marcusstrapp

The operating system for your mum and dad and aunty Jean.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8369611.stm

Since the advent of the PC I have been lamenting the burden of supporting them. PC's whether they be Windows, Macs or Linux boxes are just so damned fragile! There's a hard disk that stores zillions of 0's and 1's (bits). Millions of the 0's and 1's are used to implement vital functionality. It's quite possible bring your PC to its knees by switching just one of those vital bits from a 1 to a 0 (or the other way around). Compare that to the robust human body with it's ability to self repair!

In large organisations the support of PC's is a nightmare. Armies of computer support engineers scuttle around visiting users to sort out their computer problems. "My computer has stopped printing", "My computer wont boot any more", "I've lost my accounts spreadsheet", "I installed this webcam, now my mouse has stopped working". Incompatible software and unplanned user actions, are far more often source of catastrophic failure than hardware faults.

The modern PC is a complicated beast, hugely complicated. In my eyes has been extremely ill suited to where it is most often deployed; in the home and the office. It's too complex, too fragile and massively overkill for what mum, dad and aunty Jean actually need. Hello Google Chrome OS. The idea here is simple, essentially we wind the clock back to the late 70s where the computers were locked away behind glass walls in a computer room and they were tended to by long haired sandal wearing computer geeks. Dumb users sat outside in the the computer lab in front of dumb terminals. And here is the real genius of this division of labour. Dumb terminals are relatively simple solid state devices. There is no hard disk to store oodles of information, files and settings that could otherwise be corrupted and screw things up. If there is a glitch and your dumb terminal locks up, you switch it off, switch it on, and off you go again. All your data and settings being kept safe and sound in the temple behind the glass wall. If the dumb terminal does develop a hardware fault, you replace it, it's cheap.

Things have moved on from the 70's. Significantly memory, disk space and processor speeds and network speeds have all increased even faster than the national debt. These factors make it viable to replace the PC with a dumb terminal. The modern dumb terminal is not quite so dumb, the division of labour is slightly different in that you get your own processor and memory. But the data, and the responsibility for keeping it safe and installing software updates are handled by the service provide elsewhere.

If your dumb terminal crashes, you switch it off and on again and continue where you left off. If it dies you plug in a replacement and continue where you left off. If you go to visit aunty Jean, you can log in on her dumb terminal and continue where you left off. Your desktop is available to you wherever you have access to the internet.

It's not the model of computing for everyone, software and hardware developers are still going to want their PC's but for those of you that want to browse the web, write letters, send email and run the most popular desktop applications such as spreadsheets, presentations and drawing programs, it's the way to go.

There are issues to be sorted out. In particular I'd like to see more than service provider to ensure competition keeps costs in check. There will also need to be a standards organisation that will ensure end users are free to transfer their data between service providers or return it to the user. The benefit though, is a home/office computer that is as reliable and easy to use as a the TV or the radio. In fact the day will come when the TV is the radio is the computer.

The release of the only person to be convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi leaves me with a feeling that information is being withheld.

SNP Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill during cross questioning on Newsnight looked deeply suspicious to me. He looked uncomfortable, defensive and perhaps like he was attempting to justify something he did not believe in. His answers appeared to be quite ridiculous.

I just hope that whatever horse trading is taking place behind the scene genuinely justifies what on the face of it strikes me a grave error of judgement.

Slam Fucking Dunk. Well actually, more a skin of the teeth thing but who cares. He's IN.

Three A levels and after a bit of tussling he has his place at the University of Kent to do psychology.

So that's just brilliant news. At last I finally get rid of him. I am delighted.

And there is no salt water welling up in my eyes at all, no none, none what so ever.

With one hand I unzip my flies and pull forth my penis.
My other hand runs through my hair.
As my fingers run through my hair and I stare in into the porcelain bowl,
I note my hair needs cutting.
I relish that the hair is thick and a good inch or so long.
Two thoughts land on my consciousness like two waves finding the shore.
I was being shorn in the barbers chair only yesterday, so it seems.
I can feel myself falling faster to my end.
Death, like gravity seems to observe an inverse square law.
The second, consolation thought, on a smaller following wave of vanity,
notes that I am not yet bald.

I'm unsettled.
I'm not yet done but I know I am nearer the end than the beginning.
What does it matter?
What do I matter?
What have I accomplished?
I've never sought to do harm.
I've done a little good, perhaps,
But anything so great as would not be missed?
There's been duty, mostly met.
Far too much pride, for sure.
Did I do less harm than good?
Did I leave the world a better place than I found it?
The only mark, my only real legacy, my children.
That's all I can think I can be sure of.

It's not some wallowing self pity.
It's just that question, that, without-religion inevitable question.
It weighs you down with it's insistence.
It weighs a little more with each passing day.
You don't notice it to begin with.
But then one day it surprises you how heavy it has become.
"What's it all for?"
Turning up at the same place, day after day
Bound to the same routine by nothing other than my own fear of doing something else.
But what else?
I fear might be Vladamir or I might be Estragon
Waiting

-- Note: You don't have to be a teenager to be all emo, it's just much more attractive if you are ;-)

Conversation with daughter over breakfast table and daughter brings me up to speed on the ineffectual and entirely useless and supply teachers she has been saddled with leading up to her exams.

"Bug Lady" took her class for Critical Thinking and started of explaining about the formations of earthquakes. Ten minutes in, daughter raises hand and asks, are you sure we are suppose to be learning about earthquakes as we have an exam in 3 days and we would rather be revising. Teacher shouts her down and repeats exercise for the next 3 students who raise their hand too. She then shoots off on a tangent about the environmentally hazardous effects of wearing jelly shoes. 10 minutes before end of class she thumbs through notes and says , ah, this was Geography 4's lesson, well you had better get on to your revision.

Apparently "Bug Lady" supply teacher looks like she stepped right out of Monsters Inc.

Quote from plumber to replace shower unit with like for like: £230 for shower, £120 to fit. Found new unit on ebay for £100, £10 for odds and sods, Fitted myself in about an hour. Saving £240, but messing about with 30 Amp power line, and plumbing without electrocuting myself or drowning neighbours downstairs, priceless. I feel all manly now.

Off to clean body and have dirty manly thoughts.

Savage must be grinning from ear to ear. He's just managed to recruit the UK Home Secretary as his personal publicity agent and let's be fair, she's done a cracking job! Until yesterday, few people in the UK had heard of Michael Savage. This morning I wake up to his name on my radio, the TV, the newspapers and internet. Search for "Michael Savage" on twitter and my TweetDeck just goes into overdrive.


"We had to ban him, he was this big and he talked like a savage!"


How much has this PR campaign cost him? Not a bean! But that's the beauty of the UK, we have a social security system that can provide services for the needy and deserving like Michael Savage. I doubt that he could have afforded to launch such an effective multi-media PR campaign, so the tax payer has stepped in to pickup the tab (Jacqui two homes Smith's £100+K expenses to start with). And if the poor beleaguered Savage does seek to sue, well it would not surprise me if we were to stump up for the legal aid!

Jacqui, Jacqui, Jacqui what in God's name were you thinking about by denying Savage entrance to the UK. Are you sure we have not got more important things to be getting on with like 2 million+ unemployed, the financial melt down, swine flue. Savage is not a threat to the UK. Savage no matter how odious, is entitled to his opinions and his free speech. He is also innocent until proven guilty if the issue is incitement.

Come on Jacqui, what's going on? PMT? You need a shoulder run or something. Ha, no I see what it is, I'm leafing through Google Images of you as I type and I can see that look in your eye. You're not getting any are you? You are in need of a darned good seeing to girl. All those days at chief whip, but we know what sort of whipping you need. Your hubby watching all that porn that we bought him rather than taking you up the dispatch box (don't forget to claim expenses for getting your sister's sheets dry cleaned, if he does have a change of heart).

Jacqui, you are making a fool of yourself, our country and me as a tax payer.

And for that matter, if you were serious about wanting to limit the impact Savage would have this country you ought remember "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about".

The answer to dealing with Savage, is for the Gay rights' movement to champion Savage's right to liberty and free speech! They have both had a bit of a bum deal on these issues!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8033060.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/06/michael-savage-sue-jacqui-smith

http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/

Following up from...

Report Date	Confirmed Cases	Deaths	Deaths / Confirmed Cases (%)
30-APR-2009	212	9	4.25
1-MAY-2009	484	13	2.69
2-MAY-2009	643	17	2.64
3-MAY-2009	898	20	2.23
4-MAY-2009	1025	26	2.53
5-MAY-2009	1509	30	1.99

Outside of Mexico there are 249 confirmed cases and only 1 death.

Note: Last updated 6-MAY-2009

Oinky Oinky Cough Cough - Why I'm not panicking.

The BBC Swine Flu Outbreak map currently shows 9 deaths and 212 confirmed cases. Death, partly on account of its ease of diagnosis, tends to be accurately recorded, even in the poor parts of the world. Confirmed cases, on account of their difficulty in being diagnosed and in some areas on account of the reluctance to record, are probably underrepresented. I'm going to assume that swine flu is fatal in 9 cases in 212 or less. That's roughly 4% or one case in 25. News reports have also shown people who believed themselves ill with swine fever being denied treatment and surviving. Those who have been diagnosed and received treatment have responded well, though I do wonder if they would have recovered anyway as there seems to be grounds to believe that the existing antiviral treatment may be of limited efficacy against this entirely new strain.

I haven't seen many details about the deaths, but at least two of the case were of young children i.e. the vulnerable.

It seems swine flue might be very infectious (easily spread through the environment) but at least in terms of its virulence (severity in its harmful effects), its probably not the next black death.

The sun is shining, the birds are tweeting and so am I. Enjoy today.

Incidentally, a news report showed that the possible cause of the swine flu was pigs being raised for pork meat in Mexico in the most appalling and distressing conditions. Seems familiar? Feeding ofal to cows; Mad Cow Disease and its possible transmission to the human form Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease?

I am a dyed in the wool carnivore, but even I am beginning to think that perhaps we may need to take a more responsible attitude to meat production and I guess that that is going to have to go hand in hand with a more responsible attitude to meat consumption. I'm going to aim a consuming a little less meat, and try to ensure that the meat I do eat is drawn from responsibly farmed stock. This wont be easy for me, I'm lazy about such things and don't relish the idea of paying more for my nosh. My vegetarian daughter on the other hand will be delighted and I am fully expecting and possibly deserving of a "told you so" from her.

If you woke up to discover you were trapped in the body of a dog, what would you do to convince people you were not just an ordinary dog? Or wouldn't you bother and just amuse yourself with your new found ability to cock your leg and lick your own bits?

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