I forgot about this blog for so long

Since I last wrote anything here my life has changed significantly, in June of 2013 I found myself single, and had to find myself somewhere to live sharpish. Now living in the heart of my old haunts in Leeds.

October 2013 I had "day surgery" which turned into 2 weeks in the high dependency unit at St James Hospital, which was unpleasant to say the least. The staff were fantastic.

I started a second business, to run alongside TempleDene Consultants, so now I am a purveyor of glass and Tibetan silver beads and pendants intended for jewellery makers trading under the name Beading Lovely

I get to see my youngest every holiday, and the real bonus is I can, and do, see my two eldest just about every day.

Life is better, I may be single, but I am content with that. What the future holds, who knows.

where did time go?

I remember turning 10, then 17 was years away and the point where I could learn to drive.

I reached 17 and driving was the least of my worries

at 25 I got my first job in IT, learned to drive, and started smoking, in roughly that order.

I by hit 30 and didn't give shit about driving, life was hard. Driving was something not fun, I was single and had been for too long.
,
I turned 31 and panicked, My god I was in my 30's

33 I got married, my first child was born before I was 34

40 was a blur, I vaguely remember where I worked and how my life was different.

At 43 I was divorced and expecting my 3rd child!

In less than a fortnight I turn 45, I have 3 children, 1 divorce, a new girlfriend (at 44 do you say that) and my own business that is faltering, but which I have invested my life savings into.

I know I have a good product, and a novel new way to promote and fund it, seems no-one is interested, they'd rather pay a pittance for crap or a fortune to get screwed by a big corp. meanwhile, with clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Postcards people, where next for petey?

Duke Numem : Forever

Was taking "forever" to come out, it's a standing joke now.

So a group of fans decided to release Duke Nukem : Eternity

I reckon it looks OK, not tried to play it yet though.

I used to enjoy the original Duke Nukem game, so this is now on my "things to try" list.

There's a video here of it

This is great : if sport was reported like science is today

Science is reported as if no-one knows anything, and is dumbed down, this article shows how ridiculous that can seem by applying it to football.

http://uffish.net/archives-new/2010/06/if-sports-got-reported-like-science.html

arc90 readability button : now for Opera Browser

Those lovely people at arc90 produced a readability button for firefox

http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

Now useful as this is there was no setup for Opera, so I took the "best setting" IMHO and made a button generator for Opera for it.

Readability for Opera : Click on that link and the Opera "My Buttons" panel willopen, drag the readability button onto your task bar where you want it.

This is maybe not the best solution for everybody, and I know Opera has style sheet overrides for pages that display terribly (e.g. small yellow text on black, my pet hate) but it helps me, so I thought I'd share. Maybe someone from acr90 could produce a better button generator like on their own website, rather than this one which simply is based on my preferences.

Perhaps when I have time I will try to produce something similar.

The Baseballs - Strike

Well Cool album, I was lucky and got a UK pre release copy to review, read my review here.

The Baseballs - Strike - Album Review

Temple Newsam Woods

Just a couple if pictures from our walk today.

The woods were carpeted in bluebells and looked spectacular.

And I rather liked the reflections in this picture looking through one of the bridges.

Fog lights and rainy days

I see this all the time, and it bugs me, people who think that if it's a bit rainy they should put their fog lights on.

I think in all my 20 odd driving years I have only had cause to put my fog lights on twice, in both cases the fog was so bad I couldn't see more than 100 yards (think metres youngsters) in front of me.

The highway code lays out the law as to when you should use fog lights, it's perfectly clear.

Highway Code : Driving in adverse weather conditions.

Especially of note is this section.

236

You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves.

This old road safety film featuring former Blue Peter presenter Peter Purves explains in more detail why using fog lights in rain is a bad idea, perhaps it should be re-broadcast?



OK, Grump over, carry on!

It must be true

I read it in the Daily Mail



Linky

Ah the good old Daily Fail

As up to date and current as ever, This story look familiar?

Daily Fail

It should do, I blogged about it in November 2008

http://therealteardrop.blogspot.com/2008/11/welsh-road-sign-mix-up.html

The BBC story I got it from was published just the day before my blog post, if you compare the text from the Mail and the BBC you can see a lot of similarities.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm

Of course the Daily Mail would like to see the BBC shut down, which does beg the question, where would they steal their stories from then?

For posterity, and because I suspect they will remove the story soon, here's the text as it currently reads on the Mails web site. They can hardly do me for copyright when the blatantly ripped off the BBC in the first place!

It seemed like a simple request.

Swansea Council sent an email to its in-house translations service to have a road sign - 'No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only' - translated into Welsh.

The only problem was that the Welsh translator wasn't in at the time. An automated email response was sent to council officials who believed it was exactly what they needed.

But in fact it stated: 'I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.'

Unaware of the real meaning of the message, authorities had it printed on the road sign under the English.

The council has since taken down the sign, which barred lorries from a road near an Asda supermarket, after Welsh speakers spotted the mistake.

A council spokesman said the sign was removed as soon as it was notified of the blunder.

But it's not the only bilingual sign gaffe in Wales.

In 2006, a sign for pedestrians in Cardiff read 'Look Right' in English and 'Look Left' in Welsh.

Cyclists between Cardiff and Penarth in the same year were left confused by a bilingual road sign telling them they had problems with an 'inflamed bladder'.

Hetchell Crags and Pompocali

Hetchell Crags, (also commonly known as Thorner Craggs) just 6 miles from Crossgates is an impressive set of cliffs popular with rock climbers. We went to find it, and the strange place which is Pompocali.

After a false start, having not been there in over 15 years, we parked up and one fairly short muddy walk later we found the crags.












































After a brief explore it was on to find this place I had heard of, Pompocali. No-one seems to sure who made these strange earthworks, and pictures where few and far between.

Some people believe they are spoils from the local Roman quarry, although there are theories the earthworks are older than that. If the Roman theory is accepted, there still remains the puzzle as to why build something so complex simply as a spoil tip, each section is pyramid stacked, layer upon layer to provide stability and longevity.

This is an aerial view from google maps.

But the true scale can only be seen at ground level, with children for scale.

Simon's Cat

New Video now available, extended Snow business now with Part 2



Love it.

Spot the hippie

points but no prizes



I guess my "friend" who thinks I am a communist will be certain of it now ;)

(yes it was a fancy dress night)

(no most of it wasn't "costume" but my own clothes)

(I did decorate the jeans, with Alex's help)

2009 one of the coldest years on record?

You'd believe it wouldn't you, we've had some rotten weather this year, after being promised a BBQ summer.

I've heard people say "global warming must be wrong, this year has been one of the coldest on record"

And because the summer was a wash out, people tend to think this is true, rain makes you feel cold and miserable.

2009 was one of the top 5 warmest years!

Since records began about 150 years ago this year will rank in the top 5 at least, possibly even higher if the weather doesn't get colder soon.

Here's the BBC report.

BBC News - This year 'in top five warmest'

"This year will be one of the top five warmest years globally since records began 150 years ago, according to figures compiled by the Met Office."

So why was this year a washout? well warmer weather leads to more evaporation, leading to more clouds. If the wind patterns are right, this drops more rain on the UK. This year we lucked out, wind patterns dumped all that rain on us.

So don't believe the global warming hoax people, believe the science. This is why "global warming" was changed to "global climate change", not because it was wrong to call it warming, but because summers like this one would make people believe "warming" was wrong even when it was warmer than ever.

*update*

I should point out comment No. 3 by 順利 was removed as it linked to a malware site, not because I can't take criticism.

bit.ly, url shortener Opera Button

Due to request, I have done a bit.ly shortener as well.

Click on the link below, it will add it to your opera custom buttons, then drag the button from that custom button panel to the menu bar you want it on.

bit.ly

URL Shorteners - Opera Buttons

A lot of people use URL shorteners, but they are still a bit clunky to use. Quite a few twitterers and bloggers use.

is.gd URL Shortener

Firefox users gets all sorts of useful add-ons but Opera, although it has the ability, somehow doesn't get the press about extensions.

is.gd has a firefox add-on, so I thought I'd knock up an opera button for the site.

If you are using opera just click the link below to add the button to your set of customised buttons, then drag it to the tool bar you want it to be on, I have stuck it just next to the address bar.

is.gd Opera button

Hope you few, you merry few, you Opera users appreciate this button.

Happy Birthday Doctor

46 today, and you don't look a day over 900

Kite Surfers jump over Worthing Pier

And here was me thinking nothing exciting happens in Worthing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8362671.stm

Time sheets

It's the most hated part of many peoples jobs, filling in that dreaded "crime sheet" every month, but what value do they actually have to a company.

Personally I have never worked for a company which demanded timesheets where the upper management didn't admit (under pressure) that usually they were simply filed and never looked at.

So why are they required? the only reason I can think is mistrust, the company likes to have records as they don't trust their workers. A timesheet can be used against someone simply by piking holes in it and claiming an employee falsified it. Lets face it, when it comes to the end of the month, that's what most people seem to do, make up figures based on half remembered jobs and dates.

I can see limited justification for them if the company services several clients, and bills by the hour, but surely it's down to mangers to keep track of this sort of stuff, let the expensive techie folk do their job rather than bugging them to keep track of what they did for whom and when.

Installling Linux (Mandriva 2009.1)

I must start by saying my hardware is a nightmare for Linux, it uses an SiS chip-set for graphics sound and the network etc. This is notorious for causing problems and the last version of Linux I put on here was a struggle, really a hassle.

Mandriva 2009.1 however, was a dream, I burned the CD the rebooted with it in the drive.

Mandriva booted first time with no problems, and ran fine, if a little slowly, straight off the CD.

Once I was satisfied it had identified everything properly I went for the install option. I mean how great is this (Microsoft take note) I could run the version of linux I was thinking of installing, without making any changes to my computer, to make sure everything works BEFORE doing the installation.

I know this is old news for hardened Linux users but for those thinking of taking the plunge this is a HUGE bonus.

The install took about 30 minutes, then a quick reboot and I had a working, up to date, Linux setup.

I do have to confess I had already prepared an empty partition, the install might have taken a little longer if that had had to be part of the process.

Plugged in a rather old Laser printer I have (Laser-jet 1100, not plug and play) and asked Linux printer manager to go look for it. 2 minutes later it's running.

Then the real test, the HP Desk-jet F2200 all in on printer, this was a faff to install on the old system, and I never got the scanner working.

I plugged this in, up pops a nice easy dialog, I answered a few simple questions and it was all installed, scanning fine and printing perfectly. No need to even find the installation CD or download anything, the printer manager went and found everything I needed by itself.

I remember the horror of the "torch" in windows as windows tried to find the correct drivers on the Internet, has that ever worked for anyone?

My MP3 Player and camera connect just as you'd expect, nice and simple.

Overall I'm very happy with it, looks good, works nice and quick and so far I have not had to go to the command prompt for anything!

Next I have to try my web-cam etc. but that's not here so I will report back some other time.