For the life of me, I cannot understand peoples’ fascination with cities.
Cities are noisy, dirty, smelly places. They are hard on the senses and on the feet. They are full of unnecessary noise, traffic and worst of all, people.
The bigger the city, the worse it is. People sing the praises of London and New York, and state that it is their life’s ambition to go there. My idea of hell would be to spend eternity in New York.
I love the tranquillity of the mountains. They are ever changing and easy of the eye and the foot. The only sounds are the call of the skylark and the distant bark of a deer. A day in the mountains relaxes the mind and the senses and fills the lungs with fresh air.
Of course, I do occasionally have to make some purchases, and that requires a trip to the shops.
I was down in the village yesterday. I called in to the greengrocer and had to tie Sandy outside. This caused a bit of consternation as a little girl couldn’t leave the shop as the was a huge fierce dog outside. I had to reassure her that Sandy is a big pussy, unless of course she hears a non-Irish accent.
After that, I had to call into the butcher’s. They don’t have anywhere to tie a dog outside, so the butcher held Sandy outside while I rummaged the shelves. We then did our transaction on the doorstep and had a bit of a chat.
It was a lovely day so I called in for a coffee. They know Sandy well there and she is always welcome. I have my particular taste in coffee, which they also know. It is know in the shop as a ‘Grandad’, of course.
As I sat there in the sunshine, supping my coffee and puffing on the pipe, people passed by on the pavement. Some just greeted me, and some stopped for a chat. It was very pleasant.
There was some traffic , of course. The odd car or tractor trundled past but there were no sirens or car horns. It was a tranquil village going about its daily business.
I tried to imagine myself sitting at a pavement café in London or New York.
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Looks good, doesn’t it.
They send me their money, and I send it back to them again, and I get paid for it.
Hang on…..
They have a system where they shift their own money out and back again and for each shift they lose 20%? That seems like an excellent way of losing money? Are they incredibly bad at mathematics? Are they just plain stupid? Are they looking for the job of Irish Minister for Finance?
Or are they going to post me a [dud] cheque, and I send my money back by Western Union, so that they gain my money and lose a dud cheque?
I am going to reply to them and accept their offer.
I will send them some of my details.
I will also insist that they send me their money by Western Union first.
This photo was taken about three years ago. It seems like a lifetime, considering the amount of time and energy spent since then on getting to know how to use digital technologies.
Things have been a bit chaotic here in Head Rambles Manor of late.
You may have noticed a passing mention of computers going belly up? That was just part of it.
For some reason, every time I start a day, which I seem to be doing now on a daily basis, something conspires to thwart my efforts at a quiet life.
I actually managed to allocate myself a quiet afternoon the other day. No sooner had I sat down than the place was invaded by a K8, two grandchildren, an idiotic dog and a kitten.
Actually, the kitten was fun. It decided that it didn’t like guinea pigs for some reason, and did its damndest to attack our Minnie. For the sake of peace and quiet, our Minnie was in her cage, so the kitten climbed on top and tried to take swipes at her through the bars. Minnie, being a very wise guinea pig, just ignored the kitten which didn’t help matters, and just made it all the more determined.
I forgot I had left the trapdoor on the top of the cage open, and the daft kitten went and fell into the cage.
I have never seen a kitten move so fast.
The fucking thing shot out like a scalded cat [even though it was quite cool in the cage] and decided that guinea pigs were enormous dangerous creatures to be avoided at all costs. Minnie, of course just carried on munching whatever she was munching and never turned a hair. I like her attitude. She takes after me.
I have also been busy with the business of shutting down the business, whenever I can get on line.
I have decided that the best tactic, that involves the maximum profit and the least hassle is to send bills out to everyone, and wait for the responses. So far it’s quite good. One punter paid a couple of grand and he was just a name I plucked out of the phone book. As soon as I get all the cheques in, I will just switch off the servers. I honestly couldn’t be bothered with all the nightmares of shifting them to other servers. Too messy. They’ll thank me in the end when they stop getting any spam.
On top of all that, I have had the usual routine stuff, like gardening, games with the dog and hunting the odd American.
So you see, I haven’t had that much time for updating this thing.
I was wandering around getting damp, as one does, when I saw I was about to pass a newsagent.
I have been in the shop before. It’s a nice colourful place lined with magazines and sweets and things.
This time though there was a great big fuck-off sheet of plywood behind the counter that looked awful.
‘Aha!’ says I to myself. ‘They have broken a window.’
But I immediately realised that there was no window there. What had been there was the cigarette display. And then I remembered.
The fucking Nanny State is at it again.
As and from today it is illegal to display cigarettes in shops. Yes – it is against the law for anyone to see them!
A lot of people read this site. Most come looking for a bit of pornography, or to find ways to remove a wasps nest, but that is beside the point. The point is that with the number of visitors I get, I must have a fairly broad range of philosophies and ideologies.
At least one of you has to be a Neo-Nazi rabid anti-smoking fascist bastard, and I am appealing to you.
Yes, you [you miserable scum from the bottom of the cess pool].
Could you please tell me what the point of this latest law is? I beg of you. I really want to know.
Am I supposed to walk into a tobacconists and see an ugly sheet of plywood and say to myself ‘Oh shit! They don’t sell tobacco any more!’ and walk out avowing never to smoke again?
Do you seriously think that children walk into shops and are so overawed by the display of cigarettes that they have to buy them?
Please tell me, Arsehole. I really want to know.
And while you are at it, can you tell me why they aren’t bricking up the pubs so that children aren’t tempted by them?
Why aren’t cars sold with their doors welded shut so that boy racers can’t kill us?
What really riles me is the utter pettiness of this latest move. It is a snide little dig that is going to do absolutely fuck all good except annoy people, and cost hard strapped shopkeepers more money that they can ill afford.
My Facebook account was hacked earlier this afternoon and the "charming" hacker has been telling my contacts that I need money - it's basically a 419 scam.
I've already reported the issue to Facebook
To clarify:
- I'm not in London or anywhere else overseas. I'm currently in Carlow - I haven't been mugged or had my wallet stolen - I don't use Western Union or any such services. If I wanted your money I'd either ask or encourage you to spend more money with us!
Hopefully I'll be able to get this resolved in a timely fashion.
I suspect my Facebook account password was a bit too weak and was bruteforced..
UPDATE: I've finally regained control of the account and will be using much stronger passwords in the future (there's a blog post or two in that tale!)
Rod Beckstrom's was officially appointed as ICANN's new headman during the ICANN board meeting in Sydney, Australia.
His speech, which he gave without notes, is hopefully an indicator of the man's thinking and bodes well for the future of ICANN.
Here it is:
">>ROD BECKSTROM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Paul, thank you very much. And I thank all you members of the board who have been so incredibly generous with your time in educating me and bringing me into this opportunity. I'm truly honored.
But I'm especially humbled and honored to be here in front of all of you. You, the community, of ICANN -- you, the community of the Internet -- and all the groups and partner organizations that have created something quite magnificent, quite amazing for the world to behold.
I was invited into this -- this is my first ICANN meeting. I've obviously been in the tech industry for almost 30 years, and involved in many organizations, and this is a beautifully complex one.
And I've been -- and I received many warnings and many of you said to me, "Do you really know what you're getting in for? Are you sure you're ready for this?"
But I say that where you see and hear cacophony, I see a symphony. Because it's the gnashing and the thrashing through all the technical standards processes, through all of the policy processes, through the legal issues, the trademark issues, the address issues, the name issues -- all the things that you handle and that you have done has given birth and given rise to the Internet, which is now touching 1.5 billion people on this planet directly through their computers, and another billion -- and soon two -- through their phones and other devices. And it's the noise and the complexity and the lack of any central control in this process that has made it so rich and so open for the entire world.
And you have done that. And elders here such as Steve Crocker, who were involved in that first crazy little experiment in trying to design a network that could withstand a nuclear attack. Now, how do you design something to survive a nuclear attack? There was only one way that was found, and that was to create a completely decentralized network.
One in which there was no central point of control, and when they connected those first four huge devices like refrigerators that we'll call "routers" for a second that could each connect into four computers at UCLA, USC, Stanford and Utah, in research centers, they were creating this network.
But what held it together? What held it together was a very subtle little thing that Jon Postel held in his hands, part of what held it together. There were the protocols, but there were also the names and the addresses, or the linkages so that those devices could communicate with one another and send a message to the right computer with no central control.
And then obviously that evolved and grew and changed into TCP/IP, and again, instead of a cacophony the symphony I see has a parsimony of protocols. There are very few protocols in the Internet that have come through that RFC process that was created. That are hanging together and allowing this network to unfold with no centralized control.
And there's an elegance of elements, and there's a richness in the ecosystem. The ecosystem that you have created, that you lead, that you are, that I now have the opportunity to come into and to serve. And that ecosystem has the components within it of ICANN, the groups such as the Address Supporting Organization, the ASO, the generic name supporting organization, the GNSO, which alone has 30 different policy processes running right now. Each of those very complex in legal issues, social issues, technology issues, risk management issues. Many, many different layers.
The root support services advisory group, which is headed by one of our board members. The security and stability efforts that are critical for the Internet. The ALAC, where the at-large community of the world can have involvement and now being discussed to join onto the board. And of course the IETF, the granddaddy of it all. The Internet Engineering Task Force that created those protocols, that designed those protocols.
What has happened is miraculous and you've done it and I'm humbled because I stand before you as someone who comes to help and to serve this exciting effort.
So I really hear the music in what's going on. And of course the governments of the world, besides what you started here technically which became the various components to get the job done, the governments have come and now on the At-Large Advisory Committee, 83 members -- 40 governments -- which were here this week representing their interests, exchanging with one another ideas on how to spread the use of the Internet, how to handle the difficult intellectual property, trademark and other issues and giving advice to this board.
So this network has a life of its own and it's the most majestic creature that we, mankind, have created and we've done it with all the messiness that we bring to the table as humans, that we bring into the rooms here, and that gnashing and the thrashing that I spoke of. But that's what gives us the power. That's what gives the population of the world the power of what you've created. And for those that are not so much on the technical side, that care about what this organization is doing, it doesn't do what it does alone.
It works on one part of the problem. It does create a forum for many of these other discussions, and for work with other partners like ISOC and VeriSign and other critical parts of this ecosystem, but it has one basic function as well besides serving as a forum, and that is to run the master telephone directory, as it were, of the entire global Internet.
Because when we go to a phone book, there's names and there's numbers. The difference is, when we go to a phone book, there can be many John Smiths in a city such as Sydney, but not on the Internet. To have one global unified Internet there can only be one unique name or universal resource locater with a given name in the world.
And there can be addresses and the addresses are numbers and they're different. They're a lot like the telephone numbers and they're very important because they're what, in part, the routers and the switches and different things use to get the messages around. And so that little service of running the directory and partnering with you, the registries of the world and the registrars of the world, and communicating with every single router and device in the world, is what gives us the first global linkage of mankind.
And ICANN's role is simply to help protect that. That was Jon Postel's list of four devices with four computers each, which has grown and grown and grown. It now has over 180 million names today. Unique names, Internet names. Which have been limited to Latin characters that soon, through your good work, will be opened up so everyone in the world can have it in their language, which will of course lead to billions of names. And we're about to move from somewhat of over a billion addresses in the allocation system to trillions and trillions with IPv6. That's what you've created. So I'm humbled to be here with you. I am thrilled by the opportunity. I believe in the process of what you're doing.
I know that it takes incredible time and energy and effort for everything that you do, but I believe in collaboration. And I believe in a world where every human being has the ability to communicate with other human beings openly and freely, and what -- what more poignant event do we need than what we've seen in the last few weeks, when people have sought to share their sides of a story -- both sides of a story, without taking a position -- in what's going on in Iran around a democratic election, as people have tweeted, Facebooked, YouTubed and shared their content to organize and participate in what they seek and the government has organized and participated and taken steps in its nature. It shows how critically vital this platform is, that you have created.
That many people will literally fight and die for.
So in my case, I'm simply humbled to be here with you. I'm going to need your help and support. I'm very fortunate to have my beautiful wife, Patrice's help and support. Please raise your hand.
[Applause]
>>ROD BECKSTROM: Because I know that the demands are so incredibly real.
So I ask you for one thing, and that is, I ask you for your support and for your blessings. I am new to this community. I am not an expert on your processes. I am not an expert on the 30 and 40 years of history and all the protocols and all of the intellectual property treatments and all the details of what you're doing. I'm new and I'm here to serve, to serve as a catalyst. So thank you for this opportunity.
I told how they had managed to destroy a perfectly good stretch of road. It was one of the most attractive roads in the neighbourhood, with its mossy stone walls and birch trees. It was narrow and winding, which meant everyone had to drive at a reasonable speed, allowing them to enjoy the beauty of it.
The arseholes in the Council spent a fortune on it, removing a bend or two and adding a couple more. They resurfaced it, and widened it. The old stone walls are now gone, and are replaced with massive, very expensive looking stone escarpments. I don’t know what the cost was, but it was a lot.
Of course, when the boy racers saw the new surface they tried to race it. However, for all the money that was spent, the road still isn’t any faster or safer. They still had an 80 kmph limit on it, which was always the limit. Anyone who drives at that speed will kill themselves for sure, and good riddance.
I drove down it recently. And what have they done now? They have reduced the speed limit to 50! Big fucking deal. I don’t know why they did that. No one could drive faster than 50 anyway. There is nowhere they could place a speed trap. Changing a speed limit involves changing signs, and it also involves changing by-laws. It is yet another case of throwing money at a problem that never existed in the first place.
The arseholes in the Council are always complaining about the lack of money. They have to cut back on all sorts of essentials because the coffers are dry.
For the last couple of weeks they have been working on my road.
The started by drawing little yellow boxes around any little dimple they could find in the surface, and now they are cutting out those dimples and resurfacing them.
It is a fact of life that the better the road surface, the faster the traffic. They are removing what were natural speed bumps and making a racing track on a road where children play. Once the work is finished, the speeds will go up. Then they will have to spend more money trying to slow people down again.
How much of their non-existent money are they spending on that exercise?
I managed to rob the other laptop when Herself wasn’t looking. Heh!
My own laptop finally died the death.
And before any of you dumbfucks with Linux or Macs start shouting, it was a hard disk failure. Got that? Hardware. Nothing to do with whatever software I was running. And don’t tell me a Linux or Mac has never had a hard disk fail.
Now I have to run the gauntlet of the shop where I bought it. Doubtless they will try to shift me to the manufacturers, but I know my Sale of Goods Act!!
Wooops!!
As I type, I just had a call from the shop [I sent them an email to phone me about five minutes ago]. I am impressed with their response so far. And the told me to bring it into them and they will deal with it. Irish business are improving somewhat.
Every year at the same time, the Brussels Film Festival competes with hot weather while hosting a selection of first and second films from European directors. This year, there are some 60 films being premiered, with free open-air screenings and concerts.
Well, I wrote on Friday how my laptop was complaining of ill health….
It is very sick indeed.
In fact it has pretty much seen the white light at the end of the tunnel, though there is still a faint heartbeat. There is word of a heart transplant in the coming week but just in case, I’m currently removing everything off the hard drive before the funeral.
I am having to resort to a clapped out old machine that I thought was an air-conditioner, but turns out to be a PC. It’s in the junk room, and there is nowhere to sit so I won’t be doing much typing here.
I thought of asking Herself for a loan of hers, but after an attempt at baseball-bat-persuasion she has locked herself and her laptop in the bedroom.
So every cloud does have a silver lining?
One way or another, I am sans e-mail or even a decent browser, so I don’t think I’ll be in touch much.
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