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.