Open Protest! – Was this Web 2.0 compliant?

It seems that even in the staid world of international standards, protestors are raising their voices.

Protesting against the recent decision by International Standards Organisation (ISO) of Microsoft’s Open Office XML Document (OOXML) standard, protestors have taken issue in the way the voting of the Norway chapter seemed to bend it rules allowing ratification of the OOXML as an ISO ‘standard’.

Is it another example of Microsoft’s influence creep into the neutral ISO World? Make your own mind up, here is the full story.

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The electricity shortage approaches.

As the 2012 Olympics approaches, the whole of the South-East of England  is facing an potential shortage of electricity!

powerlines Large data processing centre owners are already being rationed and are beginning to look outside of the area for locations that can offer better supply of electricity. If you want some more background info, read this.

I wonder if when they turn the lights on for the Olympics opening ceremony are we going to see lights in other parts of the South-East suddenly going off?

Another example of major UK infrastructure being sold off to private enterprise without any thought given to the UK’s future requirements.

From the people that brought you 10 x 10!

I worked on a fascinating project for the Oxford English Dictionary a few years ago. Even before that, words have always fascinated me, I suppose from working on Typesetting production systems over the past 30 years.

So this web site is really interesting to me. Ever wanted to find out what the most used words in the English language are? Click on the image and I’ll guarantee that you’ll spend quite a bit of time on this site.

Click the Image to find out more.

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Ladybird books remembered.

Do you remember these original books? There seemed to one that covered all aspects of life in the 50’s and 60’s. Did reading this one as a child influence me to join the Navy?

Copyright - LadyBird & Nick & Simon RobinsonWhy did I blog about this subject, it seems that nothing is safe from parody today and when I went to my Del.icio.us tags this morning,  I found that I had been logged out and ended up at the home  page.

Copyright - LadyBird & Nick & Simon Robinson Always interested to see what other people are tagging I discovered this link to spoof version of the traditional Ladybird Policemen book. When you get to that page, don’t suddenly scroll to the end of the web page.

Read through the whole book (it’s only 10 pages) before you do, its very funny and then there are some surprises at the end. Made me laugh away.

Where is there more to read about the  traditional books that we all loved to read, look here and here, but sadly I could not find one for WAGS, Page3 girls or Hoddie wearer. Maybe they’ll get published next year!

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Hat of the rack!

Been away from blogging for quite a while, but running through stuff that I had set aside for future blogging was this interesting post from the Art of Manliness!

It asks as question about why so few men today wear hats? Of course volumes have been written about that teenage scourge, the Hoodie! But what about real hats?

flatcap My Uncle Sidney had three hats that I remember, the  traditional Flat cap for every day use, he ran a country village garage from the 1930’s till the end of the 70’s and used to wear one for his general work around the garage and a cleaner one for when he used to go to see his suppliers in Derby and Nottingham.

bowler_hat He also had a nice bowler, which always came out for weddings & funerals, he ran a local taxi/hire service with his Austin Cambridge  and a Wolseley 65,  he was also used to wear it to his local monthly council meetings.

trilby My father-in-law was a long time Trilby wearer, my Grandfather was another Flat Cap wearer. So what has happened to modern man and their hats?.

I must admit (must I?) that I had to wear a hat whilst in the Royal Navy, but after leaving the service I would say that apart from a golf cap – too keep the sun and rain off the eyes and glasses, I’ve never had the inkling to wear a cap on a daily basis much like the rest of UK men.

So take a look at this article and decide if it really is time for the ‘man hat’ to make a comeback.

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Just how much is a litre of fuel in Europe?

Here’s some information from AA RoadWatch, Ireland. This list is for February, visit their site for updated figures for May.

 

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EURO to GBP 1.253 Euro/UK Price Comparison (Source – AA Roadwatch.ie)
Country
Feb. 2008
Currency Unleaded Diesel Unleaded in Euro Unleaded in GBP Diesel in Euro Diesel in GBP
Austria Euro 1.169 £0.93 1.143 £0.91
Belgium Euro 1.44 £1.15 1.151 £0.92
Finland Euro 1.406 £1.12 1.202 £0.96
Germany Euro 1.368 £1.09 1.257 £1.00
Greece Euro 1.077 £0.86 1.089 £0.87
Netherlands Euro 1.535 £1.23 1.223 £0.98
Italy Euro 1.37 £1.09 1.344 £1.07
Luxembourg Euro 1.154 £0.92 1.016 £0.81
Spain Euro 1.083 £0.86 1.039 £0.83
France Euro 1.323 £1.06 1.176 £0.94
Ireland Euro 1.169 £0.93 1.175 £0.94
Portugal Euro 1.369 £1.09 1.174 £0.94
Slovenia Euro 1.022 £0.82 1.03 £0.82
Sweden Swedish Krona 12.49 12.64 1.345 £1.07 1.361 £1.09
Estonia Kroons 15.2 16.6 0.971 £0.77 1.061 £0.85
Latvia Lats 0.687 0.704 0.979 £0.78 1.004 £0.80
Lithuania Litas 3.53 3.6 1.022 £0.82 1.043 £0.83
Slovakia Koroan 38.94 40.85 1.183 £0.94 1.241 £0.99
Switzerland Swiss Franc 1.74 1.89 1.084 £0.87 1.178 £0.94
GB Sterling 1.039 1.091 1.388 £1.11 1.457 £1.16
USA US Dollars 0.7921 0.87 0.538 £0.43 0.591 £0.47
Northern Ireland Pound Sterling 1.05 1.099 1.395 £1.11 1.46 £1.17
Norway Norwegian Krone 12.25 11.94 1.548 £1.24 1.509 £1.20
Poland Zloty 4.28 3.99 1.173 £0.94 1.094 £0.87
Hungary Forint 293 297 1.195 £0.95 1.211 £0.97
Czech Republic Czech Koruna 30.3 30.6 1.137 £0.91 1.148 £0.92
Denmark Danish Krone 10.54 9.82 1.414 £1.13 1.318 £1.05

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BA flight deck crew hailed as heroes again

Quite rightly the flight deck crew of the British Airways flight that crash landed at London’s Heathrow airport in January have been hailed as heroes again.

Copyright - BBC However I am very surprised that there is still no public announcement on what the reason for the crash was – it has been nearly six months after all.

It seems that a final report will be released after a more extensive enquiry has been completed.

If the past five months has not been led by an extensive enquiry, then I wonder what the enquiry team have been doing?

It does not send out a very good indication of confidence in the aircraft (a Boeing 777) if the enquiry team are still not able to at least give some indications as to what the cause of the crash was.

Perhaps there is some information that the investigators know about, but don’t want the UK public to know about.

Perhaps we’ll never know what caused this crash. It certainly does not give me full confidence about the safety of the 777 or BA’s ability to fly it.

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April 2008 – My ISP figures

BT-ISP-Figs_April2008 Seems that I’ve had a steady month connected to the Internet with an average of 3.82 Mb download and 385Kb upload.

Still no where near the advertised up to 8Mb, but much better than many broadband users across the UK.

Lets hope with the new investment in the BT infrastructure we can see better performance figure in May.

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Crimes on the Air Side!

I am again staggered!

For the past few years this Labour Government has insisted on:

  • Monitoring every moment of mine through the use of CCTV throughout the UK.

  • Tracking my movements across the UK by monitoring my cars registration number plate and supplying that information (without my consent) to overseas intelligent agencies.

  • Stopping me from taking legitimate photographs at Paddington station and Trafalgar Square in the name of security.

  • Loosing my personal data through various ‘cock-ups’ of lost discs, records etc.

But thank goodness they are able to accurately track down every potential terrorist and stop them from causing further atrocities here in the UK. That is of course, unless you have a secure job working air-side at the UK’s airports!

Well done Newsnight for discovering yet another Government farce.  As well as capping it all by seeing the unbelievable and incompetent responses from Jim Fitzpatrick – another Labour Scot running the UK – who only seemed to be competent  in digging an ever deepening hole!

Still, at least we know we are safe in hands of Stephen Boys Smith, I’m sure his report is going to make us all feel more secure!

What a complete an utter disgrace this government is!

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