Assorted Lunchtime News

The recent solar storms have, because of the charged particles hitting the atmosphere, produced some stunning auroras in places where they are normally not visible, there's a picture in there taken in Suffolk! When you're 59, how would you fancy running a marathon? How about 7? How about 7, in 7 days, in 7 different continents? He completed his 5th today in London. Does anyone feel sorry for these guys? Would you not think there was something a bit weird about the whole concept? They're probably a bit embarrassed, but that's nothing compared to what these people must be going through. Mind you, I bet at least some of them will go on "Holidays from Hell 17" to let us all know the levels of bodily fluid involved. However, it could be worse. Paul McCartney & wife had a baby on Wednesday, the gender had changed by Thursday lunchtime, though. Finally, this is somewhat ironic, don't you think?

EDIT: Oops, wrong Suffolk. There's one in Kent though

Late-night puzzle

The telegraph quick crossword always has the first two or more clues combine to produce a word or phrase of some kind. For example 1 across may be 'monk' and 2 across 'ease'. Yesterday's was the following:

Longbow wood (3)
Part of west India (3)
Time long ago (4)
Entrance (3,2)
1990's US Vice-President (2,4)
Principal (4)

This is fairly tricky without the other clues to give you letters, but none of the above answers are particularly obscure, it's just getting the right combination. If you get it post in the comments that you have and email me, don't reveal it for others to see. Dad eventually figured it out here.

New Winamp

Winamp 5 Beta 2 here. I've been using it for [counts on fingers] 73 seconds now and have already found a few bugs that it's fixed (if you see what I mean)

Firewalls

"The next update, Windows XP Service Pack 2, is due in the first half of 2004. Microsoft also plans in Service Pack 2 to turn on the Internet Connection Firewall, a basic form of protection that's built into Windows but is currently off by default." More here.

Woohoo, here we go again. This sounds like a great idea to me, but how many firewall companies are going to sue? Microsoft can't just go round improving their products willy-nilly...it's unfair.

How not to run a political party

Warning, the below is a rant. Feel free to ignore it

So IDS is out, and the Conservative party are having their fourth leadership election in eight years. Nicely done. I don't know enough about the candidates to make any kind of judgement as to their abilities (although I bet we'll see that Michael Howard / Jeremy Paxman clip shown a fair few times in the coming weeks) but it seems likely that after two youngish leaders they will elect someone older and "more experienced". The problem with this is that they'll most likely be anti-europe, anti-gay and generally projecting exactly the same image the conservatives have been for the past twenty years. A commentator on the extended 6 o'clock news this evening said "the world has moved on, but the conservatives haven't", and that's arguably true, but hides what I think is a deeper problem, not just with the conservatives but with politics in general.

This is one of my things. The sniping that removed IDS from the leadership has all been for the same reason: "we think we have a better chance of winning the next general election without him as leader". My argument would be that while a leader has to project an image, people are more bothered about what you're actually going to do when in power. Everything is about 'removing the labour party' and 'getting back into power' and that's not the point. Surely they should be trying to do the best they can in coming up with ways to run the country, instead of the petty, childish behaviour that puts so many of us off politics altogether. The labour party are often no better. Ministers often spend far too much time telling saying how much better their policies are than the tories, rather than explaining exactly how they'll help in the grand scheme of things. Case in point: public transport.

Conservatives: Public transport is no better now than when you came into power. You're crap
Labour: Well you sucked more, we're having to clean up your mess
Conservatives: No, you're just rubbish
Labour: No, you were.
Conservatives: Well, you smell
Labour: Well you go like this [sticks fingers in ears and skips around house of commons with tongue sticking out]

Ignoring the last two lines, the only way for anyone to have any opinion on public transport is whether you happen to be a labour supporter or a conservative supporter, there's no evidence for either side, just vast amounts of commons time devoted to pointless insults.

The behaviour of MPs in the house of commons is below the level acceptable of children at school. Yelling out in agreement; stamping of feet; trying to drown people out; booing for goodness sake. Most people my age take no interest in politics, their opinion of politicians being only just above that of black-widow spiders. This sucks for many reasons.

Children today are the best educated and most well-informed of any generation, yet they are being put off politics because of the behaviour of politicians. Politics is interesting, anyone who's watched a West Wing can tell you that, but all the ridiculous attachments obscure the importance. When an important issue comes along, like the Iraq war for example, it's far easier to incite ill-informed people into action by using the dislike of politicians as a lever. I'm not trying to give any opinion on the war, but I heard friends of mine saying how much they hated George Bush, and how sorry they felt for Saddam Hussein. There was no attempt to back this up, it was just the Way Things Are. A man responsible for the deaths of over a million people is more worthy of respect than the President of the US. Whether you agree with the war or not, this is not the behaviour of intelligent people. A dislike of politicians means a lack of interest in politics. A lack of interest in politics leads to a lack of understanding of the reasons behind the way the world works. Complex issues are reduced to single sentence soundbites, on the basis of which people decide their opinion. "What do you think of a european constitution?" "The US has a constitution, and I don't like the US, so I say no". "What do you think of the war?" "Innocent people die in wars, and I think George Bush is thick, so I don't agree with it". There has to be an understanding of issues before people can give opinions on them. A melodrama-obsessed media doesn't help. But I digress.

It's hard not to feel sorry for IDS. He was elected leader, yet had to endure months of behind-the-scenes backstabbing. They even went after his wife to get at him, for crying out loud. He was not removed because of his policies but because he wan't charismatic enough (incidentally, what's the point of being elected by a countrywide vote of conservative party members when you can be removed by a MPs confidence vote?). He did nothing wrong other than be himself. Had they attacked his policies, it would have been more reasonable, but they did not. To think that the tories accuse labour of being image-obsessed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think politicians are stupid. The vast majority I'm sure are very intelligent people, it's just the method of doing things that I don't agree with. Politics is a fascinating and important thing. It should be something worthy of study at school, something we all want to play a part in (if you need convincing, try reading some of Tony Blair's speeches - whether you agree with him or not the issues raised will make you think). Going after the man rather than the policies has not only sent the conservatives even lower on the popularity scale, it has served to make politics seem even more derisory to the young.

Yeah, I know I can be called naive for wanting the squabbling to stop, but I prefer to think of it as hopeful.

IDS

I've got the BBC's IDS coverage updating every minute through the excellent Avant browser. The BBC page is interesting in that journalists are posting quick snippets throughout the day, and it's nice to see that they aren't all as eloquent as in their full reports. When I've got time I often have to re-write sentences three or four times when posting to this blog, and it's good to know that even professionals can't always pluck interesting phrases out of the air at a moment's notice.

Socialising in its many forms

Last night I went to a leaving do for a friend of mine from Classic Rock. Of the 6 of us who worked there when I joined, she was the last to leave. I was nervous before going - I'm not the best at socialising, I tend to end up saying nothing for extended periods of time when around people older than me - but had a great time in the end. The other four were such nice people that I never really felt out of place, despite being the sole male representative One of the others was the only other person I've ever met of a similar age who doesn't like alcohol because of the taste, which was nice as I sometimes feel like a freak of nature! We went to Pizza Express in Stratford, which although strangely cold was very pleasant.

My friend Ben said yesterday that he's heard good things about Crimson Skies, so I downloaded the demo. After discovering very quickly that a joystick is pretty much necessary, it was pretty good. I doubt I'll buy it, but it made me realise my lack of adventure when it comes to computer games. I tend to only be interested in the classic first-person shooters, which is a bit silly since I'm so bad at the multiplayer aspect of them, without thinking that I could get into team-based games, flight sims etc. In this vein I've downloaded the Battlefield 1942, Call of Duty and IL-2 Sturmovik demos. The idea of being competent in a virtual spitfire / parachuting into battle as part of a unit is very appealing! Ben's laughing now, he knows my that my real life team skills consist of pretending to want to be in a group then shooting them in the back the first opportunity I get - if laser quest / unreal tournament are anything to go by anyway. This is probably one of my many phases, but who knows, I might really enjoy it.

Christmas Party

Would anybody be interested in a Christmas party this year? Given the sheer number of people, it's tricky doing it in people's houses, and I was thinking of hiring a hall again? Obviously the problem would be money. I can't remember exactly how much it cost but I imagine it was &pound10ish per person. For this we'd get a hall, food and decorations...How does that sound? We can forego the fancy dress this time

I'll only start organising things if I hear back from a fair few people in the affirmative, so please let me know what you think.

Sticky Iced Buns

"...directory does not exist, do you want setup to create it?"

It's your DEFAULT directory! Is it likely to be there already? Why would I not want to create it, when I've already said that it's ok to install there?! If you were a baker and I were a customer, and I bought some sticky iced buns, and you said "do you want a bag for these?" and I said "yes, please", would you then say "I don't have a bag in my hand, should I pick one up?"? And if you did, and I said "No", would you say "Ok you obviously don't want any sticky iced buns" and kick me out of the bakery? No. You know why not? Because bakers don't do that sort of thing. If I want some sticky iced buns, I go in and say "I'd like some sticky iced buns please," and they say "certainly, sir" and give me some sticky iced buns. In fact I'm so annoyed I'm going to go buy some sticky iced buns now. Iced buns iced buns iced buns.