Toms View of the World

Apparently Cardiff’s traffic is worse than London. But at least the article makes the point that alternatives are not viable, which is why people still sit in the queues.

It seems that the authorities have now decided that the webiste known as allofmp3 (no link!) and thoroughly written up by James is not legal for UK music downloaders to use.

the site’s ROMS license is the key here, as even if it were legal in Russia, it wouldn’t be legal here - the site would have to be licensed to sell music downloads in each locality (eg the US, the UK etc)

So, it seems us users are now expected to not only take a site’s word for it’s licenses, but somehow we should be checking that the site is actually licensed. How do we do that I wonder?

The age-old mantra “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is” certainly seems to hold weight here. However we should look at the source to - the BPI - that’s right, the trade association for the British music industry, who, you have to admit, probably have a vested interest in disuading people from buying their music cheaply, and going to licensed, expensive, retailers with proper copy protection to stop you listening to the music you’ve bought where you want to. They conveniently have a list of legal download sites on their website.

Of course, most online downloads are far more restrictive in what you can do with your music, paid for with your hard-earned money than if you’d actually gone and bought the CD… and generally cost about the same as the CD…

Thanks to this article on the BBC

Finally it seems the authorities are taking note of the cost of parking in Cardiff… however not the result I’d hope for…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/5049286.stm

“Because of the cost of parking in the city centre, people are taking the risk of parking in inappropriate locations.”

Here’s a hint for you - the solution is to make the cost of parking in the city centre more acceptable to the average visitor to the city - then maybe people wouldn’t park illegally and obstruct bus routes… the Government and local authorities are still treating the motorist as an unlimited source of income - be it through the frankly obscene taxes on fuel, or the excessive charges for parking when you get where you’re going.

As a brief introduction - Madagascar is the story of a group of animals who leave the Central Park Zoo in New York, make an ocean voyage to the wild, and have adventures with the native animals.

The Wild is the story of a group of animals who leave the Central Park Zoo in New York, make an ocean voyage to the wild, and have adventures with the native animals.

Sound familiar?

If Madagascar hadn’t come out about a year ago, The Wild would be a great movie, as it is, it’s pales into insignificance when compared. Yes, the wild’s artwork maybe more realistic than cartoon, but Madagascar had a better story, livlier humour and much more fun.

‘Nuff said - don’t bother going to see The Wild, go rent Madagascar instead!

well, this OAP mentioned by the BBC thought she’d won two of them…

The key thing to remember, as the UK National Lottery used to say on it’s adverts - “You’ve got to be in it to win it” - so if you’ve not entered a lottery, by buying a ticket, the chances of you winning a jackpot are exactly zero.

Plus, it’s normally the case that only residents of a particular country are eligible to enter that countries lottery. For example, according to the T&C’s on the UK National Lottery website, prospective players must be resident in the UK or Isle of Man.

Given that the chances of winning the UK lottery if you have bought a tickets are something like fourteen million to one against, the chances of winning a lottery in a foreign country which you’ve never heard of and certainly haven’t bought a ticket in are exactly zero - so why do people beleive these scammers?

How are people so gullible?

It’s scary. the bus fares have gone up (again) - the parking’s gone up again - Cardiff is pricing itself out of the market (as far as I am concerned) for shopping…

Really, £3 return on the bus, £1.80 per hour to park in the city center, £3 for the park and ride (unless that’s gone up too) - that’s just extortion, and for me, living on the outskirts of the city, with Bristol’s Cribbs Causeway Mall only around 40 mins away, why would I go into Cardiff City Building Site to shop?

Well, at about £10 to get to Cribbs (including the tolls), and nearly £2 an hour to park in Cardiff, if I’m going to be spending more than a couple of hours in town, Bristol is the far more attractive option (plus, it doesn’t host major sporting events pretty much every weekend, there’s nothing quite like 72,000 football fans to make a shopping center unbearable)

What can I say, since moving the blog from b2evolution to Wordpress (with the brilliant SpamKarma plugin) I’ve not seen any reduction in Spambot activity, just a complete wipeout of spam comments and trackbacks actually getting through…

• Total Spam Caught: 2544 (average karma: -1643.84)
• Total Comments Approved: 87 (average karma: 50.48)
• Total Comments Moderated: 2

Says it all really - it had to check 2 comments with me before I rejected them, but on it’s own has wiped out 2544 spams since I updated the engine, and that’s only counting the spambots which are getting past BadBehaviour - which itself is stopping over 200 access attempts a week (see the page footer for the latest stats)