The Oxford St christmas lights this year look like klieg lights. It makes me think that we’re expecting an air raid. And air raids are obviously a central part of the traditional British christmas. All it needs is a Zeppelin or a V2 flying overhead to complete the illusion. Oh, and the gantries that the… Continue reading Merry Air Raid
Morons on the Underground
To the moron who sat beside me on the Northern Line between Waterloo and Clapham at about 6pm yesterday, Yes, the tube in the rush hour is overcrowded. Most of us just accept that and make the best of it. The fact that you wear a nice pinstripe suit does not make you more important… Continue reading Morons on the Underground
IE Usage Falls
Web analysis company OneStat.com have published a report showing that Internet Explorer’s usage share has dropped to under 90%. The combined usage of all Mozilla-based browsers (which includes Firefox) is at 7.35%. Probably the most important point in the report is that IE usage has fallen by 5% since May. Update: The BBC are also… Continue reading IE Usage Falls
Spooks
There should be a law against people writing drama about subjects they know nothing about. Last night’s Spooks was a good example. It was all about a computer “hacker” who was holding the British Government to ransom. His plan went like this. Although email has been around for decades, it didn’t really take off until… Continue reading Spooks
Stupid iGeeks
I admit I never got on well with Apple computers. I have a Powerbook but as far as I’m concerned it’s the computer of last resort[1]. I just can’t get on with the user interface in OSX and I’m far happier working on a PC running Linux and Gnome. But I do know a lot… Continue reading Stupid iGeeks
IE vs Firefox (again)
Over the weekend I did some work on the stylesheet for my main site. I cleaned it up a lot and made it look far simpler. Of course, as I was making the changes, I was testing them on Firefox. IE doesn’t work on Linux so I couldn’t test them on that without using someone… Continue reading IE vs Firefox (again)
Death of the VCR
A slight case of synchronicity. Yesterday we had a discussion about what we would do when people stop making VCRs. We have hundreds of video tapes, both bought and recorded from the TV, and it would be a pain to not be able to watch them again once our last VCR hits the dust. The… Continue reading Death of the VCR
Feed the Sudan
Well I finally heard the new version of Do They Know It’s Christmas yesterday and I have to say that I was distinctly unimpressed. It’s even worse than Band Aid 2. So if you want to support the Sudan but refuse to pay money for that terrible record, here’s a suggestion. Until January 9th, the… Continue reading Feed the Sudan
Weird Googling
Normally I’d be happy if my web sites got high Google ratings, but this is a bit weird. Many years ago I bought the domain ars.org.uk. I used it to host an Agency Rating System where IT contractors could share opinions about recruitment agents they had worked with. After a few years of operation it… Continue reading Weird Googling
Monkey Trial
I’m currently reading How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World. It’s a very interesting book and I’ll be writing about it in more detail when I’ve finished it. But last week I read a section which talked about the “Monkey Trial” that took place in Tennessee in 1925. For those who don’t know the story, a… Continue reading Monkey Trial