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05:37 pm
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And Relax
I am so pissed off.
British Gas sent a guy round to my front door to try and sell me gas/electricity from them. I let him identify me as the person on his records and then told him to effectively fuck off. (I didn't swear but I was a bit angry). I pointed out that I told the last few guys that I didn't want to be bothered like this and that I would consider taking action against them if they did it again.
The funny thing is that I *do* pay them several hundred pounds a year - for HomeCare. If they are so rude as to ignore my request not to waste my time then maybe I'll stop paying them for that.
I think doorstep selling should be made illegal. I can't see any point in allowing it and there are far too many disreputable conmen out ther.
(Yes someone else rang me up for "research" earlier today. I told them to not call me again.)
Tags: doorstep selling
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02:09 pm
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Games People hang on their walls?
I like LifeHacker. I've been irritated however that there isn't a UK version. Most of the ideas are just plain irrelevant to me as a non USAian. Anyway sometimes they come up with gems like :
Storing your games inside picture frames and hanging them on your walls as art. Now my extra challenge for you lot is to identify IKEA picture frames which are the righ size for particular games :-)
I realised recently that it would be good to have a sheet of glass hanging around to use for Settlers Of Catan. Settlers boards are not all one piece of cardboard but are instead made up of a loose jigsaw of hexagons - but without any of the nodules to hold them in place. My idea is that you lay the board out (perhaps on a second sheet) and then lay the glass on top of it.
I think I might resubscribe to freecycle to see if anyone has any flat safety glass they are getting rid of.
Tags: games
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05:31 pm
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Buying stuff in the Sales? Bathroom stuff?
As you may know I am doing lots of decorating right now - in particular my bathroom. Can you see any reason not to buy bathroom stuff in the sale now even if I can't get it installed till later?
I am thinking of buying floor and wall tiles from homebase, and probably bath and bath screen from Bathstore.co.uk
I wonder if the sink I saw is still for sale in Homebase. It has probably gone.
Obviously I have the problem of storing the damn things until they are needed but I *should* have the space.
Tags: decorating
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10:44 am
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Save The Rhino, Douglas Adams
This is mostly a reminder to myself to put this on the http://www.zz9.org/ website. Save The Rhino is a charity that Douglas Adams supported.
The Eighth Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture
Professor Marcus du Sautoy: “42: the answer to life, the universe and prime numbers”
The Royal Geographical Society, London, SW7 2AR
Thursday 11 March 2010
7.30pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Professor Marcus du Sautoy will be giving the Eighth Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture. He will be giving a talk on a very Douglas themed number - the number 42!
Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College. He has been named by the Independent on Sunday as one of the UK's leading scientists. In 2001 he won the prestigious Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society awarded every two years to reward the best mathematical research made by a mathematician under 40. In 2004 Esquire Magazine chose him as one of the 100 most influential people under 40 in Britain and in 2008 he was included in the prestigious directory Who’s Who.
Comedy writer and television & radio presenter, Clive Anderson has provisionally agreed to MC the Eighth Douglas Adams Memorial lecture.
Tickets: £15. Available from: http://www.savetherhino.org or call 020 7357 7474
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PS from Alex again: I know of Marcus mostly through his Horizon program with Alan Davis.
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[EDIT: Incidentally SaveTheRhino are, as usual, running in the London Marathon]
Tags: zz9
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10:04 am
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TV: Fringe: no spoilers Snooker.
So I have Fringe season 2 on my Sky+ box. Is Fringe good enough that I should go find Season 1 before watching S2?
In other TV news I set my MythTV server to record some snooker last year. Well this week the Masters tournament is happening and that PC is recording it. All of it. Sometimes two digital channels at a time! Something like 15 hours a day. Oh well. I like snooker.
Anyone know when Stargate AtlantisUniverse is next being broadcast in the UK? [EDIT: April!]
Tags: tv
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09:36 am
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Decorating Tradesmen in East London
I'm looking for recommendations for people who can supply and install any of these things in East London. Obviously I can use the Yellow Pages but I much prefer using someone that a friend has used before....
1) Bathroom (including tiles)
2) Kitchen
3) Double Glazing
So far bathroom-wise I am impressed by stuff in the bathstore.com sale, but would still need a local team to install it. But since they don't do tiles that would need to be done separately and that gives me the willies. I thought that the tiling should be done before everything else, but if that is the case then we have to rip out my bath, do the tiling, and then install a new one. Argh!
Tags: decorating
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03:33 pm
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Tech: Games machine for the new year.
So I have some free time coming up and I am thinking of setting up a machine with Windows so I can play games. I do have several noisy rack mounted boxes and my main work PC but we shall ignore those. So I am thinking ( what sort of gaming PC to buy. )
Maybe I should just go for a fast i7 setup now even if it is 230 quid more expensive...
Your gaming PC suggestions welcome.
Current Mood:  bored
Tags: pc, tech, windows
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12:11 pm
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Popular Music is fascinating, not so sure about stamp collecting
So apparently, famous old school tv chef Delia Smith contributed to one of the best rock albums of all time. She cooked the cake on the cover of "Let It Bleed" by the Rolling Stones. Now you can buy it as a postage stamp and stick it on an envelope...
I am also a big Bowie fan but I have never rated the artwork for the studio album of Ziggy Stardust which also has been turned into a stamp. Frankly the best thing about it is the fact that it says “To Be Played At Maximum Volume.” (I've always preferred the artwork from the film which has him smoking a cigarette and setting fire to the paper itself.)
Tags: music
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01:55 pm
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Link Spam: Art?
Best album art of 2009? I particularly like the optical illusion consisting of the waving green leaves.
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11:36 am
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Gender Issues?
I found this image from the "FailBlog" really funny.
Tags: humour
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03:45 pm
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Virtual Hosts?
Who do you use for virtual hosts for small websites? I'm talking about a xen/vmware instance which I totally control. It would need to have a decent amount of memory though as I will want to do basic LAMP stuff on it.
Can be US or UK, or elsewhere, but I prefer a UK hosting company so I can pay in UKP.... hmmm... actually maybe that is a mistake. Maybe I should pay in USD.
Anything I chose would probably have to beat Bytemark's offering
I've left this post public but anonymous users cannot post comments. Comments from people not on my friends list will get moderated before becoming visible so there really is no point in spamming...
Tags: tech
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01:06 pm
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Games buying for Christmas
If you are looking to buy "classic" modern games for Christmas it seems that Amazon.co.uk have a sale on which includes Carcassone and Settlers of Catan. I have both so am not angling for a present but wouldn't say no to one of the Carcassone expansions. I think I only have "The River".
PS If you are after other games I recommend Snatch for word gamers and Tantrix for pattern people.
Tags: games
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02:11 pm
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New Car?
My strategy for buying a new second hand car is to visit all the garages and show rooms near me and look in the local paper. Now I don't actually have many car show rooms near me - I was better off when I lived in West London.
So where do you look for second hand cars nowadays? Something tells me I should be looking at eBay, but something bothers me about this. Craigslist?
PS I probably want something like a fast Golf :-)
PPS Although this is a public post anonymous comments are not allowed.
Tags: cars
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08:32 pm
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The rights of police
I'm kind of thrown by this troll. I'm trying to understand whether he/she is trying to make a serious point,
Y'know, on December 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am Said:
I work in law enforcement and it appears that you disobeyed a lawful order to get back
in your vehicle.
Now, let's leave aside the actual incident. What I want to know is what things a policeman can order you to do, and *expect* you to obey.
I know here in the UK a policeman can direct me to, for example, move my car if he wants it moved. And if he should try to arrest me I should go with him and not resist arrest.
I've seen enough stupid cop reality shows to realise that when a US policeman says "Keep your hands on the steering wheel", you do it.
What gets me is that if a policeman told me to get in my car then I *might* do it, or I *might* not.
PS comments public. No anonymous comments allowed.
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12:55 pm
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Cross Platform Apps
I read the syndicated feed from the LifeHacker website which is supposed to simplify or improve your life through being smart. Anyway it does annoy me sometimes for being US-centric - but hey, they don't claim to be international. Sometimes they do have simple and important articles such as this one: Top 10 Cross-Platform Apps that Run on Windows, OS X, Linux, and More
I'm pleased to say that I already use about half of those apps they recommend and intend to try out a couple more.
Tags: lifehacker
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09:31 pm
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Domestic Violence
I know a lot of people reading this respect Patrick Stewart so I thought it worthwhile posting this article he wrote for the Guardian yesterday. He is promoting Refuge's campaign http://www.fourwaystospeakout.com/ - "Speak out against domestic violence" (note - the site has audio on the homepage)
switched off comments. If you want to discuss this please do it in your journal or face to face
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08:26 am
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Pub with WiFi fined!
We were discussing this possibility in the ZZ9 pub meeting a little while back. I had no idea that there was a case under consideration at that time...
A pub owner has been fined £8,000 because someone unlawfully downloaded copyrighted material over their open Wi-Fi hotspot, according to the managing director of hotspot provider The Cloud.
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10:38 am
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ABS CDOs
The paper I most often enjoy reading is the Financial Times. It is kind of like New Scientist - but for important matters that affect you and me *now* rather than in five years time. :-)
Anyway.
What I want to draw your attention to today is an article by an academic from the University of Edinburgh who has written a very interesting article about the main trigger for the credit crunch financial crisis. He has been (quite correctly) looking at things from a sociology point of view - and that has been missing from the public mind lately when all it wants to do is find people to blame.
Donald MacKenzie writes about ABS CDOs and the people who value them. (page 36 of the paper FT) I have a little professional experience of these products - but I think you should be able to grasp the main concepts without any formal training. I am in no way speaking for any of my clients or giving financial advice.
Basically Asset Backed Securities (ABS) are what your mortgage lender uses to raise funds to lend you money. (Assets might be houses, but aren't always. Sometimes they are cars, or other things). The mortgage lender basically uses your loan to raise money itself - but since it is "safer" than you it gets a better credit rating, and should be able to do it more cheaply than you.
There are teams of people who know how to value the assets and so value ABS products. I call these the ABS Desk.
Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDOs) are typically ways in which you join together a bunch of loans "to make them safer". So for example if I make ten loans to different people I expect not to lose much money because I only expect one or two to be unable to pay me back. This only works if there is no correlation between the loans. If, say, the people all work for the same company then there could be a reason why they all become unable to pay me: eg the employer company might go bust and they all lose their jobs at the same time.
There are people whose role it is to understand these credit issues - especially correlation between loans - and I call these the Credit Desk.
What MacKenzie does in his article is to point out that when these two types of product were combined neither the ABS Desk people or the Credit Desk people understood the whole product: ABS CDOs
ABS CDOs reduced the risk *most of the time* but when things got bad they got really bad.
When a particularly bad type of ABS based upon sub prime mortgages began to fail it was an irritating problem - but when it happened time and time again then the ABS CDOs really hurt badly. And that hurt companies which weren't mortgage lenders or particularly experts in credit.
It is understanding how this came about which is important to me. I don't think he is saying that the problem was the people concerned were paid too much, or in the wrong style. I think he is saying that the system and human nature conspired to create a situation where people didnt understand the products they were selling (and buying).
Tags: finance
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10:59 pm
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Lie to Me
You know, there must be something about writers of comics which make them suited to microblogging formats like Twitter. For example
warrenellis: LIE TO ME is all I want from evening television: a bloke from London shouting at people and then slapping them around a bit.
How true is that. He has captured the whole essence of a major American tv program in less than 140 characters. I don't think I will bother writing a review ever again.
Maybe I am channelling Warren Ellis because of the very large Red Bull I had for lunch.
So what is the protocol for Retweeting this. I mean: Am I supposed to limit it to *important* stuff?
Tags: twitter
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11:42 pm
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Ubuntu Kharmic Slip up
So that was exciting. My main desktop machine which I sit at most days just got turned into a brick for approximately five hours. But it seems ok now.
( Just the Fax Ma'am )
Tags: tech
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