Posts

Due to a complete lack of demand

I am not going to report on the “Starting From Zero” meme again until day 666, with no more intermediate steps along the way. I am tired of the project, personally, and it’s obviously driving others mad, too.

by Royal appointment

On Friday, I was surprised (and honoured) to receive an email from Prince Philip.

9/11 - The Falling Man

A Channel 4 documentary about 9/11 and the controversial photographs capturing the final seconds of people who jumped to their deaths.

Harrowing and yet compulsive viewing. Not for everyone and the sort of program you might expect a warning about the content (21:00-22:30) which some may find disturbing, upsetting or offensive.

Instead, Channel 4 announce ‘This program contains images and video footage featuring repetitive patterns that may cause problems for people with photosensitive epilepsy’. Bizarre. Truly bizarre.

In Shreds

Everything was in its place. Then I went and changed everything (again). My therapist says this is a character defect and a sign of subliminal procrastination.

Hard reset Palm Pilot. Download Thunderbird extension to sync address book. Doesn’t work.

So now my Contacts are in Thunderbird (periodic manual export/import) and I am using the Palm for Calendar and Tasks. If it’s good enough for Dave Allen, then it’s good enough for me.

Next Action: Wait for Thunderbird/Sunbird to fully support Palm synchronisation.

unfortunate choice of words

There is a terribly sad story in the UK about clinical trials that have gone (badly) wrong leaving six people critically ill in hospital.

Radio 5 carried an interview with a person who has taken part in previous trials. He was so full of praise for Parexel that I thought he was a stooge.

That was, until, he uttered the unfortunate words

‘So, 1,000 GBP for one trial and 750 GBP for the second. For a student, that is a lot of money and can actually be life-changing’

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heart stopping moment

Just went to delete ‘whiteside.wordpress.com’.

Hit ‘Yes’ I am really, really sure I want to delete this blog for eternity. Yes. I acknowledge I will never be able to access the blog again or reuse the name ever. Or, in vi terms, ‘:q!’.

Received an email from the WordPress Workflow Monitor Agent. Clicked the link to confirm I really, truly do know what I am doing and do indeed want to consign the blog to Room 101.

One small step...

Thanks to Igor (who is a human being and not a monster) kindly modifying an inbound link, an article briefly appearing in Dave Sifry’s Link Cosmos (a proud moment indeed) and a citation from this very odd gentleman, this blog has edged up the Technorati ladder

Day 211. Technorati Rank: 145,329 (33 links from 19 sites)

However, the grim realisation is slowly dawning that there is more chance of MUFC catching Chelsea than my humble blog overtaking Stowe Boyd. Consequently, I have reluctantly lowered my sights and now have Doug Burns (bathing in the afterglow of the HotSos effect) on my radar.

Ciddy getting giddy

13. Years since Manchester City reached the quarter finals of the FA Cup.

30. Years since Manchester City last won a trophy.

The best football banner in the world was very simple and understated - just two large digits at the Stretford End. The number was incremented on or around 28th February each year.

The banner is no longer at Old Trafford (following the Glazer takeover) but can still be seen at FCUM matches apparently. Easier to get tickets too.

I come to praise WordPress

…not to bury them.

I have been unable to administer this blog for a couple of days. However, thanks to the unstinting efforts of Ryan and Donncha, I am pleased to say the problem is now resolved.

I was trapped inside a recursive, infinite, endless loop hell which severely tested my sense of humour after 28 minutes. In fact, I was positively irritated, frustrated and tending towards ‘annoyed’.

I was aware there were a few issues at WordPress following recent changes. Initially, I assumed my problems were related and just waited. However, then I saw people merrily posting away on their WordPress blogs (and not just Scobleizer who has a custom template and a dedicated server farm).

the post that never was

I am a fan of WordPress. I like their software. I like their humour.

I pay absolutely nothing for the service so I really can’t complain when it breaks.

However, today is the second day I can’t access my blog on WordPress.

Nothing on Technorati. Nothing on Digg. Nothing on tech.memeorandum. Nothing on TailRank. Nothing from those Wordpress ‘A’ listers, Scoble and Winer.

In fact, as I could see other people sporadically blogging on WordPress, my paranoia took hold and I started to wonder whether I was the only person in the entire blogosphere affected by this problem.