If today’s Quote of the day is correct.
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
Although with me, it’s more a case of not having enough time to do everything I need to do.
Via bb. If this rumour turns out to be true, then I’m disproportionately excited about this.
It seems that the work of the Open Rights Group (disclaimer, I’m a proud member of the ‘Founding 1000’) and other public interest groups have succeeded in moving the debate on copyright away from the big labels and entertainment industry and back to the benefits of limited copyright term to society.
It looks like the copyright term won’t be extended to 95 years! Yay! That means more music falls into the public domain and the culture of society gets it’s payback.
My support for First Direct is fanatical. They are, by far, the best bank I’ve had (and over the years I’ve had accounts with most). Some treated me badly (Lloyds TSB), some I wouldn’t trust to sit the right way on a toliet seat let alone be my primary bank (Natwest) but First Direct just got it right.
But that last point is under threat. They’ve instigated a £10 (PER MONTH!!!) fee if you don’t pay in £1500 a month, maintain a balance of £1500 or don’t have another product (such as a mortgage) with them. What do you get for your £120 a year. Nothing, apart from the account which would be free if you also had their credit card. Doesn’t sound like great value for money to me.
They claim their 40,000 dormant accounts are costing them money - but a dormant account is placing minimal demands on their infrastructure. No payments passing betwen bank gateways, not many transactions to keep track of, no calls to phone banking. The only cost is computing power to maintain the account (which is cheap cheap cheap) and the cost of posting the statement. Simple, swich them to electronic statements and the cost is minimal.
Not cool, First Direct. Not. Cool.
I changed to FD as they were different, I’m dissapointed to see that they’re not so different after all.
I’m going to get high this new year, literally. I’ll be at 38,000ft in a 747-400 on my way back to Malaysia from the UK. eeek! I hope there isn’t such a thing as the 2007 bug otherwise I may not be as high as I think.
Either way, this got me into a rambling conversation with my friend David in Singapore - could you fly at just the right speed to maintain your position over ‘midnight’ and therefore have a new years party that lasted for 24 hours with it being midnight the whole time?
Maths to the rescue! (complete with working for full credit)
38,000ft in miles is 7.2 miles.
The Earth’s radius is 6367 Km which is 3956.27 miles, for a total of 3963.57 miles.
Basic maths gives us the circumference of a circle is PI d. = 3.14159265 *7927.14 = 24903.844759521
Divide by 24 for miles per hour and you get 1037.660198313375 miles an hour, which, at mach 1.46 is is about 46% faster than my 747’s cruising speed.
So, given my speed of 567mi/hr, what altitude would I need to maintain in order to party for 24hrs?
(567*24)/pi gives a diameter of 4331miles which equates to approx 1790miles below sea level.
Oh well, back to the drawing board OR maybe it’s time to book my flight on a faster plane!
Update: David points out that Concorde would be able to do it.
Update 2: Edwin, another friend and colleague, points out that if I move to a higher lattitude then the distance will be shorter (clearly he’s the brains of the operation) - but that he can’t be bothered to work out what the lattitude will be. So, now I’m going to have to, otherwise I’ll never be able to sleep tonight.
Update 3: It’s about 57 degrees (North, or South). Here’s the logic…
Plane can fly at 567mph. in 24hr I can fly 13608miles (circumference, c), so what’s the radius?
c=2 *Pi * r
So c/2Pi=r
13608/6.2831853=2165.78 miles.
Minus the 7.2 miles for the altitude of the plane = 2158.58 miles.
Solving for A in sin(A)=opp/hyp
sin-1(2158.58/3956.77)=33 degrees from the pole = 57degrees from the equator
Which is basically as north as Aberdeen in the UK or 1260 miles south of Australia.
Cripes!
Update: Sian has SMS’d me to let me know that my logic is flawed - I’m assuming that the plane is at 38,oooft above the earth’s axis - not (as in reality) above the surface. back to the drawing board.
Selected comments from this thread on SlashDot
“Portland, Oregon, non-profit Free Geek, which turns old PCs into Linux boxen, has been robbed of about $4500 worth of hardware. Portlanders are asked to keep an eye out for suspicious sales of Ubuntu laptops.”
“suspicious sales of Ubuntu laptops”
So, ANY sales of Ubuntu laptops?
I was playing in a band and we went on tour. We stopped in Birmingham, Alabama. After we played we were waiting for the follow up bands to finish and someone broke into our van and stole my laptop and someone else’s laptop. They stole 2 of our cell phones too. I figured wtf, I’ll call one of them. The robbers actually answered the phone and after about 30 minutes we convinced them to bring us the laptops back. We met in a dark alley and walked slowly with our hands in the air while on the phones to each other. I held up a couple 20’s with some 1’s and we did the swap. When I booted my laptop, it went into recovery mode as though someone turned it on, saw the linux boot up screen and thought, “wtf is this crap?! Jeez… I can’t sell this… Hmm… the phone is ringing.” and decided to try to get money for the crazy system from the owner.
walked slowly with our hands in the air
Did you then wave them around like you just didn’t care?
When I booted my laptop, it went into recovery mode as though someone turned it on, saw the linux boot up screen and thought, “wtf is this crap?! Jeez… I can’t sell this…Nine out of ten thieves agree, Linux is not ready for prime time.
“Portland, Oregon, non-profit Free Geek, which turns old PCs into Linux boxen
Please stop using this boxen word. There is no such thing is boxen. The plural of box is boxes.
This madness must stop. Anytime somebody says boxen in real life to me gets a punch in the face.
Please stop using this boxen word. There is no such thing is boxen.
Allowing new words to the language embiggens us all. Besides that, it’s a perfectly cromulent word.
Notes: Cromulent
This is excellent news that I’ve been meaning to blonk/blag/blog about for a week now. Barny and Dawny are past the 12 week stage (up to 16 weeks now!) and have announced that they are expecting in April.
I’m told that there’s also a sweepstake on the sex of the baby. Barny thinks it’s a boy, Dawny a girl. The title to this post gives my guess away. Either way, I’m just hoping for no complications, 10 fingers and 10 toes.
I’m not sure what’s happening here, but whatever it is, it looks like it’s attacking the Enterprise!
I own both CDs and an MP3 player. I copied the CDs to the MP3 player so I could listen to them on the move.
My CD, my MP3 player. No third parties involved. Right?
Wrong.
The third party is the rights holder, and I’m in breach of UK copyright law - it has no allowance for private copying (backups, format shifting, keeping a copy in my house, a copy in the car etc etc).
I believe that I should be able to listen to the music that I paid for on any and all of my devices, one of the many reasons I’m one of the Founding Thousand for the Open Rights Group.
Suw Charman, our Exec Director has posted an e-petition on the 10 Downing St. site to try and get the law changed.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to create a new exception to copyright law that gives individuals the right to create a private copy of copyrighted materials for their own personal use, including back-ups, archiving and shifting format.
Join her, us and me by signing the petition.
While Cammerdoodle is on the other side of the world sorting out the guests to Mike and Angel’s new house warming party, I’m stuck here, so can’t make it.
Bugger.
Hope it goes well though.
Edit: FYI Cammerdoodle is the one in the middle.
Is a go.
PS This will only make sense to one person. If it’s not you, deal with it.
Taken from Yoz Grahame
blonk (v.)
To blog without notable creativity, inspiration or merit; covering the same ground trod by countless others in the echo chamber; blogging as an alternative to thinking.
“I was going to write a considered piece about climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, but I’ve just been blonking pictures of my cat.”
I’ve not got a cat anymore (sniff sniff) and I’m less concerned about climate change in sub-Saharan Africa as I am about climate change at the North and South poles, but I am aware that I’ve been doing more blonking than blogging. I’ll attempt to rectify that. Anyone got any topics they want covered?