Archive for June, 2007

28
Jun

The Ducks are Massing

By Gavman 2 Comments
Categories: weird

Just read this on The Register. How real it is, I don’t know. But it’s one the the bizarrest things I’ve ever heard. Basically, a shipping container of 30,000 yellow plastic ducks as lost during a storm in the mid-pacific back in 1992. Most of the ducks went south and washed up in Australia. But about 10,000 headed north on a (currently) 15 year adventure. The floated around the north pacific for a few years and ended up in the Arctic. Here they became frozen in pack ice as they moved into the atlantic. During this ordeal they’ve been bleached white.

The ice has thawed and some have washed up in the Hebrides (2003). An American has been tracking their journey and has said that they may end up washing up on British beaches. The west country will start to see them first.

Apparently they’ve been known to fetch up to £500 on eBay. I only hope my mum finds them when walking the dog. I know she reads this, so take note!

UPDATE: The company that produced them is apparantly offering £50 for each one found!

Note: The image shown here does not represent the actual ducks

27
Jun

Choose and Book "Not fit for purpose"

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: cfh and opinion

The NHS’s IT project has hit yet more criticism. The BMA’s Annual Conference has hit out against the Choose and Book system. Choose and Book is the patient booking and referral system. It was one of the first systems to go live and has gradually rolled out over the past year or so. I remember the early versions didn’t even have the facility to specify left or right in operations! That was just one of the problems.

To be fair, I’m sure they’ve ironed out a lot of the issues from the early versions. But the reaction of the BMA clearly shows that it still doesn’t meet expectations. As far as the whole CfH project is going this was one the better components! In my opinion the whole system is over complicated. Having worked integrating with it, its clear why there are so many issues and why its seems to be a money pit.

But we are in the 21st century and the logical progression is to a computer based system. Its just this one has been run badly from day one. I guess I’ll follow the advice of a senior person there. If you are having an operation, mark where you are having it clearly in black marker!

27
Jun

Metal Elvis

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: music

I was driving to pick Michelle up and listening to Radio 1’s Black Hole. It was filled with bands from the Internet, etc. They played Burnin’ Love by Metal Elvis and it was awesome. Elvis crossed with metal. Brilliant. Check out the site and have a listen, you won’t be disappointed.

http://www.metalelvis.com
Video at YouTube

26
Jun

Mars Rover to get Tooled Up

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: science

Plans are afoot to fit a laser to a turret on the next Mars rover. It’s not there in case the little green men get aggressive, its there to extend exploration. Theory is that if there is life on Mars, it will be hidden away from the radition and harsh planetary conditions. The laser can vaporise pieces of rock to reveal what’s beneath the surface.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but searching for life by “blasting” its potential habitat to dust doesn’t seem to right way to go. It’s like looking for moles in a field by blowing it up!

25
Jun

Social Networking reflects Real Life?

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: internet and opinion

I’ve just been reading a paper by Danah Boyd at USC titled “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace“. It’s interesting to propose that the two main contenders actually reflect a class divide. American schools seem to have a clearly defined set of sub-cultures, which are popularly recreated in the movies. Here in the UK, these are less clearly defined, although I’m sure they exist. It would be interesting to see if this trend is also reflected in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, and more importantly, backed up with statistics.

To sum the paper up in UK terms, Facebook is popular with the “Upper” and “Middle” classes of educated teens who go to college, etc. Where-as MySpace is popular with the “Working” class.

I think in part that this divide may have been brought about by the fact that Facebook was initially launched to Universities in the US, and its only recently that the rest of the world has been invited to join. This is what is currently driving it’s success.

MySpace has always been aimed at everyone. With the proliferation of social networking sites that seems to be going through an explosive period, I feel that standard competition arises between the two. Facebook for Universities, MySpace for everyone. When in a University, if most of your friends are frequenting a particular site, naturally you will join the same site. There would be no need to join another site, like MySpace, if your friends are using another.

This is also true of the alternate perspective. Facebook was closed to all but Universities, so the “equivalent” MySpace would be popular. Facebook offers more networking opportunities and people are gradually moving there.

The upshot is that I think the current class trend outlined in the paper is not necessarily a reflection of socio-economic divides, but merely the business decisions made by the creators of each site.

Check out the paper, feel free to comment.

18
Jun

Welcome to the party, pal!

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: movies


It’s been a while since I last posted. IOW was awesome. The Stones sure know how to rock! Been busy at work too, so had to neglect the posts.

So Die Hard 4 is out soon. Read an interview with Willis. He thinks it will be as good as Die Hard, if not better. Either way, I’m sure it won’t be bad!

I’ll talk to ya later.

07
Jun

Off to the IOW Festival

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: going out

I’ll shortly be off to join Michelle at Waterloo to head down to the Isle of Wight Festival. Should be getting there about 9.30-ish if Darren’s on time. I don’t relish setting the tent up in the dark though! Hopefully there will be enough light.

Right, need to get some beers and a rubber mallet. See you there!

07
Jun

Everybody Needs a 303

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: rave

After being inspired by the current “rave revival” I felt an urge to tap into my musical “talent” and get a Roland MC-303, classic synth/sequencer of the time. But I lost the auction for that by two quid and instead bid on a Yamaha RM1X, which I won! Technically the RM1X was a bit better but at the time the 303 was most popular. But Roland under-estimated demand and there weren’t enough 303’s to go round. This allowed competitors to gain a foothold.

It’s gonna be a laugh though! I remember at the time being impressed by MOD files on my mates Amiga. I even had a go myself. Couldn’t afford anything like this at the time though, but now I can! At the time these units sold for hundreds of pounds. Fortunately, its no where near that now.

Michelle is gonna kill me!

05
Jun

Search Engine Safety

By Gavman 0 Comments
Categories: internet

McAfee have released an update to their regular search engine safety report. Some very interesting figures here. It covers the top 5 search engines which accounts for 93% of all searches. I’ll leave the detail out, there’s a link at the bottom to check it out.

Highlights are that overall, the results returned have been getting safer over the past year. Yahoo is the only exception to this rule. One thing I thought was quite a surprise is that the most scam sites are found through sponsored links. Over twice as many in fact.

Unsurprisingly, using adult search terms increases your exposure to dodgy sites. These have increased as well, except for AOL. So if you’re searching for porn, AOL gives you better quality!

All the details are on McAfee’s SiteAdvisor site, including details of the tests run. Be safe.

05
Jun

Transformers Movie

By Gavman 1 Comment
Categories: movies and transformers

Not long now. The UK release date is 27th July 2007, so under 2 months to go now! Really looking forward to it. MTV showed some additional footage of Prime versus Bonecrusher. It looks and sounds awesome! Check it out at YouTube.

In other news, rumours abound that there are potentially two sequels in the pipeline. Who knows if there true? I guess we’ll have to see how the movie performs. In the meantime, check out the article at Digital Spy.

US Release – 4th July
UK Release – 27th July

If anyone has spare tickets to the London premiere, please, please, please let me know!

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