TG’s
WEBlog (Known as a BLOG or Blogging)
Wanna
discuss the WEBlog content? Email TGtips@topica.com
or link to TGtips Discussion Place
for an open discussion group.
January’s
Blogs: Actions
Speak Louder than Words, Wordy Bullshit, Branding, Links Today, TV Heaven,
Enemies Bring Gifts, Debate on Dave Weinberger’s New Book, Change Now, Rant,
What I did on my Holidays, Fame and Immortality (Me and Bill Gates),e-business
failures, Parallels with my Father, Micropayments-The Future of the Internet,
My First Day at School, Football Memories and a Chance in Life, Rivers Link
People, Links, Design and Creativity, The Other Faces, 7UP, What is
Voice?-Vision and Action, Writing in Progress, Latest Virus Alerts, When is a
Weblog a Weblog, Hello 2002, Happy New Year, 2002 New Year’s Resolutions.
February
Blogs: Spike Milligan Dies, Camp It Up!, Cluetrain
Savaged (and the Nevilles), Goods Luck Elliot!, Monkey Brains, Busy and Thanks,
MindMaps and Walter Winterbottom, Radio 8 Blog and Micropayments, Morning
Pages, Women!, Jackson Browne Lyrics – Lives in the Balance, Let the Consumer and Employee Revolution Begin, Life and
Death, Corporate Rant, Wilful Georgia!, Celebrity Blogs, United Internet,
Friends Reunited at Work, Immunisation?, Good Business Leadership, No Logo,
Definitely No Logo, Missing in Action, Paolo Di Canio.
March Blogs: Words Fail Me,
Losing My Religion, Bush Fire?, Fucking Telstra, Redflagsweekly, The Best
Companies to Work For?, Good to Be Back, Write On – Cling Sheets, Georgia,
Redundancy, Am I a Loser?, Google Image Searches, Sporting DNA, Corporate DNA,
My World has Changed, Internet Laugh, No Logo, Political Compass, Fark, Sex Sells, Tourette Syndrome Barbie, Trailer Park
(Trash?), Gauss Rifle, Bruce Sterling, Deep Links and Google Scientology, Jimmy Hill I love you because…,
April
Blogs so far: Doctors-My
Arse, My Website Stats, FriendsReunited and Demography of Networks, Other People, Today, Missing Days,
Nothing Today, Aussie Humour, Come on England, Ethics, Quality
of Life, United Reject, I’m Tired, Israel, Vaccines, Computer Addiction, Self Adjusting Networks, Website Redesign, My Website is Back, Apologies for
Telstra, Andrew Sullivan, Zipf’s Law, Fucking Telstra yet again, Still a Snowboard
Addict, and Logos, Redflagsweekly Again and The Queen Mum’s Funeral, Game Addiction, Gravity and Science, Maglev and Political Power,
Fark Links, Lost Keys and High Hopes,
Scientific Research
Stinks, Big Companies, Dangers of DHMO.
Tuesday 30th April 2002
Bloody Doctors.
I swear something
had better change pretty damn quick with the medical profession.
I’ve been not at
all well over the last few days.
Went to see the
doctor on Thursday.
Examination ok,
urine test ok, dish out the tablets ok.
And that’s
it. If the examination is ok and the
test is ok, and the tablets are prescribed then I must be ok.
Except I’m
not. I’m in discomfort.
And they don’t
treat the cause, they just dish out the tablets for the symptoms.
Science is isolating
more and more chemicals and cells, but without seeing the whole.
Stuff it, I’m off
to a Herbalist/Acupuncturist/Shiatsu guy who at least will treat me like a
human being and not
Stick a finger up
my arse, a few tablets, a piss in a jar, and silence.
It’s my body, I
know when something’s not right.
Why can’t we
develop SuperDoctors who combine Western science and technology with Eastern
Holistic practise?
Drug companies who
treat symptoms and not causes, that’s why not.
It’s getting there,
check out www.mercola.com and www.redflagsweekly.com but it’s going
to be a long hard fight.
Too much money is
at stake and some people are greedy.
On a different
note, I’ve been meaning to set up some stats on my website to check the number
of hits, and today I found by accident that I already have an amount of stats,
from the site where my name is registered.
So at least I can see most of the hits against tgtips.com .
In some ways it’s
gratifying to know that people are coming on every day, but where are the
thousands of hits per day?
Actually I set
myself a goal of 100 hits per day for this year so I’m on track.
Monday 29th April 2002
And whilst I’m on
it, at my school, I thought it was just my imagination that the Year that were
2 years ahead of me were an unfriendly bunch of shits.
I thought that was
just the way it was with 3rd formers bullying 1st
formers. But when you look at the
numbers registered on www.friendsreunited.co.uk
, it’s interesting that the year of leaving Stockport Grammar in 1977 has
almost half the number of people registered as other years before and
after. Actually not quite true because
the year of 1976 is high in registered people so it makes 1977 look bad. That’s because they were bad. Maybe it’s because of their Chinese year
sign!!
It’s set me
thinking though, that if I had more than a rudimentary knowledge of stats, to
look at people registering at schools and work and see if there are any
patterns and why this may be. Some years
seem to have a much higher registration rate on FriendsReunited than others.
Does it vary with
single sex or mixed sex schools?
Does size (of
school) matter?
What does it look
like for the pattern of work, registrations.
What’s the highest
registering school and year.
How does it plot
against time and people dying?
I’m really a
research scientist at heart.
But I think this
is important to everyone.
Networking is
important.
If you want to get
on in life then networking with other people is one of the ways to best do it.
Sunday 28th April 2002
I am really fucked
off with other people.
Yes that means
you, nearly all of you.
I don’t get
it. We’ve just had a brunch cancelled.
We agreed the date
and time weeks ago.
They changed the
time hours ago and now they’ve cancelled.
And this happens
time and time again.
And the people who
cancel, you’d think the onus is on them to call again and make another
arrangement, but of course not.
People who cancel
don’t rearrange.
And it’s the same
with emails.
How many emails do
I send out to friends and colleagues where I get no reply, or a thanks for
sending them the information, to at least acknowledge they received the
information.
Jeez, how much
time does it take to type “Thanks Tony” and click on the send/receive button.
And I’m thinking
about this some more, and I realise that it’s happening in groups.
Groups of the
people that I met from one friend, tend to reflect the value of that friend.
So if the original
friend is bad at staying in touch then guess what, so are the other friends.
Same with
companies.
If one person in a
large company is bad at staying in touch or is indecisive, then of course it’s
usually a reflection on the rest of people in the company.
It goes back to
corporate DNA.
Companies reflect
the DNA of their founding fathers.
I’m beginning to
realise it’s true of families and groups of friends or work colleagues.
I’ll give you a
direct example.
In www.friendsreunited.co.uk you can
register the companies and buildings where you worked.
I’m amazed at the
variance of numbers that register at different companies and sites.
On reflection some
of those places were good at networking, and others were poor.
ICL is now no
longer. ICL was a poor networker. It reflects in the number of people who have
registered for each site in the company.
Unisys is still in
business, and guess what, there are more sites registered and more people
registered for each site, even though ICL employed more in the UK.
I think I’m on to
something here.
The Brits have
always been good at inventing things.
Mad Professors in isolation. Or
mad writers.
I can never work
out why the Americans are successful at anything.
I think I’m
beginning to get it.
They network well.
Look at the
success of their I.T industry.
Look at the
success of the UK I.T industry. Pah!
In the UK, they
see the first PC and they say, we could
do better than that let’s invent our own hardware and operating system.
In the States they
collaborate. The ask themselves, who do
I know further down the Valley who could help.
The Brits seem to
develop in isolation and come up with the Austin Maxi or Princess or Allegro,
and of course the occasional hit with say The Mini.
Invention isn’t
enough. You need collaboration to put
the invention into practise.
And in order to
collaborate you need to network.
Brits don’t
network. Americans do.
Today is a real
marker with this realisation about people and the groups they’re in.
Group DNA.
I’m thinking a bit
more about this one.
Saturday 27th April 2002
Just feel like
writing today, no links.
I always worry
about the just writing thing because it sounds like the “My Cat…..” that most
Web Logs seem to be about.
But Wil Wheaton inspired me to just
write. And of course Ru Paul. And Bradlands.
How come when
these guys write about nothing it’s interesting?
Feeling better
today. Did lots of things for Georgia
today. Now she’s crawling, we bought and
installed a play pen (prison for princess).
A nice big one
with a softish mat, which is just as well because she fell back as I was
holding her in it. Took the swing chair
round to the next couple expecting. Georgia
didn’t take to it that much. And bought
a cool rocking chair that rotates as well, for Annie to feed Georgia on at
night. Actually it’s for me for the
World Cup. It’s like a poor man’s
La-Z-Boy recliner. It even has pockets
in the side and a footstool that rocks/swings as well.
Went for a walk
later with Annie and Georgia. There
seems to be an Ultimate Frisbee competition going in the park at the bottom of
our avenue. It looks amazing what some
of the guys were doing with a Frisbee.
Makes me think of Mark, my best man who’s getting married next
week. Just spoke to him.
Err that’s it!
Friday 26th April 2002
Not been writing
for the last few days.
Not been feeling
well.
It’s unusual for
me. I’m never ill, never have big colds or
flu.
Probably got a
urinary tract infection.
Went to see the
doctor yesterday, early morning, it was ANZAC (Memorial) day which is a major
public holiday here.
It was unusual for
them to open.
So as he’s
snapping on the glove for an examination, up you know where, he says, making
light conversation,
“This isn’t a good
way to start the day, is it?”
I replied,
“For you or for
me?”!!
Tuesday 23rd April 2002
Can’t find any
good links, can’t thing of anything to write about!
It’s late, I’m tired.
Monday 22nd April 2002
Being a
sophisticated whinging Pom, I sometimes find Aussie humour a bit simplistic.
However, that dour
understatement delivered from the side of the mouth sometimes has me smiling
and laughing for days on end.
The first was this photo I gave
out at a 40th birthday party.
Each of the guests had to tell I joke. I thought that rather than tell a
joke I’d do something a bit different and give out copies of the photo. Also it saved me from having to tell a
joke. The idea fell a bit flat but I
overheard someone say in the background,
“That’s not a
joke, it’s true!”
Second one was
today, when I was talking to a group I was training about how important it is
to check your audience out when presenting.
I gave them an
example of someone I knew who was giving a presentation on “Flying being the
safest form of transport”.
I explained to the
group that the presenter had asked one of the people at the back of the
audience why they hadn’t said anything.
They replied,
“Because I was in
a plane crash in Nigeria.”
I said to the
group today, that although “Flying being the safest form of transport” was
unlikely to be accepted given that the presenter had found one person who’d
been in a plane crash, it was important to have found a dissenter in the
audience.
Someone quipped up
at the back today,
“Well there you
go, he survived the plane crash, didn’t he, point proven.”
I can’t stop
smiling
Sunday 21st April 2002
Noticed this
article a few days ago, BBC
SPORT | WORLD CUP | Other News | World Cup of legends, in which the guy
sets out his all time England football team.
Of course this has
set me going with my all time England football team.
Got out my
spreadsheet found this site, England's
Players - Abbott to Austin with all the England players.
Noted down all the
players I remember from 1966 and hey presto one perfect England team.
Not so easy is
it? If all the positions had world class
players or just one world class player it would be a piece of cake.
I’ve also chosen
ones I can remember playing. I don’t
remember Jimmy Greaves that well.
Neither does Jimmy Greaves!
One or two players
are easy to chose.
Bobby Moore and
Bobby Charlton stand above them all.
Unquestionable.
Bobby Charlton’s
England scoring record just can’t be beaten.
Full backs is a
different matter. I don’t think either
Man Utd or England have ever had a world class full-back.
They’ve had steady
full-backs and the occasional attacking full-back, but never the completer
player.
So who do you
choose? I can’t remember George Cohen
and Ray Wilson the England ’66 World Cup full-backs.
One player stands
out. Reliable, steady, trustworthy,
bottle, fearless and feared, and he can score goals and take free kicks and
he’s actually left footed.
Stuart Pearce.
The right back
though I still haven’t decided. I
started with Gary Neville.
There was a time
2-3 years ago before he had a longish term injury when I thought he was world
class, but not now.
And this is when I
realised how to pick the rest of the side.
When this player
plays or played for England do you say to yourself,
“Hurray, Gary
Neville is playing for England, we’re going to be ok.” Errr No.
So that’s it Gary
Neville is out. I can’t think of one
England full-back where I’ve said,
“Hurray……..” It’s one way to get rid of Nevilles, Phil
Neal, and Lee Dixon, which leaves me
with the choice of Viv Anderson, Mick Mills, Terry Cooper, Paul Parker, Colin
Todd, Keiron Dyer, and Gary Steven. I’ve
not finalised anything yet but I’ll settle for Viv Anderson for the time
being. Dyer may become world class.
The other central
defender to pair with Bobby Moore. The
guy in the link who’s written the book chose Jack Charlton. One thing about Jack Charlton is that you
always thought he was more rather than less likely to score from corner, unlike
the other central defenders who trot up field.
Each generation
has had it’s big steady defender. Dave
Watson, Terry Butcher, Sol Campbell.
I think I’ll go
for Tony Adams who transformed from a drunken donkey into a great player
.
Central
midfield. I put in Bryan Robson and
Colin Bell straight away. Maybe it’s
just the Manc in me. But I’ve got Gascoigne now instead of Bell. He did it all in ’90 World Cup.
Again is it just
me or are there no outstanding wingers or left sided England players. I don’t always know who is left footed in my
memory.
Can you think of a
world class England winger from 1966 onwards?
I can only think of one I’d chose.
Stevie Coppell. I think he’s better in that position as an out and out
winger than Beckham.
I have my doubts
about Beckham. Ok, good for the free
kicks. I’ll have Coppell whilst I’m
finalising it.
And the left side
I have no idea. So I’ll have Bobby Charlton
and 2 forwards who’ll get in each others way but can score goals, and going
back to it that thought of,
“Hurray….” It has to be the second highest goal scorer
Lineker and my final choice. I’d like to
see Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler play in this World Cup before I’d chose
either of them. In the meantime even
though I hate him, and he’s the dullest speaker when interviewed, I’ll go for
Alan Shearer.
Oh and I forgot
about the Goalkeeper. Well many go for
Gordon Banks straight away, but for longevity, playing across 3 to 4
generations of players, shouting a lot at his defence, I’ll go for Peter
Shilton. Gordon Banks, Ray Clemence and David Seaman, I’m not sure which would
be in reserve.
So here’s my first
shot at it.
Shilton, Anderson,
Moore, Adams, Pearce, Robson, Gascoigne, Coppell, Charlton, Lineker, Shearer.
That team doesn’t
exactly fill my heart with confidence that they could beat anyone.
I’ll wait until
after the World Cup before I include, Campbell, Ferdinand, Dyer, Beckham,
Gerrard, Cole, Owen or Fowler.
I doubt whether
any of them will shine on the world stage.
Back to the
drawing board and spreadsheet.
Saturday 20th April 2002
Just reading this
article today. Business 2.0
- Magazine Article - Why Should Anyone Believe You? It’s so on the nail with the corporate
bullshit that still goes on, even post Enron.
This desire to please the Stock Market.
When will it end? When companies
start sucking up to the analysts and stock market that’s when it goes
wrong. Now somewhere I read about a
company that either bought itself back, or hasn’t floated just to avoid all
this bullshit.
Talking of ethics,
check this one out. Most
Cases of Hepatitis B Are From Sex. Why Should We Vaccinate Infants? 4/20/02
And finally, this
is a bit scary. What can you or can’t
you say on the Internet? Robert Novak v. APD List
Members
Friday 19th April 2002
Met a colleague
today and went to Middle
Brighton(Melbourne) Pier and Beach for breakfast and a walk along the pier
in warmish weather.
We talked about
dream houses overlooking the sea at Brighton.
And I realise what
great quality of life I have here in Melbourne.
My dream come
true, wife, daughter, sea, sun, sand.
And time.
Thursday 18th April 2002
I’m tired and
irritable tonight.
Telstra still
haven’t come back to me. If it were left
to them then my website would now have been down for 7 days.
Unbelievable.
10 People due on a
training course today. Only 3 show
up. Believable.
I applied to join
the forum at www.redcafe.net I thought it
was a formality and to my dismay I received this:
Hello,
Unfortunately, your recent registration application
at RedCafe.net Forum has been declined.
We are located at: http://forum.redcafe.net/cgi-bin/forum/ultimatebb.cgi
Your registered name was: tgtips
I
replied with this:
Eh?
On what basis has my registration been
declined? Am I too old? Am I too boring? Are you full?
I'm a Man Utd fan from Manchester, I've
supported Man Utd all my life, first match in 1968. I'm looking for somewhere to discuss Man Utd
and other things and I'd seen it recommended above most of the dross that is
there in the email and IM groups.
I don't get it.
Do I have a poor credit rating or something?
Regards
Unfortunately,
the email I sent can back as “could not send for 12 hours”
I
‘d love to know why I was rejected.
Just
one of those days
Wednesday 17th April 2002
I’m tired, and
busy, and not feeling too well tonight.
So this is it for
today’s Weblog.
Tuesday 16th April 2002
Like all the
negative rhetoric, it’s time for some lasting suggestions and
implementations.
Here’s one. FORWARD : Editorial
Put a fence around
the West Bank and make the border secure.
If this means
Jewish settlements being disbanded then so be it.
This is personal
because my Mum and Sister live on a settlement just inside the West Bank, near
the airport.
They wish no-one
any harm just like most Israelis and Jews, and just like most Palestinians (I
hope).
Now I know that
all the Jewish People and Israelis want is peace and security, and they will
give up land and do what it takes to have guaranteed lasting peace, just like
the Camp David agreement with Egypt.
Now I ask you the
Palestinian people, what is it you really want, and what will you settle for
collectively?
It’s time to stop
the negative accusations about the other side and build something
positive. Make positive gestures.
Have a read of
this Dear World. I agree with most of it except the last line
(and of course the right wing posturing of the late Rabbi). I do care.
I care about the bullying and killing of Palestinians, I care about the
murder of Israelis and Jewish People.
I want it to stop.
My suggestions.
Zionism in case
people forget, is the desire for a Jewish homeland, not necessarily
Israel/Palestine, with peaceful and
secure borders.
Monday 15th April 2002
I have to keep on
banging on about the Vaccine debate, especially as I have a 6 month old
daughter.
Update on
Mercury in Vaccines 4/13/02
“When will the
medical profession, and in particular paediatricians, stop being complicit
partners in this growing familial and societal nightmare?
When will doctors start listening to the
parents of vaccine-injured children and stop patronizing them and dismissing
their concerns?
When
will they begin to honour the right of parents to determine what is best for
their children?
When will they return to the precept of the
Hippocratic Oath to "first do no harm"?”
It’s not good
enough for doctors to act like sheep and take for granted what “Government
Research” tells them and to hide behind it.
Doctors need to
take a lead.
Continuing my
addiction to “Snowboard” this is what happens when things get out of
hand When games stop being
fun - Tech News - CNET.com.
My addiction is
coming to an end because I’ve broken the 350,000 barrier and I’m now in the
tree maze aiming for 430,000. I wonder
what happens then?
I
noticed Oprah
Winfrey's face smiling at me on the front of Fortune magazine. It's the only business interview she's ever
given. Her company is nearly worth
$1billion, but she doesn't think in those terms. She's giving up her chat show and is
wondering what next. And at the back of
my mind I still see an Oprah type person leading this 100 million person
revolution which says to the powers that be, "Enough is Enough",
we're sick of your politics and war, we're sick of your corrupt business
practises, we're sick of your greed. The
problem is that all these 100 million people each have a different opinion, so
how do you find consensus and how do you pull them together. I think www.ciao.com or
www.friendsreunited.com
has some very powerful pointers. I don't
have the stomach for the fight though.
Maybe it doesn't have to be a fight.
Maybe
this is the way forward. Self governing
networks Waiter, there's a fly in my
cell phone - Tech News - CNET.com.
Andrew
Sullivan makes a good point about Michael Moore (whose book I've just
ordered) and the left in general. It's
easy to say what you're against and to parody and snipe, but what are you
for? This is true of New Labour. They're against Maggie and Toryism but what
are they for? I don't know. If they ever build Wembley Stadium I may find
out!!
Sunday 14th April 2002
Met with Chris, a
designer, for my business cards yesterday, and he suggested some changes to the
look of my website.
Less colours, more
themed, so I’m giving it a go.
I’ve changed the
table of contents to white on lilac, the followed hyperlinks to grey (not much
choice here).
I had a play with
the hyperlinks on my mainpages, changing them also to lilac, but it looked too
bland, so I’ve stuck with red on white with lilac followed hyperlinks.
I’m not sure it’s
right yet but I’m getting there.
I’m also thinking
of having a second table of content block on the right which scrolls with the
main page.
It’s really
difficult balancing having as much relevant information as possible on the
front page which can clutter it (I like clean bright designs generally), and
burying too much information into the website.
I like to have as much information on the front and only one layer
below, so that people don’t feel they have to dig deep for things.
What you see is
what you get.
Saturday 13th April 2002
The fact you are
reading this means I have achieved something technical!
Those Assholes
from Telstra who still can’t get me access to my website and don’t tell me
what’s happening,
which means I have
had either no update or website for 4 days now!
So I’ve managed to
copy my whole website to another server (still a Telstra one on another
account), and route my URL(www.tgtips.com)
to the server.
Hooray, I’m back,
it works, I’ve now got a back-up for my website, and now know how easy it is to
change ISP or at least hosting for my website.
And believe me,
when the chance comes to get rid of Telstra I will.
And when I say
Assholes from Telstra, I don’t mean the poor support people on the front-line
desk who have to put up with angry customers like me. I mean the managers who get paid for the
strategy, these managers and senior execs who are chronically under investing
in the company and will lose customers.
They can try and “Market” them back with their fancy adverts, but we
know better. It doesn’t take a genius to
work out that they’re not investing in the servers to properly support the
operation. If the systems were mirrored
then losing my website twice and restoring it with a very old copy wouldn’t
happen. You may drive the share price up
short term Telstra but guess what? It’s
short term. I fear that it’s not the
senior managers who will cop for it. I
wish it was.
I’m off to a 40th
birthday party tonight. How many of
those people do you think I’m going to tell about my bad experience.
Word spreads fast,
very fast.
Goodbye Telstra.
Friday 12th April 2002
I apologise if
you’ve been trying to look at this website and haven’t got in or seen it
updated over the last few days.
And still the Telstra
saga goes on. I couldn’t update my
website for 2½ days, and now today
when I could access it, all my latest files have disappeared and they’ve
reloaded the server with my old files, some of which are 6 months old. So I had to spend half an hour uploading my
website again. And now, sometime my
homepage works and sometimes it doesn’t.
I now have an intermittent fault on my home page because of the new
software/server they’ve installed. I am
at the end of my tether will Telstra.
Found some good
links today and some great articles.
Finally had a look
at www.andrewsullivan.com he’s a right
of centre writer and journalist with some great points to make.
Today his views on
Israel and The Palestinians are spot on.
I love his
justification of Keeping
the Royal Family.
Also, check this article out
on using computer software to predict how societies and companies rise and
fall.
It’s fascinating
and terrifying that we can behave so predictably.
Lot’s of examples
given and you can watch some of the prediction run as QuickTime movies.
And check out
Zipf’s Law in the article which talks about mathematical patterns like the most
commonly occurring word “the” in the English language appears twice as often as
the next most occurring word, and three times as often as the next most
occurring word. And Zipf’s Law applies
to many patterns in nature like the populations of cities in countries. The most populated city will have 10 times as
many inhabitants as the 10th most populated city. Spooky.
It looks to me
from the article that you can plot how societies disintegrate. How empires fall. I can’t see how America will fall but I’m
beginning to.
Thursday 11th April 2002
It’s really off
putting not being able to update my website.
I have no
enthusiasm for writing this, knowing that I can’t put it on to my website
today.
The system has
been down this time for 2 days and no sign of returning.
That means that
Telstra, my ISP, and Australia’s biggest Telco and company, have had no service
for me for 7+ days in 14.
Do you think
that’s right?
I pay for a
service and I’m not receiving that service, by any stretch of the imagination.
I wonder if I
should sue them for not providing what I pay for.
Oh and as I’ve
said before, they put the price up in mid-contract.
And I tried to
call Optus, the so-called competition and I couldn’t get through and their
website doesn’t carry the information I want, and the salesperson who called
round 5 weeks ago and said she’d come round the following day, still hasn’t
appeared.
So the competition
is even worse than Telstra.
What am I supposed
to do?
Oh, and I’ve lost
access to everything on the Internet for the last half hour, so I can’t even
get to Telstra’s website to see what they say on the service. I’m paying for a permanent connection and I
can’t get it to connect!
I really really
hate Telstra.
Rant Over.
Wednesday 10th April 2002
Still addicted to Snowboard. It really really reminds me of Snowboarding
and Skiing and I want to go now.
Also, found this link from RuPaul’s website. Blame RuPaul not me!
Wouldn’t those
icons be great as logos.
It’s set me
thinking about a long term project I’ve been thinking about.
My bloody Telstra
FTP link is down yet again so I can’t update my website, so lord knows when
this will go on.
It’s very
discouraging.
There must come a
point where they aren’t providing what I’m paying for and I should be able to
sue their asses.
The downtime for
updating my website over the last 2 weeks has been something like 6 days in 14.
Tuesday 9th April 2002
Occasionally you
come into contact with someone or something that is so spot on with your own
beliefs, you just want to shout with joy.
I thought I was
alone but so far, 3 weeks worth of www.redflagsweekly.com
have sorted me out. This weeks articles
which are so spot on about medical matters.
Nicholas Regush -
MOST OF THE HEALTH NEWS YOU GET IS "PROMO"
Barbara Lewis - DO
YOU HAVE VALUE?
Richard
Altschuler - TOOTHPASTE WARNINGS!
The last one on
toothpaste would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. Or is it the other way round.
Talking of
teeth. Just watched the Queen Mum’s
funeral.
It hadn’t really
struck me or got to me until I watched the funeral.
Mixed
feelings. Apparently, Hitler called her “The
most dangerous woman in Europe” If
that’s true then it’s amazing.
It was interesting
to see Charles, and how William and Harry have grown up since Di’s
funeral. I wonder what they were
thinking today.
The Queen Mum is
from a different era. It’s like saying
goodbye to good old Blightey.
Living here in
Australia now, it really strikes me how old and outdated all that pageantry
is. Marching around in uniforms.
And yet when you
look at countries that aren’t as old, modern republics, democracies and dictatorships,
they don’t seem much better.
I say keep them
for the UK. The good old royal
family. What’s the alternative? They turn in a profit don’t they?
But get rid of
them in Australia ASAP. What the hell
has the Union Jack and The Union got to do with Australia and Australians?
Lots of
questions. Will Charles ever be
king? How long will QE2 last for? Where does Fergie now fit into all this? Why was Edward the only one not wearing a
uniform?
What were the
uniforms they were all wearing? Is there
a book of protocol for ceremonies like this.
How does everyone know what to do?
Who is the Queen Mum and
where did she come from?
Well that answers
part of it. I thought she was Scottish,
but she was brought up in Hertfordshire, where I lived for nearly 10
years!
Monday 8th April 2002
Once in a blue
moon I get hooked on a computer game.
I’ll just write
this quickly so I can get back to my latest addiction.
As of yesterday I’m
hooked on Snowboard
Firstly it’s
simple to use, the graphics are simple and effective. Just a space bar to jump and arrow keys for
left and right
It’s a real kick when
you hit the ramp full on and jump.
I’m easily
pleased. Good job I’ve never got into
computer games, with my addictive personality.
Just reminds me of
previous computer game addictions;
Space Invaders
Gorf
Jet Pac
The first
Microsoft Flight Simulator on a Spectrum ZX-81
FreeCell (still
addicted)
Tetris
Oh well back to
snowboarding. What I like is it really
makes me want to go snowboarding and skiing.
Sunday 7th April 2002
Whilst looking
into Eric
Laithwaite and his career, I noticed a few things. Firstly he seemed the type of scientist that
wasn’t just theoretical. He just wanted
to get on with things, an engineer at heart.
Like the Russians. They don’t
build pretty feats of engineering, they build working feats of
engineering. Their rockets are 3 times
more powerful than anything the USA has ever built. That’s because the Soviets kept blueprinting
and testing, blueprint and test.
Similarly
Laithwaite just go on with it. It makes
my think about necessity being the mother of invention. The pressure of World War II to innovate,
threw up so much invention and practical use of things. Somehow we loose that urgency at other
times. Laithwaite stood up in front of
the massed British Scientists of the Royal Institution and dismissed Newton’s
Laws with a demonstration of his anti-gravity machine. And this is the stupidity, he was dismissed
because he refuted Newton’s Laws rather than being praised for looking taking
an alternative look at gravity. What he
showed was the properties of Gyroscopes which haven’t been fully
explained. Think about it, how can you
spin a very heavy object and it becomes very light to lift. Think of the practical purpose you could make
from that. Laithwaite also seems to take
the same attitude as many of these mavericks sometimes not even scientists, who
are questioning many of the stupid and counter intuitive assumptions we are
making about CJD BSE SIDS HIV, maybe even Cancer.
What I find
interesting is that many great scientists after their work and fame in their
well know fields, have all had a crack at solving gravity. Einstein spent the rest of his life after his
2 key works were published when aged 26 and 37, looking for a Unified Field
theory that would encompass all forces including gravity.
I found this link
yesterday A
Nuts-and-Bolts Antigravity Engine. A
website that looks at Antigravity engines and Antigravity theory, including the
author of the website.
It set me thinking
that we trust in science and yet we still haven’t really explained the two most
fundamental part of the Universe, Light, and Gravity.
Think about
it. We’re taught at school that light
has two properties. Wave and
Particle. Light behaves like a wave from
part of the electric magnetic spectrum, and it also behaves like a particle
with Photons. And we just think to
ourselves, well I don’t quite understand this but it must be a wavy
particle. But no, it’s either or but not
both. How can this be?
And now the big
one. Gravity. All object exert a force on each other. The Sun on the Earth, Jupiter on the Earth,
The Moon on the Earth. Fine. But if you were to take a cubic meter of air
and analyse it (or a cubic meter of a ground), you’d be able to identify all
the chemical in that cubic meter, you’d look at all the particle and waves
passing through that cubic meter, but where is the force that say the Sun or
the Moon or Jupiter exerts on that cubic meter?
This is spooky because if we can’t identify the gravitational force that
exists from all the mass in the universe, especially the Moon and the Sun, then
where is it?
And here’s my main
point. If we can’t identify gravity,
only the consequences of gravity, then what else is there out there which
exists but can’t be identified?
God? Extra Sensory Perception? I don’t know, but it makes me think about how
little we know but pretend we do know, or leave “scientists” to know. But they don’t know. Most of them look at the consequences of
gravity and not gravity itself.
Ok Scientist,
here’s an object, tell me what sources and forces exist in/on this object,
without external reference.
And better still, here’s
a human, tell me what influences them?
I’m getting very
spiritual in my old age!!
Saturday 6th April 2002
Magnetic
Levitation. What?
Magnetic
Levitation. At University in 1979, I was
given my first year project (thesis would be a bit strong), at random, on
Magnetic Levitation.
And ever since,
I’ve kept an eye on the technology.
Magnetic
Levitation (Maglev) is
the ability to float one object on another using magnets, so effectively you
can float something in the air.
Now if you
connected several magnets together, which could be a rail track and floated a
magnet of opposite polarity on this bed of magnets you could have a very fast
form of transport.
There are several
ways of achieving this effect but the main principle is a linear motor which is
effectively straightening out a standard electric motor. Don’t worry about how the technology works,
just trust me that it works.
There are several
options of ways in which this works. You
can have an active track which is live and a non-live train or the lower cost
method which is to have an active train and a non-live track. This option is mind blowing because when you
think about it, a non-active track would cost the same to lay as conventional
rail track and be a fraction of the cost to maintain because the train doesn’t
actually touch the track, it floats above it!
Maglev projects
have been going for several decades since Eric Laithwaite (“mad” English
Professor) first suggested this idea of a linear motor. (By the way Eric Laithwaite
also appeared on Parkinson, claiming he could defy gravity! He took a very heavy contraption consisting
of a pole with a full size tyre attached to the end. He then spun the tyre with
a drill and then lifted the contraption with ease. He’d effectively created a bloody massive
gyroscope, but he hadn’t developed any uses of this technology. Makes you think though, lifting massive
objects by spinning them!!) Any way back
to Magnetic Levitation. The Japanese,
The Germans, and The Brits, all had, and some still have Maglev projects. The UK in Birmingham had a low speed Maglev
train in the late 70s and early 80s, but they closed it down. The main use and key research had been by the
Japanese, who realised that you could fly half way round the world in the time
it took to get from Tokyo airport to the city centre, so what they wanted to
develop was a mode of ground transport that was fast, very fast.
Maglev does
this. There is no “rolling resistance”
(friction of wheels on a road or track) which makes the train effectively fly
through the air. The potential speeds
are enormous. Also, there’s a limit to
how fast a conventional train can go because of “rolling resistance” it’s the
same with terminal velocity of 120 mph when free falling through the air
because of resistance. Speeds of above
500kmph are achievable. And get this,
someone calculated that if you put a Maglev in a vacuum tunnel there would be
no air resistance either, so you have speeds of 10,000kmph+!!!
If you build a
vacuum tunnel across the States you could get across the country in half an
hour!!
Now why am I
jabbering on about all this? Well, my
links from yesterday about people on www.wired.com
betting on future technology, reminded my of my project from 22 years ago on
Maglev. I concluded that if the UK couldn’t
get Advanced Passenger Train (APT) together which had a tilting mechanism and
advanced axel design, then what hope was there for Maglev. Now technologically it’s amazing what we can
already achieve, but it takes more than what is technologically possible for
things to happen. It needs political
will and good will. Look at the moon
landing in 1969.
When I tell people
about Maglev most of them look at me like I’m some kind of mad prophet.
If I could offer
you a form of transport that was as fast as a plane (or faster), safe, low
cost, easy to install and maintain would you be interested?
Of course you
would, and we have the technology now to do it.
It’s just never happened though (except the Birmingham low speed Maglev)
If you don’t
believe me, go and search for Maglev and/or “Magnetic Levitation” on Google.
I just did, I
realise I’m going to have to write a much longer article on Maglev.
Firstly, there’s a
hell of a lot of politics going on. I’ve
witnessed Maglev for 22 years and I can’t believe some of the bullshit that’s
being written.
But also I wonder
how scientists can be working on projects for 25 years and not come up with
anything in production. Holy Shit, they
put a man on the moon in less than 10 years!
I have a gut feel theory here, that Maglev is just being used as a
political pawn and reflects how each nation works. The Japanese hate failure and
competition. So instead of actually
creating something that operationally works they just research and research
something to get faster and faster speeds, but no actual operational
system. It’s a bit like watching
Japanese at tennis clubs. They knock-up
and practise in groups of 4 but never actually play a game. Couldn’t deal with losing. And if you don’t
believe me the read this article “Japan
will never, ever, win anything at football”
The Americans have
come to Maglev late but like all things, they don’t actually invent it or do
the initial research, they’re just very good at implementing things using brute
force. I don’t remember a single
American project on Maglev 22 years ago and yet suddenly, half the websites are
local counties wanting to install Maglev systems. More sinister are sites like Boeing’s
with just a brief page stating “fabrication drawing for a 3 stage 3 km per
second system” now at first you just read and say yeh yeh, and suddenly you say
wait a minute, how fast is 3km per second.
Holy Shit. You can bet your
bottom dollar that the US defence people have been looking at Maglev for a
while.
Ok, enough Maglev,
this is getting too long. 2 final
articles.
Firstly why Maglev may never
work.
And secondly the
most likely use of Maglev in the future.
To
launch space rockets! What I like
about this one is that cost of launching current rocket versus the costs of
putting a rocket on a big 3 mile track which climbs a hill and then whoosh, for
a fraction of the cost. Let’s see what
happens over the next 10 years.
The Brits did it
first (Laithwaite
invented it and check out his anti-gravity experiments) with the Birmingham
Urban Maglev and then screw it up.
Japan spends years
researching it and getting the highest speeds, but are too frightened to lose
face with it becoming operational.
Germany has been
at it for years and if their people don’t want it they’ll send the technology
to the States (like V2 Rockets) or China!
USA comes in late
and uses it partly for bullshit projects and venture capitalist to make certain
states look good, and now NASA have got their hands on the technology and have
built a very small track which is 40 years behind everyone else. But watch how quickly it happens.
France. They wish, or they build a very slow Urban
Maglev and claim to be the first in the world.
And you know what
I say. Give it to the Russians! Look at the history of their space
programme. They have the intelligence
and they just get on with it and to hell with the politics and infighting. Prototype and Test Test Test and then just do
it.
Friday April 5th 2002
I can’t believe
there’s so many good www.fark.com links
today.
I’ve got no work
done today so far!!
Some days there’s nothing
worth shouting about, but today there’s several, and if you go in to 100+
comments page that’s several hours blown.
Let’s count it as
thinking and research time.
Teen admits underwear theft “Teen lights his own school on fire, helps put it out wearing underwear he stole from his classmate's mom!” This one is the most scary and funny because it’s here in Melbourne!
And here are some
more goodies.
Perfect PacMan
score. 2 Days without eating.
Man
shot after tossing box of chinese food through undercover cop's open car window
Flasher escapes after being caught in his own zipper
Parma teen sentenced
for superimposing ex-girlfriend's head on nude body
Asian Team to
Clear Garbage, Bodies From Everest
Thursday April 4th 2002
I lost my car keys
yesterday. I haven’t done that for
years. Annie was away for a few days, so
I was driving her car.
When she came
back, it dawned on us that I didn’t know where my car keys were.
Searched high and
low. Got a bit stressed. Went to bed, slept on it, meaning to do a
more thorough search today.
Annie dreamt about
it. She dreamt that the keys were in her
car boot.
And guess where
they were???????
Spooky. Actually they were in Georgia’s stroller in
the car boot. I looked for them they weren’t
there, and then by chance just as I was putting the stroller back in the car
boot I caught a glimpse of the keys in a pocket. Phew!
My wife’s a Witch.
In the process of
searching for the key high and low last night, Annie found her glasses which she’d
lost 6 months ago when Georgia was born, and her camera.
Just found a new
search engine which looks every bit as good as Google. Called Teoma. The searches I’ve done to find my own website
and name came out better than Google, but it’s early days. I’ll stick with Google for the time being. It’s amazing how technology moves on, and
just when you think that something like Yahoo, or Metacrawler can’t be improved
along comes Google and now Teoma seems to be challenging the King.
Wired has set up
some long bets on the future.
“Seventeen of the World’s most wired minds shake their
names (and their cash) on the future.”
People are putting
money to bet on future predictions. Love
it.
No, No, No, Possibly
but probably no. I learnt years ago the
difference between what you can achieve (especially technologically) and what
happens in reality is very wide.
Sure
technologically you can have pilotless commercial aircraft, but will the public
accept it?
Why is Russia
going to overtake the USA for software development in 10 years time?
They don’t know
about “soccer” if they think that Casey Kellar and Claudio Reyna are world
class.
If they find
someone who is 120 will they help them along?
Medicine is so barking up the wrong path right now, I have my doubts.
It led me to think
about football and if I should put my money where my mouth is with some of my
predictions about sport.
I’d like to take a
bet that Man City and Everton will win more Premierships over the next 20 years
than Newcastle and Chelsea. But I want
odds because Man City and Everton don’t have the resources currently that
Chelsea and Newcastle do, Man City and Everton have the history and the spur of
Man Utd and Liverpool which I think counts for more.
Mind you I was
just looking at the managers that Everton and Man City have got
through since the 60s. Not as bad as I
thought. But they don’t half appoint
some dull managers in retrospect, especially Man City. Amazing isn’t it that they will pay players
top whack salaries and transfers, but wouldn’t dream of paying that much for a
manager.
Wednesday April 3rd 2002
We live in the age
of science. We trust scientific research
and The Scientific Methodology that has served us well over the last few
centuries.
So why does it now
stink? It’s been corrupted by money and
higher forces.
Well firstly, the
majority of people don’t understand science, they leave it to “The Scientists”.
Now as long as we
trust research and it’s output then that’s fine isn’t it?
Well No! Who’s
paying for the research in the first place?
Do they control
the output of the results?
Will they suppress
any negative results until a positive result is found?
But let’s go back
a step in The Scientific Methodology. The first part is not research but
hypothesis.
This is not
strictly a “Scientific” thing. This is
not necessarily something which uses just your 5 senses.
It’s
intuitive. You have to somehow come up
with something no-one has seen or thought of before and then prove it.
This is as much an
Art as a Science.
Why am I rambling
on here?
Just reading a fascinating article about the theory of the Cause of Cancer and whilst 95% of the scientific world is going up one alley, it may be that the answer and cure for Cancer is up another alley. Check it out, it’s a bit heavy and took me a while to work out what he was going on about Weekly Controversy - Special Features.
I don’t know if David Rasnick is right or wrong, but there are some magnificent quotes in there. Like,
“Scientists, these days, tend to accept or reject a
theory depending on whether or not there is funding for it.”
It’s all about Myers Briggs.
There are Sensing types and iNtuitive types. Sensing types rely on what their
five senses tell them, and of course empirical scientific research and doctors
and industry and school education all rely on Sensing types and teaching us to
be sensing types.
It’s what most of the Scientific Method is all about. It has served us well for several hundred years. 75% of the world is Sensing.
But the Western world mixes up Scientific Methodology with empirical proof. It thinks it’s the same thing, but it isn’t. What the hell am I talking about? The key part of the Scientific Method is hypothesising, coming up with a theory and then proving or disproving it scientifically. Sometimes this idea of hypothesising is lost in all the other bits.
In order to hypothesise you generally have to be iNtuitive, You have to step away from what you immediately see. See a different perspective. In order to then prove the hypothesis you have to be Sensing. But because most of the work goes into empirical proof and then manufacture, the world of industry and politics is full of Sensing types. In other words the world is currently run by the Sensors. We are all educated as children to be Sensing type, companies largely recruit sensing types. When you score a Myers Briggs test you have to knock a point off for each of the Myers Briggs types. We are educated (sometimes against our will) to be Extrovert Sensing Thinking Judging types (as opposed to Introvert iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving).
I am struck by this article written by an Intuitive who says that the scientific world is barking up the wrong tree, but the tree is being paid for, so they continue to bark. He also points out that the great scientists weren’t empirical, they relied on data already available,
“Thomas Kuhn remarked that the great theoretical
advances of Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier, and Einstein had less to do with
definitive experiments than with looking at old data from a new perspective.”
Old data from a new perspective. That really resonates with me. They made scientific predictions before they could be empirically proven.
I can’t believe
how many parts of science are barking up the wrong tree. Vaccines, CJD,
SIDS. I’m an iNtuitive, I can see this.
Microwave
ovens.
A Sensing type looks
at the output of a Microwave oven and says “If my 5 senses tells me that the
food is cooked the same way and my 5 senses tell me that nothing dangerous
appears to be coming out of the Microwave Oven then it must be ok.”
An iNtuitive looks at a microwave oven and says “Holy Shit”
And the more I write this the more I realise that we’re being conned by Politicians, the Media, Corporates into believing what our 5 senses tell us. If Andersen says that Enron is ok it must be ok. If a drug is declared safe then it must be safe. If the “unbiased and objective” media tells us something and has video to prove it to our 5 senses then it must be true.
Remember though “old data from a new perspective” That’s what’s needed in this fucking world right now. More Intuition, more gut feel, more Vision, and less of this pseudo scientific manufactured shit.
Tuesday April 2nd 2002
Fortune
500 has just published the list of the top revenue companies in their 2002
list.
I assume it’s for
2001 or 2000 revenue.
It would be
interesting to see their profit (Gross Revenue) as well.
It’s amazing the
difference between the companies that make all the noise, the I.T and Media
companies and companies that actually make the big Revenues.
Microsoft is 72nd. What does this tell us?
Mind you Enron is
5th!!
Revenue isn’t
everything, but Ford made more profit in 1998 than Microsoft turned over. And yet all we hear is Microsoft Microsoft
Microsoft and Bill Gates.
What appears and
what actually happens is a big difference.
It goes back to one of my big beefs, that Share price dominates the
economy too much, and we have an obsession with it that obscures and degrades
all other measures of economic performance, Revenue and Profit.
I’m getting sick
of Western economies betting on the future instead of building a future.
Monday April 1st 2002
Be warned, the
dangers of DHMO (DiHydrogen Monoxide) are high.
It’s a very dangerous substance.
Quoting from Dr
Mercola’s website,
and there’s also a link to www.dhmo.org
“Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known
causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to
millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment.
Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
What are some uses of Dihydrogen
Monoxide?
Despite the known dangers of DHMO, it continues
to be used daily by industry, government, and even in private homes across the
U.S. and worldwide. Some of the well-known uses of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
It took me a
second or two to think about what Di Hydrogen Mono Oxide is!!!!!! 2 Hydrogens and a Single Oxygen. 2H 0.
H2 O.
Happy April 1st.
