Interestingly, my older children, one of whom has quite problematic learning difficulties and the other who i suspect shows very depressive tendencies drank heavily treated town water for most of their young lives. My younger children who have no such problems have, apart from a couple of short periods, drank well water pumped from deep below ground. Things to make me go "hmmmmmm"
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
People are just getting dumber.
Fluoride has been shown to have adverse neurological effects. I wonder how a data mashup for health conscious and proactive societies might correlate the incidences of petty crime, antisocial behaviour, poor literacy and general bread-and-circuses mentalities in populations?
Feynman
I finally get Feynman diagrams! Of course it took Feynman to explain them because I just watched the Aukland University lecture tapes. Who better to do that?
If the diagram is projected across space and time then Feynman's own explanation of the positron and antiparticles in general seems to imply a reverse direction in time. Perhaps the implication and Feynman's own reluctance to engage upon that subject suggests that it is a gray area.
Time's demonstrably unidirectional nature is, i beleive, nothing more than conservation of energy relating to entropy. To undo an entropic action would require the application of energy that must come from the universe in general so entropy is consequentially always increased no matter how litte actual "work" one does in a Sadi Carnot sense.
If however a feynman diagram were to be applied to space, that implies three dimensions and a fourth dimension not of time but an actual and concrete physical dimension of bidirectional values, then the Feynman diagram would take on a different aspect.
Imagine, given the technology of today's 3D graphics, a Feynman diagram as a full interactive 3D movie would afford views of the various interactions that would provide very different perspectives.
Looking down onto the top of a diagram to change the perspective on time or from the side to change 3D position might be a useful visualization tool.
If the diagram is projected across space and time then Feynman's own explanation of the positron and antiparticles in general seems to imply a reverse direction in time. Perhaps the implication and Feynman's own reluctance to engage upon that subject suggests that it is a gray area.
Time's demonstrably unidirectional nature is, i beleive, nothing more than conservation of energy relating to entropy. To undo an entropic action would require the application of energy that must come from the universe in general so entropy is consequentially always increased no matter how litte actual "work" one does in a Sadi Carnot sense.
If however a feynman diagram were to be applied to space, that implies three dimensions and a fourth dimension not of time but an actual and concrete physical dimension of bidirectional values, then the Feynman diagram would take on a different aspect.
Imagine, given the technology of today's 3D graphics, a Feynman diagram as a full interactive 3D movie would afford views of the various interactions that would provide very different perspectives.
Looking down onto the top of a diagram to change the perspective on time or from the side to change 3D position might be a useful visualization tool.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Life in the slow lane
I am a careful driver. I took a road safety campaign that was shown in England in the 1980's very much to heart and I drive by that standard all the time. The campaign went "Only a fool breaks the two second rule" and showed that a two second gap between two vehicles was a good margin for safety.
Being used to French drivers I find myself constantly in the situation of either being hugely annoyed or feeling totally assaulted by drivers that insist that they have to get past, even though one is driving at the speed-limit, or have to drive a couple of feet from ones rear bumper. In the latter case I have the habit of turning on the hazard flashers for a few seconds and if they don't back off I brake HARD.
On a recent trip to Ireland I was wondering why the car in front was driving along on the road margin. I was a good two seconds behing the car and certainly at a safe distance but after a few minutes of this I realized that the driver was inviting me to pass. Even my very safe two-seconds isn't enough for most Irish drivers!
Day after day in France I am almost violently assaulted by dangerous drivers either from behind or who think that the way to overtake a large lorry is to cram as close up behind as possible and then dodge out quickly to see if it's safe to pass. The number of times I almost get smashed by an oncoming car is incredible!
In Ireland I drove around for five days and only had a single driver who drove too close while using his cellphone and picking at his spots in the rearview. Vive les irish,
Being used to French drivers I find myself constantly in the situation of either being hugely annoyed or feeling totally assaulted by drivers that insist that they have to get past, even though one is driving at the speed-limit, or have to drive a couple of feet from ones rear bumper. In the latter case I have the habit of turning on the hazard flashers for a few seconds and if they don't back off I brake HARD.
On a recent trip to Ireland I was wondering why the car in front was driving along on the road margin. I was a good two seconds behing the car and certainly at a safe distance but after a few minutes of this I realized that the driver was inviting me to pass. Even my very safe two-seconds isn't enough for most Irish drivers!
Day after day in France I am almost violently assaulted by dangerous drivers either from behind or who think that the way to overtake a large lorry is to cram as close up behind as possible and then dodge out quickly to see if it's safe to pass. The number of times I almost get smashed by an oncoming car is incredible!
In Ireland I drove around for five days and only had a single driver who drove too close while using his cellphone and picking at his spots in the rearview. Vive les irish,
Macbook Air (Again)
I have been building and using computers for more then thirty years and I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed a machine more than my little Macbook air.
It is light, lasts ages on a single charge, is powerful, runs OSX and Windows and has a beautiful screen.
I bet one of these with an OLED screen would be even more wonderful.
Congratulations Apple. I am a total convert to the product.
It is light, lasts ages on a single charge, is powerful, runs OSX and Windows and has a beautiful screen.
I bet one of these with an OLED screen would be even more wonderful.
Congratulations Apple. I am a total convert to the product.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Tax matters UK
The unbounded hypocracy of the UK government never ceases to amaze me. The entire concept of a tax haven was invented by England as a way for rich land and business owners to retain their wealth by moving it away from the gaze of the Inland Revenue. Even the name Inland Revenue implies matters pertaining to the isolated isle of England and the first tax havens were set up on Jersey, the Isle of Man and many other british overseas territories that ran exclusive clubs that only rich pals and cronies of those in power were invited to.
The loopholes that rich people have used in the past have relied on the ignorance and lack of imagination of the little uneducated population. Today however, anyone with the tiniest bit of savvy can set up a perfectly legal and effective tax avoidance scheme for a lot less than they would pay in tax. Even personal tax.
Businesses also have lawyers who are employed to use the law to the best advantage of the company and bravo to them for doing a great job!
The current discourse of David Cameron and his cronies is nothing more than deflection, trying to create uproar in the ranks of the great unwashed who are given to believe that the problems of poverty and unemployment are the direct cause of corporations such as Apple and Google whereas in fact it has nothing to do with anything but the insane profligacy and mismanagement of successive right leaning governments.
There will always be loopholes in the law and there will always be clever lawyers to exploit the loopholes. The intelligent person in the street now has access to the full disclosure that the Internet provides and will be able to find and piggy back onto those systems.
Furthermore, countries succeed by lowering tax, not increasing it. The hammering that Ireland has taken in the EU recently is nothing more than mud slinging and however people like Cameron pontificate they cannot convince anyone with half a brain without actually demonstrating the effectiveness of their policies. So far so Crap Mr Cameron.
The loopholes that rich people have used in the past have relied on the ignorance and lack of imagination of the little uneducated population. Today however, anyone with the tiniest bit of savvy can set up a perfectly legal and effective tax avoidance scheme for a lot less than they would pay in tax. Even personal tax.
Businesses also have lawyers who are employed to use the law to the best advantage of the company and bravo to them for doing a great job!
The current discourse of David Cameron and his cronies is nothing more than deflection, trying to create uproar in the ranks of the great unwashed who are given to believe that the problems of poverty and unemployment are the direct cause of corporations such as Apple and Google whereas in fact it has nothing to do with anything but the insane profligacy and mismanagement of successive right leaning governments.
There will always be loopholes in the law and there will always be clever lawyers to exploit the loopholes. The intelligent person in the street now has access to the full disclosure that the Internet provides and will be able to find and piggy back onto those systems.
Furthermore, countries succeed by lowering tax, not increasing it. The hammering that Ireland has taken in the EU recently is nothing more than mud slinging and however people like Cameron pontificate they cannot convince anyone with half a brain without actually demonstrating the effectiveness of their policies. So far so Crap Mr Cameron.
Not what I was expecting.
Bizarre day today. I was driving through town and a police van passed me in the other direction. Suddenly a young chap in handcuffs leapt from the back of the van that was doing about 30 MPH. This poor sod hadn't accounted for basic physics or that his hands couldn't be used to save him and he flipped backwards and smashed his head on the road in front of me.
I screeched to a halt and leapt from my van and while others stood around, checked his vitals and started to get pressure on the wound on the back of his head. He was unconcious for a good five minutes and had all the signs of a severe skull fracture, bleeding from ears and eyes etc.
Then the little bugger woke up and started thrashing about. I was worried about his neck and me and another bloke tried to hold him down and keep him still. So the cops who dropped him turn up and asked me why my car was blocking the road. In my most authoritive voice i told cop A to go park my car and cop B to take the handcuffs off the victim. They both said "YES BOB" and did what they were told. So I ended up running trauma team for 20 minutes while a profusely bleeding and ungrateful patient tried his best to paralyse himself. He smotherd me in blood and eventually got packed off in a body splint while I was left to go buy a new and expenive tee shirt.
I screeched to a halt and leapt from my van and while others stood around, checked his vitals and started to get pressure on the wound on the back of his head. He was unconcious for a good five minutes and had all the signs of a severe skull fracture, bleeding from ears and eyes etc.
Then the little bugger woke up and started thrashing about. I was worried about his neck and me and another bloke tried to hold him down and keep him still. So the cops who dropped him turn up and asked me why my car was blocking the road. In my most authoritive voice i told cop A to go park my car and cop B to take the handcuffs off the victim. They both said "YES BOB" and did what they were told. So I ended up running trauma team for 20 minutes while a profusely bleeding and ungrateful patient tried his best to paralyse himself. He smotherd me in blood and eventually got packed off in a body splint while I was left to go buy a new and expenive tee shirt.
Friday, June 07, 2013
First major annoyance with GoDaddy shared hosting medium-trust
A while back I changed all my .htm pages to .ASPX ones so that I could take advantage of master-pages in ASP.Net.
On Brinkster I simply wrote a handler for the Application_BeginRequest method in the Global.ASAX page that detected .htm calls and re-wrote the URL with the equivalent .ASPX ending.
On GoDaddy this falls down completely because shared hosting will not permit a full trust configuration and so the Application_BeginRequest is only called after the hosting service has verified the URL so you get the lame GoDaddy 404 page.
I tried reassigning the 404 behaviour to my own page and decode the UrlReferrer but that doesn't work either!
In the end I have had to brute force the whole process by creating a redirect page for every .aspx page and giving it a .htm extension. This is a royal pain-in-the-arse because i now need to maintain 325more .htm files that reduce reliability and increase site update times.
If you're interested in this solution, here is the code I used to automatically generate the files:
On Brinkster I simply wrote a handler for the Application_BeginRequest method in the Global.ASAX page that detected .htm calls and re-wrote the URL with the equivalent .ASPX ending.
On GoDaddy this falls down completely because shared hosting will not permit a full trust configuration and so the Application_BeginRequest is only called after the hosting service has verified the URL so you get the lame GoDaddy 404 page.
I tried reassigning the 404 behaviour to my own page and decode the UrlReferrer but that doesn't work either!
In the end I have had to brute force the whole process by creating a redirect page for every .aspx page and giving it a .htm extension. This is a royal pain-in-the-arse because i now need to maintain 325more .htm files that reduce reliability and increase site update times.
If you're interested in this solution, here is the code I used to automatically generate the files:
private
void button1_Click(object
sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
OpenFileDialog
dlg = new OpenFileDialog();
if
(dlg.ShowDialog() == true)
{
string
p =
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(dlg.FileName);
foreach
(string s in Directory.GetFiles(p, "*.aspx"))
{
string
np=System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(s);
FileStream
fs=File.OpenWrite(p + "\\" + np + ".htm");
StreamWriter
sw = new StreamWriter(fs);
sw.Write(String.Format(@"<html>
<head>
<meta
http-equiv=""refresh""
content=""0;url=http://bobpowell.net/{0}.aspx"">
</head>
</html>
", np));
sw.Flush();
sw.Close();
fs.Dispose();
}
}
}
You will obviously need to replace the site url with your own or all your pages will redirect to my site which will be great for my AdSense stats but no good for you..
Sunday, June 02, 2013
Wozniak gets it wrong!
The story here suggests that taxing companies on income instead of profit is a good idea. Far from it however. This is a ridiculous idea that would lead to the utter collapse of business and ruin the economy.
To tax on income is so utterly wrong because it would mean that no business would be able to support general running costs and overheads for any extended period of time.
In fact, the fairness problem comes into play when individuals are taxed on their income and not allowed to deduct necessary and reasonable costs. This leads to the individual being forced into a double taxation trap because they have already paid tax on their income yet if they pay someone else, then that person is taxed also. This has lead to governments whose profligacy knows no bounds because after it trickles through the multi-layered tax system, they eventually get to grab and keep most of the money in the system. This is clearly wrong and the vast sums wasted by political parties and governments on non-essentials is truly incredible.
We live in an age where instant and verifiable communication is possible. Governments should be made to account for and justify every cent spent on a daily basis and individuals should only be made to bear the cost of what is absolutely necessary. The recent spate of minister expense scandals in the UK show clearly that the system has been and is still being abused.
To tax on income is so utterly wrong because it would mean that no business would be able to support general running costs and overheads for any extended period of time.
In fact, the fairness problem comes into play when individuals are taxed on their income and not allowed to deduct necessary and reasonable costs. This leads to the individual being forced into a double taxation trap because they have already paid tax on their income yet if they pay someone else, then that person is taxed also. This has lead to governments whose profligacy knows no bounds because after it trickles through the multi-layered tax system, they eventually get to grab and keep most of the money in the system. This is clearly wrong and the vast sums wasted by political parties and governments on non-essentials is truly incredible.
We live in an age where instant and verifiable communication is possible. Governments should be made to account for and justify every cent spent on a daily basis and individuals should only be made to bear the cost of what is absolutely necessary. The recent spate of minister expense scandals in the UK show clearly that the system has been and is still being abused.
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