Facebook Is a Pain
I keep getting people wanting me to join Facebook. I’m afraid, I don’t join any social networking site, that will have me as a member. I was a member once, but I cancelled it a few months ago.
People Shouldn’t be so Thin-Skinned
There is a story in the Standard last night entitled Tantrum of the Opera. A Twickenham housewife tweeted to her friend that although she had seen the musical eighty times, she couldn’t stand the star. It has now developed into a full-blooded row.
I would make three conclusions from this.
In the first place the comment was only tweeted to a friend and thus the star is being a bit over the top.
Secondly, the lady has seen the musical eighty times, and so as she is effectively paying some of the star’s wages, she deserves a little respect.
Lastly, if I was producing a musical, I know someone, who I wouldn’t be employing.
They were also discussing another case on BBC Breakfast this morning, where someone made a comment about an X-Factor contestant. She has now suffered months of abuse.
She was possibly a bit unwise to say what she says, but it does illustrate, why you should always be careful what you say on social networking sites. However to abuse the lady and call her all sorts of unwise things in totally wrong.
The sooner we have a high profile case, where one of these so called trolls, gets some time at Her Majesty’s pleasure, the better. It will be interesting to see how much abuse the judge gets.
I have had a bit of abuse in my time over this blog and suspect it was because the post was about an odious foreign government.
The Olympic Torch is Now On The Red Button
This is so much better. And doesn’t use all that bandwidth on the Internet.
I wonder why it’s now available.
LinkedIn Passwords
LinkedIn has been hacked and their passwords have been st0len. There are details here.
Usually, I keep my passwords pretty random and unique, but mine must be one that they thought could get them into my Google Account. I didn’t, as I got this e-mail from Google.
Someone recently tried to sign in to your Google Account, xxxx@xxxx.xxx. We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:
Thursday, June 7, 2012 9:38:32 AM GMT
IP Address: 188.158.25.46
Location: Tehran, Iran
I didn’t trust the e-mail, but logged in manually to Google and changed my password. Incidentally, when I logged in, Google informed me of the suspicious activity.
So it does look like there is some hanky-panky going on.
So login to all your important accounts, where your e-mail address is used as login in any way and check things out.
FiReControl Was Abysmal Failure
FiReControl was one of the Blair government’s flagship projects, which had the aim of sorting out the 999 services for the fire brigades across England. According to this report from the the National Audit Office, it wasn’t a success. Here’s the first paragaph.
The project to replace the 46 Fire and Rescue Services’ local control rooms across England with nine purpose-built regional control centres linked by a new IT system has been a comprehensive failure. The DCLG acted to cut its losses by terminating the contract in December 2010 but at least £469 million will have been wasted.
Lord Prescott defended the system in the media last week and felt that others were to blame.
Now a letter from Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union is published in The Times with the title of this post as a title, which drops Prescott in the doo-dah. If the FBU won’t support you, something must be wrong.
I hope he’s got his wet suit on!
Prescott is one of those politicians, who in my view, are not fit to run a whelk stall.
He should do everybody a favour and retire from public life. Preferably to a cottage by Spurn Head.
When Social Media Goes Awry
The Telegraph reports an unseemly spat between Joe Simpson, the author of Touching the Void, and schoolchildren doing the book for GCSE.
It is the sort of thing that can happen on social media and I suspect both parties could have been a little bit more discrete or less outrageous with their replies.
I had a letter published once and it attracted some fairly abusive letters in reply. In the end, history has shown that I was right.
The Torch Will Need Its Passport Today
It’s off into Wales today and the weather appears to be holding. If it’s going to rain, it’ll surely be in Wales or Manchester.
Crowds in Worcester look to be good, even at eight in the morning. How many cafes and tea-shops have have record takings?
Perhaps, it shows that the best way to get through a recession, is to have a party?
I know that people have subscribed to this blog from all over the world. So who is the furthest away, who’s watch the Olympic Torch Relay. Click here to watch.
It’s getting addictive, as this tweet posted on the BBC web site shows.
Sorry the BBC can’t take the blame for everything, although Andrew Cowie may disagree as he tweets: “I think the #bbctorchcam will over take Facebook as the reason i failed my exams!”
Could Auntie have come up with the ultimate Internet time-waster?
BBC Creates Addictive Viewing
According to the BBC, the amount of viewers of the Olympic Torch Relay has exceeded all expectations. You could argue, that they would say that wouldn’t they. In fact Roger Mosey says it all here.
The coverage is not by satellite, but by mobile phone 3G technology, which gives the odd break in transmission.
Some are saying it’s addictive on Twitter and Facebook. He’s one from Scotland.
Frances Chisholm on Facebook says: ”Kind of addictive” is an understatement. I am enjoying it all so much. Almost late for work this morning! I’m an ordinary working British Citizen, but “torchcam” makes me feel I can be part of it (the olympics) keep up the wonderful work! Will be cheering the flame when it passes through SELKIRK, Scottish Borders.
And I thought the Scots weren’t in favour of the Games.
FaceBook Renames Itself
To celebrate the performance of its shares, Facebook has changed its name to Facebomb.
As I left the site some time ago and wouldn’t deal in the shares at all, I can’t say this all bothers me. To paraphrase Marx, it’s a club I wouldn’t join, just because they’d have me as a member.
Bad Maths
I’m 65 this year. Could my generation’s everyday maths, be better, as we had to cope with £sd? When I served in a bar in the 1960s, you learned things like 3 bottles of Guinness at 1s. 8d. were 5s. You had to do it all mentally, as the till was just a drawer.
I also played a lot of cribbage and other card games. Many of which need a certain amount of arithmetical dexterity. So have computer games lost all this?
But in some ways my biggest advantage was that my mother had very good arithmetical skills, partly brought on as she had been a comptometer operator before and during the Second World War, at Reeves just down the road from where I now live. So when we travelled in the car, she would always set me puzzles.
Interestingly, comptometer is rejected by the computerised spelling on this computer and WordPress.
The Anonymous Widower 