Sunday, August 31, 2008

Back in the Saddle!

There has been a real curb in activity lately with the children's hobbies as they have been preoccupied with holidays. Today as the children had returned from their latest holiday I took them to horse riding. My Boy rode his bike while my daughter rode one of the horses, no Pony Club on Sunday but she was more than happy with the riding lesson.


After riding, with the new school term starting on Tuesday I took them to get their school uniforms. Wish that I had done so earlier in the six weeks off as there was a lack of clothing available and the items that were there were limited. Still managed to get most of what was required and will get the rest when I get the chance through the week. After dropping them home I went to see my partner and after talking for a while I decided to come home and just reading reports on Hurricane Gustav. Thankful that we don't get severe storms like that here in the UK!

Saturday, August 30, 2008

You Will Respect My Authoritah!

He waits... because that's what he does... and I tell you what... I am experiencing deja vu as I have this all too familiar feeling that I have been here before. Presented with a situation that went wrong before you hope that you are better equipped to handle what is in front of you second time around but as before it's completely out of my hands. Been trying to get my head around everything lately but it's not easy. Yesterday leading onto today has been annoying, pathetic, crazy, [insert]... It's tiring, I feel that I am being judged on every action and it's become an unattainable situation where no middle ground can be reached.

I did want to head over and work things out but instead it was a no fly zone so I went shopping to see what could tempt me. I have decided to end my love affair with Sony Ericsson handsets after two years and instead I am leaning on the iPhone. Even with it's problems it's a really impressive handset and it's all about the App Store FTW! The downside is that I won't be able to send or receive MMS and the camera is 2MP compared to the 5MP of the Sony Ericsson handset. To be fair though I am leaning away from camera-phones and looking at getting myself a decent camera. The Canon EOS 450D has caught my attention although for nights out it isn't very practical but then I suppose in that instance I could just use the iPhone camera. Even with my head full of all the possibilities there was no money spent until I got my hands on a pair of skinny jeans reduced from £40 to £4.99, back of the net!

Friday, August 29, 2008

Is it over yet?

Windows VistaImage via Wikipedia Another working month over and tonight I had to stay back late to finish off statistics for my department. I have quite a few open projects at the moment and today wasn't ideal in getting on top of everything. Firstly I had a product re branding meeting that took up the early part of my day. I was familiar with the product as I had tested it before the first launch and not too much has changed really but still had to attend.

After the meeting I figured that after making a few calls I would be able to start working away on some of my other stuff. Well what I could do as I have to complete a partner migration which was supposed to be today but have not received the correct update material yet. After a few calls I figured the final one would allow me to free up my afternoon. Three hours later and there goes the evening, although the positive from this was that I am now able to take ownership of anything on Vista. This makes me very dangerous so please do not approach me as I will go all Chuck Norris on you!

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

Rule Britannia

Tonight I was a victim of broken Britain, you read about it on an all too regular basis online and in the newspapers but you don't think that it will happen to you. Stories of crime and anti social behaviour are all too familiar now. What happened to me was totally unprovoked and took me by surprise.There I was minding my own business when suddenly I was attacked by a youth from behind wielding a knife. I had earlier got some cabinets that I was putting together indoors when all of a sudden a knife caught my attention and I moved out of the way as it was waved in my direction...

The terrible two's are such hard work, I had forgotten how difficult it can be to be around a child struggling for the right way to express themselves. When the pink plastic knife was thrust in my direction I was overwhelmed by fear and dived for cover grabbing a pillow to act as my shield. Crazy times but what's certain is I am going to watch my back now ha! I jest as really she was trying to help me and seeing me using a screwdriver she improvised with the plastic knife ;-)

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Are we nearly there yet?

Never content with what we have or the rate that we receive anything, it has to be now seems to be the way of the world! It all starts as a child and making the statement that children are renowned 'Are we nearly there yet?'

We know what we want and we don't want to have to wait for it /end! It's embedded into our very fabric that whatever it is it needs to be delivered promptly!! Look around now and you will see people rapidly going about their business like their lives depend on it! The 21st Century is a 24 hour never sleeping buzz of activity, the Internet has made us dependant on the steady flow of information. We're always connected and the world seem like a much smaller place because of this and we want the information faster!

FriendFeed's Gary Burd and Paul Buchheit have a proposal to get the information faster through the pipes and they have named it Simple Update Protocol, or SUP. I have provided the details from the FriendFeed Blog below for you to digest ;-)

Benefits include:
  • Simple to implement. Most sites can add support with only few lines of code if their database already stores timestamps. * Works over HTTP, so it's very easy to publish and consume.
  • Cacheable. A SUP feed can be generated by a cron job and served from a static text file or from memcached.
  • Compact. Updates can be about 21 bytes each. (8 bytes with gzip encoding)
  • Does not expose usernames or secret feed urls (such as Google Reader Shared Items feeds)
SUP is designed to be especially easy for feed publishers to create. It's not ideal for small feed consumers because they will only be interested in a tiny fraction of the updates. However, intermediate services such as Gnip or others could easily consume a SUP feed and convert it into a subscribe/push model using XMPP or HTTP callbacks.

Sites wishing to produce a SUP feed must do two things:
  • Add a special tag to their SUP enabled Atom or RSS feeds. This tag includes the feed's SUP-ID and the URL of the appropriate SUP feed.
  • Generate a SUP feed which lists the SUP-IDs of all recently updated feeds.
Feed consumers can add SUP support by:
  • Storing the SUP-IDs of the Atom/RSS feeds they consume.
  • Watching for those SUP-IDs in their associated SUP feeds.
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

FriendFeed Beta

FriendFeed development has been quiet recently although rumours about a new design increased when people began noticing referrals from beta.friendfeed.com. Facebook has generated a lot of the headlines lately with the migration to the new user interface, and earlier with the announcement that they have now passed the 100 million mark.

All that said apparently a large portion of the Facebook population are still yet to embrace the updated version. Facebook has copied very similar features to FriendFeed now with it's updated interface so to keep the site engaging where would the developers innovate and would the interaction remain the same.

The first change I noticed straight away was that the tabs across the top of the screen had been removed. They have been relocated into a right hand panel with more functionality and customisation. Friends now allows us to group the people we subscribe to into Lists which makes sense, especially if you are subscribed to a large amount of users.

Selecting Friends displays the Home feed and all the people you subscribe to but underneath are sub categories where we can add our friends into Lists. Even removing them from the Home feed if desired, I would have liked to have seen a Service feature made available here for us to set up a specific Import related List which is what a few people have requested. What I like when adding friends to a List is when typing a name in the search box it provides a drop down with the matches for the letters I have entered.

Navigating down the right panel to Rooms we can now select what Rooms we want to have displayed on our feed. Those we select to be displayed are visible with the Room icon and also details on activity including posts and comments. Next there is My Feed which can also be accessed by clicking on the username at the top of the screen. This presents us with the tabs that we were familiar with previously but now they are for our Feed, Comments + Likes and Joe + Friends.

My Feed is for all my imported items/shares and Comments + Likes displays everything I have actioned and this can also be separated from both being visible into the individual action. One aspect missing is the amount of Comments and Likes I have contributed but this is still visible when checking my friends activity by hovering the cursor over their name. At the end of the tab bar there is another tab for Add/Edit Services which is better set up than the previous build allowing me to edit my imports and refresh the feeds.

I still rarely check the Everyone view as it's like venturing into the wilderness but it's good to have it available to venture into occasionally. Onto Friend Settings and the core features are still there but now with integration with the Lists so from the My Subscription view we can see who we are subscribed to and our association with them with the Lists. The Recommendations have been improved although I would like to see how we are compatible and where we have participated in similar actions to an imported item.

Overall I am really impressed with the improvements and having seen Facebook mirror FriendFeed recently we are now seeing that the love is in both directions as you can draw parallels. The team behind FriendFeed have shown that they are prepared to listen to their users and where they want to see improvements. Unlike with Facebook, which I prefer to the previous build, many haven't switched to the new user interface but I don't see that being a trend on FriendFeed as everyone seems to be embracing the shiny new features! [Like]

Update 27/08: Louis Gray has a good post on the FriendFeed Beta on areas that can be improved further and I agree with the points that he raises. I have listed the points below as each of them are valid and hopefully will all be addressed in the near future;

1. There Are Still No User Profiles
2. The Issue of Duplicates and Original Items Has Not Been Addressed
3. There Is No Ability to Message Other Users
4. The Controversial Default Users Are Still There
5. There Is No Way to Share Items With a Subset of People
6. You Cannot Granularly Use the Power of FriendFeed's Database
7. Hiding People from the Main Feed is a Bad Idea
8. The Advanced Search Functionality Still Needs Exceptions
9. Aggressive Hiders of Content Are Short-Changed Per Page
10. The "Share Something" Box Should Add Video, Documents, etc.

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Monday, August 25, 2008

Connecting people...

Trevor NelsonImage via Wikipedia Today with the almost daily confusion surrounding my long term objectives, I decided to visit Lakeside and the capital of Sweden, Ikea! The car journey was good as we were listening to the sounds coming from Notting Hill Carnival courtesy of Radio One.

How many times did Trevor Nelson state that he was a veteran of the Carnival scene. Somebody give him a purple heart as he deserves it for his contribution. The stand out tune for me was from Lil Wayne - A Millie which sounded really good in the car and I reckon even better on a top system like those available over West London!

We shopped about for a while, I ran a few questions by one of the workers in the O2 shop and seriously this women was of no help at all. If you want to speak to an O2 representative avoid Lakeside as she was very poor and looked totally uninterested. May I suggest Monster or Reed as you are not in the right career my dear! Our day ended in the Swedish capital and I got a rough idea of where I want to be but I am also further away from my destination. Taxi!!!

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Sunday, August 24, 2008

Tea Spoon

Went to my friend's daughters birthday today, haven't really seen many of my friends over the last year and it was clear to see that they had all been breeding. There were several toddlers, my friend's daughter being one of the youngest celebrating her first birthday. Our journey to the party was the usual long fiasco, I am so bad at planning anything it's unbelievable. Did manage to get the present yesterday but fell short on getting wrapping paper and a card so had to collect these on the way. That was all after Baby had been dropped off as she was staying at her Aunts for the night. The older children weren't on the scene as they are away on holiday but we still come strong with the representation.

My friend has done alright for himself getting a nice place and the view was wicked right out over the Thames looking towards the Dartford Bridge. The children played mostly in the garden, the bouncy castle being the most desired although you could feel that the older kids (me and my friends) all wanted to participate as well and that turned out to be the case later. After playing pass-the-parcel and unwrapping the presents we headed home. Wouldn't have minded having a drink at the party but the sensible parent knows that boozers are schmoozers!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

fore

"Fore!" is shouted as a warning during a golf game when it appears possible that a golf ball may hit other players or spectators. The mention of the term in an 1881 British Golf Museum indicates that the term was in use at least as early as that period. The term means "look ahead", and it is believed to come from the military "beware before", which was shouted when a battery fired behind friendly troops. ~ Wikipedia

Well time to drive, lets start with four fore and what it means; well from the above children it is referring to an event that could take place in the future. Apparently the term originated from the military, it's clear the term "beware before" was eventually shortened to " 'fore". I am not that much of a golfer but I can putt and although the grass is definitely greener it's not always fairway, there is the rough to play through. What I do know is that I want the career and all the silverware that comes with it so please pass me my 9 Iron because Papa is a Rolling Stone?!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Enjoy...

Well my children are off for a week+ on holiday with their mother, her partner and his son. I wish them an enjoyable break and that the weather holds out for them. My daughter was upset tonight as she isn't very good at goodbye's and it bothers her when she leaves me for any period of time. She was really cute when I saw them Wednesday as after dropping them to their mother's I came home to find a letter she had written me on my bed and a picture of her and a horse she had drawn. My son also wanting to leave his legacy, created for me a picture of a ship on the sea which I take as a referral to his warm up music for football! 'You forgot one very important thing mate...' ;-)

Work 2.0

It's been interesting participating online as companies evolve to accommodate what web 2.0 offers, as social media goes beyond just networking between friends and companies embrace what is available to them. My company is no different although I wondered how a leading global investment bank would incorporate the tools and platforms required.

Internally is where the momentum is and since the introduction of our open source content management system for the intranet and other applications it was only a matter of time before a blog was considered. I wasn't involved in the meeting that put forward the concept but I have been handed ownership. Apparently people at my company believe me to be ideally positioned to overlook this and I will also moderate what is available in much the same way as I did on xbox.com.

This will be internal unlike our partner company who have their blog publicly available. I noticed when reading through that they have also experimented with Digg as one of their posts had been dugg four times. I have had a lot of interaction with Digg over the last year and it's not all about the content but more a case of who you know so I will share what I have learnt about bookmarking and raising awareness when back to work next week.

I am excited to have been handed this project and it comes as a compliment as well because it shows how far I have come since I started this blog. In the beginning it was about my nights out with friends and my struggles after breaking with my children's mother. Then as I became more settled in my current relationship I have wrote about my family, sport and my interests in technology and the advancements we are making with the Internet.

To be given this opportunity in a sense shows that my company also shares the same engagement and curiosity as myself to move forward. Where I am always looking to pursue technology that will benefit my web presence my company are also looking to accommodate for the future and improve our working environment. I am going to make sure that I add a few subliminal messages 'pay rise, pay rise' tongue-in-cheek! ;-)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

House Proud!

Today was a mad one, worked quite late as I needed to help my colleague complete an assignment. Have some work I also need to catch up on and I am hopeful that tomorrow will be the day. I have a friend going through some personal problems at the moment and he called me up today and it was difficult trying to get through to him. He seems to feel as if he is really isolated but hopefully he will realise that all his friends and family are around him looking to offer support. If you are reading this call me whenever you need somebody to speak to buddy!

Last night I saw my children for a few hours and instead of going wild we crashed out and watched a program on trawlers. Not the usual shows I follow but it was informative for them as they were full of questions. Apparently they must see their Dad as a man of the sea made from the same mould as Captain Jack Sparrow ha! These guys were amazing and I was left open mouthed at the amount of money one of the trawler crews lost on one fishing expedition.

Football, well not much I can say about the match as I don't have Setanta but different manager
same old England and it just isn't working for this generation of players. The game finished 2-2 and it's a decent result considering where we find ourselves at the moment. Hopefully we can turn it around next month what with the World Cup qualifiers and hit some form.

Finally onto John McCain and for a man that doesn't know how many houses he owns do Americans really want someone like this running their country? Over to you Obama...


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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Lightning Strikes Twice



I would have loved to have been stood next to Michael Johnson today, twelve years he has held the 200m world record. I remember watching him, his style of running was unique and his record was supposed to be untouchable. It would surely take someone very special to achieve what many considered to be the impossible.

Usain Bolt is that person as to him impossible is nothing, he is a unique talent and in a league of his own at the moment. This is a man who won the 100m but 20 metres from the finish line he was playing to the crowd and thumping his chest, raising the question how fast could he have gone. The 21-year-old, won the 100m title in a world record of 9.69 beating his previous best but it was Johnson's record that he wanted.

Bolt, 22 tomorrow, has broken many records right back to when he was a teenager competing in the World Junior Championships. This was always going to be his destiny and my whole office stood still as they took up position. When the gun sounded Bolt soon moved through the gears in Lane 5 and pulled clear of the rest of the pack turning into the home straight.

There was no showboating this time as he pushed himself hard and leaned into the finish line a distance ahead of the chasing pack. The time 19.30 and just beating Michael Johnson's record, Bolt becomes the first man to achieve the Olympic double since Carl Lewis in 1984, but has also become the first man to break the world record in both races. I can't wait for the 4 x 100 relay now, will Bolt have enough left in the tank to make it a hat trick of Gold medals?


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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

For the record..

Lots of excitement and activity taking place, what with my family life, work and the Olympics. Team GB doing really well so far and looking like achieving a record medal haul which will set us up nicely for 2012. After the week away on holiday last week I am still struggling to adjust back into my online routine. Instead I have found myself reading a lot more, the Bigfoot story, Facebook and it's continued attempts to become FriendFeed, the Olympics and general tech/news stories which help pass the day. Actually I feel that my lifestream activity has taken over my blogging and socialising but then sharing a story is easier than writing my own!!

With my children on holiday with their mother next week I decided that I would take the time to see them tonight. They were full of energy and no sooner had I come through the front door they were pulling me back out with their bikes to play down the park. The evening held out as it did look like it was going to pour but we were lucky and got to stay for a while before heading home!









Monday, August 18, 2008

Avatars!

The Internet provides such wonderful interaction, the way that we communicate and learn from our peers. The online network we build is something that comes with a lot of trust and provides a lot of enthusiasm. I like how a start up will launch and then through sources is recommended and distributed through the early adopters who flock on mass to catch the buzz. It's an enjoyable part of being involved as you get to experience the stability and scalability of the Application/Web site and decide where it fits into your activity.

I would like more of my personal friends to experience this interaction as being commited to one site like Facebook can become repetitive. Enhancing the engagement is where it gets interesting, the developers behind Facebook knew this that is why they provided us with applications we can add to our profiles. Outside of the walled garden is where it's happening and where you can participate in the full Web 2.0/Social Media experience.

Regularly different concepts and visions are realised, built and released, currently online people are divided between the two latest offerings;

faceyourmanga.com - This seems really popular with the Twitter crowd who are creating a manga image of themselves to use as their profile avatar. Searching on Flickr provides a massive index of these faces and they do look very good.

yearbookyourself.com - Provided by several Shopping Mall's this offers us the ability to upload a photo of ourselves to the site and choose from a selection of yearbook templates. You can go all the way back to the fifties so there are some interesting hairstyles that you can make your own.

Avatars are massively popular, Microsoft have been making money from them for several years now through the Xbox Live service and with Live Messenger. We have also seen them used by Nintendo with the Mii which we create through the console. I am certain that avatars are going to gain in popularity as to be fair I rarely see an amazing photo of myself that I am proud to display. This is easy and fun, fun being the key word as that is what it's all about! So Digg a little deeper and you may just StumbleUpon something worth sharing and waste away the hours!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

New season, new era!

Club crest 1953–1986Image via Wikipedia Really happy with the start to the football season especially as Chelsea managed to lay down a marker. Lets hope all the good work today isn't undone next weekend, what with the International friendly in the middle. What is the point in this fixture as it's a waste of time and has no real importance. Although arguably now with the build up to the World Cup it will be portrayed as a warm up but it's more of a disruption than anything else. I send out a cheer in the direction of Deco as I have been looking forward to seeing him in a blue shirt and he didn't disappoint. Not going to get a shirt for a while as I blame myself for Shevchenko under achieving in West London due to getting his name and number on the back. Was great to see Big Phil full of emotion on the bench, I am looking forward to cheering on his team and let's hope more of the same will follow and on a regular basis!!

I didn't watch the United match but listened to it in the car journey down to Herne Bay for the evening. A late one admittedly but it was for the good of the cause. Thumbs up to United, hopefully they won't have it all their own way this season and they have a lot of distractions to come with the additional competitions and missing players! After dinner we settled down to watch Hellboy, great movie but I am expecting bigger from the sequel and it does look good. Would appreciate some feedback if anyone has seen it so far? My journey home was long as I was tired but I achieved a personal milestone in passing the 100,000 mile mark on my car speed-o-meter so it should be worn in now? Time for a new cam belt I reckon!!

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Saturday, August 16, 2008

I'll stand by you!

Statue in Montreux, SwitzerlandImage via Wikipedia I am Freddie Mercury's uninspired moment of frustration, I am the little silhouette of a man contemplating doing the fandango. Thunderbolts and lightning can bring it on as I'm not to be frightened.

It's here I find myself, stood basked in the English summer with the sun clouds beating down on me the permanent reminder that I was born in the wrong country. Here is to my parents for not immigrating to somewhere hotter although saying that even with the perfect beaches I would miss the buzz of the city. I have a lot on my mind lately and if I were playing Joe Bingo I would have a good shout for a full house.

Today was a return to the buzz of the Saturday assault on my wallet with the children participating in their hobbies. First up was the eager boy, fresh from his warm up music (Captain Jack Sparrow song) he was running around the pitch with a point to prove. He did well but his frustration showed as he missed several chances before finding himself on the imposing end of a tackle which left him embarrassed and the other boy in tears. Even Zidane had his moments but I am not Papa Zizu. Composure young Jedi, there is a time and a place for the force.

Next up was My Little Pony, she was really looking forward to working with the horses and she impressed the staff as they quizzed her on the names of the cleaning brushes. Take into account she has only done Pony Club once before and just on the back of a two week absence due to the holiday and she correctly named every brush. I was proud watching from the stable doorway as she cleaned the hooves. It's just a shame that just as they come back into their activities that they have to leave again for a brief period as they are away with their mother next week.

Today was eventful in a lot of ways but there was sadness as the Kitten who is quite a character had to go back to the person who gave it to us. This is due to all the uncertainty and movement going on currently as it has been passed from pillar to post in the last month. What was crazy though is that it didn't recognise it's mother and even went for her a couple of times. Shouldn't take long for it to settle but made me laugh picturing that occurring with humans and my mother for instance.

Off out tonight to try and cut some serious ruggage...

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Friday, August 15, 2008

Public Relations

Had a few deadlines to finish at work today, the first I managed to reach an advanced stage last night as I stayed back a couple of hours. Monitoring repeat calls that our customer service department had dealt with and seeing if trends were obvious. The other matters were largely loose ends that needed to be finalised. Had a lot going on lately so after work with my partner going to her parents for the week I decided to meet up with some friends after work next door.

The discussions to start off with were about situations that we got into when we were drunk. I figured that I would take a back seat here as I have ended up in some weird and wonderful places when drunk. Their stories were good and we had a few laughs at each others expense. Then as the conversations weaved it's way through relationships and children to movies we eventually found ourselves talking about cloud computing. The wonders of conversation!!

After navigating the trains home I spoke to my children's mother who wanted me to pick them up from a family event that she was attending. It would be easier this way as in the morning would be a lot of running about otherwise. I arrived after collecting my car and walked into the 'facility', there were her family all dancing and singing. They fail to recognise who I am until I start talking to my daughter. After speaking briefly to everyone I jump into the car and head home where they children crash out almost straight away.

Talking to my partner later we are still a distance from where we want to be in terms of a relationship but I am confident we will get there. It is difficult with all of the factors involved but we need to move forwards not sideways!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A Hoax?

Frame 352 from the film, allegedly capturing a...Image via Wikipedia Tomorrow the truth behind the Bigfoot remains found in Northern Georgia will be revealed to the world. I am as skeptical as the next person and after seeing the recent extra terrestrial footage I am not convinced by the image of the Bigfoot. Matthew Whitton, a police officer, and Rick Dyer, a former corrections officer, who, along with veteran bigfoot tracker Tom Biscardi of Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., said they came across the seven-foot, seven-inch (2.3-meter), 500-pound (227-kilogram) body of a simian like creature in the woods (source).

A press conference has been called
at the Cabana Hotel - Palo Alto tomorrow where they are expected to produce DNA evidence to back up their claim. If this is true I will light a candle for the Henderson family as this will surely go down as one of the findings of the century. Biscardi was behind a previous Big foot hoax so many people believe we are going to end up with a similar conclusion. Here are details from the press release;

DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference on Friday, August 15th from 12 Noon to 1:00pm at the Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California, 94306. The press conference will not be open to the public. It will only be open to credentialed members of the press.

Here are some of the vital statistics on the “Bigfoot” body:

*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.

*It weighs over five hundred pounds.

*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.

*It is male.

*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.

*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot.

*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.

*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.

*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.

*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)

*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.

*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.


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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

There's something in the water

There is definitely something in the water and like a wave it's sweeping all before it at the Beijing Olympics. This wave comes in the form of Michael Phelps and like Pacman on water he is eating his way through Gold Medals. It's awe inspiring to watch him in action as he commands the water, and is in a class of his own. When you look at athletes like Tiger Woods and Roger Federer I reckon that you can easily put him in that category.

Maybe the swimsuit he wears does give him an advantage but he still has to perform once in the water. Today he became the most decorated Olympian ever winning his 11th Gold Medal overall (including 6 from 2004 Athens Olympics) and he still has three more events. If he is successful and gets Gold in those events he will pass Mark Spitz record of 7 Gold Medals at one Olympics.

On current form you wouldn't put it passed him especially as he was able to win the 200 metres butterfly blind as his goggles became full of water so he had to count his stroke. Can anyone stop him completing the so called 'Great Eight'?

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

What ever happened?!

The Strokes live at Stubb's March 14th night b...Image via Wikipedia I have found myself really getting into the Strokes, when the hype wagon originally rolled into the UK I missed out as I was away chasing other sounds. Now through the power of the Internet and Last.fm introducing me to new/similar music I am hooked. Borrowed the albums from my brother and I have been listening to them and really digging their sound.

I have read through NME that their next album could possibly have Pharrell as a producer, that would be awesome as with his vision and their sound it could be special. Favourite tune at the moment is What Ever Happened? Love it although I have found on Last.fm there are a couple of tunes from other artists that have climbed my most played list due to being likened to everything. Don't get me wrong the artists are great but the songs climbing aren't necessarily what I would consider the best releases. Anyway just sitting back now to listen and enjoy.
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Monday, August 11, 2008

Twitter implements follow limit..

Scoble, Longhorn EvangelistImage via Wikipedia Away for a week and it was inevitable that there would have been some issue surrounding Twitter. Although I have lost friends I follow and followers of my updates it seems that the noise on the Internet at the moment is about the site limiting the amount of people we can now follow. The limit is 2000 and to some extent it makes sense as it should limit the problems.

The issue with Twitter it seems is the distribution of Tweets from users like Robert Scoble (who follows in excess of 21,000). Twitter is well known for it's problems of late and the Fail Whale has become something of a cult icon. They obviously want to distance from the problems and start to move in the right direction.

Frequently in stories lately is those out there who are using Twitter for malicious purposes, auto following, using scripts and those that spam. Will this decision alienate the users of Twitter, I think it does make sense but is this just another nail in the coffin or will this be the turning point. The Twitter clones out there must surely be watching with interest. I'll finish by pointing to FriendFeed as there are no scalability issues there...

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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Strategic game of wits...

Chess game and play clock with the pieces in t...Image via WikipediaThe children stayed with me again last night, today though they went back to their mother which was a real blow. The holiday was great but I wish it had been longer although I know they were really missing her as the week drew into the later stages. I feel for their situation, it's not something I know with growing up being divided between two places. They do well as they have adjusted to the set up. As their mother picked them up they were full of excitement in seeing her and telling her what they had bought and where they had been. They were all going for a meal with her fella and his son, leaving me not knowing what to do with myself for a few minutes as from running about after them and checking them quiet fell on the house.

From here I headed over to my sister's to pick up the kitten to take over to my Girl's. Not sure if she is overly made up that she wants to keep it but should be a laugh for the next couple of days at least. Currently it's like a strategic game of wits between the kitten and puppy as they circle each other with curiosity. Smart money is on the kitten on form as it's defining the Reverend And The Makers although I am certain puppy has more in the locker!
Zemanta Pixie

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Back to Earth

no original descriptionImage via WikipediaGoing to take a few days to catch up but I am just in the process of uploading all of my holiday photo's. Today was a constant rush, I feel like I have been cleaning for 24 hours and have made several journey's to the launderette today. Paying £5 to wash and dry a load, got to love the back to basic way of life and then all of your clothes coming out stained in powder. The children helped immensely leaving a trail of mess behind them. Got collared for parking my car outside the caravan to load it up but you when some you lose some I guess. Did want to head down to the beach today but the weather wasn't looking overly amazing and it soon poured so glad that we choose to clean up! Just catching up on feeds, stories, tweets etc. No doubt I will be appearing in your inbox in one form or another shortly...
Zemanta Pixie

Friday, August 08, 2008

Summer Breeze

It was to say a unique start to the morning, once we were dressed and ready we were on the road once more and this time to Margate. Wasn't a nice day and there was a bad smell that hung in the air that made you want to hold your breathe until your ears popped! The beach wasn't that bad but the wind made the sea dangerous but that didn't deter the surfers or the children from building their sand castles. After freezing on the beach we headed up to an art exhibition showing plans for the area, the children added there contribution and like the Littlest Hobo we were on our way again...