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I have some posts here with pretty ancient dates. A recent upgrade of WordPress introduced a problem with pre-1970 dates, which started to show as today’s date. An appeal on the WordPress forums produced no solution, and I had assumed that I would just have to put up with it, because very few bloggers write posts with dates in the 1960′s. But today I did another search for a solution and discovered
… more → This year marks the tenth anniversary of Catch-22 author Joseph Heller’s death. In his satirical novel, the central character is faced with absurd military bureaucratic rules based on circular logic. I think the late Mr Heller must have had a hand in drafting the building regulations which apply when you have cavity wall insulation.
… more → Ever been asked to say your email address (as opposed to typing or writing it)? How did that go for you? Not straightforward, is it? When people choose an email address they don’t consider how easy it will be in the future to impart that address orally to someone else. So you get addresses like
or
You have to describe such addresses, with a high chance of something going wrong in the process. The random digits are usually offered by the system when you set up your email account – presumably because there are already 122 customers calling themselves ‘kool-dood4u’ or whatever. So it occurred to me that
… more → I have had the same photograph on show at home in a simple gilt frame for probably ten years. Recently I replaced it with a Samsung SPF-83H digital photo frame. So now I can enjoy an endless slideshow of all my favourite pictures which hitherto have been locked away on my computer waiting for the day when the hard drive fails. Does this new abundance of images bring me greater pleasure?
… more → The speed camera near us has recently been dismantled. As I am one of many motorists who has been caught by this particular camera over the years, you might expect me to rejoice at its removal. Particularly as I have made my views clear about our surveillance society. I have noticed one or two others have gone too. What’s going on? As it happens, I am an enthusiastic supporter of speed cameras for
… more → My wireless connection problems are (almost) over. The folks at Asus offered all manner of laborious solutions to the notorious “pending …” problem on my Eee PC, and they even took it back for repair. Nothing worked – I simply could no longer connect to my WiFi router using WEP security. I was left with a simple choice.
… more → I have just renewed my passport. This one has an electronic chip and antenna embedded in it. They call it biometric but what they really mean is electronic. According to the dictionary, biometrics is … more → The Russians have resumed supplying gas to Ukraine. It will take a surprising 36 hours for it to reach some customers, which shows how long the pipeline is. So, how feasible would it be to run a closed pipeline loop from the Sahara desert to Europe and back? Filled not with gas, but water. Imagine
… more → When we moved into this house, a late Victorian semi, we had the fireplace in the living room opened up and the chimney swept. During the winter months one of the few consolations when it is dark and cold outside is to be able to light a real ‘living’ fire and sit mesmerised in its glow. The builder who did the work at the time couldn’t fully understand the attraction. He had probably ‘modernised’ many houses by ripping out fireplaces. ‘You can always put in a gas coal-effect fire later’ he reassured us, assuming that we would soon grow tired of the work and mess involved with a real fire.
… more → I bought a netbook recently, an Asus Eee PC 900 running Linux. It’s got no hard drive and no Windows software, yet right out of the box you can surf the web and do everything that normally requires Microsoft Office – plus a few things besides. I took it to Spain and watched a movie on it during the flight (saved to an SD card). I sat in a cafe wirelessly checking my emails. I can also listen to internet radio from around the world and use Skype with the built in webcam. All this from a device which is about the size of an A5 sheet of paper. I was delighted with it until
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