[spam] finally have one

There's a low-life called "knicks" who has been spamming me for the past few days. You'll see this person's spam every so often on various posts and when I see it, I delete it. I'm sure I don't need to warn readers not to hit the site he wants you to.

I wonder what the hell he gets out of this. I never go to his supposed site, I trust you don't so I don't see what he gains. Perhaps he wants me to put word verification back on or moderation. I'm not gonna. I'm just going to delete him.

[municipal officers] brain scans called for

Wastage, sheer wastage. Apoplexy. I need to calm down enough to explain.

I live on a six lane highway and to give the town planners credit, it is neither noisy nor excessively dirty. There are trees down the centre and on either side. Pretty. But people have to cross that road and there are no crossing points, no lights, nothing.

So we take our chances. Because of the traffic light configuration half a kilometre away in either direction, the traffic comes in waves and if one is patient, crossing is no big deal. Noone steps on the grass as there are a number of regular, well worn paths which serve well.

Question - how much would one of those wrought iron fence sections cost? $100? I've just been on our median strip now and they've sunk holes for pouring concrete today and I estimate they have about 2 or 3000 of these fence sections lying on the grass down the length of the road on either side of the median strip.

Purpose? To stop residents crossing. Ostensibly to protect the grass and trees. To stop older residents getting hit by cars and killed.

Guess what? It's going to stop no one. We MUST cross to get to the carparks and bus stops. People will continue to cross and here's the thing - they must now negotiate waist high fences instead of being able to step onto the pathway as before. Can you imagine the mayhem this winter on the slipepry icy roads?

This is going to leave people, especially the older ones, vulnerable to speeding traffic and will cause injuries from falling and the biggie of them all - leave anyone who crosses vulnerable to fines for crossing there instead of walking the half kilometre to the traffic lights and then half a kilometre back again on the other side.

By putting up these fences at an estimated $250 000, they will recoup it from fines from residents and from taxpayers over the next ten years. This also means police deployed to keep an eye on recalcitrant residents.

And for what? For what? Why bother in the first place? Isn't this typical of authority everywhere:

1] No concern whatsoever for the ordinary resident;

2] Half-arsed, super expensive solution to a non-existent problem when the real problems go untouched;

3] The ordinary resident pays through the nose for the inefficiency of the authorities;

4] Rather than the residents having the municipal authorities working for them, the latter see themselves as somehow a governing body to impose their own will on the very people who ostensibly elected them;

5] The lifestyle well-being index drops another five points and makes modern city living just that little bit more unbearable.

I did not order these barricades to be bought. I demand a brainscan be done on all municipal authorities and officers to ascertain the cause of the blockage. You are not "bosses" of us in any shape or form. We are the bosses - the taxpayers. You are just paid, elected officials doing your job for as long as we pay our taxes and deem that the job you're doing is satisfactory.

That's all.

[luxury houseboats] well no, thank you

Having only just this morning finished my latest design for an outrigger long range cruiser and feeling quite pleased about it, I clicked on The Age to see what was going on and came up with this:

The Perfect River Houseboat

Travelling on the world's great waterways is always an evocative experience. From the endless rice paddies that frame the mighty Mekong to the rugged grandeur of the Yangtze and the Mississippi's river boat gamblers, river voyages induce thoughts of romance, history, culture and commerce.

As one of Australia's greatest rivers, and the fourth longest navigable waterway in the world, the Murray River is awash with a past that resonates of trade and early settlements.

In the open-plan kitchen of our five-star houseboat, the espresso machine silently brews cappuccinos and there's the unmistakable pop of a champagne cork from the rear deck. It seems that going with the flow on the Murray River is an inevitability as we prepare to literally cruise through the day.

Now I have never been one for paying exorbitant money to fly into a "resort area" and stay at some 4 or 5 star cloned hotel, along with the whole tourist populace. Nor will I stay at a 2 or 3 star, as you can have that at home. You want something different on holiday.

A slow safari/cruise in some sort of comfort is nice. But here's the thing - the houseboat in the picture above is way over the top, far too much at odds with its surroundings, sticking out like a sore thumb.

An old style paddle steamer in wood, low, river hugging, gently chugging along - that's a thousand times more preferable than crisp linen sheets and silver service.

Each to his or her own though.

[what ales you] the efficacy of beer

From a very naughty blogger with bags of humour:

Yesterday, scientists suggested that men should take a look at their beer consumption, considering the results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer. The theory is that drinking beer makes men turn into women.

To test the finding, 100 men were fed 6 pints of beer each. It was then observed that 100% of the men gained weight, talked excessively without making sense, became overly emotional, couldn't drive, failed to think rationally, argued over nothing, and refused to apologize when wrong. No further testing is planned.

[blog birthday] one year of blogging

It began because of a religious argument on Stephen Pollard's site with Indecent Left and it just seemed not right to use another man's site although, looking back, I don't think it hurt his stats.

So I started my new blog, not reticently but embarrassingly forward on the Harbour template [sailing roots] - what unmitigated chutzpah on my part.

I launched into profiles of Tim Worstall and Stephen plus Clive Davis, Cleanthes, now at The Select , Oliver Kamm and Chris Dillow and was just starting on Melanie Phillips and Norman Geras when I began to burn out and became a bit more circumspect:

Jean-Remy von Matt, the CEO of a German advertising agency … called blogs "the toilet walls of the internet". "What on earth", he asked, "gives every computer-owner the right to express his opinion, unasked for?"

If it was meant to be smiled at, this comment, alas I think, in my case, it may be justified. Yesterday in my enthusiasm to get off the ground, I committed every breach known to the blogosphereThose bloggers just mentioned, plus Euroserf and Johnathan Pearce of Samizdata came in and encouraged a blogger newbie at exactly the right time and gave sound advice, sometimes as a little slap on the wrist, e.g. on linking etiquette.

Those were the days of 29 or 30 uniques a day and the blog was punctuated with posts about how my stats were so low compared to the big boys and whatever could I do? I cringe now when looking at those days. Don't know what those guys were thinking, in turn.

I "ran into" Iain Dale at this point and he turned out to be a thorough gentleman.

And so October, December, the stats slowly increased and some American blog awards really got me up in arms, one or two other bloggers picked up on it and Blogpower was born. That can all be read onsite.

The New Year saw me through the 100 uniques barrier and it's been a slow build ever since, with periods of dropping back, such as this week actually. Advice from the big boys, passed on to any newbies reading this:

1] Work hard at it and try to be consistent in style and in output;

2] Forget stats at the early stage. They will come if what you write has any quality. It's a very slow build over two or three years and as your total body of work increases, so your Google hits on various topics will also increase;

3] Never become discouraged because a post [like the photo quiz] is ignored and don't get too ecstatic when a strange little post [like the announcement of the French election result] still gets huge hits;

4] Don't be an island, hoping they'll come to you - visit, read, comment and link;

5] Never be afraid to offend [one of my problems], as long as you believe what you say and can back it up;

6] In the end, try to be entertaining, meaning don't get so far into your material that you lose your reader in a mass of text.

In the end, I'm still a new blogger. This advice just quoted is not mine - I was just passing it on. I'm still learning, myself.

[blog birthday survey] results by category

Please remember the percentages do not add up to 100%. They are percentage of those who clicked this variant from the total number clicked.

Font

Verdana/Century Gothic as of now 56.0%

Mix of fonts and sizes 28.0%

Papyrus as I used to have 12.0%

Single font throughout [though different sizes] 12.0%

Courier 4.0%

Length of posts on the main page

Short UKDP type two or three paragraph 32.0%

One paragraph intro - remainder elsewhere 32.0%

Chris Dillow type five or six paragraph 32.0%

DK type long treatise with quotation 20.0%

Pictures within the posts

Left/right alternating as I often do 57.7%

Full width banner type [my usual] 38.5%

Tiny thumbnail like BBC just to define 26.9%

No pics at all 7.7%

Full post pic [as I rarely do] 3.9%

Links within posts

Link whenever necessary 92.3%

Minimized links - only to original source 11.5%

No more than five links per post 11.5%

Maximized links for big juicy read 0.0%

Quotation style

Indented block form, colour highlighted [as now] 69.2%

Indented block form, two-grey highlighted 26.9%

Unindented, part of main text 11.5%

Page elements other than text

Blogfocus as I used to do 73.9%

Quizzes as I do now 52.2%

Questionnaires/surveys 34.8%

Interviews 34.8%

Chicken Yoghurt/Lord Nazh type cartoons 30.4%

Photo displays/slideshows 26.1%

You tube type videos [currently not possible] 17.4%

Memes 8.7%

Music files posted 4.4%

Welshcakes type recipes 4.4%

Style of writing you like to see

Quirky items as I already do 87.5%

Rants as I already do 83.3%

Serious Gracchi type articles 45.8%

Satirical Jon Swift/Dodo type 37.5%

Love romance like Ruthie or even as I sometimes do 20.8%

Swearblogger DK/Reactionary Snob type 16.7%

Theo type totty content 0.0%

Welshcakes type food posts 0.0%

Assuming I resume Blogfocus, should the style be

8 bloggers twice a week, paragraph on each, each time 43.5%

Random content linked to an extent 47.8%

My selection of new blogs 34.8%

My selection of older blogs 34.8%

Themed content 17.4%

Britblog type narrative with e-mailed links from you 13.0%

15 bloggers once a week, paragraph on each, each time 13.0%

Less of [main points]

Too many posts, hard to keep up with and generate good debate, Christianity, political comments, British politics, serious, articles which depend on you reading the whole of a very long post on another blog, long,long posts.

More of [main points]

Pics please, more personal info about you with pics, humour, your take on other blog stories, more philosophical pieces, fun, recent posts display near the top, as you produce a lot of posts, your autobiography, which you started, short and to the point you want to make, CSS styling, photos need to be edited a bit better, sometimes can't make them out, personal data about you and what you are doing and where.

In the end

I hope you'd agree that that was interesting, not only for my blog but in general - it shows how many bloggers think this way about these things. Thank you so much to all respondents. One blogger said I'd now know who he was but that's not possible - no IP addresses were recorded. Your suggestions are being incorporated as far as possible.

1st Blog Birthday

Today

So, here it is and it seems a bit strange - one year's blogging. Separate post on that later.

Also, Jeremy Jacobs - happy birthday to you for real.

Also it's my stepfather's birthday. You are remembered today, Jack, by many.

[contraception] just the stats, ma'am

Sources used were Bacchus: Smarter Sex, based on the U.S. Planned Parenthood and on Contraception: an Australian clinical practice handbook. (2006), pp 17-18. These were used because they provided charts, as distinct from the others which just yabbered on.

This started as a quiz, believe it or not - which contraceptive method is the most effective , 2nd, 3rd etc. Then two things happened:

1] I realized that many, particularly Catholics, Americans or both, were not going to see the light side of contraception; and

2] I started not to see the light side myself. As I waded through the stats, trying to collate them, I realized just how much effort goes into contraception and how far the reconstitution of society depends on contraception - plus one more thing:

3] When I saw that Planned Parenthood was behind it I baulked. This organization has some allegedly quite shady practices that I've met before and it's my right to personally be circumspect about their agenda, whatever my actual view on abortion and a woman's right to her own body.

Anyway, I'll still publish and be damned [as if you don't know all this already]. In each case, the percentage is the chance of getting pregnant again after use. The results from the two lists are listed separately and repeated so you can compare :

0% Abstinence

0.05% Norplant and Norplant-2

0.1% Etonogestrel implants LNG-IUD Mirena® (Hormonal IUD)

0.1% Etonogestrel implants Implanon™

0.1% Combined (estrogen and progestin)

0.1% LNg

0.15% Male sterilisation

0.15% Male Sterilization

0.3% Injectables Depo-Provera

0.5% Progestin Only

0.5% Tubal ligation (female sterilisation)

0.5% Female Sterilization

0.8% Etonogestrel implants Cu-IUD (Copper IUD)

0. 8% IUD Progesterone T 2 Copper T 380A

0.1-1% Injectables Lunelle

1% Ortho Evra (skin patch)

2% Nuvaring (vaginal ring)

2% Lactational amenorrhoea (LAM) when all three conditions below are met:

a. fully breastfeeding

b. <6>

c. amenorrhoea

3% Ovulation Method

3% Etonogestrel implants Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA)

5% Pill

8% Combined oral contraceptives (COC)

8% Combined hormonal vaginal ring NuvaRing®

8% Progestogen only pill (POP)

9% Calendar Method

14% Male Condom

15% Condoms - Male

16% Diaphragms (with spermicide)

19% Withdrawal

20% Sponge Women who have never given birth

20% Diaphragm

20% Cap Women who have never given birth

21% Female Condom

21% Condoms - Female

25% Periodic Abstinence

25% Fertility awareness based methods e.g. standard days method, symptothermal method

26% Spermicides

27% Withdrawal

29% Spermicide only

40% Sponge - Women who have given birth

40% Cap - Women who have given birth

85% Leaving it up to chance

Seems to me that the best methods are to either abstain or to have some horrid chemicals and implants inserted in you, bit s of metal or else be surgically operated upon. Ouch.

[super-duper photo quiz] numero uno

Click photo to zoom. Clues below:


All numbering left to right by row. Needed:

1] Real name and chief character;

2] Real name and chief character;

3] Don't mess with who? Co-star in the beach series?

4] Dad and daughter please;

5] Nickname - "ole …." plus this film;

6] Name any two;

7] Name and nickname;

8] Name and busty co-singer on "Islands";

9] Name and what does nobody expect?

10] Name and name one song.

As there are a number of possible answers, I'll just give a typical answer at the end of the link.

[nourishing obscurity] navigation [2]

This isn't a survey and nor is it "navigation" but I like to include a little pic [which represents me] when I talk shop or get onto housekeeping matters like this. Until now I've used the little guy in blue [top left] but I've also used others.

For a long time I was Mr. Badger and would love to revive this.

I even made him a coat of arms which Cleanthes, of The Select, hated.

Possibly my favourite was this little guy but he had mixed reviews.

Another way is to just put in my official logo which I did earlier in the day.

Tomorrow - the Blogfocus is back and I'll also publish the survey results.