As usual I’ve been slack with upgrading my blog’s software, and it’s only been a few spammers signing up that has prompted me to upgrade things. And again, I’ve refreshed the ip2nation database & plugin to cater for any unusual countries or ip addresses. Things seem to be working, but as usual if you spot anything odd drop me a line and i can do some investigation.
The main reason for my post though is I’ve just installed an autotagger (I haven’t been tagging my posts in the past) and want to see whether it works.
With a bit of luck if I drop some keywords in it should add the relevant tags
As we all know now Barack Obama is going to be the first black US president, but I’m not going to talk about the in’s and out’s of the election or the merits of his victory.
Instead I give you Dizzee Rascal on newsnight interviewed by Jeremy Paxman – the result is rather comical
(in the next section i’ve completely copied the transcript of the interview into chunks in case the link isn’t available in the future and to highlight certain parts. DR is Dizzee Rascal, JP is Jeremy Paxman)
The highlights of the interview are:
• When asked if the UK could have a black president it went as follows:
JP: … could you see this happening in Britain? DR: Yeah. In time. JP: You’re rather positive! DR: Yeah, man. Why not, man? There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? … if you believe you can achieve, innit?
Radio One have been mocking this final line but at the same time it almost is something the “yoof” of today could take to heart.
• When asked on political parties he acknowledged they existed but little else:
JP: Dizzee Rascal, do you believe in political parties in Britain? DR: Yeah, they exist. I believe in ‘em … I don’t know if it makes a difference. But you know what I mean. It is what it is. Politicians … say what they say – you might get every now and again a genuine one, innit? But I think people, like, as a whole make the difference …
• When asked if he considered himself British, Paxman calls him “Mr Rascal”. Dizzee then comes out with a classic on who could run the country:
JP: Dizzee Rascal, Mr Rascal, do you feel yourself to be British? DR: Of course I’m British, man! You know me! … what’s good. I think it don’t matter what colour you are, it matters what colour your heart is and your intentions. I think a black man, purple man, Martian man can run the country … as long as he does right by the people.
• And finally, Dizzee reckons he could run for PM and that Obama’s victory couldn’t of happened if he hadn’t embraced hip hop:
JP: Well why don’t you run for office? DR: See, that’s a very good idea. I might have to do that one day. Dizzee Rascal for prime minister, yeah! Wassappenin’! Barack Obama embraced hip-hop, man. That’s the way he got through to kids. There was a more young vote ever. And it was through hip-hop!
There’s a new “drug” also known as a Herbal Powder going round called Akuz (sorry, best link i could find in 2 minutes).
Apparently they had problems with people switching the powder for cocaine when it first launched, but the bottle is now tamper proof so you won’t be sold coke inadvertently.
The company who makes it has been saying it’s all “Just Harmless Fun” when asked whether it encourages young people to take drugs that like Akuz are sniffed up the nose. It’s an orange powder which apparently makes your nose burn and gives a bit of a sugar-rush like sensation. It turns your snot orange.
stonysleep.com has been running for a while (10 or 11 years I think), admittedly not in blog form for all that time.
Now, there’s a website called yourwebsitevalue.com which values a website based on various criteria. Back in July we were worth less than $50, but I went to it today and was surprised to see the value zoom up to $208:
How Cool is that!?! Though am a little surprised what’s happened in that time to cause that. Perhaps google has finally got round to indexing all the blog so put a higher pricetag on it.
Anyways, check it out i you have a website or are curious how much some of the more well known sites are worth
Reduce the population and size of the earth such that it has a total of 100 people
Split them into the breakdown on the earth based on ethnicity and various statistics to create the miniature earth.
It shows how stark the divide is between those who live in the western world and those who do not
I don’t know if it’s that we have thick walls in the house or i’m just unlucky with routers, but after my Linksys WAG-54G router’s 4 port hub died I decided it was time to upgrade. I went for the Belkin Mimo G+ Router.
It’s been generally good with one exception – the wireless part of the router is a pain in the neck. It’s as if it goes to sleep. Having tried everything in the settings, forked out for something they’re now calling a range extender.
They’re clever gadgets that piggy-back off the ring main electrical circuit, essentially turning any plug socket into a network point. They’re not cheap, and the one i’ve gone for is the wireless version, so doesn’t involve any change from a user end.
It works like this:
So what you do is plug a cable from the router into the XE102 plug which is plugged into the mains
Then you simply plug the WGX102 in in the room you want to get the access and you have wireless networking in that area. Takes a bit of configuring to get all the settings synced up but is pretty easy.
So far, it seems to be working well.
On another subject, I thought I’d seen every video format that’s out there from mpg, avi, divx, qt mov, asx, wmv, mp4 etc… the list goes on. But I came across one last week that had me completely baffled: MKV
And the reason for it’s appearance: Hi Definition TV recording
It’s a container format similar to avi, asf, mp4 so will play in MPlayer, VLC and a host of other players. It will also play in quicktime, but you first need to install Perian for OS X
Yesterday my iPod crashed while I was listening to a Sigur Rós album
Normally when that happens (not necessarily while listening to Sigur Rós!) I hold the menu and enter buttons down for 5-10 seconds and it reboots, but this time that didn’t work
I did a google search and found a forum post on macrumors.com that worked a charm:
- Plug the iPod into the power charger ONLY and not the computer
- Toggle the hold switch to on and then off
- Hold the MENU and Select (center) portion of the wheel down simultaneously for ten seconds.
It means you need to have a mains charger which you don’t get out of the box when you buy a new iPod
I was about to get the putty knife out and pull the battery out to reboot it, which am glad I didn’t have to do
While our family doesn’t generally celebrate christmas these days I did get a present this year and it’s kept me occupied the last month or so
It’s a book called The Book of General Ignorance.
It is a book about urban legends and questions & answers, and makes for a great trivia book. Therefore it’s right down my street.
A lot of it is fairly waffly, so I’ve summarised some of the more interesting ones below (apologies for the excessive use of wikipedia links – it was just easier):
1. Henry VIII had 2 official marriages out of the general 6 he’s meant to have had
2. The human body has 4 nostrils (2 are hidden)
3. Antarctica is the driest, wettest and windiest place in the world
4. The largest living thing is a giant mushroom in Oregon
5. A blue whale’s throat is the diameter of a grapefruit
6. A chicken in 1945 lived for 2 years after having it’s head chopped off
7. A goldfish does not have a 2 second memory – according to research it is more like 2 months
8. Mosquitos have killed 45 billion people over the years from the 100+ fatal diseases they carry
9. The Bobak Marmott of Mongolia is largely responsible for all plagues (which have killed approx 1 billion people over the years)
10. Chameleons change colour based on emotion not the background
11. Polar bears are notleft handed
12. Marco Polo was born Marko Pilíc in Korcula in modern day Croatia and he did not introduce Ice Cream and Spaghetti to Italy
13. Walter Raleigh did not introduce Potatoes or Tobacco to England/Ireland
14. Champagne was invented by the English – they shipped in flat wine from Champagne and added the “fizz” and started fermenting it by adding sugar
15. Seven prisoners were freed by the storming of the Bastille on 14th July 1789. They were 4 forgers, a sexual offender and 2 lunatics (one was english and thought he was Julius Caesar)
16. The Swiss eat their pet cats and dogs after they die – apparently as part of the recycling process. Some is turned into lard & cough medicine
17. The Nursery Rhyme Ring a Ring a rosie has nothing to do with the great plague. It dates from a 1790 Massachusetts rhyme about a girl name Josie.
18. There are at least 15 different states of matter
19. Glass is not a liquid – it is a solid, and the reason why church windows are thicker at the bottom is because medieval glaziers didn’t always cast a uniform sheet of glass and put the thicker end at the bottom
20. Silver is the best metal at conducting electricity and heat
21. The moon smells like gunpowder and the moondust feels like snow
22. The moon goes round the earth, but the earth also goes round the moon
23. There are an additional 6 satellites that could be considered moons of the earth
24. The average distance between asteroids in an asteroid belt is approx 1.25 million miles, so the chance of hitting one when flying through one is very small
25. Light travels at 300,000 km/s in a vacuum but when travelling through diamond it only travels at 130,000 km/s. The slowest speed it has been recorded at is 60 km/h when travelling through a block of sodium frozen at -272ªC
26. A centipede with 100 legs has never been found
27. A two-toed sloth has 3 toes on each foot, it is so named because it has 2 fingers on each hand. Two toed sloths are not related to three toed sloths
28. A European earwig has 2 penises
29. There are more tigers in captivity in the USA than in the wild combined – there are thought to be 12,000 owned by private owners. It is only illegal to own tigers in 19 US states.
30. The Shaftesbury memorial in Picadilly Circus is of Anteros, Eros’s younger brother (not of Eros as it is commonly signposted and referred to as)
31. Only 5 people were officially killed in the Great Fire of London
32. The Romans gave the thumbs up symbol at the end of a gladiator fight to signify the loser should be killed. They buried their thumb in their fist to indicate he should be saved
33. Most accused of witchcraft were acquitted or hanged – very few were burnt at the stake. Most were men.
34. The number of the beast is 616 – it was mistranslated from the original Book of Revelations until it was redone in 2005
35. The Universe is beige
36. Water is actually a faint shade of blue despite appearing colourless in small quantities
37. There is no word for blue in ancient greek
38. The Coriolis force is not the main influence on which way (clockwise or anticlockwise) water goes down the plughole – in fact it is going to be negligible
39. Camels carry fat in their humps and originally come from North America
40. Technically there are only 46 US states:
Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts are officially commonwealths.
In addition there are 2 commonwealths: Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. They drew up their own constitutions declaring themselves commonwealths of the United States. Neither are US states, and are officially unincorported territories so not included in the 50 “US States”
41. George Washington’s false teeth were mostly made of hippopotamus ivory
42. Baseball was invented in England
43. Thomas Crapper as not the first to invent the flushing toilet however he was involved in the sewerage industry and holds 3 patents for water closet improvements.
44. Mozart’s middle name was not Amadeus. His full name was Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.
45. The largest capital city is technically Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. This is because the boundary of the city of Honoloulou is the county of Honolulu which consists of the entire stretch of the North Western Hawaiian islands which are 1500 miles long or 2127 square miles
46. The Largest man made structure is a rubbish dump on Staten Island called Fresh Kills. At 4.6 square miles in area, receiving 650 tons of rubbish a day until it was closed in 2001. It reached a height of 25m taller than the statue of liberty
47. We are still in an ice age – an ice age is defined as any period in earth history when there are polar ice caps
48. The inventor of the biro was called László Biró and from Hungary. However the first person to patent the ball point pen was John J. Loud, but he never exploited it
49. Chalk isn’t used to make blackboard chalk – it’s made of Gypsum (Calcium Sulphate as opposed to Calcium Carbonate)
50. Cockroaches are not the most likely creatures to survive a nuclear war. They may be able to live for a week without a head, but a fruit fly can sustain over 3 times the radiation and a parasitic wasp can take 9 times. The creature most likely to survive though is the bacterium Deinococcus Radiodurans
51. Violin strings have never been made of cat gut – they sometimes used sheep gut at least until the 1750’s (and maybe even today)
52. The greater the number of floor you climb before you throw a cat out the window, the more likely it is to survive. According to a US study that showed cats that fell out of buildings up to 7 stories were more likely to sustain injuries than those falling from higher floors.
53. Ostriches don’t bury their heads in the sand
54. Your fingernails and hair don’t continue to grow after you die – it’s because your body dehydrates tightening the skin that creates this illusion
55. Alcohol doesn’t kill brain cells, it just makes new cells grow less quickly due to the dehydration
56. James Bond’s favourite drink was not a Vodka Martini – it was bourbon which he consumes 58 glasses of in all the books whereas he only drinks 19 Vodka Martinis.
57. Jaffa Cakes are cakes (not biscuits) – a landmark legal case was involved, as under British law biscuits and cakes are not subject to VAT, but chocolate covered biscuits are (luxury item). The evidence to prove they were cakes was that Jaffa cakes go hard (like cakes) when they go stale. In contrast, biscuits go soft.
58. It doesn’t matter how close you sit to the tv you won’t damage your eyes
59. The more hours sleep you have at night the more likely you are to shorten your life. However, not sleeping enough will reduce your IQ, memory and reasoning ability
60. Half an hour of exercise 3-5 days a week is likely to be just as good a treatment for depression as the medication your doctor prescribes you as it reduces symptoms by 50% according to surveys
61. Hitler was not a Vegetarian though he probably should’ve been as he suffered from chronic flatulence – not eating meat would’ve helped this
62. The Spanish invented the concentration camp in cuba in 1895 several years before the British used them in the Boer Wars
63. The Hurricane aeroplane was more successful than the Spitfire in the battle of britain essentially winning the battle
64. 1 dog year is not equivalent to 7 human years. It’s a sliding scale that starts quickly and slows down in time. It also depends on the size and breed of dog.
65. There is no such animal as a panther – technically all large cats are panthers, but what is usually being referred to are black leopards/jaguars.
In the US they often mean a black puma – however none has ever been found
66. The banana plant is a herb and the banana is a berry
67. Botanically,Strawberries, Raspberries and Peaches are not berries – they are drupes – raspberries and strawberries are aggregated drupes.
68. Almonds are drupes, Peanuts are Peas (legumes), and Brazil nuts are seeds – none are nuts
69. Captain cook did not give his men limes to cure scurvy – he gave them sauerkraut. Lemons were given to sailors from 1795. By the 1850’s to save money limes were given to save money. Limes contain very little vitamin C, so scurvy came back with a vengeance.
70. Captain Cook did not discover Australia and he wasn’t the captain of the ship, he was a Lieutenant. British explorer William Dampier explored Australia in the 17th Century. Another contender is the 14th Century Chinese Admiral Zheng He
71. The Australian slang for an English man, POM (or pommy), is short for pomegranate because it rhymes with immigrant when said in an aussie accent
72. There were between 2 and 20 wise men or magi and at least one of them may have been a woman. This is according to the English church’s 2004 revision of the description of the Magi
73. Panama hats come from Ecuador. They were named so because they were given as standard issue to men digging the Panama Canal
74. St Patrick may be the patron saint of ireland but he is not irish – he was from somewhere around Pembrokeshire
I’ve been tagged by MHC so that means I’ve got to conjure up 5 things about myself.
1. I was born 26 years ago in the hospital that I now work in – Chase Farm now part of Barnet & Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust. I nearly died before I was born because the umbilical cord got wrapped round my neck choking me. The registrar had to be called in to help deliver me using forceps and saved my life.
2. I have run a website for over 10 years. This has become stonysleep.com, but did exist as various names, hosts, guises and mirrors from 1997 to 2002. I’ve owned stonysleep.com since 17th January 2002 after Big Cat Records and then V2 Records didn’t renew the ownership. So it turned 5 years last month at it’s current address. The site is long overdue for an overhaul, but I never seem to have the time to do it. The plan is to run it through wordpress and link it in with the blog.
3. In real life I am an incredibly introverted and shy person. I’m a deep thinker and a continual observer. I sometimes hold grudges and regrets for many years after an event has happened but rarely reveal my true feelings especially if it involves other people. I have convinced at least 2 people that I was insane – this is not true, but I am certainly not what would be considered normal by far.
4. The thing I am most proud of is my music collection. I don’t know how many CDs or days that I own because I haven’t transferred it all onto my iPod yet and it’s increasing all the time. It was over 300 CDs last time I updated the list on my site but it’s continually growing.
5. It was not until I finished University and started working full time that I realised what a good memory I have compared to other people, and in particular what a knack I have for remembering small (and often trivial) details. I think I have a partial photographic memory. Having said that i always seem to forget where I’ve left the most mundane of items when moving from one room to another
This now leaves me with the tough task of who to tag: Shamik, Ravi, Camilla
There’s a couple of others I know who have blogs, but I don’t know their sites, so will have to add them at a later date
September 19th, 2009 by 
stonysleep 
