dead bodies for other purposes then I have a right to tell you and no one will shut me up.

Tony Blair has made another big mistake saying that "These facts put the replacement of nuclear power stations, a big push on Renewables and a step change on energy efficiency, engaging both business and consumers, back on the agenda with a vengeance."
Nuclear power stations - chuck them off the agenda - throw the plans at the sun, bury them in a subduction zone or in watertight caves deep underground but do not ever put them on the agenda.
Then do the other stuff he said that were actually sensible 'a big push for Renewables and a step change on energy efficiency,' these can still win the day we can still win the war on global warming by using renewable energy and energy efficiency - fission power will never be the answer the pollution from fission power is still poisonous millions of years later, and uranium is already running out.
The longer it takes to take action to prevent Global warming from going out of control the harder it will be.
Give everyone a carbon quota have a domestic carbon trading scheme and just watch the changes in people's lives - and it will redistribute wealth at the same time as poor people produce less carbon dioxide than rich people who fly to the USA each year. (1 long-haul flight produces as much CO2 as everything else a person does put together). Solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, biomass and efficiency - these and others will yet win the day with a little bit of determination.

Melting arctic and blogging ministers

2006-05-15T20:05:00.000+01:00

Artic ice cap could disapear due to melting caused by global warming - it is the most effected area and the tipping point could be reached.

'Experts at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California think the situation could be even worse. They are about to publish the results of computer simulations that show the current rate of melting, combined with increased access for warmer Pacific water, could make the summertime Arctic ice-free within a decade. Dr Meier said: "For 800,000 to a million years, at least some of the Arctic has been covered by ice throughout the year. That's an indication that, if we are heading for an ice-free Arctic, it's a really dramatic change and something that is unprecedented almost within the entire record of human species."'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1774814,00.html

In other news I have found that the only minister with a blog is the new secratary for the environment and within a few paragraphs of his blog I decided that he probably has some brains between his ears maybe he will get something done - anyway it makes interesting reading and has made it to my personalised homepage on google (which is getting overcrowded) but hey.
anyway you can see his blog here and it will be added to the sidebar to.

The picture is of the minister.

Enjoy.