Aussie weather

Hi from Aus to all those left back in foggy London, it's been a few days now and we've got to enjoy the beautiful Aussie sunshine and my favourite part of Melbourne summer.. the cool change! :-) Was very amusing watching Cath experience for the first time when the wind starts blowing in and the temperature drops 10 degrees in as many minutes. She's heard me talk about it but never really fully grasped it. :-)

Oh should also say a bit about what we've done thus far, it's been mostly in Melbourne, we've been to the Australian Open (that's tennis for us unclued people), Squires Loft (fantastic steak!) and out to Healesville Sanctuary (where Cath finally got to see a Rock Wallaby and some Flying Foxes)... Will have to post up some photos quite soon, but that requires effort which is sorely lacking at the moment!

So hope everyone had a fantastic Australia Day, hope the beer was cold and the meat was cooked over a bbq!

B

Big thanks!

Well it's been a few days since we've set up the website for the fundraising and have already received some sponsorships!! :-D So big thanks to those of you who are donating or planning to donate money to this worthy cause!

In other news we're about to be off to visit everyone at home, looking forward to showing Cath the wild untamed places of Aus! :-D

See you soon!
B

Training Day

What were you doing?
On Sunday Cath and I (and a few others) went for a nice 'walk' around Epsom Downs (a fairly famous race course, but also a great spot for going for a ramble), and 3 hours later I realised several things:

• I'm not as unfit as I thought :-D
  
• But I'm no-way near as fit as I need to be :-(
  
• Especially for a 10 day hike in the Andes mountains near Machu Picchu

What's this about Machu Picchu?
Well as some of you are aware I'm getting married later this year, and instead of going for the traditional honeymoon at a nice beach resort we've signed ourselves up for trekking through Peru for Cardiac Risk in the Young.

Come again?
Yep that's right we're aiming to raise over £4000 for CRY by putting ourselves through the gruelling endeavour of hiking through the Andes mountains in a Ten Day trek to Machu Picchu.

So how much actually goes to CRY?
Almost every cent/penny/lira/yen that you donate will end up in CRY's hands (and if you're donating from in the UK, 28% extra!), as we are paying the entire cost of flights, tour, food, accommodation ourselves. The only exception to that is Skyline (who are professional fundraising company) have a small administration charge that we will not be covering.

So how can I help?
Well the first obvious choice is go to our fundraising page and sponsor us! But there are other ways that you can help out as well.

• Email us get a sponsorship form to help us get some more sponsors.
  
• Spread the word, email around your work and friends about this fundraising effort and help us beat that £4000 goal! Point them to this post or straight to our fundraising page.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for helping out!
B

Apples and Oranges

Just a random fairly incoherent rant from the B man..

Was reading an IT security article today that was talking about Microsofts response time to Privately or Publicly exposed flaws in it's software... And this sentence struck me as being flawed in itself:

Microsoft took 3 months on average to fix issues privately disclosed to the company in 2003, a response time that shot up to 4.5 months in 2004 and 2005, according to the analysis. Yet, the company response to a publicly disclosed flaws has quickened, from 71 days in 2003 to 46 days in 2005.

The bit I particularly like is that last time I checked 71 days is around about 3 months (if it includes February it's over 3 months)... But mostly it got me annoyed that it's a fairly common technique amongst journalists that in order to sensationalize a topic they'll not compare 'Apples to Apples', instead there'll be something like an average over the previous year vs the worst days figures (with the tone implying that that single day is an 'average' day).

Anyways was something I'd noticed and thought I'd have a brief rant about, going to stop now and do some other stuff... Have fun!

B

Feeling Better

Feeling much more chipper today :-D Had a really nice night last night, got to relax and chill without any stress. We've even booked our trek for CRY (which some of you already know about), more info on that to come.

On a completely unrelated note, I subscribe to the rss feed of Astronomy Picture of the Day, and whenever there's a really nice one I all of a sudden have a new wallpaper, in particular todays pic of the Andromeda Galaxy is simply stunning!

Keep smiling!
B

Ed: Forgot to change the title of the post as it crashed half way through... my bad.

Nothing to see here, move along...

Feeling a bit melancholy today (not really sure why, could be the dreary gray skies, the bit of a hangover from the drinks last night)... But anyways going to listen to some cool music and try and insert some humour into my day. So onto some random updates

• Christmas is here!! (well almost) and we've got our Xmas tree up! :-) Actually me and Ryan went out and bought a 7'' tree, so the star at the top is almost touching the ceiling.
  
• Matt moved out, and our new housemate (A.J.) moved in... Nothing interesting to really say here, other than sounds like Matt's being enjoying the sun down in Melbourne (even if his luggage didn't arrive with him!)
  
• I've finished my archaeology course, and have been thinking about what I'll start up in the New Year... I'd quite like to do something with my hands, though my suggestion of Woodcarving has been scoffed at :-P
  
• Mark (of Andrea & Mark fame) had his 40th just recently, and a merry time was had by all down at the local Lebanese restaurant :-)
  

That's all I've got today... For everyone out there have a very merry Christmas!

B

Gambling as 'insurance'

Spotted this from one of those 'Oddly Enough articles': Man loses bet by staying alive

Turns out this guy placed a bet in order to insure against a possible inheritance tax bill..

• If he died before the first week in December his wife would of been handed a £3000 bill from the IRS
  
• So thinking laterally he approached a bookie and asked what odds he would get for him dying before the deadline
  
• Getting odds of 6/1 he placed a £500 bet that he would die

So if he died, his wife would of been able to cover the tax, all for the 'insurance premium' of $500.

Kind of morbid but I like that lateral thinking... One thing I ask myself though is, does this mean that when you insure something you are in essence placing a 'bet' that your belongings are going to be stolen/broken/etc..? In essence betting against yourself? Of course you could look at as that insurance agencies are all crooks.

B

PS: Wonder how long it'll be till you can get an insurance policy to cover these kinds of uncertain taxes?

Welcome to GIANTmicrobes!

Was reading Neopoleon.com, and he just got one of the coolest gifts!!

GIANTmicrobes!

We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes—only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Cough, Ear Ache, Bad Breath, Kissing Disease, Athlete's Foot, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, and Bookworm (and in our Professional line: H.I.V. and Hepatitis).

fantastic! :-)

Ed: tottally stuffed up the first couple of posts of this, so now formatted and got the correct text!

Random links #something or other

Was doing some trolling, and came across a friends blog (who I hadn't realised had started blogging, shame, shame, shame! [not sure if that's for me for not realising or for her for not telling me]), anyways welcome Taggs to the blogging world!

But moving on, following random links, came across Miss Otis Regrets, loving the writing style there!! And I wish her luck in her admirable goal of:

the pursuit of the perfect top five. The perfect list (in order of virility and aesthetics) of male specimens.

RSS Feeds:
For anyone who's setup a blogger account, you can usually subscribe by using their address /atom.xml (I think it's on by default, but the link to it isn't on the templates), so:

• For Taggs: http://taggsorama.blogspot.com/atom.xml
  
• For Miss Otis Regrets: http://rafstar.blogspot.com/atom.xml

B

Songs that are stories

Was listening to the good 'ol iPod on my way into work this morning (makes the tube ride go much faster), and just as I got in I started to listen to Rock 'n Roll is where I hide (Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes), and it got me thinking, there are some really good songs out there that are actually stories (or more commonly known as Ballads), that take you through a plot line, character development and all of that... Some of my favourite ones are:

• Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (particular from Murder Ballads)
  
• Dave Graney (obviously)
  
• Dire Straits (Ride across the River being a good candidate)
  
• and my all time favourite.. Dead Eyes Opened Remix (always reminded me of an Edgar Allan Poe poem, thought it's not..)
  

Any other great storied music tracks? Ones that you'd recommend or that really speak to you?

Evaluating security risk

Escaped...From a Twisted Mind: The Human Side of Security
very funny post on an additional item in the SANS list (humans are the biggest security risk)

H1.4 How to Protect Against Vulnerabilities
- Unfortunately, patches to Homo sapiens have resulted in significant and harmful sequela such as holy wars, cola wars, communism, reality TV, and global warming; therefore, the current version of Homo sapiens is considered unstable and non-patchable.

Ah, I needed that laugh! Thanks David & Rick

Life & the Universe

Not feeling particularly chipper today... You know those days when you can't seem to get anywhere or do anything right?

But at least I got a small smile today, A Serendipitous Intention linked to that cool Introvert article I recommended.. Not sure if it was 'cause of my post that she found it, but I'd like to think so.. :-)

Anyways, I'm off to try and actually do something right today (wish me luck!)...

B
PS: Well done Old! I know you're tetchy, but you're doing well quitting smoking!

And a kitchen sink

A while back I wrote about how I saw a guy carrying a bathroom sink on the tube.. Well tonight I recieved the first ever edition *shocked look* of the London Loop (so new it doesn't seem to have a website, but it's basically from the TfL), anyways I found this very funny, so I thought I'd share:

Handed into TfL's lost property office this year

• Mobile phones 10,614
  
• Umbrellas 7,026
  
• Spectacles 6,118
  
• Lawnmowers 1
  
• Wedding dress 1
  
• False teeth, limbs, eyes 77
  
• Theatrical coffins 1
  
• Stuffed eagles 1
  
• Jars of bull's sperm 1
  
• Dead bats in a container 3
  
• Human skulls in a bag 2
  
• Kitchen sink 1
  

I mean, seriously... 3 dead bats in a container! 3 of those got handed in!

B

Google Ads

Just a small warning for everyone, I'm going to be playing around with Google Ads for the next few weeks, this is more to get myself familiar with how they work (it's actually research for a site idea myself and a couple of others are playing with), so feel free to ignore!

If you think they're getting annoying or you notice something weird, let me know and I'll pull it off the blog. (it'll most likely be me just playing around with different formats/settings)

Thanks,
B

Commenting

I've heard from a few people that there's been difficulty in commenting on my blog, the comment spam filter that Blogger uses doesn't seem to really be up to scratch... As such, I'm turning off the filter and I'll just have to manually delete any spam that appears...

Thanks to those who have been trying to comment! There I was thinking no one was actually interested enough in my posts to discuss it... :-D

B

Caring for Your Introvert

The path

I was trolling through the website of one of my favourite authors (Neal Stephenson) when I came across this cool article 'Caring for your Introvert' (it's not written by Neal Stephenson, but by some other guy, it's just how I came across it :-P)

Anyways, go read it, it's cool! Specially liked these quotes:

"I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

"are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness."

I'm not sure if I'd be classified as an introvert, last time I took the Myers-Briggs test in university I kind of confounded the psych lecturers (the word 'unclassifiable' was used)... Anyways, I identified a lot with that article on Introverts, especially about feeling comfortable by myself with my own thoughts. :-D

That's it... ain't got anything more for you... go read the article... I could ask whether you classify yourself as an introvert, but you won't answer anyway, so go be quiet and read the article

B

Archaeology

Well I've now finished my assignment for London Archaeology, and it was quite interesting... More from actually putting into practice the techniques of 'how to find out about the history of a place'. At least for me.

Some extra stuff that I found out that wasn't relevant to the assignment:

• Shakespeare wrote his first play in Shoreditch which appeared in a theatre called 'The Theatre' (later renamed to Curtain Theatre after the road it was built next to)
  
• Curtain Road was named that because it's where the defensive 'curtain' wall of London was located... (Not the other way round)
  
• There has been a reformed French church in Shoreditch, which got converted into a Jewish Synagogue and is now a Muslim Mosque (over the last 400 years)
  
• Truman Brewery became big in London, because it's rivals beer (served to the 'commoners' at a Royal celebration) caused a riot, and Truman's had to be brought in to quell the unrest...
  

I'll upload the report in a few days and post a link for anyone interested in reading it... Oh and in case you haven't realised, it was actually on 'Old Truman Brewery' and touched on some of the history of Brick Lane....

Cheers,
B

Future emails

Forbes has got an interesting experiment going on, where you can send yourself a future email, thought it was such an interesting idea, that I'd give it a go... Here's what I'm sending myself, 20 years in the future:

Hi, this is you speaking... (sorry Red Dwarf reference, did they ever make that movie?)

This is when I'm still engaged to ..., working at ..., and looking forward to a bright and happy future with the love of my life.. I really hope it works out!

So what does a 28 year old say to a 48 year old? I feel alive now, hope I always will, I love spending nights cuddling up to ..., I watch all sorts of odd shows and keep track of technology (rss has made it big in the geek world but not yet in the mainstream..) I've almost finished that short archaeology course (remember that?)

I'm hoping that we'll have kids, a few... but I'm scared of bringing them into this world, and of that responsibility of looking after them, emotionally, financially and physically... Hope I'll be a good dad.

Now to give you a laugh (because the future rarely turns out how you expect), here's what I think will happen by 2025:

• space joy flights will become a normal thing for the rich (though probably just as a special occasion thing), not full on space just into the stratosphere or LEO (low earth orbit)
  
• a permanent base on the moon? maybe.. dunno about that, I'd like it to happen but more likely to be trialing use of research/resource gathering.
  
• islamic terrorist activity, it'll of been resolved one way or the other, most likely recognition of various political groups and 'peace roadmaps' will be worked out, but because it's been going on so it may be questionable as to whether it can ever end... But they said the same about the IRA.
  

That's about all I can think of for the moment... Keep smiling, give ... and the kids a hug from me :-)

what would you send yourself?

B

spotted from: Gadgetopia

Ed: had a bad title, was too busy writing that letter!

CryptoKids

CryptoKids "America's Future Codemakers & Codebreakers"

now why wasn't this around when I was young! Okay I know I'm a serious geek for saying this, but COOL! :-)

Found on: Shneier on Security

How to write an EULA

Illegal Art Exhibit Contract

spotted on: Scoble