Cup Of Coffee

Blimey, the actual New York Times had written an article about Brum, and it’s complimentary too!

Link – http://t.co/xfteEPo8

Quidco sent me a mail saying that I could get Virgin Broadband for £5 a month for 3 months. Not bad..

Just £5 for the first three months. Sounds like a deal, and you get a whacking cashback… I think I’ll check it out, so .. just a few clicks onto the Virgin Media site and… am I missing something here? Doesn’t that say (lower left) “save £5 per month for the first 3 months”. Errmm.. that’s a bit different than just paying £5 a month. It’s actually £5 off the £28.50. Umm.. That’s false advertising isn’t it Quidco?

For anyone with kids, or those about to have children, I’ve got some important advice.

Our son is three. For Christmas he had stacks of toys and we’re lucky enough to have a nice home with a garden for him to play in.

I work, a lot. I write for Coolsmartphone and have a full-time job too. One of the most important pieces of advice I could give to any parent is to spend time with them. Some good, quality time. Toys and stuff are pointless if a child is left alone to play with them all the time. Sure, children enjoy time on their own, but not all the time.

Sometimes as a parent it’s easy to forget this. You have things to do, chores, DIY and work. These things seem more important.

This weekend we decided to do some family stuff. Forget the chores, forget the other stuff. We, along with my nephew, went ice skating, bowling and I ran around the estate with them on their scooters. We did other things too – simple stuff like playing with lego.

Last night I asked what Billy’s favourite thing was – I assumed it would be a toy or other item we’d got him. I pointed around his room asks suggested some stuff, but he simply replied by saying..

“Pushing the bowling ball for Daddy”

How amazing is that eh? A simple thing like that, it meant more to him than anything else. He basically wanted to help me bowl, so I put the ball on the floor and he pushed it down the lane. I think he got a strike for me too :)

So, work hard, but spend as much time as you can with your family and children. They love it, and it’s great fun!

The Captain of the vessel, Francesco Schettino was on a life boat talking to the lifeguard when the ship was sinking. This BBC news story details the conversation that happened. Here’s the key points for me..

OK. The Captain is on the lifeboat. He shouldn’t be there really, because there’s people still on the ship. But hey, that’s what he’s decided to do. When the lifeguard asks again and again the Captain moans that he can’t see very well on board because “it’s dark”.

He then says..

OK, so his “Number 1″ is there with him. Him and his “Vice Commander” are both stood on a lifeboat, complete with radio equipment to talk to the lifeguard. However, today he came out with this utterly wonderful explanation for being in the lifeboat when others were still on the boat..

You “tripped” into the lifeboat? Did your Vice Commander “trip” too ? Bollocks. You fucked up, big style.

For no real reason, I want a pair of these. :) They’re roller skates with little motors on.  Excellent ;)

Link – BBC

Morrisons are giving away the cost of shopping to lucky customers.

The checkout lady couldn’t wait to tell me all about out when I was in the shop today…

OK, here’s your special barcode. After 8AM tomorrow you can go online and see of you’re a winner. If you won, we’ll pay for todays shopping.

I looked down at my sandwich…

But all I’ve bought is a tuna sandwich. It’s £1.10. If I win, I get my sandwich for free?

She looked puzzled..

Yes, that’s right.

I really don’t think they’ve thought this through. Yes, promote your new competition, but perhaps only tell people who have bought a certain amount of stuff? Personally, I’m not going to fish out my barcode from yesterday, go online, enter a store name, enter a barcode, then see if I’ve won £1.10

Tonight I found a very old VHS tape. Billy was intrigued. I went in the loft, found the video player and then spent 10 minutes explaining to my son that the tape was “open”. I think he expected something smaller ;)

This Armand Van Helden mix, if it gets a proper release, is going to be massive. He uses some bits I’ve heard in earlier mixes but I can’t put my finger on which one…

OK, it seems to be about a year old, but it’s still epic..

A lot of this is getting blown out of proportion. There’s many things that can be done before a website is removed from DNS, but wait.. We should be aware of something…

Have you seen petrol prices recently? Bad aren’t they? Do you know what happens with pricing on that ? It goes up a bit, down a bit, then up a bit, then down a bit. You don’t notice the rise much, and sometimes you’re even fooled into thinking that it’s got cheaper. It’s the old trick of putting the price down a 5p, then up 6p, then down 4p, then back up 5p.. It all happens almost without you noticing.

The internet, as it was, is gone. Freedom to write what you like, distribute what you want and share your thoughts is now more difficult than it was. Part of this is because the internet is now something everyone has. Small children can get online. Every mobile browses the web pretty much and there’s now more people accessing the web more easily. Governments aren’t happy at secrets being spread all over computer screens, music companies aren’t happy at having their material torrented all over the web and everyone wants something for nothing.

So, unfortunately, the web for some is Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube and Torrents. There’s not much else, but there will be a little more control here and a little more control there until, one day, you’ll not be able to recognise it.

The control from Google  is already immense. It takes just one flick of a switch at Google HQ and, if you’re de-listed from their search results (if you have malware or something else on your site) you will find your successful web business is now in the toilet.

The internet as you knew it is gone…

Have you been downloading stuff you shouldn’t have ? This site will tell you whether you have, and no, it’s not a fake..

http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/