If the Queen can do it, so can you....

Why are people complaining about not being able to fly their England flags while in England???

First off, this came up in 2006, but as this BBC news report shows it was only illegal if you didn't have permission from the council unless you used a vertical flagpole, but that old law was abolished anyway!

As far as I can tell, it's fine to fly your flag whenever you want, it's just when people like these idiots who fly the flags over the public road and thus violate other laws tell their stories to the papers, and of course since the news want people to read the stories they start saying rubbish like 'England flags cut down by local council'.

Stop complaining, watch your football matches and fly whatever flag you want.

Another Panther Movie

Panther Sunbathing

 

Here I go again, practicing making baby movies on the poor cat.  This time I managed to catch her in a rare relaxing moment basking in the warm evening sun.

Panther the Movie

Panther the Movie!

 

My first YouTube video and my first attempt at putting together a home movie with my new camcorder.

 

This is all in the name of honing my film making skills in preparation for the baby’s arrival in October.  Panther has very graciously stepped in as my test subject.

 

Enjoy!

The Best of 2010 – January to March

Technorati Tags: tea,superheros,friday,emotions,technology,password,taskbar,windows,songs,song association,photos,water,the best

 

It’s time for the first of what will be many round-ups of blog on the bog posts, here are the pick of the bunch from the first quarter of 2010.

 

	Firstly the bog-blog that started the ball rolling in which the ongoing question was posed… Which superhero would make the best cup of tea?
	We then moved on to the slightly melancholy but much more familiar subject of… Friday Feelings
	This next topic has hopefully imprinted ‘Rock the Kasbah’ into the brains of all who have read it.  More importantly I know there are plenty more of these out there that plague the lives of millions so I would expect this is not the last we have heard of this topic. Song Association
	The plight of the modern day computer user, office workers and facebook sluggers alike will all one day find themselves trapped in: The Password Change Cycle

 

Don’t forget to have a look at …they were invisible for more classic blog action!

Petrol and the Price of Fish

On may way home today I shoved about 30 litres of petrol into my car at the ridiculous price of £1.14 each.  This is clearly mad, but then again if you consider what petrol actually is and how difficult it is to locate and extract then it doesn’t seem that high a price.  The only reason we perceive it to be such a high price is because of how much we use.  If you went through 50 litres of cola or milk every few weeks you would probably complain about the high price of that too.

 

I had already been contemplating the true value of fluids recently when my household water bill arrived at £425 for next year’s service.  At first I thought this was crazy, £35 each month just for water, but then I picked myself up and started to think outside the box and consider that for just £425 I get a full year of unlimited clean cold water pumped into my house and an unlimited amount of dirty water and semi-solid waste pumped out of my house.  Perhaps this much- undervalued service needs a marketing overhaul, or maybe they could offer a cut down service where you get the water cheaper but you have to clean it yourself and get rid of your own sewage, can’t say fairer than that.

 

Well, I for one intend to show my full appreciation by wasting a good deal of fresh cool clean water by taking photos of it.  Enjoy…

 

Pictured: Value for Money 

 

Sparkly clean

 

Not to be taken for granted!

The Password Change Cycle

If you work on an office or shared computer which requires you to login, this scenario should sound familiar.

Company security policy has just forced you to change your system password again.  These password policies generally include a requisite that the change must be made immediately before a weekend or other extended period of absence to ensure maximum potential for forgetting about the change, thus increasing employee frustrations to align with company goals.  As a result of the change you have now entered the password change cycle.

Phase 1.  You attempt to login and have completely forgotten about the password change.  You type the old password, click 'login' and the 'error message of shame' sounds to remind you that you are a moron.  Generally towards the end of phase 1 you will realise that you have typed the wrong password a few split-seconds after you have clicked 'login'.

Phase 2.  Usually achieved towards the end of day 1 of the password change, you start typing the old password but remember midway through that it changed, backspace and retype new password.

Phase 3. Common on the first login attempt of day 2, you are tired and probably hungover after the weekend/holiday and you have once again completely forgotten about the password change; you have returned to phase 1- only this time it is much more frustrating because at the end of day 1 you were so sure you had achieved phase 2.

Phase 4.  You are now making such an effort to remember the new password that you use it to login to everything, including the other systems that are still using your old password.

Phase 5.  Generally after a week you will achieve phase 5, where your new password is now embedded in your morning routine, but you still have to make a conscious effort when using systems that still use the old password.  It is common during phase 5 for frustration to force you to change the password on these other systems to match your new password, moving you into phase 6 of the password cycle.

Phase 6.  All of your systems now use the same new password but your brain is still used to every system having a different password, so now you have to stop and think for every login attempt.

Phase 7.  Phase 7 is password change nirvana where you now effortlessly login without having to think about the password.  This is usually achieved with less than a week to go before the next password change is due.

Snow photo

So I have spend a lot of time this evening sorting through my photos and having fun with Picasa’s face detection.  Anyway I came across this photo that I took during the recent snow here in Sheffield and I quite liked it, so I thought I would share it…

 

I have to say I am enjoying the face detection software, it’s quite spooky how accurate it can be.  Perhaps I will come back to this subject again soon, but for now back to the photos.