A bit of a catch-up…
24 January, 2008 — WolfieSorry to all the visitors to The Wolf’s Howl here at WordPress.com; I’ve been so busy with The New Wolfs Howl (and it’s lovely new Forum) that I’ve been very remiss with updating this blog with news of the latest articles. So this post is sort of a round up of the latest stories.
As I’ve previously mentioned, The New Wolfs Howl is now the place to read new content and this blog will cease to be updated; I’ve now made the decision that from 15 February this blog will cease to be updated (I’ll leave all the content up, but nothing new will get published) so please make sure you’ve updated all your bookmarks and feedreaders with the new site.
So, on to those recent stories:
Formula 1 2008 : The season starts here: And let’s hope its a better one that last year. While the racing was at least slightly better than in 2006, especially with Brit interest at a height with the amazing debut season of Lewis Hamilton, the whole sport became mired in what can only be called farce with the “Spygate” scandal involving McLaren and Ferrari.
This year, hopefully, the FIA will allow all of that to be laid to rest (they’ll have to think up some other ruse to make sure Ferrari win) and we can get on with some proper racing. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]
At it once again: Leading on from my recent posts about data security, both nationally with the UK Government and internationally with Facebook I’m now getting somewhat jaded about the whole subject; it seems that almost everyday there’s some new story about data being treated irresponsibly some Government department that’s supposed to be looking after it.
Today we’re treated to two cases; the first is a little less HMG’s fault as it involves the theft of a Royal Navy laptop with details of around 600,000 people. Chances are, though, that as it was left in a parked car the thief wasn’t after the data, he just wanted the laptop to sell for drug money. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]
Advanced number theory: Just had to share this one with everyone:
A friend of mine has just moved his credit card from one provider to another. He’s paid off the balance on the one he’s moving from and wrote to them to ask them to close the account. They sent him a final bill - a few pounds worth of interest charges - which he paid, and they duly sent him a statement of account that showed his balance was £0.00.
What they didn’t send him was confirmation that the account was now closed, so he wrote to them again asking them to confirm in writing that the account was indeed closed (he’s a bit of a completist when it comes to things like this). This week he received a letter from them saying that while they had received his request to close the account, they couldn’t do so unless it had “a nil balance”. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]
Blue Monday and Feelgood Tuesday: No, not the New Order classic. What I’m talking about here is Monday 21 January, which is apparently the most depressing day of the year.
A Cardiff University psychologist has developed a formula that “takes into account… weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing our New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action”. Luckily, though, us Brits have been found to be optimists and more than 85% of us “expect the future to be happier than it is now”. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]
Open source software: Since buying my iMac, I’ve become a big fan of open source software - mainly because all of the software I’d want to buy is too damn expensive, so if there’s a cheaper alternative out there I’m in. I changed from MS Office to NeoOffice (an development of OpenOffice) and all the little bits and pieces that I use on a daily basis either came as part of the operating system (Mail) or I found on the Net (NetNewsWire, TextWrangler, Adium and the most useful of all - QuickSilver). [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]
Not so splendid isolation: Did you see Horizon on Tuesday night? If you didn’t catch it, check it out while you can on the BBC iPlayer; it’s the most interesting (and disturbing) programme I’ve seen for quite some time.
Interesting because of the basic premise; six people volunteered to be shut away in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation for 48 hours just so that Horizon could monitor the effects. Disturbing because of what some of those effects were and what they might mean for the wider world. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]
More on software: Since buying the iMac, I’ve been using a lot of different software packages to get various things done - lots of different newsreaders, office applicatons, image manipulators, browsers and so on - and so far have not had to buy a single piece of software; the concepts of open source, donationware and freeware are ones that I can whole heartedly get behind.
Most of the software that I’ve used has been excellent; designed to do a particular task, which it does well. If I’ve later replaced it with something else, that’s usually more down to the aesthetics than the functionality. As an example, I used Shrook as my newsreader of choice for many months but have recently changed to NetNewsWire - not because there’s anything wrong with Shrook, just because I prefer the layout of NetNewsWire. [Read the rest of this entry by clicking here.]
[Q: Why aren't you publishing the whole of the article here? A: As of 24 December, the Wolf's Howl has gone self-hosted at http://wolfshowl.com. All content is now published in its entirety at that site; this site will continue to have brief excerpts until 15 February 2008 and then will no longer be updated. Make sure you update your bookmarks and feed reader now to avoid missing any of the great stuff you're used to getting from the Wolf's Howl!]
