Toms View of the World

I’ve just been hit where it hurts (my wallet) by the latest round of prices rises in the UK Energy market.

Thanks to my supplier not adjusting my payments last time round (despite telling me they would write to me if my existing direct debit wouldn’t cover the increases, it didn’t and neither did they…), my payments have shot up by over 100% - thats right, more than doubled.

However, I’ve now signed onto a dual-fuel fixed price tarrif (on top of which are the payments for my existing balance for the first year) - so it’ll drop by about £20 a month this time next year once I’ve cleared the outstanding balance

That’s my bonus gone for this year anyway.

(oh, and for the Americans, I’m talking about the kind of gas you use to cook food and heat your house, not run your car..)

Update:
Story on BBC News

Well,  I’ve just found out, thanks to an article on The Register that epic film-maker Peter “Lord of the Rings” Jackson is planning to remake the classic 1950’s war movie “The Dambusters” - the telling of the allied forces attack on 3 dams in Germany.

Has he got no imagination left - having made the simply epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, his previous movie (”King Kong”) was a remake, and now this.

I wasn’t a fan of his revisiting Kong - it didn’t seem to bring anything new to the story, and it was far far far too long…

Hopefully he won’t ruin the memory of those wartime heroes by doing a “U571″ on it and radiacally changing the story to make it look like it was the Americans…

Link to Peter Jackson to remake The Dam Busters | The Register

One of my favourite gadgets (yeah, it’s right up there with my TiVo) ever is my TomTom Navigator based SatNav system (actually a PDA and Bluetooth GPS, rather than one of the integrated systems) - and today TomTom have announced a new release of the software - version 6.

This brings with it many new features, some of which look very interesting - including “buddy tracking” where you can have your TomTom talk to your friends systems and see where each other are - highly useful if you’re travelling somewhere to meet up.

Other desireable new features include speed limit warnings and improved displays of directions. I was wondering what they could add to TTN5 to improve it and make me want to upgrade - I think they’ve succeeded - now to wait and find out what the pricing is for the upgrade.

I thought the British were lousy drivers - I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone stupid enough to let their dog drive…

From The Register

Why is the numeric keypad upside-down?

To explain the question, look at the numeric keypad on your computer - no doubt it has this layout:

7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
0

Why do they make them this way up - every other keypad around seems to be the other way up

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
0

Cashpoints, phones, TV remotes, they’re all the other way up - why is the PC keyboard different?

A neat little game (you can play without registering) at LikeBetter.com.

Simply click the image you “like better” and when you’ve answered a few questions the brain lights up, and it will try to tell you something about you.

I had to laugh when it presented an image of the Autobots and Decepticons from Transformers and asked which icon I liked better!

Well, AboutUs are clearly listening to concerns (link, link, link, link, link) as they now have a mechanism in place to purge the histories, however it’s not easy to find from the front page of the site. He’s also improved the bot, to limit the amount of information retrieved, and provide a sensible credit. (see the “concerns” page again) - although to get a deletion you have to somehow prove you’re the site owner. Shame he doesn’t require this proof for creation or edits of records.

Update: This appears to be something he has to do manually, and I’d guess he’s a bit snowed under with requests - it’s taking a fair old time to get my page histories deleted.

Well, the changes to the bot and the manual deletion are a step in the right direction, but there’s still nothing to prevent someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with a domain from editing and posting information which you cannot guarantee the accuracy of. The site still does not require domain owners to “opt in” to the listing, and so many will have no idea that this, possibly inaccurate, information, including personal details is plastered across a page on that site.

However even this deletion will still leave a “placeholder” page on the site - this is not good enough - I don’t want my domain listed on this site. Ever.

(needless to say, his privacy policy still does not exist)

Update
Some More links to other people talking about aboutus.org
Previewcast
Michael Cottington
Webmacster87

Let’s start Digging these stories and bring the actions of aboutus.org to a much wider audience! Tell people, email your friends (at least, if they’re domain owners) and spread the word.

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