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So my girlfriend decided the other week, after watching several eco/green telly programs back-to-back from bit-torrent, that it would be a good idea to stop sending shedloads of waste to landfill and ‘go green’. Black is out this year – Green is in the in-colour.

So in my usual techie way, I’ve been looking for ways to reduce our huge electric-bill (AKA carbon footprint). We’re fairly heavy users of electric — what with four servers, three wifi points, several switches, nas drives etc, so it makes sense from a money point of view as well as an eco-freak point of view to turn some off.

After rigging all my TV’s, coffee makers, amplifiers etc. up to X10 gear – and making them turn on/off  depending on whenever my bluetooth phone is within range, I realised I should probably look at turning off one or two of my servers.

After a bit of thinking – I decided the easiest way was to port the info from the old-boxes across to a new, clean, AMD64 box. Unfortunately, as is always the case – you get a new server running and then decide that it needs a bit of bedding-in before you can definately turn off the old servers. So — we’ve now got 5 servers running concurrently.

Now to figure out everything that is running on these two/three year old linux boxes – and migrate! That’ll be fun.

Here is a spare Betfair £20 free bet code – just enter it in the ‘refer and earn’ box when you sign up and you will be given a free £20 bet once you’ve placed £20:

HVEAVD7VK

This code would be excellent to use if you are getting into matched betting, I’ve earnt approx £1000 over the last 6/7 weeks following instructions on the moneysavingexpert.com gambling forum.

Make sure you clear your cookies first, and go through quidco – so you can get an extra £25 sign-up bonus!!

I’ve been hearing over the last few days about the Panorama TV show on the BBC – where some ‘experts’ deduced that wifi was bad for us(tm).

Rather than ramble on and give the programme more exposure I’ll simply say this: It’s ironic that the BBC chose to unscientifically attack wifi (2.4ghz) and mobile phones (0.9 and 1.8ghz) – when their own TV channels transmit at similar types of frequencies (700Mhz) and with far greater signal strengths.

Surely the BBC themselves are proof enough that non-ionising radiation is not harmful to the general public?

I’ve just read one of the most honest things I have ever read over at violent acres. It’s split into three parts – Diary of a teenage runaway, Ultimate Luxury and Fifteen and Already a Wife. It’s one of the most heart-wrenching things I’ve ever read.

I can fully understand why she was hesitant at blogging about this before…

All I can say is good on you violent acres for dealing with this horrendous upbringing and not killing yourself or murdering your mother.

It seems that with the US election on it’s way, a lot of people are giving their opinions on the American way-of-life…

There are some very interesting comments cropping up, like When did America become a nation of frightened wimps?

… And also this blog entry about a presidential candidate saying that America was heading for bankrupcy.

All interesting stuff, hopefully people will sit-up and listen, but as always the main population are far too busy with their own lives to be thinking about things like the country’s financial state.

Who woulda thought it? The political correctness attitude has really gone a step-too-far and has suggested that Apes, seeing as they share 98% of our DNA, should have the same rights as humans?

For gods sake – people. When will someone come out and say that we are here because we are intelligent, and survival of the fittest has put us in the position we are in now: At the top of the hierarchy… Humans control the world.

Surely these morons realise that apes, mice and whatever other animal would just run riot? Or are those Politically correct specs so tinted that you can’t see anything but peace and harmony?

What next?

Technorati Tags: political correctness, apes rule the world, DNA, rights

I’ve just read an excellent article from ViolentAcres responding to the stupid news about Kathy Sierra, some blogger who apparently was getting stalked/death threats etc.

The BBC have been peddling a load of bullsh*t all day about how there should be a bloggers code of conduct etc and that Tim O’Reilly says so too… But no-one ever thought who the fuck would enforce these stupid ‘laws’?

Does anyone else find it disconcerting that all these strong,
independent women turn into piles of jelly the second they face the
smallest bit of adversity

It does make you wonder why everyone wants to jump on the internet bandwagon without first knowing what the web is, and what it’s about. The rules of ordinary life are bent a little bit on the ‘net.

Anyway – as always Violent Acres cuts thru the bull as per usual… Violent Acres for president I say.

Technorati Tags: violentacres, president, kathy sierra, bullshit, bbc

This article on the register tells of an interesting twist in the world of shoplifters: Apparently they are getting hi-tech and using things like foil bags to protect their heist from the security devices.

They are now looking into countermeasures, so shops can detect shoplifters using tinfoil:

[countermeasures] in the form of a “special security system specifically designed to detect booster bags, tinfoil-lined jackets, metallic underware, and similar shoplifting devices”.

As the register article points out – tinfoil hat wearers beware!

An article in the BBC says that RBS, the owner of Natwest and other banks, has threatened staff that they must have an RBS account as their primary bank account.

Companies these days are just getting so out-of-control; they think they can rule people’s lives.

It’s disgusting how they think they can demand X, Y and Z of an individual just because they work for a company. Sure – they can say that you must hold an account for your wage to be paid, thats reasonable, but to demand that it’s used as your primary account is just wrong.

Technorati Tags: rbs, royal bank of scotland, bank accounts

More internet hilarity – this time from Ms Shell. She’s suing the Internet Archive because they are keeping copies of her site without asking. It seems to be causing quite a stir on the internet, and she’s even put this document up to ‘explain’… And it contains this line in response to the ‘IGeeks’ (Do I hear a new internet slangword ?!):

Google indexes your site and when someone searches and clicks on the link that Google brings up, it goes to your site to get a copy – only if it is still available on the Internet. It does not store anyone’s web sites on its computers. Don’t you know ANYTHING about how the Internet works? – Ms Shell, igeeks.pdf on the profane – justice.org site. (Used under UK fair-use copyright law)

Clearly Ms Shell doesn’t know ANYTHING about how Google works .

Update: Turns out that Ms Shell is a bit off a nutcase, she got caught for [trying to?] take a gun on an airplane, and she’s been pretending to be a lawyer too!
I’ve removed all links to her crappy website – I’m not going to help her google ranking.

Technorati Tags: Ms Shell, google, archive, copyright, igeek