E-mail abominations!

So, I have been getting a lot of email recently.

More and more email (real email - ham, not spam) is coming through in HTML format - HyperText Markup Language - the format of web pages... The clue is in the http:// - That's HyperText Transfer Protocol.

Email is sent using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). The clue is in the name! Nowhere in there does it mention HyperText.

Keep your filthy HTML to your web pages.

There's more to the internet than just the www!

Being a purist (luddite) I use a plain text email client called pine. It's great... I can log in to my email server from a far away place using ssh (secure shell) and get my email quickly even over a low bandwidth or high latency connection. it's not pretty, but it works.

STOP PRESS!

I was thinking about the subject of this post since I was engaging in a Flame War on a mailing list... And then... I receive an email invite to a wine tasting... A subject line and a 6.8MB JPEG attachment! WTF? How completely useless is that? And 6.8MB? What were they thinking - even in these modern times an email with no body text and a 6.8MB attachment?

(Deleted).

The 392

Via a colleague of mine, The Hootsman reports that there are 392 sets of roadworks in Edinburgh at the moment...

"The level of disruption was today described as unprecedented"

Oh really?

It gets better... Apparently we have a "cone tsar":

"A spokesman for Mr Gooday said he was taking a "strategic view" of roadworks and continuing to work alongside local authorities as part of the Roads Authorities and Utilities Committee Scotland"

Well, if he's taking a strategic view, then everything is OK then, isn't it?

I suppose we should just hang the "cone tsar" from a lamppost with some piano wire. (What the fuck is a cone tsar anyway?) Why are we paying for cunts like this to fuck our lives up?

Now there's a surprise...

According to the Times, and the BBC, the EU has once again been pissing money up the wall, and not accounting for it properly.

This is the 14th year.

If I ran my company like that, do you think I'd still be in business?

Where's my referendum?

Fife deserves what it gets

SSP 212
Con 1381
SNP 13209
Sol 87
SSenior 297
Lab 19946
UKIP 117
SLD 947

Well, if they don't realise they need a change, hell mend them.

Non sequitur

"Cut carbon to aid poorest countries in world" proclaims Stewart Stevenson in The Scotsman.

Away and stop havering a load of pish, says I, here on my blog.

"the impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed – the poorest would suffer the earliest and the most. And, as a responsible nation, Scotland could play its part in helping vulnerable developing countries."

Even if you do believe in man made global warming climate change whatever we're calling it because we're not actually warming at the moment... Scotland, which is not a great polluter of the world, should cut emissions (and cripple the economy and infrastructure) to give the third world an extra 30 seconds before they are overcome with the supposed climate change from the effects of China's increasing industrialisation.

I really don't see how the man's logic works there.

Spanking Edinburgh's Motorists. Again.

The Hootsman tells us that the cuntcil are running a consultation on the proposed increase in parking charges for higher polluting vehicles.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but a vehicle that is parked is not polluting. It's when it is running that it is... So perhaps encouraging people to leave their vehicles parked would be the way forward. The vitriol between the luddites, and sane people in the comments is quite entertaining, if it weren't so tragic. 4x4s are baaaaad, they bleat. Forgetting that so many estate cars and large saloons favoured by those with families are just as big and just as polluting.

What this looks like is a simple case of the council trying to screw motorists in the city, and using supposed green arguments as an excuse. Mostly because the cuntcillors will be taking taxis everywhere, paid for by us, so what do they care? Bastards.

One commenter links to The Glasgow Herald. (They call it The Herald now, but some of us are old enough to remember when they weren't ashamed to have a west coast bias). Apparently Glasgow council had the sense to listen to their residents... Makes a change. Last time Edinburgh asked us what we thought, and we said no, the cuntcil spanked us by inflicting a tram line on us.

Why don't you take this opporchancity to tell the bastards what you think of their plans?

Common fucking courtesy.

It's common fucking courtesy to stand out of the way when you and your pals stop to chat in a thoroughfare. Don't look so fucking hard done by when I stand on you, clip you with my bag or body, as I try (not very hard) to squeeze by. You stood there, in the narrowest part of the pavement making no fucking effort to stand to the side. It's not fucking rocket science.

It's common fucking courtesy to stand in at a bus stop. Or stand out. Just don't stand blocking the whole fucking pavement.

It's also common courtesy to at least try to have some semblance of spatial awareness - were I a mugger, I'd have already got your wallet, bag, purse, phone, whatever. Not merely walked hurriedly round you, whilst trying to give you a look that conveys the annoyance you have caused by stepping out of a shop right in front of me, to stop, and look around like the idiot you are.

The Beeb is reporting that Edinburgh cuntcil are talking about an express pedestrian lane on Princes St. That's a magic idea. It certainly beats what I saw a jakey bastard doing one day on Princes St, which was just walking at high speed into everyone, and swearing at them.

That all said, it's always amusing to "do the dance" walking down the street, trying to avoid someone walking towards you, who is trying to avoid you. You know exactly what I mean.

Scared of the dark?

You should be.

The Hootsman is reporting that six out of ten of the country's nuclear power stations will be either off-line or at reduced capacity next month.

I truly hope that there are blackouts, or at least brownouts when this happens to hammer in to the government just how idiotic their energy policies are.

My computers will be OK, since they're protected by an UPS. As far as heating goes, my coal fire in the living room, and my being a fat bastard will stop me from freezing.

Better pray that the mythical global warming will keep the temperatures high enough for granny and granddad to survive if the electricity does go off then eh?

Is it just me or is everything shit?

Why yes, yes it is. Particularly the book. If you want to read it, I have a spare copy. (My only copy). Please, take it off me.



It had all the hallmarks of a good read - claiming to be written by two grumpier chaps than I, and after a brief flick through, I paid £3 for it at a charity book stall at work. Which is just as well, since it turned out to be shit.

At first glance, the book seems to do a job of lampooning all political persuasions, but on a closer inspection it looks like their heart is not in it depending on the particular persuasion they are looking at. This is particularly apparent when it comes to things like the new global religion of environMENTALISM. They lampoon almost everything, but it becomes pretty obvious that they are utter hippy bastards

Now clearly, I realise there's a certain irony in the situation of me complaining about some guys complaining about stuff I approve of, and then me complaining about them not complaining about stuff I think they should complain about, but hey, it's my blog and I can.

So anyway, it does indeed turn out that everything is shit.

Holibags

Well, even large angry people get to take holidays. I returned, yesterday, from Durham. It's a small city with a fucking ridiculous number of hills over a short horizontal distance. It's a rather picturesque place, although it seems to be plagued by joggers.



I spent time with friends in the pub - now, I do this in Edinburgh too, but it is a group of friends I don't see often enough, and obviously it was a different pub. A change of scenery, and all that.

One morning I pottered around in the Botanic Gardens, which had a nice soothing effect on me. I came across a giant water lily. Next to which, they had a picture of a small child sitting on a giant lily...

Something like this:



(I gleefully plundered that image from the interwebs). Conveniently, there was a mother with small child sat at the entrance to the hot house where the lilies were, so obviously I asked her if I could borrow her small child to sit on a lily...

Needless to say, this did not go down too well, so this is the best I could do:



Anyway, whilst in that neck of the woods, my friends and I went to Diggerland! (Watch out, there's annoying muzak on that site. Bastards.) I was driving a JCB, which was brilliant.



Well worth a visit - for kids of all ages. One of the gang was doing so well at digging holes, the chap told him to fill it back in... I was amazed at some really small kids being allowed to drive some fairly large plant around the site... Don't tell the Health & Safety fascists.

So, with all this done, I headed back to Embra yesterday morning on the National Express East Coast service, first class, natch. I had to evict someone from my seat, which was a pain, but then, I had gone to the trouble of reserving the seat, and he was clearly a chancer. There's always one. That and there wasn't nearly enough coffee served on the train back home.

Normal angry ranting will resume shortly.

Air show? No show!

I was at Leuchars on Saturday there to see XH558 fly. That's a Vulcan bomber, for the people who don't follow this sort of thing... Possibly the last chance to see her.



Sadly, the weather was shite. As a result, the Vulcan did not fly due to not enough V for VFR. Just as well there wasn't a war on or anything. Bastards. How did this country ever manage to be great?

I did see the Red Arrows though. Again.



And whiles the Red Arrows are great, it's not as if we haven't seen them before - they do get around you know?

I was bitterly disappointed, nay, raging fucking mad, that the Vulcan wasn't allowed to fly. pesky weather and civil rules. Damned uncivil if you ask me. They did at least allow her to taxi up to rotation speed, which was nice, since the noise that the Rolls Royce Olympus engines make would make you think that God was angry.

I was last at Leuchars when I was a wee boy, so this was still a fantastic day out, even with the gash weather, and I'll certainly try to get along again next year.

Wendy Alexander and "Natural Justice"

I was reading the Metro this morning, as I was suffering my daily drag to work on the trains, and read the article on pg 4 about Wendy not being banned from the wee pretendy parliament.

So, the (low) standards committee recommended that she be barred for 1 day for failing to register the donations she received to her leadershit campaign.

The pretendy parliament then voted 70 to 49 to not ban her for 1 day.

Wendy describes the result as "a victory for the law, for natural justice and for common sense".

I can't believe the cheek of it. She's sucking down OUR tax money as a public servant, fucking us by not playing by the rules, and she has the cheek to tell us that was a victory for the law? Common sense in that place has been sorely lacking for a hell of a long time.

In my rather angry opinion, a victory for natural justice would be that cunt swinging from a lamppost.

Edinburgh is a shite place to live...

It's official.

The BBC reports that the happiest places to live have been mapped out.

"Edinburgh, despite its cosmopolitan reputation and internationally acclaimed fringe festival, was bottom of the list."

That would be because there are hardly any locals in the city... And those folk who do live here, have to battle through hordes of tourist filth clogging up the streets for one month of constant fireworks, flyers and irritating cunts talking about how great their show is, would you like a free ticket?

"Staying in an area for five years or longer was an important indicator of well being, said the scientists."

Edinburgh will have a lot of transient student types (the ones I complain about coming here, voting Labour, and second vote green, and fucking off again.) So this will add weight to the <5 years lot. I came here as student filth in 1996, and left (after graduation) for a brief spell of steak, weak beer and guns in Austin, Texas. I came back though.

And here I still am. And I am here because Edinburgh is actually a great place to live. Great socially, great to catch up with pals after work for a pint. Great to wander round the city, soak in the atmosphere, architecture and ambience... (When you can get moving when the tourists are away).

The trouble with living in Edinburgh is continually being bent over and fucked by the cuntcil. Who know better than everyone...

"Objectors ... have claimed it could jeopardise the city's World Heritage site status."

Didn't the chaps who came to visit us from UNESCO say this themselves?

Edinburgh's design champion Sir Terry Farrell told BBC Scotland: "Edinburgh is changing, it is becoming a bigger city in every sense, it's being recognised as a force in urban cities in Europe and in Great Britain."

Edinburgh has always been a great city historically... We know these things, we live here... The question is - do you? Do you use public transport in the city? Do you walk anywhere in the city? Do you talk to people who actually live and work here?

Do you fuck.

"It also has the tram and the waterfront, these are big changes."

Big changes? Big disruptions. Big waste of money.

We don't have trams. We've got fucking massive holes in the road. We have roadworks. We have ambulances delayed at junctions due to shite traffic management in the troubled times. We've got listed buildings being demolished. We've got businesses up in arms due to massive restrictions on loading and unloading - reductions in custom due to these works.

You can shove the trams right up your arse. And if you like the waterfront so much, fuck off and live there yourself. You'll find the bus service is well adequate, no trams necessary, thanks very much. You'll find that the whores like the area too.

It would be nice if the council asked the people what they wanted, rather than taking unilateral decisions on the behalf of the political classes in the city.

Edinburgh defends cycling plans

According to the BBC:

"City of Edinburgh Council has responded to criticism from Chris Hoy by reiterating its desire to create a new cycling facility in Scotland's capital."

O RLY?

"But we do need external assistance to pay for it. The ideal situation would be that a new cycling facility is in place before the Meadowbank track is taken down and that is what we will aim for."

Now here's a novel idea.

Take the money that you're spunking up the wall on trams that are completely fucking useless, and are currently crippling the city, spend it on a velodrome, and do something with the change... Like give us a fucking break.

Really, it's not rocket surgery.

Escalation

I was in my friend's pub last weekend, enjoying a pint and a chat with the delightful barmaids, when in walks in some pished guys.

I was interfering with the jukebox, putting some more Led Zep on, when one of the chaps came over and drunkenly told me not to change the music.

"I put this on, of course I am not going to change it" was my reply. He asks me how tall I am, he asks me some other random stuff. He then asks me if I have ever lost a fight.

*ding* *ding* *ding*

I was somewhat bemused by this, and told him I had never been in a fight before, so didn't know. (Not entirely true, but that doesn't make me a bad person).
He eventually fucked off up the back of the pub with his pal and his pint.

My pint is almost finished, so I order another, and I mention to the barmaid that I would keep an eye on those two, since they're more drunk than I am. (And I am not about to make a cunt of myself in a pal's pub). I return to reading the paper, listening to Led Zep, and drinking my pint.

Jukebox man returns, with half his pint, and starts drunkenly waffling at me. He then starts turning the pages of my paper. I explain that he's being rude, and go back to mostly ignoring him since his patter is pish, and reading the paper. He's blabbering on about something, and then he sticks his finger in my ear.

What the fuck just happened there.

Once is accidental. "Hey hey" said I, and not in a Herschel Krustofsky sort of way.

So I return to drinking and reading, and then I feel this finger in my ear again.

Twice is suspicious. I tell him to behave himself, and that he's not funny.

Fuck me, that's his finger a third time. Three times is enemy action. His arm was up his back and his body twisted forward far enough to have his head be close to the bar before his finger made contact with my ear. (I only held him with one hand, so it wasn't a particularly good wrist lock, but it served its purpose).

"What the fuck is your game. Cut that out forthwith, otherwise I'll break your fucking arm."

He seemed to get the message, his pal, by this time had come down from the back of the pub, and I told him to finish their drinks and take jukebox man away, which he did.

When did it become socially acceptable to stick your finger in a stranger's ear? Particularly when the stranger is the biggest guy in the bar?
Particularly when the stranger is me?
It's just as well for him I am such a happy go-lucky chap.

I think I might have start some classes for people regarding acceptable behaviour in public.

Memetastic

I have just been tagged by Two Doctors in my previous post, with a "Hi Steve. You're next."

I was almost concerned too given my last sentence was "Tell me again, why we're not hanging these cunts from lampposts with piano wire?" but I think they'd struggle to find a lamppost high enough or strong enough for me.

Anyway, here we go, another meme...

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997

Sat in the Committee Room, at Teviot Row House (Edinburgh University Union). For at that stage, I was student filth, committing academic suicide by volunteering on the best union committee. Oh yes. I remember the girls on the committee wanting to watch the news. I think I had another pint or three.

Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990

I was probably at school (Allan's Primary School, in Stirling). I would have been 11, and not cared. I remember it being fun to tease a classmate, Laura Connarty, about her dad being one of those Labour guys... Ah, happy days.

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001

Driving from my apartment to my work, on US183, in Austin, Texas. A colleague phoned me as I was driving. I answered, naturally, given you can do that sort of thing in the USofA. He told me to bring a cable for the TV in the office... Friends of my friends were killed that day. For all America is a huge place, it was a wee village on that day. There were lots of Texans out buying guns that day.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany in - 4 July 1990

I have no idea. I despise most forms of sport, but in particular, football. I expect I'd have been on my summer holidays anyway.

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963

My mum was only wee then. What hope did I have?

Apparently I have to tag other folk.

Doctorvee
J Arthur MacNumpty
Kezia Dugdale (Entirely to see her reaction to the Thatcher part...)
Auld Reekie Rants
Tartan Hero

Foxtrot Oscar (EU Petition response)

Just got this from our glorious leader in response to e-signing a petition on the No 10 webshite....

"The Government believes that EU Membership is firmly in Britain’s national interest, and remains committed to ensuring that the EU is focussed on adding value for its citizens."

That's all very well and good - but we the people don't necessarily believe this is so.

Where's the referendum we were promised?

Tell me again, why we're not hanging these cunts from lampposts with piano wire?

Arse Technica on IP address space

Some guy, with a name I can't pronounce on Arse Technica is rambling on about the end of the world. Well, the end of IPv4 anyway...

This continual whining about how the end of the world is nigh really would make baby Jesus cry.

"A week ago, we reached the magic number of 2.7 billion IPv4 addresses used. With 3.7 billion possible addresses,¹ this means we now have less than a billion unused IPv4 addresses left."

Well, whoop dee fucking doo.

"However, we're now so close to running out that the exact figures don't really matter anymore."

Ach, away and stop havering a load of pish. If people better used what they had, we wouldn't need to be looking at a very fucking expensive upgrade to a hell of a lot of the internet. (New routers, larger routing tables, reconfigure stuff, pray it works. Swear when it doesn't...)

Now, bawjaws briefly talks about RFC 3330 address, a subset of which are RFC 1918 addresses - more on this later...

What he doesn't tell us is who "owns" a metric fuckload of IP addresses.

Now. Let's ask ourselves if these companies (and government agencies) actually need all those addresses which can be routed on the public internet or, if perhaps they could use a combination of CIDR blocks, class Cs and the RFC 1918 address space, mentioned earlier.

If this is the case, then perhaps the Class A networks, /8s, (that's 16,777,214 addresses) could be thrown back in to the pool, and re-allocated to more deserving causes...

Allow me to pick one company at random... Hewlett-Packard. (OK, I was always going to pick them - but does that make me a bad person?) HP has 15/8, 16/8. HP also has a number of Class B networks, sadly not listed in an obvious manner, but trust me, they have them...

Do they need 33 million IP addresses which are routable? Do they fuck. Machines on desks are given IP addresses which are theoretically able to be routed on the public internets. This never happens, because it would be utterly insane to do so, so this is a bloody nonsense, and should be sorted out.

Most large companies barely need a class C per site (office, factory, whatever) - 254 addresses. Remember, we're talking public facing systems here, not internal intranet stuff. You could chop up 10/8 across the international organisation of how many hundred sites? Say a thousand anyway, and you'd still be on waaaaaay fewer IPs than if you'd hogged a class A - or two.

So anyway, the purpose of this rant is to say that guy is havering a load of pish. The end of the world is not nigh. If people did the decent thing, and sorted out their own houses, internet addresses wouldn't run out for ages and ages, and everything would be fab, and my blood pressure would be lower, and I'd drink less.

OK, the last bit was a lie.

With every surgical strike...

... there is collateral damage.

So, I was out for a few small beers with Duncan and some other blogger types as arranged by Jeff. It was a pretty good evening, meeting folk, and chatting about stuff.

So anyway, we're chatting away. Someone was saying something interesting, and some jakey bastard flyering person wandered over. They tried to break into the conversation, and failed several times. The chap speaking was talking sense, and we other bloggers were all interested to hear the full story...

Eventually, the guy managed to find a pause long enough to break in to our drinking and chatting, to pimp some crap fringe show or other. I suggested we would be drinking, and chatting, and not interested.

He persisted.

I insisted.

He left the flyer on the table.

I told him to take it with him and fuck off.

He fucked off. But left the flyer.

I screwed up the flyer and threw it at him, and hit him...

... and it ricocheted off him and hit a lady at another table who was enjoying a drink, and otherwise minding her own business.

Of course, I apologised to the lady, and said in my defence that I had hit the flyering bastard with it first. She and her friends resumed their drinks.

Ah well. You win some and you lose some.

It taks a lang spoon tae sup wi a Fifer!

As the old adage says, it taks a lang spoon tae sup wi a Fifer...

The BBC reports that last year 7 out of 72 samples taken by weights and measures in Fife pubs were accurate... And that they are giving notice that another survey will be happening pretty soon... Nothing like giving the mean bastards a heads up so they know you're coming and can clean up your acts for a month or two before going back to their old ways then, eh?

Shame!

Don't get your sporran in a niggle

The Hootsman reports that the fluffy animal loving people in the EU want to ban the import of sealskin...

Stavros Dimas, the European environment commissioner, yesterday announced plans to bring in a total import ban on products derived from seals that have been killed in a cruel way.

At the risk of being a bastard, surely all killing is cruel... And why should it be limited to seals? In which case, why are we not all tofu-munching insufferable bores? Perhaps the glorious EU will rule that we should all stop eating meat, whilst paying farmers to not grow beef or lamb or pig...

I think you all know where I stand on the issue:

"The wearing of fur generally in Scotland is seen as unacceptable by the majority of the public," he said. "Sporrans are one of the few things where it's still seen as publicly acceptable to wear fur.

Probably since most folk don't really know what a sporran is made from. And I would expect a number of people simply do not care.

Seals are culled for various reasons, and I think it is only right that rather than a slaughter (remember you can't spell slaughter without laughter) where carcasses are burned or buried, we should make use of as many of the carcasses as possible in as many ways as possible.

People seem to get a bee in their bonnets about seals, because they look fluffy and cuddly-wuddly, but forget the seal population has nearly tripled since the 70's!

As for the EU, this is just a typical show of control-freakery on their part. It all starts with one hippy bastard sponging politician going on a boat trip... Can't they just fuck off?

For the record, as if you care, I have just recently bought a sealskin sporran. It looks fabulous. And as is only correct, since the sealskin sporran is for dress wear, I also have a leather sporran for day wear... Quite the man about town, me.

P.S.

What's a seal's favourite drink?

... Canadian Club. On the rocks.

Monkeys on mailing lists

I am on several mailing lists. One in particular, sunmanagers, is for people who work with Sun hardware and software. People who are on these lists are systems administrators, IT managers and so on...

The IT world is fairly small - I know this from working in Edinburgh, and when I worked in the USofA it was just as small a world over there too.

You would think then, that people would exercise common courtesy when posting to a list that contains people who you might be asking for a job in the future? Apparently not. People regularly ignore the FAQ, jump in with a question which has been asked and answered countless times (RED State Exception) or do not extend the courtesy of not bombarding the entire list with "I am out of the office" messages. I don't care that you're in the south of France banging your secretary. Really.

Another thing is people asking questions that Google will tell you the answer to, or things that if you just tried the command, or the man (that's the manual) page would tell you what you needed to know.

Here are a few examples I have saved for a rainy day...

Subject: FC help

Dear managers,

Please put down some resources which can be used/referred for FC storage administration/Troubleshooting on Solaris.

TIA

Please go and fuck yourself. Would you like me to do your homework for you too? How about telling me (roughly) what vintage of hardware you have, at least, before asking us to re-write various online resources regarding Fibre Channel storage...

Subject: Linux has psrinfo command- Any equivalent for Solaris.

1. Folks, Linux has psrinfo command- any equivalent for Solaris.
I am trying to know the # of CPUs, and their utilization at any given point in time.

Errr, maybe psrinfo would work. I don't know, I just typed the fucking command, and, like, there it was. (And yes, for utilisation, you'd want something like top, or prstat).

Subject: please remove me from this list. Thanks!

unsubscribe

Another personal favourite of mine - every email from the list comes from mailman, which has mailing list info IN THE EMAIL which tells you how to unsubscribe. How fucking stupid do you have to be? (Freecycle is bad for this too, but it's populated by techno-weenies, not people who are supposedly paid to be technologically literate, and run systems costing tens to hundreds of thousands!)

Subject: Questions

Question 1: I backup several files using tar. How can I restore an specific file from that tar backup?

How about... uhhhh, man tar? Here's an excerpt from the man page:

x Extract or restore. The named files are extracted
from the tarfile and written to the directory
specified in the tarfile, relative to the current
directory. Use the relative path names of files and
directories to be extracted.

And the classic:

I have posted some Sun questions since a couple of years in sun managers and I want to delete those messages , please can you point me to the right steps to do it ?
This is all the links that I have found on sunmaagers portal :

Nope, your dumb questions should stay there for all to see... There are several archives of the mailing list, so your stupidity will haunt you for a long time.
Bill tells me this is a fairly frequent occurrence too - with not just individuals, but companies and government departments requesting dumb questions being taken off the list archives - do these people not know how the internet works?

That all said, I am still subscribed to the list, and it is still a fantastic resource for people in my line of work. I've had a few fairly obscure questions answered on there, and apparently have helped some other poor sysadmins too. As much as I may have ranted a bit, sunmanagers actually has one of the best signal to noise ratios of any list I have ever seen! My thanks go to John DiMarco and Bill Bradford for running it.

Smoke... and mirrors.

The Hootsman on Sunday gleefully reports: "Smoking's hidden death toll revealed"

SMOKING causes hundreds of thousands more deaths each year than previously thought, dramatic scientific research has revealed.

Dramatic? This must be the first time I have heard scientific research being described as that, so whilst my bullshit detector and bogometer have both just pegged at 11, clearly, they want us to think this is serious stuff...

A study, led by experts in Glasgow, showed heightened chances of dying from cancers of the colon, rectum and prostate, as well as from lymphatic leukaemia.

We're a' doomed!

Dr David Batty, of the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, based at the University of Glasgow, said: "What this study shows is that smoking is linked to more kinds of cancer than previously thought. It's important to remember that cancer is not a single disease and that the various kinds of cancers are different illnesses so you couldn't necessarily assume that smoking was linked to them in the same way. What's unclear is how exactly smoking causes these cancers."

Let's just run that one by again - "What's unclear is how exactly smoking causes these cancers".

In other words, they do not know!

What I suspect their statistics show is that a great swathe of society since the 60's, since apparently, most people did. If someone then got some disease, and they were of that vintage, then the chances of them having smoked would be quite high - and that there's not necessarily a causal link between them...

It's just too funny

I have just shat myself laughing at this:

Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable on Amazon for $500.99 (USD)

But, isn't that just a CAT5E cable?

No! Clearly it is somethign much more...

According to the reviews, some people are reporting this cable is capable of moving bits so fast that it causes the attached equipment to collapse into a singularity such as the one in Patrick Carroll's house...

"Since then, I can't find the cat, and my entire set of VAX/VMS 4.7 documentation (DEC Will Rise Again!) (Mmmmm, orangey!) has gone missing.

Another reviewer (Momo the Barbarian) wasn't so lucky and didn't escape in time...

"As I write this email, a small black hole is tearing through the space time fabric of my living room, consuming everything in its path (including my former pet Chihuahua, Wolfgang). A simple warning to prevent me from having reverse cabled my new joy for experimental reasons would have also spared me the horror of bidding adieu to 20 years woth of collecting (yes my cabbage patch dolls and hummel figurines are now faint memories of the past, for this dimension anyway). I bid you all adieu as I now see my walls dissolving... goodbye cruel worl"

Dan's Tech Reviews has another take on product:

"There's a lot of negative reviews of this cable. I say, why? It's clearly worth the money.

I sense you're skeptical.

Here's proof: Just 1 minute after pressing the button to order this, I had 7 phone calls from insanely hot women, and got 7 dates out of it. Coincidence? I think not.

I have a hot date for the next week, every night, and you don't. Why aren't you buying this cable?!"

Other reviewers have taken a different path on the piss-take, here's one from Jeffery A. Chabotte:

"A coworker had recently bragged to me about buying these cables, and when i told him what he was really buying, he was shocked.

He hadn't shown up to work for the last couple days and the boss got in this morning, he said that the guy's wife "found him in the garage, hanging by a noose made of some sort of speaker wires he had just purchased".

R.I.P. - Frank Grimes.

I guess these cables are pretty rugged."

Sadly, some people are humourless bastards, who are taking this all very seriously -

"$500 for a cable? Get a grip, Denon. Completely dishonest. I'll never buy any of your products again."

No, sir, I believe you should get a grip, and see that this is an utter piss take, and you should be posting something suitably funny as a review... Read all of the reviews, since most of them are pants wettingly funny. Remember, don't have coffee or any other liquids in your mouth while reading these. Your keyboard and monitor will suffer.

42 days

Apparently that bill has been passed.

We're allowing them to piss our historic rights up the wall here. We might as well tear up the Magna Carta, and every other right that has been fought for by our forefathers.

But it's all ok, apparently, as you can be compensated if you're wrongfully arrested.

I wonder, if they arrest you on suspicion TERRRRR, and you're released after the 42 days are up, can you claim 42 days of your life back from these illiberal cunts? Oh, you can get some sort of compensation. That's just fucking great. I'd want the time back. But they can't do that, can they?

The government didn't do this when the IRA were blowing up people doing their shopping.

I am horrified and ashamed to call myself British.

Haymarket doom

The BBC reports that traffic chaos is about to hit Haymarket - as if the current closure of Shandwick Place wasn't enough already.

Cllr Phil Wheeler, transport convener at the City of Edinburgh Council, said: "Edinburgh remains very much open for business while work goes on and every effort is being taken to ensure that access to businesses for customers, services and deliveries is retained".

Aye, apart from businesses being fucked by this... Like the Caley being demolished.

You can be damn sure if anyone else wanted to demolish a grand old building like the Caley, they'd be told to fuck right off, but since it's for the trams, oh that's ok then. Bastards.

Interestingly enough the links at the side of the article show...

How green are the trams?
Trams 'will help airport grow'
'A place where firms want to be'
'Unique benefits' of trams
A better experience for visitors
'They will aid passengers'

Nothing mentions the fact that the people of Edinburgh didn't have an option to say "shove your trams up your arse" or "spend our money on something we actually want". For the money, we could have a huge reduction in bus fares. We could have the roads fixed so buses and bikes and cars can get about the city without falling into massive holes where repairs have been botched. We could send all the cuntcillors off on a holiday so they'll not be here to bother us with their pish.

Coolest thing - a remix of Radiohead

A chap on a mailing list posted this remix of Radiohead, Nude, from their album "In Rainbows".

For comparison, the original version of Nude is on YouTube

Ordinarily I hate Radiohead - all they seem to produce is music to open a vein to. I make no apologies to Doctorvee, who along with a load of other people, seems to like them...

That remix has to be the coolest thing I have heard in a long time - mostly because it appeals to my inner geek. Hard drive speaker array... Sinclair Spectrum... Epson Dot Matrix Printer, HP ScanJet... An old GPO Oscilloscope. What isn't there to like?

Spam stupidity

So I got a bounced message today.

X-SpamTest-Envelope-From: ANGRY.STEVE@his..other.domain.example.com
X-SpamTest-Group-ID: 00000004
X-SpamTest-Info: Profiles 2969 [June 02 2008]
X-SpamTest-Info: {Headers: Spam B3: spamware from}
X-SpamTest-Method: headers plus
X-SpamTest-Rate: 100
X-SpamTest-Status: SPAM
X-SpamTest-Status-Extended: spam
X-SpamTest-Version: SMTP-Filter Version 3.0.0 [0255], KAS30/Release

So, your spam software detected this message was spam, and that the Envelope From header was likely forged... And it STILL bounced to ME. What kind of utter fucktardedness is that?

Backscatter from forged email headers can be even more of a problem than the spam its self. It's ordinarily not in our interests to /dev/null mail from postmaster or mailer-daemon because they are used legitimately to alert users and admins to stuff not working!

People writing anti-spam software need to be smarter. A lot smarter, otherwise they are only making the problem worse.

And as for ppp83-237-226-3.pppoe.mtu-net.ru, you may go and fuck yourself. With a cactus. A big, spiky one.

Justice

I thought Justice was supposed to be blind.

Justice was never described to me as black, white, middle class, upper class, lower class, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, wealthy, poor, feminist, sexist, chauvinist, misogynist, or whatever.

The BBC tells me that Jack Straw is telling us that there are "too many white male judges".

Surely what colour they are, and what sex they are should have no bearing on the decisions from the bench? Perhaps I am missing something here... I want the best folk as judges, not ones appointed to fit some sort of quota. Maybe that's not politically correct. Maybe we're not supposed to have people who truly excel at anything in case there's an imbalance of some group or other, and 'tards have to be drafted in to make everything more "equal" like in Harrison Bergeron or stupider as in Idiocracy.

Lampposts. Piano Wire. Enough said.

Death and Destruction - to Hard drives!

The Register tells us of a wonderful piece of equipment from EDR which can crush over 60 HDDs an hour. It costs $11,500, and needs electricity to run...

Pshaw!

I can do double that, for waaaay less than that money.

My solution, which peaked at 120 drives an hour, albeit with me putting a sweat on, involves some really good physics, and a fairly old piece of metalworking equipment.

A fly press is all you need.



Pop the drive on to the bed, stick a section of 2" diameter mild steel pipe above the platters, and spin the motherfucker down. The platters and motor tend to pop out of the bottom of the disk chassis.

I'll tell you it's very therapeutic, and almost made me feel like I had an honest job. I reckon, if I had an assistant, we could have punched the spindles on 4 drives a minute. Although my assistant might not have any fingers left... A small price to pay though.

Trams kill decent boozer

The Evening Hootsman reports something that has been fucking obvious for weeks. (Well, to me anyway, since I used to drink there...)

The Caledonian Ale House at Haymarket has closed. Because they are going to demolish it to run the trams through there. Cunts.

It was the only half decent boozer in the area. The Haymarket is usually full of arseholes, and only has a couple of decent beers. Ryrie's reeks. The Caley had decent beer, fine fizzy lagery things, nice food, and bar staff that were pretty decent folk.The 12 staff have lost their jobs.

To say that I am not best pleased about this would be an understatement. That was my favourite post work boozer, since other folk coming in off the train could stop for a pint or two of an evening before heading our separate ways.

Who asked for these trams? How much of the city has to be destroyed? How much of our money has to be pissed up the wall on this? Why are the cunts not swinging from lampposts already?

Rail users get ‘simpler fares’

c/o the Metro

Simpler. Because the public are evidently simpletons.

Notice, we're not getting cheaper fares. We're not getting better service. We're not getting newer rolling stock. That really would be news-worthy.

Of course, the problem has a lot to do with the different companies who run services in our wonderful privatised railways system. The "fares jungle" is only one of the problems, but I think that they have their priorities wrong. Get people to use the trains by making them more reliable, and cheaper. Not by hiking the prices year in, year out!

Some meme or other

Fannybaws Grant has tagged me in a meme, and rather than telling him to Foxtrot Oscar, I thought I might as well waste your time by posting this shit.

1. The rules of the game get posted on the beginning.
2. Each player answers the rules about himself [or indeed herself].
3. At the end of the post, the player tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read his [or her] blog.

What I was doing ten years ago:
In 1998, I was at Uni, so I was probably throwing some irritating cunt out of Teviot, probably the best students' union in the world. That and drinking heavily. No change there then.

Five things on my To-Do list today:

(Not in any particular order)
Pick up an old computer from another building at work
Eat some nice cheese my pal brought back from Amsterdam
Sort out my drinking arrangements for the weekend
Put on a washing
Write some angry emails to the Metro

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

"I'll tell you what I'd do, man: two chicks at the same time, man."
Bonus points for knowing where that quote comes from.

Three of my bad habits:

Not being rude enough to people who deserve it.
Voting. It only encourages them.
Picking my nose.

Five places I’ve lived:

(Not counting where I was born, I didn't stay there for long enough to count)
Auchtermuchty
Stirling
Newington, Edinburgh
Austin
Tollcross, Edinburgh

Five jobs I’ve had:

Paperboy
Shop ASSistant, Iceland (The frozen foods place, not the country)
Mainframe Operator (On an IBM 3090-200J, ph33r)
Porter and Security chap at Pollock Halls, Edinburgh University
Systems Administrator / Systems Manager at lots of places.

Five books I’ve recently read:

Persuader (Lee Childs)
Dead Souls (Ian Rankin)
Set in Darkness (Ian Rankin)
The one that got away (Chris Ryan, of the Hereford Author's Club)
Pandemic (James Barrington)

Five people or communities I’m going to tag:

Bollocks to that. People will do it if they want to.

But I will tag Doctorvee, because he should really be studying for his exams. And J. Arthur Macnumpty, again, because I can.

I am unlikely to get any more bad luck, or other such bullshit from breaking the meme. Although as my friend Peter Salus often says, "It's usually at its darkest before it goes completely black."

Scottish Roundup - April 20th

Edited by me...

Oh, how they'll regret that!

Check it out on the Scottish Roundup site.

Passive Drinking

This mornings Metro tells me the utter bastards have come for my booze.

They can fuck right off! I am keeping my stash of fine, cask strength, single malt whiskies. (From the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, natch).

"'Passive drinking' needs to become as big an issue as passive smoking to stop alcohol abuse, health campaigners demanded yesterday."

These weary wullies need to go and take a long, hard look at themselves, then fuck off and die.

"The strongest evidence is for taxation and pricing."

Just as well I can afford decent booze then... And for those who can't, I suspect we'll go back to illicit stills, and going blind from methanol poisoning.

Can't these busybodies just fuck off and let us have some enjoyment in our otherwise miserable lives?

"Alcohol, it says, should be viewed in the same way as tobacco, which has been restricted because of its health effects on others."

You mean like restrict its sale to over 18s, and have the premises who sell it be licensed?

First they came for the smokers, now it's the drinkers... What's next? Fuck me, soon I'll need a government permit to scratch my own arse.

Count to 10

According to the Daily Record, Scots gang members are to get anger management counselling...

Awww the wee diddums.

"Knife-wielding thugs will be taught to count to 10 to cool down instead of lashing out."

I am sorry, did I just read that right...

"Gang members will be encouraged to attend classes on anger management and "territorialism issues" as part of local projects which also involve football coaching, music, drama and other activities."

They say that this works, however I can't help but feel the wee ned bastards are missing out on something with this regime of understanding and reforming - like the punishment part...

The article tells us one gang in Glasgow was responsible for 450 crimes in 1 year - to the victims of these crimes, it must look like these kids are getting off a damn sight lighter than they should.

Webby?

As I was out looking around the interweb.www, I stumbled across the Webby awards...

Apparently Facebook has been nominated in the "Best Practices" category - would that be the same Facebook which had (has?) so many privacy issues?

Political Blog has the Grauniad's Comment is Free... Trouble is, with comment is free is that you get what you pay for. Utter shite.

Humour - I refuse to spell that the American way, as on the webby-site. I Can Has Cheezburger? - I have to admit, I do sometimes giggle at some of the submissions.

News - I have mixed feelings about the BBC being there. Whilst I like to think the BBC news can be very good, some of the shameless corrupting of the news, by the biased-BBC is intolerable.

Newspaper - The Guardian. Oh dear.

Restaurant - McDonalds? What the holy hell is that doing there? Having that there would mean acceptance that McDonalds sells food. It clearly does not, and therefore cannot be considered a restaurant.

So, I have wasted half an hour or so looking at some of these links, and can't help that "webby" isn't really the name for that site. "Pishy" would be much more appropriate.

Next target for quacks: supersize booze measures

The BBC reports that doctors have supersize booze measures in their sights because weak and feeble mortals get pished after X large glasses of booze... Of course, they'd be just as pished after 2X small glasses, and that would be ok, wouldn't it?

This from the same people who made up the booze limits out of thin air.

Physician, fuck thyself!

Abortion Deficit

There is, in the United Kingdom, a problem with abortion.

Not enough are performed.

Too many people that walk the streets today should have been put in a hessian sack and thrown in the river and drowned as soon as they were shat out into the world.

The Shannon Matthews case - Her mother, Karen.

Why exactly do we allow people to live off the state, and by the state, I mean folk like us who work for a living, to have money taken off us by the government to fund a woman who has 7 kids by 5 different fathers.

Of course the government are not happy about the tory councillor who said that spongers like her should be sterilised... These people are likely to go on not working for a living, and shitting out yet more children who will keep suckling from the state's teat, keep on voting (probably for Labour) (assuming they do vote) to allow them to live by our hard graft.

Sooner or later, we're going to end up living in an idiocracy because we are letting this happen to our country!

A fair number of folk who are commenting on those news reports are in favour of not letting people like Karen Matthews rip the pish like she clearly has been.

Get a job. Shut your legs. I am not paying for you to breed more workshy fuck-trophies.

Booze at 21 - Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

The BBC reports that the drinking age in Scotland "could" be raised to 21...

I'll hold on for a moment for you to calm down.

Right.

I thought the problem with drinking in this country was due to people under 18 getting fucked out of their skulls on Buckfast, cheap cider and purple tin. If they are drinking while under 18, then how is changing the drinking age to 21 going to help anything.

"People in Scotland are twice as likely to die from alcohol-related deaths than elsewhere in the UK."

And the "government" driving us to drink is going to help, how?

"We all know that Scotland as a nation has a drink problem and the implications of this are very serious - not least for our health."

Which is exactly why I am going to have another drink.

Foxtrot Oscar.

Sinful

Damn thing made me angry doing the quiz.

Via The Devil's Kitchen:

Greed:	High
Gluttony:	Very High
Wrath:	High
Sloth:	High
Envy:	High
Lust:	High
Pride:	High

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com

Politicians are utter bastards!

The beeb tells us that our MPs have rejected proposals to hold a referendum on the EU...

And now, MPs consider "fallout" from EU vote?

They might as well be honest, and just tell us all to fuck off... Oh, sorry, we're talking about MPs here...

Are they worried we'd all tell them "no" by any chance?

We're doomed. No wonder so many people are leaving the country.

Sheep worrying in Fife

The Beeb have reported that the good folk of Pittenweem have been letting their dogs run unchecked through fields of livestock. The local constabulary are reminding dog owners that farmers may shoot dogs found to be running uncontrolled through fields, worrying the sheep.

"This could result in a much-loved pet being shot for worrying livestock, with no recourse open to the pet owner."

It's not the dog's fault it is only doing what comes naturally, like shitting on the pavement, and licking its self - the farmer should shoot the idiot that's supposedly looking after the dog.

Radiation alert! (Booga booga booga!)

According to the BBC, there is a radiation alert in an Edinburgh school...

"Emergency services were called to the Regent Language Training School in Chester Street at about 1900 GMT after the discovery."

So, it's a school... I suspect it may have been a school before it was a "languages school", whatever in the hell that is...

"The packages were found inside a cupboard, which was being cleaned. They had markings indicating they contained radioactive materials."

Riiiiiight. So we have clearly marked containers of something radioactive. What's the problem? Pop out yer Geiger counter, and see if there's an increase in background radiation, if it's safe, get it signed over to someone who can use it or dispose of it.

"The fire service and police have launched a procedure called National Arrangements for Incidents Involving Radiation.

Eight fire engines and 28 fire service personnel were attending the incident. "

We're paying for this, and they are taking the piss. Again. It's not a full scale radioactive (booga booga booga) incident, it's likely a couple of old physics related sources for showing kids Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation in the lab. If it was something untoward, do you think they'd be clearly marked as radioactive? How the hell did this become a full scale newsworthy incident? Who are these people?

No place for violence in the workplace...

The Metro, this morning, had an extra cover, telling us about violence in the workplace being unacceptable.

The Safer Scotland ad, has two mannequins with T shirts, one of which says "Where's my change you dummy?" and the other with "This service is fucking awful" (Well, as best as I can make out the squint writing). (That, and it actually read ****ing, so it may have been cunting).

Whilst physical violence against bus drivers, cabbies, ticket dudes on the train and so on is utterly wrong... Are we seriously being told we cannot remonstrate with them in a most severe verbal manner when they make a cunt of things? (As they so often do!)

This is as bad as air travel, where the first sniff of you telling the staff they're being obtuse gets you grounded.

We're constantly being fucked by these people, and here we have yet another body that we're paying for telling us we should accept shite service, and not tell the pitcher of shite service that they need to get their head fuck-started.

I demand a recount!

Booga Booga Booga

In London, Manchester, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands, people are being encouraged to grass folk up for having more than one mobile phone.

The Metro reports that in those 4 areas, a counter terrorism campaign has been launched, and apparently having more than one phone, or swapping SIM cards is seen as suspicious - and worthy of having your arse felt under the suspicion of you being a terrorist!

Never mind the number of people I work with who have a work phone and a personal phone... Next thing you know, they'll be calling the armed cops if you use your MP3 player in public. Oh wait... That already happened.

We're going to hell in a handbasket, and all in the name of prevention of Terrrrrrr.

Telemarketers

A novel way to deal with telemarketers brought to you by Calls for Cthulhu:



You might like to watch the rest of the Calls for Cthulhu videos on youtube, since they are rather amusing...

Cthulhu fhtagn.

A bridge too far

Well, a tollbooth too far anyway.

The booths on the approach to the Forth Road Bridge are being demolished, at the estimated cost of £2,000,000. Sorry? What? Are these the same booths that were only constructed in 2006, at the cost of £4,000,000.

Who are these utter bastards who are pissing £6,000,000 up the wall like this?

Even with the removal of the toll charges, there is no need to physically remove the booths. Indeed, they could be useful - when it comes to shutting the bridge in high winds or if there's an accident (like that HGV the other week...) or for simply controlling traffic flow as the 4 or 5 lanes of traffic are merged in to the 2 that cross the bridge.

Who has taken the decision to remove the booths.
Who is paying for this?
Why are these fuckers doing this work in peak times (people at my work are constantly whining about the crap traffic now!)

Surely I am not the only person who thinks leaving the booths there would be a great idea, and save £2,000,000! The folk who are pissing this money up the wall would do well to remember "tollbooth" is an auld Scots word for the jail!

Glasgow's Commonwealth Skills

Auntie Beeb reports that Glasgow hosting the Commonwealth Games could lead to skills...

• Athletics - Perhaps the hurdles will allow neds to jump fences when running from the police?


• Sprinting - again, from the police after engaging in some breaking and entering.


• Boxing - as if I need to make any comment.


• Shooting - they just write themselves, don't they?


• Gymnastics - gives greater flexibility in breaking in to houses through tight spaces.


• Weightlifting - to carry away all the swag from your housebreaking exploits...


• Swimming - probably not, since it might be confused with having a bath.

Blogging may be a bit light for the next few weeks since my Glaswegian colleagues who read this blog will have lynched me. (No doubt getting some Judo or wrestling practice in).

The scourge of civilised society...

I am referring to the deactivated weapon, not the large, angry, man pictured. (That's a Mk II Bren, by the way.)

The politicos and pantywaist whiners want to ban deactivated guns, to somehow protect the public... Protect the public from what exactly? Being beaten to death by an inert firearm? That's all the above Bren is good for...

The BBC helpfully reports that:

"Deactivated guns are not capable of firing live ammunition, but criminals often alter them for re-use."

The BBC don't cite any figures for how many of these deactivated guns are being converted.

Why bother converting a deactivated gun anyway? I would expect it's cheaper to buy a fully working firearm on the qt than have a replica converted, and risk being called "lefty" when it blows up in your hand.



A fully working Mosin Nagant rifle can be bought in the USofA for $100 (here) and a deactivated version can be bought in the UK for £155 (here)
The fully operational firearm is a third of the cost, excluding conversion costs etc. I expect that deactivated pistols are similarly priced...

"Tackling gun crime is key to making people feel safer and more secure in their communities. We already have the tightest controls in Europe but there is more we can do to remove the threat of gun crime."

That's our Home Secretary speaking. With some of the tightest firearms laws in the world, why are law abiding citizens still being shot at by head-bangers? Would that be because criminals don't give a fuck?

These same politicians tell us that "Firearms are not an acceptable means of protection in Great Britain and authority will not be granted to possess a firearm for this reason." Yet they have protection from armed police officers. Will they tell the police to hand in their Glocks? I don't think so!

(It's worth noting that in Northern Ireland, you *are* allowed a firearm for personal protection).

Anyway, back to crime sprees committed using deactivated weapons:

"the most recent Home Office firearms figures from 2005/6 show that reactivated or deactivated firearms were recorded as being used in just eight offences, out of a total of 11,084."

Not much of a spree, is it?
That's less than 0.1%

"Gill Marshall-Andrews of the Gun Control Network said: "We are delighted, this has been on our agenda for a long time. It is a big loophole in our firearms legislation."

And she can fuck right off. Big loophole? <0.1% Big loophole my arsehole.

Gill Marshall-Andrews appears to be well known for spouting such claptrap.

Where's our referendum?

Where's our referendum? I am, of course, referring to whether The City of Edinburgh Cuntcil has actually asked the people who live here, and are paying for this shit, whether we actually want trams or NOT!

The Hootsman tells us:

"A PUBLIC meeting on the city’s tram scheme has called for a referendum on the future of the tram project."

No shit!

"A poll of attendees at the Edinburgh Railway Action Group meeting found three-quarters of them were in favour of a public vote on the future of the tram project."

Funny that. Could it be that they were looking at their cuntcil tax bills and looking at the congestion caused by the pre-tram roadworks and asked themselves what the hell was going on? Shame the cuntcillors don't do the same.

Tax dodgers?

The Hootsman reports that The City of Edinburgh Cuntcil are going after tax dodgers who are "losing" the council £9.25 million - apparently this also includes outstanding debt from statutory notices and so on...

The money shot is that some arse from the cuntcil says this:

"By reviewing our policy on debt recovery we have the potential to recover large sums of money which can be ploughed back into council services."

Tell you what... Why don't you stop pissing money up the wall on things Edinburgh doesn't want or need - like trams, excessive traffic calming, excessive public "servants" and try paying for your own lunches for a change - and then we can take a reduction in cuntcil tax, and the world will be a better place.

Until we pay tax for what we actually use, people will take the piss - on both sides. I expect that the cuntcil takes the piss a bit more....

Groundhog Day

According to Groundhog.org:

Here Ye! Here Ye! Here Ye!

On Gobbler's Knob on this fabolous Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2008
Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators,
Rose to the call of President Bill Cooper and greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths.

After casting a weathered eye toward thousands of his faithful followers,
Phil consulted with President Cooper and directed him to the appropriate scroll, which proclaimed:

"As I look around me, a bright sky I see, and a shadow beside me.
Six more weeks of winter it will be!"

As someone on The Register commented, there is a reasonable explanation for Phil's prognostication:



Although I fully expect this will all be blamed on global warming.

Best video of the year so far...

I'd hate to pay the electricity bill for this, but I want one!



The Register reports that the muzzle energy of this weapon is 10.6 megajoules.

Now, roll on the hand-held rail gun a la Quake...

Dishonesty box

Apparently there is such a thing as a free lunch. For Edinburgh's crooked cuntcillors.

The Hootsman reports:

"The free lunches for councillors were originally scrapped in a bid to save £45,000 a year.

After the honesty box was launched, it is understood that staff regularly found it to be left short at the end of the day."

Sorry, "regularly found short"? You mean the thieving bastards couldn't even cope with £1.50 for a piece, or £1 for soup?

And this is when they can claim £45 a day in meals allowance when they are eating away from the council buildings!

If they can't be honest with their own money, what are the chances of them being honest with mine?

Hang 'em high!

Nerd

Since so many others are doing this, and I am easily led...



And here's the Nerd Handbook, courtesy of Rands in Repose. A friend sent the link to me, and I thought it was fairly appropriate.

Several points ring true - truer than I would probably like to admit. Those who know me in the real world can draw their own conclusions...

Network Solutions are crooks

Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) are, amongst other things, a domain registry for this new fangled interweb. When you want to buy a domain name, you do a "whois" lookup to see if it's available, then you buy it if it's available and you really want it.

The trouble is, NSI are registering domains that are looked up using their whois server... So, if you check to see if a domain is available using their server, but want to register the domain with another company, you can't because NSI have helpfully registered the domain, forcing you to buy it from them... This is apparently known as "front-running".

The helpful people at slashdot have a number of potential solutions to this problem (other than not using NSI in the first place)
including looking up (and hence making NSI register) a bunch of random domain names using a perl script. An alternative is to do a whois on a number of interesting domain names which include registered trademarks as part of the name - and then hope that a Cease and Desist letter is sent to NSI for trademark infringements...

What's really quite funny is their excuse for this practice...

"During this reservation period, the name is not active and we do not monetize the traffic on these domains."

Of course, they are monetizing the domain, since during this period you can only buy the domain from NSI...

In effect they're saying: "We're front-running to protect you (our customers) from front-running"

More tram nonsense

Apparently the west end of Princes St to Shandwick Place and the east end at St Andrew Square are to be closed for 16 weeks while workers move pipes and cables in preparation for the trams...

Hang on, so you mean we've got to go through more roadworks on the same stretch of road in the future? Oh yes, when they start laying the tracks, sometime in the future... In the meantime, they're just going to fuck about a bit, and piss off all the folk who are trying to commute in Edinburgh - Shandwick Place is a bottleneck for bus services at the best of times...

Some guy from Tie was quoted by the BBC as saying:

"The work will be completed before August so as not to impact on the Edinburgh Festival."

Of course what he really meant to say was:

"The festival is the be all and end all of life in Edinburgh, and we wouldn't want to give the tourists a bad impression, so in the meantime, we're going to fuck up the roads because we think Edinburgh's residents are cunts and don't care how this unwanted trams project effects the city. "

Webinar is not a word

A friend has just sent me an email with a link to this site, specifically, this cartoon:



Webinar is not a word. Stop using it you illiterate fucks! That non-word first came to my attention on the notice board at work several months ago. Yes, it's me that corrects the notices... Bullshit marketing terms made up to make things sound hip and interesting are not welcome on this blog, or anywhere near me!