h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh and by 'adequate service', I mean relative to other NZ companies. But not to overseas ones, hence asking if you have real BB over there.

NZ had the distinction in the 90s of being one of the top countries in the OECD at taking up computer and internet technologies. We were way out in front of alot of places. But now we've dropped back to the bottom of the list, having what some consider the worst BB in the West.

It's all relative though isn't it. I mean when I hear people saying there is BB 5 times faster than what we've got I have to wonder how much I can notice how quickly a page loads

We got a new photocopier at work last year. The front of it looks like the flight deck of a 747, hundreds and hundreds of buttons, anything you want this machine to do to paper, it can do. As long as you can find the right combination of buttons. Which you can't.

And as long as it's working. Which it isn't. Hardly ever. I go in to prepare some emergency handouts (otherwise it's going to be a very quiet seminar indeed) and it's actually up and running only fifty percent of the time. Signalled by a very low-tech piece of paper taped to the top reading 'Out of Order'

Nothing wrong with the old one, nothing whatsoever.

You've been missed Especially in the Forum, where there's way too much right-wing 'common sense' going unchecked

Elsewhere, it does seem to be getting ominously quiet

Derek seems to have been thrown in at the deep end - if it takes the average newbie a good few months just to work out where everything is, lots of people on EF and various soapboxes seem to be assuming that new Eds just 'know things' in a vaguely godlike way

And they're still not saying he's permanent, as far as I'm away. He's just helping Natalie out. Helping her out all the time, yes, but it could be all change at the BBC's whim as far as I can tell.

As far as I'm away? 'Aware', dammit!

Quite - I've got 2+MB and I gather that's pretty good, but I can't tell the difference. Well, I can - the computers at work are lightning fast, click a button and it's there.

What I hadn't realised was that BB doesn't mean you're somehow exempt from system downtimes and the servers getting really busy (pootoo and slootoo respectively )

>>where there's way too much right-wing 'common sense' going unchecked <<

I came across one of SWL's PC gone mad posts the other day and was gobsmacked to find myself agreeing with him that I couldn't post any thing

(it was a post about a school that is being built without a playground because it should be run like a business and kids don't need playtimes. There was an actual quote in the linked newpaper from someone saying something like that, which was what made me stop and go bluidy hell that really is bonkers. But of course it's not PC gone mad but the new right whankers gone even madder).


I didn't realise that Derek was a temp. Most of the time I just feel we're lucky that the site is still here at all. Not sure how we've managed to survive all this time

>>As far as I'm away<<

It's alright, I thought it was a Brit saying I wasn't familiar with

>>
What I hadn't realised was that BB doesn't mean you're somehow exempt from system downtimes and the servers getting really busy (pootoo and slootoo respectively )
<<

It's good to know some things can be relied upon to stay the same

Outside of the upper echelons of the Department of Education, I don't think anyone would conclude that wasn't bonkers Goddam Blair and his academies

True There's the usual serial grumbling about it all going to hell in a handcart, but it does seem to be creaking ever onwards somehow.

Plus it's Bank Holiday weekend here, so it's usually quite quiet.

Were you aware of the really big downtime a few weekends back? From Saturday afternoon (UK) through to Sunday afternoon. It was terrifying!

I think I got the Eds' post about that, but probably didn't try and get on at the time. A whole weekend though (well a whole day I guess) that's a bit over the top Did they sort out something wonderful or was the usual oh we've had to do something very important but it's too complicated to explain to the plebs


>>Goddam Blair and his academies <<

What is an academy (in that context)?

It seems to have got a little more glitchy since, in fact

The City Academies were supposed to be the showpieces of New Labour renovating secondary education. They're financed through PFIs (Private Finance Initiative) which means businesses own the buildings and the land and the school leases them back at an unreasonable rate (they've been financing hospitals and much else besides the same way).

There's lots of fiddling the figures and making sure they get their hands on all the best students in order to make themselves look good. That from my own biased position, obviously To be fair, there has been a good deal of support for at least some of them.

The bigger concern are the links with this governments wacky concern for faith schools. Basically, if you're an extreme fundamentalist sect and you can get your hands on the cash, you can buy a school

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/KYE/x-kye-Jun2005.htm

Are you worried there will be a change of governement at the next election?

I don't know about worried - I'm not thinking about it yet. We've still got all the excitement of a brand new Prime Minister to come in the next few weeks (it does look as though it really, really will happen this time).

A change of government wouldn't mean anything too grand anyway. The economic track we're on isn't one the Tories would change in the slightest: 'wealth creation', as low a rate of business tax as possible, widening gap between rich and poor, house prices few can afford, public and private sector pointing in different directions as regards pay.

So no, not worried - alarmingly uninterested at the moment

>>We've still got all the excitement of a brand new Prime Minister to come in the next few weeks <<


Is that a thank-god-blair-is-gone kind of excitement, or is Brown going to be a good thing? (I don't know anything about him really except that Blair was meant to let him have a go much earlier).

Have you seen this?

>>And yet there are only enough Entries ready to be published and with the subeditors to keep the site going for another 12 days or so.<<

F55683?thread=598842&latest=1#p48900368


I'm not sure what to make of that. Is 12 days not long, or really bloody short?

It's been like that for a while now. It's not all that unusual in the grand scheme of things, but it is maybe unusual to have it stick at that for an extended period of time.

Especially when the usual remedy, getting the Scouts to speed up, doesn't turn out to work terribly well and it still gets stuck at that

And things are definitely going from PR to the Front Page in record time.

The solution? Everybody's got to write more

Except me - I've got to rush off to work

Bob, I'm bored. Dancing with the Stars is on the TV and I've got it turned on with the sound on

What are you doing?

Hey, I had to watch an episode of Lost the other day. It was strictly talking in the ad breaks only.

It made me wish I'd been watching it, but I still can't get past that man getting sucked into the jet engine in the first episode Strangely, they showed that scene again in the episode I watched (which must be several series down the road)

Oops

You rang?

I'm watching a lot of telly with the sound down at the moment. It's Big Brother as we speak. I'm convincing myself it doesn't really count if the sound's down.

I no longer get Lost but I get the impression from Madame Sky (Footie) that it's all gone a bit rubbish anyway

It's all a bit hot and floppy here at the mo Lacking energy to do much of anything.

I'm not lacking the energy to ask about the cornflakes though.

*ahem*

What's with all the cornflakes?

Big Brother? Ok, so I don't have to feel quite so bad about watching Dancing with the Stars then

There's a new reality TV show here that I missed the first episode of but wish now I'd seen. It's a bunch of Brits on an island somewhere up North (NZ). Castaway? Might have been funny.


Hot and floopy. As opposed to the cold and huddled in one spot I've had to drag the computer table over to near the fire. Can't figure out if we're having a really cold winter or I'm just getting old


My parents have Sky, which would be quite useful except they have a new DVD recorder that neither of them can work

http://freespace.virgin.net/kris.job/yngones/boring.htm


But if you can't be bothered reading all that, try this:

F107910?thread=4260516?thread=#p49764438