That feel good feeling

Head Rambles Posted on by 5

I have had a little problem for some time.

No, it’s not the sort of problem I would bring up in a doctor’s surgery and in fact has no medical connotations at all.

I have actually had three problems.

The first was that damned Gutenberg thing.  I finally sorted it by rebuilding this site from scratch.  Kind of drastic?  The editor seems to actually work properly now though I still don’t like it.

My second problem cropped up last night.  I spend my evenings up in the attic to give Herself some company.  I was browsing around in the vain hope that Sky might be showing something tolerably watchable [hah!  No chance] when it started moaning that it couldn’t connect to the Interweb.  Fuck!

I brought my laptop up and ran a series of tests which hinted that the router downstairs was working fine, and the router upstairs was working fine.  Bugger.  They are connected by a cable and I checked both ends of that cable.  Both were grand.  Shit!  Had one or other router packed up?  I spent a couple of frustrating hours trying a couple of spare routers and it wasn’t made any easier by Herself complaining in the background that she couldn’t browse the latest films [more shite from Marvel, or something subtitled no doubt].

I finally fixed it by accident.  I was downstairs in the junk room office when I noticed a network yoke that was dark when it should be happily sparkling away like the Blackpool lights.  I suddenly remembered that the connection between downstairs and upstairs went through this box and sure enough, a network cable had worked loose for some reason.  I firmly plugged it in and voila everything worked properly so Herself can now watch television and listen to her radio [Joe Duffy, God help us!].

The third problem has been bugging me all week.  It was those little lists on the sidebar that refused to update no matter what I did.  For those of a technical bent, those little rectangles are supposed to take their info from two files that automatically update every few minutes.  The files are updating but the page isn’t.  It is a fucking caching problem and seems to only apply to Firefox/Waterfox.  I hate caching problems as they are a right bugger to solve.

Now I may have sorted that little fucker but I’m not sure.  My problem is that I have to wait until the generated file in the background changes, and that may only happen every hour, depending on who is posting on the Interwebs, and when they post.

Leastwise, I’m getting there.

I’ll know in a couple of hours time…….

Update:  Fuck!  Still not working.  Don’t feel quite as good as I did before.

The most laughable study yet

Head Rambles Posted on by 16
Study linking e-cigarettes to lung function adds to concerns over vaping

This must surely set a new record for the most insane piece of “science” yet?

I honestly find it difficult to grasp the absurdity of their claim. 

With just eight human subjects, the research cannot be considered definitive.  No, it cannot be considered a “study” and to publish it shows total disregard for science and a desperate attempt to grab headlines.  Unfortunately the meeja have lapped it up with misleading banners, and as the majority of readers will register the headline without reading the text it will indeed add totally unjustified concerns.  But that’s all they want, isn’t it?

Lead author of the study Prof David Thickett noted that e-cigarettes “are safer in terms of cancer risk, but if you vape for 20 or 30 years and this can cause COPD (a progressive lung condition associated with smoking), then that’s something we need to know about.”

Why do we “need to know”?  The world is full of shit that will possibly have an effect in 20 to 30 years time so what makes vaping any different?   The answer is of course that it comes under the remit of Tobacco Control and that makes any old crap worthy of publication.

The one thing this “study” illustrates to perfection is the desperation of Tobacco Control to find anything, no matter how trivial, that will boost their obsessive and mindless preoccupation with nicotine in any form, apart of course from nicotine produced by Big Pharma.  Have they produced any studies that examine the long term effect of nicotine patches in 20 to 30 years?  Of course not. 

I did a scientific study the other day.  I was sitting outside the local coffee shop and out of ten people [i.e. a considerably larger sample than the “study” above] I can suggest that 80% of the population now smokes, and out of that 80%, 12.5% smoke a pipe.

Can anyone tell me why my study is any less valid?

Charity Begins With a Gnome

Head Rambles Posted on by 21

…or rather a Dwarf. I have a little problem, NO not that little problem- the doctors assure me it is a temporary side effect of the medication. Infact I have of course a plethora of problems (one hopes the correct collective noun is really something like a ‘shitload’) but unless you can, say, explain to me in very simple terms the purpose and function of the present-preterite tense of Old English verbs…or you can cure, Christ like, Frau von Rochester of her ‘notions’ then I fear the collected minds of my readership (ie my mom and little Sister) will be unable to assist.

My problem is that I found, some weeks ago, a £5 bank note on the pavement (for our foreign readers that is about 2 Euros or US$’s worth). For those reading this after Brexit; the ‘£’was the British unit of currency before the Rabbit Pelt.

I was brought up to believe that an Englishman NEVER simply pockets ‘finds’, that that would be THEFT. On the few occasions I found things as a child , I walked up the hill to the Police Station and handed them in to the desk sergeant (who ,by law,sported a walrus moustache and called you ‘Sonny’) who faithfully recorded the find in the Lost Property Ledger in long hand and took down your parents details before intoning with all the majesty of the Law that, after the passing of three full waxing and wanings of the moon (I grew up in Norfolk) , the item remained unclaimed then it would become your property.

Those days have long since passed, along with Police Stations and handle bar moustaches, of course. One can no longer ‘hand in’ found items to the Police (and they get really arsey if you drop that bag of coke or those unfired 9mm cartridges you found, whilst out dogging, on their desk at the ‘Customer Service Interface’)

Therefore, when I found that fiver, childhood morality compelled me to contact the owners of the shops outside which the money had lain that evening and ask them to pass on my cellphone number to anyone who might come looking.

That was now a couple of weeks ago. No one has come forward to utter the immortal phrase ‘You are The Blocked Dwarf and I claim my £5’ (you’d have to be British to understand).

Having been raised to be a gentleman I find, despite my efforts to locate the owner, I am still in possession of someone else’s money and I am psychologically incapable of simply keeping it. The morality of my nursery dictates it be given to charity.

“So put it in the next charity collection tin and stop bothering us with your outdated, middle class , morality!” I hear you cry. But not only was I raised in Norfolk in a home full to the brim with  such archaic 50s middle class morality (I even had to write ‘Thank You’ letters after Xmas and Birthdays as a kid! And you think you had an ‘abusive childhood’?) , I am also a christian …of sorts…and Christ commands us to keep the giving of alms a secret. I take that admonishment seriously. Not even The Bestes Frau In The Entire Universe knows if or when I give alms.

I say ‘give alms’ and not ‘donate to Charity’ because the distinction is important and has been lost under the tax status and the Charities Commission. Feeding the poor little children in Africa (yeah those ones who would have been so grateful for my uneaten childhood meals), Christmas presents for the Orphans of the Parish, logs (no NOT those sorts) for the Widows..these things are ‘alms giving’. Yous will never know if I ‘helped out’ some OAP by posting tobacco through their door late at night so they wouldn’t have to eat dog food this last winter.

So I want your suggestions for a charity that I could donate the money to and the suggestion I deem most ‘worthy’ to my mind will find themselves enriched by five shiny coins of the realm.

Here the ‘rules’:

The Charity must be ‘small’ and preferably special/niche interest. Not some Cats Home with billions in Iceland. ‘One man band’ or ‘sponsored by back pocket’ are what I am looking for, think ‘The Society To Promote The Correct Use Of The Genitive Apostrophe’, It must not be something the size of Google with more money than God. It very definitely should not be any charity that chugs on day time tv or ‘protects’ children and other small animals.

It must in no way be connected with sport. None of the ‘buy every kid a football’. If today’s kids can’t get enough exercise running from the Peelers….

It must NOT be a lobby group for Public Health I’m thinking of things like cASH or Smoke Free Kids (I had to fund my own kids’ smoking habits, why should other parents’ kids smoke for free?).

It must not be an ‘Alibi for government inaction’ (Help For Heroes, Friends Of Buggerridged School etc).

Weird and whacky welcome.

Most importantly of all they must accept Paypal. Sod walking up the hill to the Bank and waiting whilst the manageress, with her handle bar moustache fills in the ledger in long hand- yes I live in Norfolk and no I don’t go to the Bank very often; How did you guess?

Suggestions below, please.

Tossers

Head Rambles Posted on by 9

They’re at it again.

For the last wee while I have been getting loads of mails all saying the same thing

*sigh*

It seems that, (), 's your password. You might not know me and you are most likely wondering why you're getting this e mail, right?
 
in fact, I setup a trojans on the adult videos (porno) web-site and you know what, you visited this web site to have fun (you know very well what I am talking about). When you were watching videos, your internet browser started off operating as a RDP (Remote Access) which gave me accessibility of your screen and web cam. after that, my computer software obtained all of your current contacts from your Messenger, Outlook, Facebook, as well as emails.
 
What did I really do?
 
I made a double-screen video clip. Very first part shows the recording you're watching (you have got a good taste haha . . .), and 2nd part shows the recording of your web cam.
 
exactly what should you do?
 
Well, in my opinion, $1100 is really a fair price for your little hidden secret. You'll make the payment by Bitcoin (if you don't know this, search "how to buy bitcoin" in Google).
 
Bitcoin Address: 18ZKSpbvXLtu9x7RGEFTvvmqdmUx93xxNA
(It's case sensitive, so copy and paste it)
 
Important:
You've got one day in order to make the payment. (I've a completely unique pixel within this e mail, and at this moment I know that you've read this email message). If I don't get the BitCoins, I will certainly send out your videos to all of your contacts including family members, co-workers, and so forth. Having said that, if I receive the payment, I'll destroy the recording immidiately. If you want evidence, reply with "Yes!" and I will undoubtedly send your video recording to your 6 contacts. It is a non-negotiable offer, that being said don't waste my personal time and yours by answering this message.

One thing that’s strange is there are subtle differences in the mails.  In the example above they say “in fact, I setup a trojans” where in others they say “actually, I put in place a trojans” which is weird.  Apart from some little anomalies they are all identical except for the BitCoin address which is always different.

Now the little brackets at the top [It seems that, (), ‘s your password] actually contained a password in the first few.  It was a password I used many many years ago, and haven’t used in ages so obviously some ancient site has been hacked and they are assuming I use the same password on everything for the last fifteen or so years.  Lately they haven’t even bothered with that which sort of removes the sting from their tail?

Naturally I have binned the lot and have been waiting expectantly for all the contacts on my Outlook Address Book [which I don’t have, by the way as I abandoned Outlook along with all the rest of the Microsoft junk ages ago] to mail me wanting to know what the story was.  Their “one day in order to make the payment” has expired on all their mails but nothing has happened, which is disappointing to say the least.

There again there are so many flaws, loopholes and technical impossibilities [for a start, you can’t place a hidden pixel in a plain text email] that the whole scam is laughable.

But then there are those I suppose who may be technically challenged, who visit porn sites, have the camera on their laptop somehow placed under the keyboard [origami laptops?] and who have $1100 to throw away?

I can’t help but wonder what their next trick will be.  “We have used your email address to place a hidden webcam on your bedroom ceiling”?

Wankers.

Worries

Head Rambles Posted on by 4

There is a strange noise outside.

I am sitting with the door to the garden open, and every now and then there is the sound of a car splashing through puddles out on the road.  That’s a sound I haven’t heard since around April. 

This is the first real rain we have had this summer.  Over the last few weeks there has been the occasional shower, and yesterday it rained a bit.  Today however it has been pissing down all day.  I think it confused Penny, as she became so used to lying out on the lawn that she tried the same trick today.  She must have eventually realised that something was different as she is now lying on the couch, dripping wet and looking sorry for herself.

The drought has landed me with a small problem.  It’s not a sleepless nights type of problem; more a little conundrum that will have to be solved at some stage.  The problem is whether to take out the tractor and mow the lawns.

You see, the drought has killed most of the grass on the main [south] lawn.  There is a large area that is now occupied mainly by deep rooted weeds such as dandelions and feck all else.  But there is a section of it that didn’t suffer so badly and the grass there not only survived but is beginning to grow a bit straggly.  To make matters worse the front [north] lawn is growing as if there was never a shortage of water, and is now beyond ankle deep and is nearer knee depth.  It needs a cut.

So do I take out the tractor just for the front lawn?  Or do I do the front and then tackle the back which would mainly consist of driving around large areas of soil just cutting the heads off dandelions? 

Yes – these are the problems that occupy the mind of a retiree.  Gone are the days of worrying about punctuality, commuting, finishing reports and whether I can scrounge a day off or not.  I now have greater things to occupy my mind.

Anyway, I can at least relax and postpone my little conundrum for another day.

It’s raining.

On being reborn

Head Rambles Posted on by 4

In case anyone is wondering [which I doubt], there have been a couple of changes here.

I am in the process of rebuilding the site from scratch, and the general idea is that a ton or two of old crap will be left behind on the old site, which I can delete.

So far I have rebuilt all the posts and comments, and have more or less replicated the layout.  There are more than a couple of tweaks to be done yet, so if something doesn’t work it’s probably because I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  Be patient.  I have to do the important things first and am working my way down the list.

Sure it’s pissing down outside, so what else would I be doing?

Short sighted leading the blind

Head Rambles Posted on by 2

I had to get a document signed recently.

In my ongoing quest to grab as much as possible from the state I made a little discovery. Apparently I can save a trip to the opticians and get a home visit, courtesy of the health service. Nice one, as it avoids a trip into Skobieville. Not something to be sneezed at.

I phoned the number I had discovered. No problem says the woman at the other end of the line. She duly sent me the required forms, which were simple enough – one for me to fill in and one for Doc who had to declare that Herself was unfit to travel. No sweat.

I filled out my form and dropped the other into Doc. I was told to call in the following day to collect it, as he was busy when I called.

I called in the following day. Panic and constipation! They had lost the form. The girl behind the desk searched high and low but came up blank. She apologised profusely. I said no sweat as I could get another one.

I rang the original woman and explained that Doc had lost her form. She laughed an said it happens all the time. She said she would send out a new one, which she duly did.

On Wednesday I happened to be in the village so I dropped the new form into Doc’s. I was told to call in the following day [i.e. yesterday].

Yesterday I happened to be in the village again and had to get something from the chemist. I dropped into Doc’s next door.

More apologies. Doc had been too busy to sign the damned thing but she would make a huge effort to get him to sign that evening. While I was there she said she had discovered an envelope addressed to Herself that had been lying there for some time. I said it was probably an old prescription or something and that it would be out of date but I would take it anyway.

While I was in the chemist, I opened the envelope out of curiosity. It was the original form duly signed and stamped!

So I trotted back next door and told them to forget about signing anything.

All I have to do now is post off the forms and await a visit from the optician.

Gutenberg is spinning in his grave

Head Rambles Posted on by 5

For some time now I have been trying to come to grips with this damned Gutenberg editor.

Why bother, you ask?  Why not just carry on as you are?

Well, those people of infinite wisdom have decreed that I have no choice.  The next release of WordPress is going to force me into using it.  Now I can install software that will supposedly let me use the old editor, but why should I have to?

A reasonable guide to any WordPress addition is its rating.  At the time of writing, Gutenberg has received 217 five star ratings and 487 one stars.  They don’t have a zero star which is probably just as well.  There seems to be issues with Cloudflare, issues with other plugins and issues with themes, and the developers’ response seems to be that these other people should modify their code to suit Gutenberg.  There are over 56.000 plugins out there and God knows how many themes.  How many of those are going to break the system at the next release of WordPress?

I have been having endless problems with the damned thing.  Sometime Preview doesn’t work [which can be sorted by setting Permalinks to Plain – very bad idea on a live site], sometimes it works for no reason, sometimes it just fails to load altogether, sometimes I click on Preview and it throws up a blank tab [but right clicking the Preview button and selecting the “Open link in a new tab” works!].

At present it isn’t working at all.  If I try to edit an existing post, or open a new post I just get the very helpful message saying “The editor has encountered an unexpected error.” which is really fucking setting my world alight.  If anyone from the editing bunch sees this maybe they can explain what this means:

[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/editor/index.js:12:288831
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react-dom.min.82e21c65.js:134:121
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react-dom.min.82e21c65.js:127:223
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react-dom.min.82e21c65.js:126:230
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react-dom.min.82e21c65.js:126:65
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react-dom.min.82e21c65.js:124:449
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react-dom.min.82e21c65.js:123:319
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react-dom.min.82e21c65.js:189:231
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/vendor/react.min.ab6b06d4.js:18:428
value/this.unsubscribe<@https://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:61445
r/</<@https://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:57246
r/<@https://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:57217
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:52537
n/<@https://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:58312
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:43625
x/i._invoke</<@https://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:43415
S/</t[n]@https://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:43801
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:46328
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:46530
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:36041
M/<@https://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:36186
[email protected]://headrambles.com/wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/build/data/index.js:1:34455

See what I mean about being helpful?

The really weird thing is that I set up a test site, which I gradually built from scratch.  The first thing I did was to activate Gutenberg, and then added bits from here, one by one.  Gradually I built up an almost precise replica and the fucking thing works.  There are a couple of discrepancies as there are a couple of plugins that could cause problems if duplicated on two installations but I don’t see how they can affect an editor.  Does this mean I have to delete Rambles and rebuild it piece by piece?

Why the fuck can’t they just leave it as a plugin and let us have the choice?

Shocking porn

Head Rambles Posted on by 8
Minister ‘shocked’ and ‘taken aback’ at the age Irish children are viewing pornography

Aw diddums!

I notice she wasn’t speechless.  That would be asking too much of a politician.

More than 53% of boys in Ireland first watched porn under the age of 13, according to a new survey.

Actually I am surprised at that.  I would have thought the figure would be much higher.

I vaguely remember a time aeons ago when I first realised that my dangly bit, which I had assumed was solely for peeing suddenly started acting all strange and doing things it hadn’t done before.  My dangly bit no longer just dangled.  Instead of hanging off me, I hung off it.  Frequently.

It was at that time I began to take more of an interest in underwear ads in magazines and copies of The Naturist magazine which were furtively passed around behind the bicycle shed in school usually in exchange for cigarettes or other contraband.   There was the time I struck gold and found my older brother’s Playboy magazines he had smuggled into the country and hidden under his mattress.  A whole new world had opened up and I couldn’t get enough of it.  And all of this was before my thirteenth birthday.

So kids watch porn.  So what?  Kids are curious and will find ways to satiate that curiosity.  Just so long as they realise that 99% of it is pure acting, is staged and does not represent real life experiences.

I don’t know what kind of closeted world Mary Mitchell O’Connor was brought up in.  Probably an all-girls convent?

I wonder if her hat matches her handbag?

I doubt it.

Not that I care.

A road less travelled

Head Rambles Posted on by 9

Our gubmint is worried.

They wanted us to drive cars that were more fuel efficient and had lower emissions.  So they introduced taxes to “nudge” us in the right [i.e. their] direction.

So people went out and bought cars that were more fuel efficient and had lower emissions and the revenue from their sin taxes diminished.

You would think the gubmint would be delighted at the success of their little scheme, but they’re not.  Having achieved their aim they are now facing a loss in revenue, and this is really what the whole “sin tax” thing is about – money.  Sin taxes are by their own definition self defeating.  As people are “nudged” towards the gubmint’s ideal, so the taxes produce less revenue and the one thing a gubmint cannot endure is any loss in taxes.  So they have to invent new ways of making up that lost cash cow.

They now are talking about taxing distance travelled rather than taxing fuel.  For a start, you can be assured that there wouldn’t be a decrease in taxes on fuel, just an additional tax on distance travelled.

I’m not quite sure how they are supposed to work this.  Will it be mandatory for every vehicle to have a gubmint issued tachometer?  Or will they employ hundreds of inspectors who will go around checking each car to tot up the miles travelled since the last inspection?

Of course, there is a little paradox here.  Suppose there are two cars.  One does 40mpg and the other does 50mpg.  The more efficient car will end up paying 25% more tax than the less efficient one?  In practice of course it makes no difference – both drivers will be fleeced anyway.

I wonder if a time will ever come when a gubmint decides that instead of inventing new taxes, that it might be easier on the tax payer to just cut down on expenditure?

We can but dream.