Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Marks & Spencer's Profits are Down....So....
So Marks and Spencers profits are down. Don't feel sorry for them, they choose to set their stall out with their high prices and quality goods. If they want to maintain their market share they are going to have to know their customer better than they already do.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Racism in the Metropolitan Police
Quite a sensitive posting here, but I hope the few of you who do read this can understand the context I wrote this in. Firstly Im not a racist, in the same way everyone else isnt. I also have a very dark sense of humour and it is in the this vein that I write this.
The Metropolitan Police Force in London, UK has come under a lot of fire of late because of racism in the force. One particular senior chief commissioner was over looked for promotion on what he claims is at least 3 times. Now I sympathise with anyone being overlooked in any form of promotion, and when this has happened to me I have simply left the company and gone elsewhere.
This particular police commissioner was from an ethnic minority. He, I sincerely hope so, was employed on his merits not because the Metropolitan Police had ethnic quotas to fill to keep the the Equalities Boards happy.
But because of this problem surely then that highlights (a) there is racism in the police force as there are in all walks of life (b) that meeting ethnic minority quotas doesnt actually work, that racial equality in the police force isnt working, so it should be abandoned for something that did/does.
lawbag (83.104.27.178)
evilref (86.43.69.175)
The Metropolitan Police Force in London, UK has come under a lot of fire of late because of racism in the force. One particular senior chief commissioner was over looked for promotion on what he claims is at least 3 times. Now I sympathise with anyone being overlooked in any form of promotion, and when this has happened to me I have simply left the company and gone elsewhere.
This particular police commissioner was from an ethnic minority. He, I sincerely hope so, was employed on his merits not because the Metropolitan Police had ethnic quotas to fill to keep the the Equalities Boards happy.
But because of this problem surely then that highlights (a) there is racism in the police force as there are in all walks of life (b) that meeting ethnic minority quotas doesnt actually work, that racial equality in the police force isnt working, so it should be abandoned for something that did/does.
lawbag (83.104.27.178)
11th Sep, 2008 15:59 (local)
These quotas only seem to apply in the public sector, which seems to suggest that in the business world and private sectors, ethnic minorities are either subject to extreme levels of racism, or that in the capitalist market economy, white-skinned employees do much better than their counterparts.
Going back to the police force analogy, the reasoning behind having black police officers policing the black community was that they understood the community and would relate to victims and deter criminals. Well, if London is any example to go by, it doesnt work, didnt work, and never will work. And if doesnt work in the police force, it wont work in other areas of industry.
Positive Discrimination is a win-win situation for its intended targets, because if you dont get the job, you can enable the right to be given the job, and if you do get the job, then you win again.
Going back to the police force analogy, the reasoning behind having black police officers policing the black community was that they understood the community and would relate to victims and deter criminals. Well, if London is any example to go by, it doesnt work, didnt work, and never will work. And if doesnt work in the police force, it wont work in other areas of industry.
Positive Discrimination is a win-win situation for its intended targets, because if you dont get the job, you can enable the right to be given the job, and if you do get the job, then you win again.
evilref (86.43.69.175)
11th Sep, 2008 16:09 (local)
It's not the reasoning I would use. The reasoning I would use is that policing (and government in general) can only really function with the consent of the policed (governed).
That is the reason why it is referred to as "a jury of your peers". Government is us. Or should be, anyway.
If whole communities are not capable or not prepared to be involved in law enforcement, that suggests a much deeper and more fundamental breakdown than mere "positive discrimination". It suggests whole communities who have no respect for or participation in the legal system.
I'm not saying that isn't happening in the UK -- I rather suspect it is, although that discussion is probably far more controversial.
That is the reason why it is referred to as "a jury of your peers". Government is us. Or should be, anyway.
If whole communities are not capable or not prepared to be involved in law enforcement, that suggests a much deeper and more fundamental breakdown than mere "positive discrimination". It suggests whole communities who have no respect for or participation in the legal system.
I'm not saying that isn't happening in the UK -- I rather suspect it is, although that discussion is probably far more controversial.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Ebay Summer Free-For-All
So summer is here, and don't I know it in an office without air conditioning, so that means everyone is on holiday and not spending money on Ebay.
So my summer Ebay tip is now is the time to buy stuff, as most of your competition (in terms of bidders) are on holiday or are saving for the holiday or broke after the holiday, and I'm sure you will easily get a very cheap bargain.
As for me, I've stopped listing items until September, as that will give the holiday go'ers a chance to have earnt some money to waste on my stuff.
So my summer Ebay tip is now is the time to buy stuff, as most of your competition (in terms of bidders) are on holiday or are saving for the holiday or broke after the holiday, and I'm sure you will easily get a very cheap bargain.
As for me, I've stopped listing items until September, as that will give the holiday go'ers a chance to have earnt some money to waste on my stuff.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Health Update
Nothing to worry about, its not a hernia, its a very naughty boy (i.e. an over reacting lymph gland in response to fighting an infection I didnt know I had).
Friday, 18 July 2008
Updates and Stuff
The usual summer chaos is ensuring our weekly Sunday game is being interrupted, but thats okay as we have a very strong group now who can handle these breaks until we re-group in full strength in September onwards.
Got a doctor's appointment on Monday with a suspected hernia complaint. I wont go into too many details until I know more facts, but stress at home (good stress not bad stress), and lots of stress over the last 3-4 years really. I have found myself working for companies in severe financial difficulty, with my main task being guiding them through the dark years to come out the other side relatively solvent. Maybe this hernia is an early warning sign to slow down, or find a more pedestrian job. I would safely say 39 isnt too young to be suffering from this complaint.
Got a doctor's appointment on Monday with a suspected hernia complaint. I wont go into too many details until I know more facts, but stress at home (good stress not bad stress), and lots of stress over the last 3-4 years really. I have found myself working for companies in severe financial difficulty, with my main task being guiding them through the dark years to come out the other side relatively solvent. Maybe this hernia is an early warning sign to slow down, or find a more pedestrian job. I would safely say 39 isnt too young to be suffering from this complaint.
Updates and Stuff
The usual summer chaos is ensuring our weekly Sunday game is being interrupted, but thats okay as we have a very strong group now who can handle these breaks until we re-group in full strength in September onwards.
Got a doctor's appointment on Monday with a suspected hernia complaint. I wont go into too many details until I know more facts, but stress at home (good stress not bad stress), and lots of stress over the last 3-4 years really. I have found myself working for companies in severe financial difficulty, with my main task being guiding them through the dark years to come out the other side relatively solvent. Maybe this hernia is an early warning sign to slow down, or find a more pedestrian job. I would safely say 39 isnt too young to be suffering from this complaint.
Got a doctor's appointment on Monday with a suspected hernia complaint. I wont go into too many details until I know more facts, but stress at home (good stress not bad stress), and lots of stress over the last 3-4 years really. I have found myself working for companies in severe financial difficulty, with my main task being guiding them through the dark years to come out the other side relatively solvent. Maybe this hernia is an early warning sign to slow down, or find a more pedestrian job. I would safely say 39 isnt too young to be suffering from this complaint.
Friday, 11 July 2008
Canon Printer Watch pt2
Ive given it a lot of thought, and there really isnt another printer that I really want other than a Canon.
So, I will bite the bullet and buy a new set of print heads at around £ 50.
I know I could buy a new printer for that, but sneaking a new printer under the wife's radar right now would prove to be impossible.
So, I will bite the bullet and buy a new set of print heads at around £ 50.
I know I could buy a new printer for that, but sneaking a new printer under the wife's radar right now would prove to be impossible.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Short and tragic love affair with my Canon printer is finally over...
I am a fan of Canon products, already owning one of their cameras, scanner and 2xprinters.
But finally I have lost my patience with my Canon Pixma iP4000 printer.
Its the usual tale of incurable print heads and streaky lines, and Ive searched online for guides and help, none of which have actually helped.
So the damn thing is going to end up on Ebay or free to a good home.
The machine is just over 2 years old, its just on the black it loves to leave streaks, no matter what I do with the print heads or printer cartridges, official Canon print inks or 3rd party print inks.
Yes its going to be replaced, but more than likely with an Epson, as Ive read too many complaints about Canon printers having a reputation for this kind of print head malady.
But finally I have lost my patience with my Canon Pixma iP4000 printer.
Its the usual tale of incurable print heads and streaky lines, and Ive searched online for guides and help, none of which have actually helped.
So the damn thing is going to end up on Ebay or free to a good home.
The machine is just over 2 years old, its just on the black it loves to leave streaks, no matter what I do with the print heads or printer cartridges, official Canon print inks or 3rd party print inks.
Yes its going to be replaced, but more than likely with an Epson, as Ive read too many complaints about Canon printers having a reputation for this kind of print head malady.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Microsoft (Hotmail) Hates iPhone
Ive inherited my wife's iPhone as its too techy and clunky for her to use, set up all my emails and contacts and so far its working a dream.
BUT, thanks to some skullduggery or what not, Hotmail doesnt work with the iPhone, either by accident, but more likely design.
There are hacks and dodgy programs which get around this problem, but I think at this rate I might find myself back with Yahoo - which Im not happy about. Yahoo works fine with the iPhone.
BUT, thanks to some skullduggery or what not, Hotmail doesnt work with the iPhone, either by accident, but more likely design.
There are hacks and dodgy programs which get around this problem, but I think at this rate I might find myself back with Yahoo - which Im not happy about. Yahoo works fine with the iPhone.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Firefox 3.0 Portable Upgrade
Lasted about 30 minutes on my Flash Drive before I removed it and went back to version 2.0.
Too slow, too clunky and waits forever to perform screen updates.
Im a real whore for opening multiple tabs and browsing at the same time, and opening more than 1 tab causes FF to grind to a halt.
It might be my set-up, but for now Ill stick with 2.0.
evilref (86.43.69.175)
Too slow, too clunky and waits forever to perform screen updates.
Im a real whore for opening multiple tabs and browsing at the same time, and opening more than 1 tab causes FF to grind to a halt.
It might be my set-up, but for now Ill stick with 2.0.
evilref (86.43.69.175)
23rd Jun, 2008 13:54 (local)
The build I have on my (64b Fedora Core 8) work PC works fine.
It might be your setup. Or it might be mine.
It might be your setup. Or it might be mine.
Saturday, 14 June 2008
I blogged this a while back and now it kinda came true
Friday, 6 June 2008
Been Away Too Long
Thames Water are digging up our road to install new pipes = no internet as they have destroyed the phone lines in our street. Coupled with a brand new super efficient and deadly firewall at work has meant that not only have I not been on the internet, but totally unable to visit forums or get involved with anything.
So apologies to everyone if you have been expecting replies and whatnot.
It was all up and running at home this morning, and my wife informs me that I have nearly 200 unopened emails.
Bang goes my weekend.
So apologies to everyone if you have been expecting replies and whatnot.
It was all up and running at home this morning, and my wife informs me that I have nearly 200 unopened emails.
Bang goes my weekend.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Why People Download Music, Movies etc...
"People didn't stop buying albums because they were philosophically opposed to how the rock business operated, and they didn't stop buying albums because the Internet is changing the relationship between capitalism and art. People stopped buying albums because they wanted the fucking money. It's complicated, but it's not."
Friday, 28 March 2008
Yahoo Email Account Deactivated
Im a little bit pissed off, but apparently there is nothing that can be done if you look at the comments from hundreds of other Yahoo "customers".
You see, according to the Yahoo TOS they can deactivate your account for any reason, and then not actually give you a reason why they have cancelled your account. Ironically it was on a Yahoo search that I found this out, along with many other people's sorry tales of woe. No matter how important the email or trivial the reason Yahoo can cancel the account. This means you lose your contacts, email addresses, stored emails, photos and messenger details all in one fell swoop.
Ive never fully trusted either Microsoft (Hotmail) Yahoo or Google to look after my entire life by keeping all of important documents on their "virtual" storage drives. In fact I have spread them around several different services.
I mainly used the Yahoo account for password verification and also throw-away emails that I wasnt bothered about, but still there were some important (and some irreplacable) passwords and usernames that have long been lost, including a Paypal account.
I wont be getting any of the emails back, not any of the stored information, but it is a good warning to me in the future to never rely on a corporate body to look after my interests when it appears there is no financial benefit to them!
Microsoft with their Live Hotmail brand are trying to encourage me to ditch my USB Flash Drive in favour of their new Skydrive service. But on a whim they could cancel it with no comeback whatsoever. So despite the threat of losing it, getting it stolen or it failing, I think I'll be keeping it thank you. Im also in the slow progress of migrating some of the email contacts to Hotmail. As for Yahoo Messenger and the contacts, hmm well I can live without them, and those who know me will know my Hotmail email address anyhow.
So a little warning, do not rely on any 3rd party to look after all of your personal and vital data.
So this is what I use;
2x IMAP Email accounts on 2 domains I own - thereby no one can steal my email addresses or take it away from me
2x Hotmail Accounts - spam and regular forum passwords
1x Backup Googlemail account
www.zoho.com - online Word documents for writing random nonsense
omnidrive.com - multi GB storage of large PDFs I want to share
Im sure there are others, but there you go, these are the main ones.
Everything else, excel spreadsheets, Orchid main book, photos and portable programs exists on my pendrive.
evilref (159.134.57.27)
You see, according to the Yahoo TOS they can deactivate your account for any reason, and then not actually give you a reason why they have cancelled your account. Ironically it was on a Yahoo search that I found this out, along with many other people's sorry tales of woe. No matter how important the email or trivial the reason Yahoo can cancel the account. This means you lose your contacts, email addresses, stored emails, photos and messenger details all in one fell swoop.
Ive never fully trusted either Microsoft (Hotmail) Yahoo or Google to look after my entire life by keeping all of important documents on their "virtual" storage drives. In fact I have spread them around several different services.
I mainly used the Yahoo account for password verification and also throw-away emails that I wasnt bothered about, but still there were some important (and some irreplacable) passwords and usernames that have long been lost, including a Paypal account.
I wont be getting any of the emails back, not any of the stored information, but it is a good warning to me in the future to never rely on a corporate body to look after my interests when it appears there is no financial benefit to them!
Microsoft with their Live Hotmail brand are trying to encourage me to ditch my USB Flash Drive in favour of their new Skydrive service. But on a whim they could cancel it with no comeback whatsoever. So despite the threat of losing it, getting it stolen or it failing, I think I'll be keeping it thank you. Im also in the slow progress of migrating some of the email contacts to Hotmail. As for Yahoo Messenger and the contacts, hmm well I can live without them, and those who know me will know my Hotmail email address anyhow.
So a little warning, do not rely on any 3rd party to look after all of your personal and vital data.
So this is what I use;
2x IMAP Email accounts on 2 domains I own - thereby no one can steal my email addresses or take it away from me
2x Hotmail Accounts - spam and regular forum passwords
1x Backup Googlemail account
www.zoho.com - online Word documents for writing random nonsense
omnidrive.com - multi GB storage of large PDFs I want to share
Im sure there are others, but there you go, these are the main ones.
Everything else, excel spreadsheets, Orchid main book, photos and portable programs exists on my pendrive.
evilref (159.134.57.27)
29th Mar, 2008 09:57 (local)
...do not rely on any 3rd party to look after all of your personal and vital data...
Agreed. But:-
...excel spreadsheets, Orchid main book, photos and portable programs exists on my pendrive...
Excel is a Microsoft product, and if they decide to no longer support it (or suddenly make the latest version unusable because they've decided the "look-and-feel" needs jazzing up) then your data will only be available for as long as your software is supported.
If you value your data, migrate to open-source software products. The German government has.
Agreed. But:-
...excel spreadsheets, Orchid main book, photos and portable programs exists on my pendrive...
Excel is a Microsoft product, and if they decide to no longer support it (or suddenly make the latest version unusable because they've decided the "look-and-feel" needs jazzing up) then your data will only be available for as long as your software is supported.
If you value your data, migrate to open-source software products. The German government has.
Friday, 14 March 2008
NAS Experiment Failed
The NAS experiment failed, due to the machine I was using would detect a 2nd hard drive. This wasnt essential, but as I wanted to make sure the software controlled RAID 0 & 1 worked it made the attempt pointless in my eyes.
Friday, 7 March 2008
Building my very Own Network Server using NAS
I have been toying with the idea for some month now of building a PC just dedicated to being a network access storage. FreeNAS is a free program which is OS independent which turns any computer into a dedicated network storage device. The software allows for RAID which 2 years ago meant nothing to me, but has not only become very interesting, but is now a feature of most modern PC Motherboards.
I have access to several old PCs that I shall strip down this weekend and get it working.
If you are interested in giving it a shot yourself, here is the link;
FreeNAS
I have access to several old PCs that I shall strip down this weekend and get it working.
If you are interested in giving it a shot yourself, here is the link;
FreeNAS
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
I suspect that police forces might be one of the few exceptions: if the public don't perceive the police as being people like them, members of their community, then it makes the "us and them" situation far worse.
Beyond that, I'm not sure I can offer a solution. I'm not even certain that this effect is significant, given the growing alienation between police and policed in the UK.