Apparently a big propane depot in Ontario exploded early this morning (around 3.30 am EST) – check the explosion in this video shortly after 1:50 –
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Economic Models and Business Strategies explained with Cows
Shamelessly robbed from Metcountymounty’s post on Sheepdogs & Wolves (but also seen several times on other sites… yes, it’s an old one :) )
I think Britain most definately fits under the Socialism description here.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes one of them and gives it to your work-shy neighbour.
They laugh in your face.
Continue reading Economic Models and Business Strategies explained with Cows
Free music from independent artists
Just a quick post to mention Jamendo – a site I discovered a couple of days ago offering lots of free music from various independent artists.
So far I’ve downloaded several albums and a handful of EPs, and I’m impressed – some of the music is very nice, very professional, and not only free but also legally so! :)
Oh, and the download speed is ridiculously good – I’ve been pulling down albums at a solid 2.3MB/s (and yes, I do mean megabyte) – can’t argue with that!
It’s another good way to find new music (another way I particularly like is using last.fm‘s recommendations stream, which will stream you a selection of songs that you’re likely to enjoy, based on what it already knows about your musical tastes.
Why men don’t write advice columns…
It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything, so here’s a quick post blatantly robbing a post from a friend’s blog (original post on Sarah’s blog here)
Dear Walter:
I hope you can help me here. The other day I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn’t gone more than a mile down the road when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband’s help. When I got home I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was in the bedroom with a neighbour lady making mad passionate love to her. I am 32, my husband is 34 and we have been married for twelve years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that he’d been having an affair for the past six months.
I told him to stop or I would leave him. He was let go from his job six months ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. I don’t feel I can get through to him anymore.
Can you please help?
Sincerely,
Mrs.. Sheila Usk
Dear Sheila:
A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the jubilee clips holding the vacuum pipes onto the inlet manifold. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburettor float chamber.
I hope this helps.
Walter
New bike: CBR600FV
Been a while since I blogged anything, so just a quick post to say I have a new bike :)
My poor old GPZ was getting a bit tired, so I’ve now got a nice black 1997 CBR600FV. It’s a lovely ride, and a lot more powerful than the GPZ. Most of the power from its inline 4 engine is further up the rev range though, whereas the GPZ’s 500cc twin seems to cope better at low revs.
At lower revs the CBR is nice and smooth and easy to ride around town, but get the revs up to about 6-7k and it pulls amazingly!
I haven’t got round to taking any decent pictures of it yet, but here’s a couple of it in the garage before I bought it:
As you can see, it has some fairly big chicken strips – I’ve done away with most of them, but there’s still a little to get rid of :)
WordPress updated
It’s been a little while, but I finally got round to updating WordPress again.
My copy of WP is checked out from Subversion so it’s nice and easy to update – I’m now running 2.5-RC3, and it’s quite slick (although it’s changed quite a bit…)
It all seems to be working well, but please let me know if you see any breakage!
Crazy email filtering
“PC 200” posted a blog entry about their force’s email filtering system which made me laugh enough to want to mention it here.
They block inbound attachments, which could be a pain, but is sensible enough.
However, they also block “bad” language (as I’m sure the police don’t get subjected to foul language often, and their poor, delicate sensitivities would be mortally offended by it….) – but then send you an email to report that an inbound mail was blocked, describing why:
You’ll get an email which says something along the lines of “you have been sent an email containing offensive or inappropriate language. The language contained is of a value of 60 points. The word was either one of the following or a derivative of: fuck, fucking, fuckers, mother-fucker, fuck-off”.
So, they’ll block the email containing the word that might offend you, then send you an email containing that word and many other alternatives of it!
And the other thing which intrigues me, is that somewhere in the Home Office a committee has sat around a table wondering how many points to give swear words. You can imagine it. A whole afternoon, or more, debating how many points to give ‘bollocks’. “OK, we’ll give ‘bollocks’ 50 points, agreed?” “No, if we give ‘bollocks’ 50 then we have to give ‘arsehole’ 65, surely”, “Yes, but if we give ‘arsehole’ 65 then we have to reduce ‘wanker’ to 63.” “OK, let’s give ‘bollocks’ 45.” “No we can’t do that because ‘balls’ is 45.”
I’ve been reading his blog "200 Weeks" for a while now, well worth a read.
Finally updated header
Finally got round to updating the header image for my blog last night; it’s somewhat gone Christmas now, so the blue snowflake header image wasn’t really appropriate any more :)
Phishing by telephone – clever twist
Saw an interestingly different phishing scam mail today; one purporting to be alerting customers to phishing scams, and requesting they contact the bank on an 800 toll-free number (no doubt paid for with a stolen card) in order to unblock access to their account.
Continue reading Phishing by telephone – clever twist
Network Solutions holding domains to ransom
Here’s a story I just posted at work about Network Solutions holding domains to ransom:
It appears that Network Solutions are immediately registering all domains searched for. In what I consider a highly shady move, Network Solutions have started immediately registering domain names when customers search for them via the Network Solutions website, and holding them for 4 days – effectively meaning that if you checked whether it was available using their domain search tools, you now have no choice but to buy it from them, locking out all other registrars.
I tested it by searching for network-solutions-stole-my-domain.com which was previously untaken, and within minutes, they’d registered it – see a whois lookup for confirmation.
Continue reading Network Solutions holding domains to ransom