Author: iandick

Blogging Bollocks

Interesting week with the NHS. Firstly the Republicans in America start spinning stories that the Brits hate the NHS. British people are shown in an advert paid for by a right wing group slagging off the NHS. Later the people who took part claimed they were duped into taking part and they are very annoyed at how they were portrayed. Worse, relatively unknown Euro MP Daniel Hannan has been spreading nonsense on right wing American news programmes about how bad the NHS is. This video tell’s the story so far.

Of course some of Hannan’s quote’s in isolation sound far worse than his interview as a whole but the fact that he chooses to peddle his thoughts on Fox etc in America devalues him in many people’s eyes. His blog claims he has spoken about NHS misgivings for 10 months now in the UK and you should go and buy his book to read what he says. He handily gives you an Amazon link too. Nothing like a politician making a bit on the side.

Anyway, of more interest was the backlash that kicked off on Twitter. Thousands of people tweeted with the hashtag #welovethenhs and a real show of force from NHS loving twitter users forced the NHS into the headlines. Gordon and Sarah Brown tweeted, David Cameron panicked and distanced himself from Hannan and Labour made the most out of the situation. Obviously this couldn’t stand so in waded the right wing bloggers, particularly Guido Fawkes. He blogged that this wasn’t a viral storm and then quoted some figures comparing the hashtag usage against the numbers signing up to the e-petition calling for Brown to resign. His Tory loving commenters lapped this up, quoting it on other blogs and tweeting it to all who wanted to listen. What a load of bollocks.

The e-petition has been running for over 10 months. In April this year, over six months after launching, it had reached 30,000 signatures. In four days, the Twitter hashtag has been used by 16,000 users. So which is the most popular? The e-petition has had roughly 230 sign up’s per day. The hashtag – 4000 tweets per day.
*Update* – looks like Sky news is wrong and the e-petition started up in April 09, running for six months. Thanks to Kalvis Jansons who started the petition for clearing that up. I guess that makes around 500 sign up’s per day.

Hold on you may say, the Twitter hashtag system is abused by spammers and advertisers posting up rubbish but using the popular hashtags. True, so those numbers are inflated. The numbers on the e-petition though are greatly inflated too. Scrolling through the latest 500 sign-ups on the e-petition website shows lot’s of made up names and dubious celebrity sign up’s. Some may be true but I don’t really believe David Miliband MP has been one of those to sign up. If it really was him he would have signed up a long time ago, not just in the last 500.

I’m all for healthy debate but I really despair when people can’t see sites like Guido Fawkes as right wing attack sites. Off course, he peddles it as an honest and fair attempt to expose those in parliament but look through his posts and in particular the venom that can be found throughout the comments (he also has a nice habit of blocking anyone who is anti him or anti Conservative) and then make up your mind. And next time, before you start to tweet round comments and stat’s, have a little think first.

Not Quite To Plan

So my last post was just under two weeks ago from a hotel room in Bath. Talking up the course, plan’s for the weekend, more hill climbing. Blah, blah, blah. All that was thrown out the window though a couple of hours later. I woke up with really bad stomach cramps. A couple of minutes later I was sick. The rest of the night was spent in the toilet with the worst food poisoning I’ve ever had.

I blame the curry I had just a few short hours before. I’ve no proof and the meal at the time was good but such a violent reaction doesn’t scream viral to me. So I’ll be avoiding the Rajpoot in Bath in future – there service left a bit to be desired as well. This meant I couldn’t attend the second day of the course and I headed home earlier than expected. I still had a 5 hour wait at Bristol airport and i do apologize for anyone sitting close by that thought I had swine flu or some other nasty disease – I must have looked a mess. The five hours combined with ‘The Sickness’ did mean I got to see a variety of toilets at Bristol airport. Overall, not too bad and kept fairly clean although I found it odd that only one had an airblade – a trial perhaps?

That weekend went from bad to worse. No appetite, forcing myself to eat toast which didn’t stay down well and also a cough and cold. I felt pretty bad and seeing as I had the symptoms I got in touch with NHS24 to double check on swine flu. After a few hours I was told to self medicate as it wasn’t likely to be swine flu and sure enough, within a couple of days I was better again. Still, missed out on a great hill walk which we’ll need to reschedule but the food poisoning was great for the weight loss.

Roll on a week and I’m now on holiday. I’ve got lot’s to do and the weather hasn’t helped so far but there’s not much you can do about that, no matter what the MET office say. Got off to a good (but expensive) start as I’ve ordered a new pair of glasses. Hate choosing glasses but I needed a new pair – hopefully I don’t have issues with them when I get them next week. Last night though was a bit of a pain – one of the neighbours further down the street clipped my car as he was leaving. A scrape and a damaged wing mirror. Annoyingly he drove off without saying anything after he checked out his car but a neighbour across the road saw it, I heard it and saw him checking his car out and after speaking to his dad he admitted it and they’ll pay for repairs. It’s just the hassle now of getting it repaired. Seemingly he’ll be sent round to apologise later today which will be fun. Hey, maybe he reads the blog – own up to your fucking mistakes next time and it save’s a whole load of hassle.

Anyway, off to the bank and then it’s back to some books – Objective C is getting quite interesting.

New Skills

Long time no blog. Seems to be the way at the moment. Between DigitalOutbox and Twitter I’m kind off all blogged out. The podcast is going OK. It’s been good getting to grips with it and trying something new. We aren’t seeing massive downloads which is nothing we didn’t expect but we are seeing small increases each week which is nice. Where will it go – we still don’t know but hopefully we’ll still enjoy the journey.

I’m also on the first part of a training course at the moment – ASP .Net but more importantly, SharePoint. Interesting to learn and see things from the MS side of the fence. Visual Studio has come on a long way since I last used it (many years ago) so who knows how much we’ll be using it over the next few months – always good to learn something new though.

The course is down in Bath which looks to be very nice but the weather’s been a bit pooh. I’m back down in August so hopefully it’ll be a bit nicer as I’d like to have a stroll around. What isn’t nice is the flights at this time of year. Easyjet can’t keep their services on time which meant a really late night last night. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow night at Bristol as the queue’s at security have been shit all week. What’s really annoying is the queue is massive and at the same time they are announcing that you can pay to skip the queue. Dirty sneaky bastards. Really winds me up every time.

However once the flight is out of the way I’m out hill walking again, this time up in Perth – Schiehallion . Hopefully the weather will be good as by all accounts the views are stunning – looking showery and windy at the moment. Hey ho. I’ll be knackered though – late back Friday, up early for walk on Saturday. After that I’ve a week of work then I’m off for two weeks. Chance to relax a bit and catch up on a few jobs that need doing around the house. Might even unplug for a bit. Although one thing I really want to get my teeth into is some iPhone programming. Tried and failed so far this year. pathetic.

Anyway. That’s enough for now. Just watching some Big Brother (bored in hotel room). It’s unbelievably bad. Thank goodness I’ve not been watching much this year. One more thing – avoid Worms on the iPhone. Terrible controls. Touch doesn’t work for everything.

Ben Lomond

My latest walk was last weekend and was up probably the most popular Munro in Scotland – Ben Lomond. With it’s proximity to Glasgow and a path all the way to the top it’s easy to see why so many people climb it. Unfortunately the weather last Sunday meant that the view’s all the way up, including at the top, were very poor.

Jim and Danny

The photo above show’s what a grey driech day it was. Ugghhh. Worse the little blacks dot’s you can see in the photo’s. Midges. The little bastards loved me and I ended up with around 100 midge bites. I’ve spent the last week trying not to scratch them as they are itchy as hell. I’ve been told to eat plenty of garlic before my next walk as that seemingly act’s as a deterrent. Time will tell although I’d appreciate any advice if someone know’s better!

The other issue with Lomond was just how busy the route was. We took the tourist path to the top and there were just too many scallies for our liking. You never felt you were in the great outdoors. After escaping the summit and grabbing some lunch away from midge hell we took the trickier route back down and we were rewarded with a far more interesting, trickier route which was quieter too – woo hoo. Even better, the clouds lifted slightly meaning we did get a couple of nicer pic’s.

Danny and Loch Lomond

I loved the walk down and next time I do Lomond I’ll be taking this route up and down as it really made the day for me. One other lesson was I need to drink more – I ended up with a migraine after the walk and feeling pretty dehydrated – not smart at all and something I’ll need to be careful with next time. Lot’s more liquid before and during the walk are required especially in the hotter weather.

Ben Lomond Runkeeper

This was the first walk with the iPhone 3GS and Runkeeper. Never let me down once and the battery life, I think, is better or the 3GS than the 3G but not by much. The full Flickr set is available here. Looking forward to the next walk already – here’s hoping for better weather.

What’s Occurring?

Quick updates….

  • Picked up an iPhone 3GS on Friday. Expensive but fast and I really like the new camera. I’ll put my thoughts down later in the week not here though but on DigitalOutbox.
  • Speaking of DigitalOutbox, we put up Episode 2 yesterday. Tried to keep it shorter this time. An iPhone special will be up mid-week. Me and Shak are actually enjoying doing it (so far) and we’ve got some idea’s on what we want to do next but we need to walk before we run. We also had a nice surprise seeing our podcast in the iTunes chart. No idea how it’s calculated or what it’s mean but it was a nice ego boost.
  • Another hill walk today. Ben Lomond – weather was a bit sucky but worse was the migraine once I got back. Yuck. Feeling better but dulled much like the clouds.
  • Wimbledon tomorrow. Looking forward to it and also seeing Andy Murray – just how far can he go? Not in the tennis but in the Andy Murrayometer. You couldn’t make this shit up.
  • While in the Apple store on Friday I got to play with the new Macbook pro’s. Gorgeous design. Current plan is to sell my Macbook Pro and iMac and replace with a new Macbook pro and a Mac Mini to act as a media server/always on machine. Need funds for that though. Help.
  • Starting to use FriendFeed a bit more. Impressive site but can be a bt overwhelming at times following ‘noisy’ posts.

With that I’ll end. Getting tired and it’s a school night. Later.

DigitalOutbox

I’ve been fairly quiet on the blog recently and for a change it’s not work or gaming taking up my time – it’s a new hobby. I’ve been cooking up something with Shakeel for a few weeks now and finally we got it launched this week. DigitalOutbox.

DigitalOutbox is a weekly podcast where myself, Shakeel and some weekly guests (eventually!) will discuss computing, gadgets and gaming. A mixture of news and topic discussion with a bit of humour thrown in while keeping it relevant to the UK. Our first episode is now out and available from iTunes or the website feed.

Over the coming weeks and months we want to expand into screencast and video download’s (and if you think I don’t have the face for video, wait until you hear the voice) but that is more dependant on time and also our own skills. This is all very new for us and is certainly out of our comfort zone but it’s something we’ve wanted to do for quite a while so it’s good to see it finally up and running. We’ll also be blogging our more tech related posts on DigitalOutbox rather than our personal blogs. Hopefully if you follow this site and/or the RSS feed you’ll want to do the same for DigitalOutbox. If you want to keep up to date on our goings on then follow us on Twitter.

We have a lot to learn and our first few attempts have been quite ropey but hopefully with time we’ll improve and build up quite a nice podcast series. I’d love to hear any comments, suggestions or feedback either on iand.net or the DigitalOutbox website. Wish us luck!

Keeping Busy

What a glorious weekend. Friday past was another work trip down to Roodlea. All week the forecast was for a warm day but it still came as a really nice surprise when it actually turned out to be true. It was great weather and another thoroughly enjoyable day.

Dream Team

I’m glad I put on some sun cream though – I expect a few red faces at work tomorrow and that’s not form the quality of golf on show. The rest of the weekend has been really busy. Lot’s of gardening – grass cutting, hedge cutting, weeding, planting etc etc. All worth it as it’s looking pretty tidy even if I do say so myself. I’ll never make a gardener but at least it’s looking presentable.

I’ve also had a lot to do in setting up a new project. Can’t say too much more at the moment. Well, can’t is the wrong word. I don’t want to say too much more at the moment but all will hopefully be revealed soon enough. Can’t promise it will be good but it will at least be….interesting. Still a lot to-do to get it off the ground but made a lot of progress over the weekend.

One thing not going so well is my broadband connection and/or router. Warm resetting every day now. Complete pain in the tits – must get on to O2 tomorrow and get it looked at. Doesn’t matter what broadband firm or technology I use – after 6 months to a year I always run into some sort of trouble. Frustrating.

Anyway, that’s for tomorrow. Hope you had a good weekend too. What a difference a bit of sun makes.

Time for Change?

Watched Question Time tonight – really good with the politicians on the rack again but with the old party politics back in play. However some really interesting points tonight.

  • Recognition of the anger around the country at the MP’s expense row.
  • Acceptance that criminal proceedings should take place – deliberate fraud has occurred.
  • Each party has to clean up it’s act.
  • Martin Bell – each party faces a test which it will pass or fail – can it clean up it’s MP’s and not just the old guard and back benchers but also take action against cabinet and shadow cabinet members? Labour is messing this up right now and as the party in power should be doing a lot more than it is.
  • A general election now would elect a very different parliament.
  • Is it time for electoral reform?
  • Will celebrity MP’s become more common?

The part that was really interesting was around reform of parliament and election of independents. The panel was split between the need of established party politics so that effective government could take place against election of independents to shake up the parliament.

It got me thinking – could a People’s Party, a coalition of independents standing on the ticket of anti-sleaze become a dominant force? What if the independents weren’t just known faces like Martin Bell, Esther Rantzen et all but acknowledged business leaders and academics? How many of our current MP’s are actually fit to lead? I’m not measuring fitness based on the expenses scandal either. What qualifications do our current crop of MP’s actually have apart form going to the right schools and universities, joining their party branches at an early age, working for former MP’s as researchers etc. Where’s the business acumen, the proven leadership? Sadly lacking in many cases.

It was no surprise to see the larger parties saying that the only answer was for them to sort out their issues. They were the only way forward. William Hague dared to suggest that it was only the large parties that could take on issues like unemployment, financial crisis and defence. What a cheek. Neither party has covered itself in any glory in the last two decades. With the public not having much of a choice would it not be better to vote on qualified independents rather than a candidate chosen by the local party offices especially when the selection is made to satisfy a quota or is based on the candidates influence and background? Do we really need 1300 officials in parliament? How different would a slimmed down parliament with proportional representation look compared to today’s mess?

I can’t see electoral reform taking place in the short term but a coalition of independents with a ticket of anti-sleaze and a commitment to fight for electoral reform would win many many seats if there were an election in the next 6-8 weeks. Throw in a few respected celeb’s into the mix and there’s the potential to have many more seats and power than the Liberals while denting Conservatives and especially Labour. Sadly the chance of the election taking place this year are slim to non existent. By 2010 this could well be old news. Hysterical mass media will have moved onto the next big thing. Can you remember when swine flu and the credit crunch dominated the news? One things for sure – if issues like this don’t get people out voting, nothing will.

Google Spreadsheets As A Database

Following on from the Google Spreadsheet links in the previous post, I spotted this retweet from Guardian Datastore. Interesting – database querying of a Google Spreadsheet. So following a link takes me to Tony Hirst’s blog and a how-to on applying SQL type queries to a Google Spreadsheet. Very useful.

Tony then takes the data and visualises it using Many Eyes Wikified. Very impressive and a site I hadn’t heard of or used before. Applying the same principles Tony has now applied visualisations to the Shadow Cabinet spreadsheet.

Only slight snag I can see is that spreadsheets are easy to change and hence the visualisations could break easily – more easily than a database would. Apart from that though I’m very impressed. I’m off to dabble!