Cardiff Castle,
originally uploaded by gtj-45.

Another excellent photograph from flickr – this time it is a stunning photograph of the main keep of Cardiff Castle in Wales.

The site of Cardiff castle dates back to Roman fortifications from around AD 60, but the more recent, and more impressive castle, was built during the time of the Norman / Plantagenet kings of England. This served as a base for the Norman knights to dominate the surrounding lands and enforce the Norman rule over the Welsh.

Sadly, Cardiff castle is not part of the Heritage schemes (National Trust, CADW etc) so, unless you live in Cardiff it costs a bit to get in.

Eilean-Donan1,
originally uploaded by photokarsky.

Very attractive castle in the Scotish highlands – it lies at the point where three Scottish Lochs Meet. It is that much of a well known, loved, castle that it has its own website – http://www.eileandonancastle.com/

Sadly, from a purely historical point of view, this is not a castle that has really seen service (compared to the ones further south for example) and is closer to the stately homes of rich nobles (Castle Drogo for instance)

Still Eilean Donan is a stunning building and very imposing. This photograph (from Flickr) is an excellent example.

Cornish Coast,
originally uploaded by etrusia_uk.

A striking view over the Cornish coast, just south of Newquay.

This photo was taken on a very sunny day in January but doesnt quite catch just how blue the water was.

(This has been posted here to test the flickr integration with the blog)

Stonehenge – Ancient Stones,
originally uploaded by etrusia_uk.

Photos taken at Stonehenge showing the ancient stones against a cloudy background.

Although there are lots of debates over when the standing stones were assembled, it is fairly safe to say that this happened at some point during a 1000 (or so) year period centred on about 3000 BC.

Despite current beliefs (based mainly on Victorian mistakes) it is more likely that Stonehenge was used for mid-winter rituals than mid-summer ones.

This is probably the end post (following on from the ones I did earlier this week) on the paypal saga. I have tried repeatedly (short of phoning them) to get a straight answer to the problem. I have also tried firefox on other people’s PCs and it has the same issues.

It strikes me as if this is something firefox have no intention of resolving – to the extent that they think it is the customer’s fault.

The customer service we have allowed ourselves to suffer over the internet is nothing short of shockingly bad.

Paypal – shame on you. If this was an open market then I can promise I would never, ever use your services again.

Well the saga (first outlined on this blog a few days ago) seems to be continuing. I still cant log into paypal using Firefox and I am still sending complaints to paypal. At least now they are responding :-).

The first reply was on 21 Feb (only FOUR days after my complaint) and was from a help desk person who shall remain anonymous (I dont fault her for her answers so I dont see why she should get the blame for Paypal). The response was as follows: Continue reading →

Following on from http://www.whydontyou.org.uk/blog/2006/02/18/paypal-and-firefox/ – I sent a helpdesk request to paypal a good few hours before that blog entry and, at the time of writing, still havent had any reply from paypal. This is a shame as I was hoping to be able to put their side of the argument in, but never mind.In a nutshell, I have been trying to log on to Paypal pretty much every few hours since Friday (yesterday) and, as I use FireFox as the browser of choice, each time I have been presented with a major problem. It seems that they have some sort of “browser sniffer” and it is getting the wrong idea about Fire Fox (or at least my version of it). Continue reading →

Just realised today that for some reason PayPal wont let FireFox connect to it! 🙁

I have sent a complaint to the Help Desk so will write more when I get a reply.

There seems an almost unwritten law in newspapers and magazines where journalists feel compelled to present what they see as “both sides” of the argument.

Now, at first glance it seems like this is a “reasonable” approach to take but is this always the case? Personally I think not, and it is the warped idea that this has to be done which has allowed real crackpot ideas like ID to get a foothold.

It is very easy to pass scorn on the “mainstream” press for this fallacy, but science journals (which really should know better) can be just as guilty. In todays New Scientist magazine, in the In Brief section there is an article entitled “Melatonin Myth?” [New Scientist, 18 feb 2006, p 21] – which is available online from http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18925394.900 – and in this it explains that Nini Buscemi (et al) from the University of Alberty carried out a review on the use of Melatonin to fight jet lag. Their research implied that there was “no evidence the hormone helps people get to sleep sooner” and “at best it added 10 mins of extra sleep for every 8 hours in bed.”

In the sprit of presenting both sides, New Scientist helpfully adds in this reply from the “Surrey Sleep Research Centre” (Guildford, UK) “Dont knock it.” Fantastic. What an excellent refute of the Buscemi study. The reply is from “Jo Arent” (not listed on the SSRC staff list so I cant correctly attribute her scientific credentials) and she says “some studies are negative because subjects were not instructed to take melatonin at the correct time.”

Now call me old fashioned, and to be honest this is completely without seeing the studies she is talking about so I may well be wrong, but this sounds suspiciously like the argument Homeopaths use to justify thier witchcraft.

I get the impression, that as western society works hard to undo the enlightenment we suffer from journalists who feel the need to appear balanced (at times, the New Scientist staff are happy to present weak causal links elsewhere without retort) which in turn creates confusion and mistrust within the general public.

It is this hotbed of chaos which has allowed ID (and homeopathy, “alternative medicine” fools and cranks like Gillian McKeith) to gain a foothold in society. People are confused about science and as more nutjobs get on the news, the more confused people become. It is shocking.

Partly “science” itself is to blame. What once was fairly simple (basic science and “human scale” physics is straightforward enough for most people) but as we get into the realms of DNA, Quantum Mechanics etc., it seems people are feeling left behind. As this happens we create an environment where the lunatic can seem as reasonable as the next man.

This is not a Good Thingâ„¢.

Well, it looks like the nutcases have finally taken over the asylum. Headlines from the BBC announce “MPs back ID cards passports plan” (quote taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4707608.stm, updated 2018hrs, visited 2037 hrs today).

Truly sad news.

During this recent discourse about the All-Mighty-Google and its competitors, I got wondering. 🙂

Imagine, you are the best software coder on Earth and you have come up with a program of amazing elegance and simplicity that will spider the internet, database the results and produce a fantasic search interface. Could you compete with the main players? Continue reading →

Following on from the interesting post about Google vs MSN, I have to ask the hidden question there. Is there any point in search engine optimisation – especially paid for SEO.
At the end of the day websites fall into a few categories. Commerical Sites where some one wants to sell something (tangible product or service), ego sites where some one just wants to talk about themselves (blogs etc :)), information sites where some one knows something they want to share with the world and advertising sites where some one (normally a company) want a site just to show off how great they are. Continue reading →

This is a mildly interesting topic. Basically, because so many people leave their electrical gadgets on standby when they are not in use, it is using around 7TWh of energy – the equivalent to two power plants worth of production.

From my experience, this is something made much worse by PC users – who often leave their equipment switched on for hours at an end (overnight etc).

It is interesting to think that a little lifestyle change (switch off at night for example) could have an actual significant impact on your fuel bills and in the long run the whole planet.

Further reporting available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4620350.stm

Shane from Distro of the Month posted an interesting comment about the different “flavours” of Linux.

Now, we at Distro of the Month have a vested interest in reminding people that there are more than just one or two distros. We ship a different one each and every month. It is important to remember that unlike Windows, Linux isn’t just a one manufacturer operating system. There are many different manufacturers out there with many different products. That’s why we are here. To introduce our subscribers to as many different products as possible. The idea is that the more Linux products that you try, the more you will learn Linux as a whole. And the more you learn Linux, the more you will like it.

And I must say I agree. As I said in a comment on his blog, one of the strengths of Linux is the variety of distros and how you can get them designed for all manner of purposes – including fully fledged ones taking up less than 50mb. That this variety is then all brought together under a common architecture really does make Linux stand out.

If you are not a linux convert already but are interested in trying it out you could do worse than checking out FrozenTech’s Live CD list at – http://www.livecdlist.com/. Live CD’s are versions of Linux that you can download (as an ISO file) burn to disk and then run from the CD (or DVD). They contain all the tools etc., that you would get with the OS but provide a way for you to try it out without risking any of your current data (and without messing about repartititioning hard disks etc).

One excellent use for LiveCDs is for system utility disks that you can use in the event of your windows installation going belly up.

Well, while we may not be as dedicated to the fine arts of Linux as some people we could mention, we at Why Dont You use Linux and can appreciate its strengths.

Now, as we exist in the real world and dont (yet – donations always welcome) have the handheld ebook reader of our dreams (see http://www.whydontyou.org.uk/blog/2006/01/14/portable-pdfs/ for more information) we also read computer magazines (and a lot of them). If you took a snapshot of the world based on these over the last month or so, you could easily be fooled into thinking that there was but one Linux and its name is Ubuntu.

Continue reading →