Next week (May 19-25) is national vegetarian week and just the other week somebody asked me the reason I became a vegetarian (I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 14) and awkwardly I meandered round to explaining it wasn’t about health, only pseudo political (I think I remember reading the statistics correlating to the percentage of the world that was starving and the percentage of land given over to growing arable crops which seemed to a young and naive me a rather obscene juxtaposition) but had to say primarily I had and have a big ‘hang up’ over just not wanting to kill things, directly or indirectly whether they be creepy crawlies , people or animals.

I well remember the last interview some years ago with the actor Paul Eddington (The Good life, Yes Minister) who was visibly  in the advanced stages of a rare form of skin cancer, which had afflicted him since the 1960’s and was very moved by his words when asked how he would wished to be remembered. Eddington, a life-long quaker and pacifist thought for a while and then mused that so many people seem to do so much harm in this world he replied that he’d best like to be remembered as someone who “did very little harm.”

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“I was walking down the street in Sacramento and thinking about all the things I haven’t done in my life. 

And I was talking to Lou, you know about getting married - we’re always talking about that, and he said, ‘Well how about tomorrow?’, I said, ‘Okay’!”

We walked into the Boulder Mountain marriage license office and they said, ‘Are you two related?’ and we said, ‘Not that we know of!’… and we paid ten bucks and that’s it, we’re married…

Because it was a Saturday morning, I thought I just want to wear my Saturday clothes and be with the person I love, and stand under a tree and that’s the only thing I care about here.”

Performance artist Laurie Anderson and music legend Lou Reed decide to get married

Source

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This tune wandered into my mental jukebox the other day and just would not go away.I had Quickstep and Sidekick on cassette which if my memory serves me well had extra tracks to the LP version. It’s long surprised me that it’s never been re-released as the album ,for me, sits nicely between The Thompson Twins earlier political incarnation and their slightly later purely commercial offerings.

So I try to suppress the memory of them slaughtering The Beatles Revolution along with Madonna at Live Aid and revisit an album that I used to like a lot and hope that the refrain “This is where we all fall-out” will soon stop playing again and again in my own unpredictable mental jukebox.

Synchronicty alert: After providing the Wikipedia links I find that the release of the cassette version on CD  has only recently finally occurred. UK information here.

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I noticed one of these things on sale in our local pharmacy  and was a bit taken aback at such a solution for an allergy especially as its proposed solution had managed to entirely pass by my personal radar.

I’m not one to rush to purchase an unknown quantity on impulse so though I’d delve into the Internet a bit more to gauge opinions. I managed to find a very much more expensive unit for sale on Amazon UK with some amusing comments from purchasers;

“I was desperate. I found this. I spent a stupid amount of money. I looked like a firefly three times a day for six weeks…”

Some were good and inevitably others for whom the treatment had not worked were less complimentary, which no doubt pained the purchaser slightly more after spending £80 as opposed to the £14 version I saw in the local pharmacy.

I’m suffering a lot with hayfever this year despite my usual piriton tablets so am wondering if £14 is a price worth taking a chance on that such a “left-field’ form of therapy might see some relief though I admit to being as sceptical as I am intrigued.

If anyone has tried red light therapy for the relief of allergy symptoms I’d love to hear how you got on whether good or bad.

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This is a fast microwave fruit snack ‘How To” that I thought I’d write up as I hadn’t done this for nearly 20 years and suddenly fancied a quick baked apple snack. It shouldn’t take any longer than 3 minutes including preparation and cooking.

Ingredients:

1 Apple

Currants or raisins

Honey

Method:

Core the apple, making sure you remove the pips

Score the apple skin with a sharp knife around the apple’s ‘equator’

Place the apple on a microwave proof plate

Fill the cored centre of the apple with the small fruit of your choice-sultanas, raisins, chopped apricot or even berries

Microwave on high for 2 minutes

Allow to stand before removing the baked apple from the microwave

Pour a small ammount of honey in the centre of the apple and over the central fruits

Enjoy.

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Reluctant Blogger asked me about using twitter clients today so though I’d share a comparison of some of the popular ones. Obviously it’s easy to just use twitter via the twitter website or as many post via texting on their mobile phone or Instant messenger client but many people use a dedicated desktop client or an add on to their web browser.

Twitterfox- one of many twitter add ons for the Firefox browser.

Flock - the social media browser based on firefox has a twitter widget built in.

Twitterific - a small twitter client for mac OS X. I find it a little annoying to have to go into preferences to set the client view for either friend or public timeline but it supports growl notifications on OS X.

Twhirl - Very popular with a lot of people and recently bought by up and coming social video service Seesmic (so might we see video tweets soon?) it has some great features like the ability to search public tweets by a keyword subject though it does not provide a public timeline view at this time.It requires Adobe air to run.

Spaz - Another adobe air based client and currently my favourite. it supports growl notifications on the Mac and key for me is that it’s easy to toggle between friend tweets and the public timeline.Shame about the dubious product name though.

It’s easy to see what people are using as their tweets usually show what method or software they’ve used to post a message after each post.

It’s always good to hear about new twitter and micro-blogging clients.

AOL has finally released AOL Desktop for Mac after several months of betas. The dedicated software can be used by anyone independent of who their Internet ISP is and brings a lot of the ‘hand-holding’ benefits of AOL’s previous portal software offerings that many people including the oft neglected senior or newbie Internet users seem to prefer.

AOL Desktop for Mac has perhaps received slightly more preferential development treatment than the Windows standalone equivalent though both are part of AOL’s continuing process of opening up their previous proprietary mail, chat and exclusive content offerings to all Internet users as AOL has sold off many of it’s ISP concerns around the world (the Carphone Warehouse bought AOL’s UK ISP wing recently).

The AOL browser is based around Apple’s Safari and boasts tabbed browsing and Safari’s speedy operation though content is US orientated and UK users may prefer to use the AOL UK page as the homepage or just access via their preferred browser.

AOL Desktop for Mac

Dan of London . a tiny light in the darkness of comments that can sometimes be the BBC’s Have Your Say.

You and me both, Dan.

Today Freesat finally launches in the UK after a series of protracted false starts. A satellite dish based counterpart to the existing free-to view digital TV service Freeview it provides greater UK wide coverage than Freeview and brings the benefit of High Definition channels such as BBC HD and ITV HD along with a larger number of free standard definition channels, regional variations and radio channels than Freeview.

We’ll no doubt see a growing number of Freesat boxes and PVR’s in our high streets and hopefully prices will fall if adoption rates are good. Hopefully this move strengthens free-to-view digital TV in the UK rather than confuses the issue or undermines existing offerings. With the slow growth of IPTV (TV via broadband) and existing subscription based satellite and cable offerings it will be interesting to see how good the take-up of Freesat is.

Expect to see a fair ammount of publicity about Freesat on a Brit TV near you.

Freesat website

At a time when the highly inflated price of housing in the UK has finally started to fall it is interesting , if not mind bogglingly disturbing to find that the real property developer bonanza is clearly beach huts.

A 13ft x 9ft beach hut in Abersoch has just been sold for £70,000.Located on the Llyn Peninsula in Gwynedd, Wales. It boasts views over Cardigan bay and stands in a row of 18 beach huts on a sand dune.

A larger hut measuring 18ft x 15ft , also in Abersoch recently sold for £150,000.

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Photo by robpatrick under this creative commons license

Source

The Go! Team

This tune has worked its way back into my affections purely by being currently employed by the BBC on a too often repeated trailer so thought I’d exorcise the full version which was originally released in 2007. The video and song, as many have mentioned before, evokes a pastiche of 70’s experiences like The Double Deckers, Banana Splits (OK that is late 60’s but was shown in the 70’s) and Sesame Street all meeting cheerleader style chant-singing and marching bands.

Live version

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With posthumous thanks and acknowledgement to John Lewis

More audio doodles

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There are many Web OS virtual desktops out there but very few true remote desktops in the sense that they run entirely on a remote server in a similar way to thin clients. I’ve written before about NX, the X over SSH protocol for accessing your Linux desktop over the Internet and there are at least two available remote desktop services that offer a true Linux based remote desktop using NX technology.

Each differs in its approach but in common with both is access to a linux desktop with varying amounts of available storage dependent on a monthly fee paid.

Desktop On Demand, a Gnome based desktop with the ability to sync your documents and and data between your desktop and remote desktop is now available from around £14 per year if you already have access to webdav or similar self supplied remote storage whilst Cosmopod remains free for a KDE 3.x based desktop and 1GB of supplied storage albeit with in-desktop advertising used to offset costs.

Desktop on demand has recently been revamped and the NX client software can run entirely from a USB stick thus making it less dependent on having to install NX on the chosen host computer though firewall port issues may still apply for those accessing via corporate networks.

Speed and responsiveness has also been improved from previous incarnations and is noticeably snappier than when using Cosmopod though the greater availability of software available via Cosmopod helps make up for this.

I’m always been surprised that commercial remote desktop services don’t supply a much lighter desktop alternative such as an XFCE based desktop as this would ease their server load problems greatly and ensure that the remote desktop experience is a speedy and responsive one.

The question is whether a true remote desktop where Internet surfing and application and processing power is handled entirely by a real remote server with the benefits of increased security and privacy are something you need access to rather than setting up your own dedicated linux based (or windows/mac for that matter) desktop with remote access or using one of the many Web OS virtual desktops on offer.Many mobile workers prefer still prefer their own laptop or mobile device  especially if access to the Internet isn’t always available.

These are, after all, a managed services and the monthly fee should be thought of more as a paid service covering your IT support , software and storage costs as these desktops can be accessed via quite old and low specification host computers and any NX compatible thin clients.

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Desktop on Demand

Cosmopod

These biscuits were originally made to send to the ANZACs (The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) serving in Gallipoli during World war I. ANZAC day is commemorated in Australia each year on April 25th.

Ingredients

• 85g porridge oats
• 85g desiccated coconut
• 100g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g butter , plus extra butter for greasing
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

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Photo by awhiskandaspoon under this creative commons license

I thought I’d combine a few audio elements for this long form audio doodle. Originally I wanted to multi layer  a changing “Omm” type chant and even tried a few choirs sounds but in the end imported a a jazz  and birdsong element (like you do) instead.

Sax and nightingale addition by hammerklavier under a creative commons sampling Plus 1.0 license

Previous audio doodles

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“It is wrong to expect retailers to bail out the Government’s incoherent tax policies, and we will strongly oppose any move to do so.”

James Lowman, head of the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) worries that low paid workers in retail will may claw back their losses if the government chooses to reform the minimum wage as a way of making up for the abolition of the 10p tax rate.

There are already plenty of part time and full time workers who need to rely on additional state benefits in order to top up their low wage packets and the rates are already due to increase in October. The hourly rate for 18 to 21-year-olds will increase from £4.60 to £4.77, while the statutory wage for 16 and 17-year-olds will go up from £3.40 to £3.53. The rate for those ages 22 and over will increase by 21p to £5.73 per hour.

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Still ununnavialable on DVD despite a planned release date last year. Andrew Marshall and David Renwick’s dark TV comedy Whoops apocalypse from 1982 (forget the dire film remake, it was nowhere near as cutting). The world is probably too sensitive to its content. The recently departed Barry Morse played an incompetent US president at the mercy of manipulation by zealous religious advisors against a backdrop of the then cold war and growing (and today very relevant) scenario of tensions in the middle east. The only unrealistic element to the countdown to the apocalypse is the election of a left wing government in 80’s Britain.

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IMDB entry

Image via Wikipedia

“Didn’t England just go through this with its rail privatization? Didn’t its rail infrastructure go to the dogs? Running pipes is never a good business model. Basic infrastructure is a sort of prisoner’s dilemma. No one wants to pay for it, but everybody benefits. That’s why it is traditionally handled by the government, often after a series of bankruptcies in the private sector. The government can pay for it by taxing everyone a piece of what they make off of it.”

“It’s obvious that the ISPs have dug themselves into a hole. They assumed a gaussian, or erlang, distribution, but they’re getting a fractal distribution of usage, and that’s straining their system. They can cut back on their marketing hype, raise prices to meet their production costs or they can innovate. Being in the private sector they’d rather remove their kidneys with rusty spoons than innovate…I don’t claim to know how to solve this, but the ISPs for the most part are not even trying.”

Part of a comment by kaleberg on Ars Technica about how UK Internet service providers are unhappy that people are actually using their broadband, especially the BBC iPlayer and that’s really not what the ISP’s meant by ‘unlimited usage’. The ISP’s want the BBC to pay to subsidise the strain on their underfunded systems whilst currently ISP’s experiment with bandwidth throttling to discourage users from actually using excessive bandwidth (a kind of congestion charging for downloading?).

The argument is ‘who pays?’. Some say that asking the BBC to subsidise new infrastructure is akin to asking the car companies to pay for new road building because more people bought their cars. In the end it’s likely that government will again bail out the free market by paying for the infrastructure the free market should have provided in the first place.
More Reading:

Guardian article

New Scientist

The Telegraph

The Register article on bandwidth throttling

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An HYS comment on the passing of Jazz legend and host of ISIHAC -Humphrey Lyttleton

Image via Wikipedia

Long before Gordon Brown finally became British prime minister after Tony Blair retired from office, I and many others had already drawn potential parallels between Brown and James Callaghan , a previous old Labour prime minister who took over from Harold Wilson when he retired suddenly in 1976.

I’d told myself that Gordon would probably have to deal with an advancing recession brought on not so much by bad decision made during his short time as PM (though these don’t help) but by an accumulation of policies going back perhaps further than the past 10 years and certainly affected by a more global knock on effect.

He must now curse his own indecision about going early to the country to obtain a mandate on his own terms.He delayed because he wanted to ’set out his table”, to define what made him different to Tony Blair but instead events have overtaken him as the credit crunch, the slowdown in house prices, a commodity that Brits cling to in an almost OCD way (pressurised by the failure of pensions and a poorly controlled private rental market which sees Brits view property as their pension and a speculative asset above all else) and more seriously the increase in global food prices as these all begin to pinch the heels of the British consumer.

Of course governments aren’t solely responsible for the present conditions. To some extent we probably now have the knife edge economic and social conditions we helped create by our own individual actions and decisions.Many of us have just made bad decisions prompted by ready availability of bad options.

I heard comedian Paul Merton say something on Have I got News For You when he seemed to take a quick break from ad libbing humourous quips by summing up Gordon Brown’s predicament:

“It’s the fundamental tragedy of a man who’s wanted a job for so many years and has got it and found out he can’t do it”.

That may be a little harsh as Gordon seems to partly be a victim of circumstances in much the same way as James Callaghan was at the helm when a decade of decay and industrial unrest came to a head and maybe he may experience greater party dissent and open disloyalty in a similar manner to that experienced by Conservative PM John Major.Gordon is there just as a whole raft of previous Government policies and other global events conspire to perhaps see history repeat itself.

Disclaimer: The 80’s politicised me whereas the past 11 years have managed to almost apoliticise me in terms of seeing central governments as any kind of viable political or social solution so I’m not advocating any available political party alternative (in British politics now there’s very little difference between the parties now anyway and in my eyes hence no great choice). I’m ‘merely’ a very interested observer.

Branding is a still worshipped greatly by media, marketing and advertising people so it’s come as no great surprise that the BBC have re-branded their News 24 outlet as the BBC news channel with another subtle remix of David Lowe’s theme tune and new graphics to suit.

Lowe’s theme has been in place now since 1999 and doesn’t seem ready for retirement yet. it’s interesting to see the Beeb’s potted history of news themes as around the mid 80’s they started branding and re-branding like mad with frequent and no doubt expensive theme changes over quite a short period (I guess that’s the 80’s for you-forget the content and focus on the style).

Branding is often seen as a bit of a King’s new clothes area of marketing and many may balk at the large costs of employing branding ‘experts’ (in this case a reported £550,000) but the effectiveness of a change of image can only be assessed a little way down the time line.

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Well, it compensates high earners! Give low earners free access to the legal system so they can tackle the prejudice against them. Freedom can be just a question of money. If you have no money and have little chance of getting any extra, to take on the ’system’, them you are just bullied by it. The country is run by lawyers and they are not going to give up their power and privileges to the plebs! Taxation is the way the ’status quo’ keep us in our place.

Colin tells it like it is (or at least how he sees it) on the BBC’s Have your say