Had not heard about this, so unsure how rampant the problem is – that said the fix is already in – thanks to the guys at www.yodelay.com
Archive for the ‘annoying’ Category
Biased Reporting of BP Oil Disaster ?
13
Jun
Cards on the table. This post is not about the oil fiasco per se. It is not a defense of BP. It is a question about fair and balanced media coverage. About lynch mob mentality. About bias.
There is no doubt in my mind – or any body else’s for that matter – that the gulf disaster is – well – actually – there are no words – and not for me to add to the commentary here. Nuff said.
I am English. I live in America. BP is a multi-National. And ‘British Petroleum’ (as Mr. Obama keeps calling the company) hasn’t been their name for 12 years. I guess partly because the ‘British’ bit was past its ‘use by date’. (Side point – 39% of the BP business is actually US owned.)
Read the main stream press, listen to the mainstream media all you here is that ‘BP did this’ – ‘BP did that’ -’when will BP pay us’ – ‘What is BP going to do’ ….. all good questions.
BUT I am rather wondering about that ‘noise’.
Last time I looked BP, Transocean and Halliburton (see note 1 at bottom of page on the click through) were all in this together.
That is you have contractors, sub contractors – and the usual collection of outsourced messes that make up today’s world. We know they are all going to blame one another – we also know that the buck stops at BP. One of the reasons we know that is that right at the very beginning Tony Hayward declared ‘mea culpa’. And yes of course – they are. But where is everyone else?
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Posted in annoying, business, management, news, politics, true ?, world
Think About This
09
Jul
Not my original thought – but it made me think.
In any society, the balance of power between individual rights and government control will be determined by the extent to which government succeeds in convincing the population that an individual engaging in a NON criminal act causes harm to others.
Every citizen would agree that any person caught causing harm to others as a result of a criminal act deserves to get their collar felt and to have their actions limited/controlled by government.
So if the politicians can convince you that ANY NON CRIMINAL action (such as, for example, putting your needs for your own life ahead of the needs of others) also causes harm to others, they can demand that you are treated like a criminal and that they should be given power to control non-criminal actions as well as criminal actions.
If they CAN convince you that EVERY action you undertake causes harm to others – they can demand total control over the entire population.
This is the basis of power in our current political system.
Thanks to Perry Offer – good friend and political commentator that you will hear about soon.
I would go further – there are very clear examples of govt abdicating responsibility to their citizens to other governments – no questions asked. (Think of ‘The Bliar’ signing the unilateral terrorist agreement with the US – which now allows the US to reach its arm across the Atlantic to grab them, manacle them and send them to prison – and we do NOTHING (and BTW – these are not terrorists – those guys are still in the UK – and we continue to invite more.) Oh – and the terrorists hiding in the US we can’t get to because the US never signed their side of the treaty !!
On the other hand there are other govts who stand up for their own laws – think of the US / Switzerland UBS case that is brewing.
Not saying ANYTHING about right and wrong – am talking about governments representing their citizens.
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Posted in annoying, law, politics, thoughts.from.the.web
Building a Web Site With iWeb
16
Mar
It was time to do it – my home domain had got into a real mess – so time to rebuild. I am not a programmer, and the site is nothing more than some fun – and a place to put stuff and amalgamate all of the various threads of my online world – so simplicity was the order of the day.
I am also a big fan of Apple – so I thought – why not ?
iWeb – here I come.
I am just about there – and for those that are interested – some 60 or so pages of WIP can be found here.
Here’s the thing though – I went into this knowing that it was never going to be as good as building a site with a real CMS – think Drupal or Joomia – and I didn’t want to do go up the learning curve for something like Dreamweaver – or even Contribute, that I have used in the past – so on the face of it iWeb is just right … no ?
Well – it depends.
Going through the process I documented a few really big annoyances that I think would make iWeb a lot better. If you have something to throw in the fray – please add your comments, including if you know any good workarounds. If this turns into anything substantial – I might just pop down to Cupertino to see if I can get an audience – any votes on my chances, or if they’ll listen ?
Ok – so here goes.
Sub Menus
There is just no easy way to do add a sub menu – so once you get beyond 6 or 7 pages – either your menu starts to wrap around the top – or you have to add in manual links to the extra pages.
Create Once – Use Many
No way to create a piece of content and reuse it many times. Say on a hidden page you could create some copy that through some kind of include – or pointer allows that copy to appear in many different places on the site … kind of like this in a ‘real’ site :
Header and Footers
Footers and Headers should be able to be set and appear same way on every page as default – with option to change page by page – section by section.
SEO
SEO – there really is no allowance for it at all. Now I am not going to get all fussed and fluffed around this – but how hard would it be to include routines to – there is simply no way to readily accommodate good SEO practice – is there ?
Page Naming
Any page has a single name – so what i call it in the iweb navigation is what it is called in the visible navigation – is what it reads in the browser when the site is visited – why not allow the builder to create page names for easier navigation in iweb – have a user friendly name for inclusion in navigation – and a fuller more descriptive name that appears in the browser ?
All of this could be done with page properties
Page Properties
And while we are on that topic – why not also – for each page have the ability to add meta tags for description, keywords and robots ? These could be set up as a default site entry – and then overwritten by the site builder as needed – or not at all.
iWeb Navigation
wouldn’t it be good to have the possibility to folder pages in the iweb nav – much as the photos pages work – but all pages – and while we are at it – did you know that if you wanted to publish (say) ../me/index.htm into two different sub directories on your main site – you can’t. Why ? Because you can’t have two sites in iweb both called me !
Finally – if anyone out there says I am wrong – and I just don’t know what I am doing – please let me know – and point me at the resource that gets around these challenges.
Warren Buffett on the Economy
08
Mar
The synopsys : Warren Buffett on the Economy – Real Time Economics, WSJ
Specifically :
… the lending operation of Clayton Homes, the largest player in the manufactured-home industry, is being threatened by having to compete with funders that have worse credit than Berkshire Hathaway. Firms that are backed by government guarantees — banks with FDIC support, issuers of commercial paper backed by the Fed, and others getting themselves under the government umbrella — have “minimal” money costs, Mr. Buffett says. Highly-rated firms such as AAA-rated Berkshire face record borrowing costs in relation to Treasury rates. At the same time, funds are “abundant” for government-backed borrowers but “scarce” for others. “This unprecedented ’spread’ in the cost of money makes it unprofitable for any lender who doesn’t enjoy government-guaranteed funds to go up against those with a favored status,” he writes. “Government is determining the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’”
Translation
if you are a succesful company – you can no longer afford to compete with the failures – becasue the failures have the governments on their side …
… with thanks to : The WSJ, for the source.
Trust
08
Dec
Why are the authorities – that so blatantly abuse their position of trust and are themselves unlawful (let me know if you want my list) – are so indignant when others take similar actions ?
I was thinking damian green – i am now thinking plane stupid at stanstead.
Whatever happenned about our right to protest ?
i am sorry that people got delayed becasue of these ‘infuruating people’ – but heh – how many times are the tubes and trains delayed by;
1) leaves on the rail – STILL
2) engineering work not finished on time – OVER and OVER again
3) some poor peep who just can’t take it any more – and throw themselves in front of a train
ok – that last one isn’t that often – but arguing that people ” need to take legal and proper actions about their protests through the ‘proper channels’ ” are smoking something that has to be illegal – and definitely won’t be in a pub !
An Open Letter To All The Bento Folks At Filemaker
14
Oct
Dear Bento
What a pity that you aren’t offering a reduced upgrade price to all of us out there that have been using and promoting Bento on your behalf – sending you enhancement requests – helping you debug and generally putting up with not a very good V1 product (good direction – bad execution).
Now – as it begins to take shape – thanks to how many of us (do you know ?) …. we find that version 2 costs the same for V1 owners as if you had just turned up today.
What an excellent thank-you to all the people who have supported you.
Truly – now – think about it – what a great LOST OPPORTUNITY.
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Posted in annoying, software, technology
JEEZ
03
Jun
OK … an extract from the online version of The London News – June 2nd – just after what I would dub the ‘London drink riots’ … I don’t know Paulo – but I wish I did …. he has hit the button
… read on ….
I will add to this – Paulo has prompted me to write something I have been thinking about for a long time now …
Thankyou Paulo.
Thankyou The London EPaper
Twitter / DowningStreet
28
Mar
- and having seen this, Twitter should add a new category … ‘specifically NOT following’
