Let's Have a Totally Democratic Leader's Debate

John Ryley, the head of Sky News, has written to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg to invite them to take part.

There should be a debate. It should be open and democratic and not just include the failures from the past aka Labour, Conservative and Liberal.

Gordon Brown has not had an original idea that has benefited the country in his whole political career. The scrapping of the 10p tax level, he had to reverse. The unfair treatment of Gurkhas, he had to reverse, thanks to Joanna Lumley. The most recent his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, only after being publicly humiliated by former Army General Sir Richard Dannatt.

David Cameron, at the Conservative Party conference has proposed a little tinkering here and there. WAKE_UP!!! The country is £800 BILLION in debt. His plan would not even cover a fraction of the cost in interest payments.

Nick Clegg. Poor Nick Clegg. He is in charge of a party so committed to being on the job that they can’t keep their trousers on. Those that can either appear to be too drunk or too old to care. It is a real shame because this country is crying out for a viable alternative to the recent disastrous administrations that have befallen this country.

So let us not permit Sky News, sibling to the airhead bimbos we see on the US Fox channel, home of the page three boobies, and plaything and power broker medium for Rupert Murdoch to screw us again.

The debate should be open to ALL political parties who satisfy certain criteria. We desperately need new blood and new ideas. An open and democratic solution would be to allow any party who, at the last election, had at least two candidates who did not lose their deposits.

A true British debate would include parties from Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. It would include parties that the British public have given a vote to.

A national debate should not pander to past failures.

If you agree, then let your voice be heard, add a comment and pass the word.

Panasonic SDR-S15 Camcorder and the Extorionate Cost of Replacement Batteries (VW VBJ10)

I bought this from amazon.co.uk
for £159.92 on 9-Jul-2009. The camera has worked well. It is light and easy to use. At the same time I also ordered 3 x SanDisk 8GB SDHC Secure Digital Cards (£11.50 for all 3).



Battery life is always a problem with camcorders and although the SD cards provide ample storage, I have found that actual recording time is limited to 35-40 minutes. This is because the battery will be out of juice by then.



The obvious answer is to buy a spare battery (Panasonic Model No. VW VBJ10). Now remember that the camera is great value at only £159.92, but the spare battery costs £103.99 ( or 65% of the cost of the camcorder - which included a battery).

Yes, there are alternatives, but you have to be careful. I bought one of the alternatives, but it was physically the wrong size.

So there are two problems:

1. Panasonic are charging way too much for their batteries, and that for me will be a disqualifier the next time I buy a product.

2. What is a good alternative battery?

Finally, there is one problem I have in actual use of the camera. The image size is 704 x 576 pixels which gives an aspect ratio of 1.22222:1 not 4:3. Even when shooting 16:9 the image size is still 704x576, except that the top and bottom of the video have been removed (letterboxed).

This is not a problem if you simply plug your camera into your TV set and play. The 16:9 picture is pretty good. However it does become a problem when editing videos and you have to tell the video software that you are using an aspect ratio of 0.8182:1 (576/704). Why? I don't know, but that is what it takes to work.

The true reason behind the economic collapse

The true reason behind the economic collapse

The chart below shows the $ oil price per barrel between 2000 and Feb 2009

The Number one reason was the extraordinary high oil prices. Why has no one mentioned this?

Number two the Banks made some monumentally stupid investment decisions, but remember the reason many of these mortgages went bad was the knock on effect of the high oil prices.
Peter Lynch, the legendary portfolio manager for Fidelity’s Magellen fund which increased in size from $20 million to over $14 Billion ( between 1997 and 1990), gave some sage advice when he said that you should never buy an investment unless you can explain your reasons to a child of ten within two minutes.

Why have the banks have cost us (the tax payer) £trillions of pounds? Do you know? Has anyone explained it to you in a way that you can readily understand? Do not let anyone tell you that it is too complicated. Anyone who tells you that simply does not understand. The public is due a proper explanation. Mortgages that went bad are not the full story. That explanation should come from our Political Leaders and those responsible for the economy.

The public have been let down by their leaders: Political Leaders, Financial Leaders, Industrial Leaders and the Press.

Yes the Press! The press failed to ask the hard questions. The press failed to do their homework. The press did not investigate wrong doing. The press did not investigate incompetence. The press needs to get back to doing its proper job and stop being spin doctors for their favourite political parties.

The public have also been let down by the managers of their pension funds. These are the people who vote to give company chairman and director’s huge salaries which cannot be justified in any way, shape or form. They have a huge say in how companies are run and have a huge responsibility to monitor the companies in which they invest your money.

Warning signs regarding the management of funds had already been seen when it was discovered that many fund managers were just investing in each other’s funds, paying themselves huge salaries and bonuses and relying on the fairy tale that the stock market would just keep rising no matter what.

The warning signs have been there for the banks since Nick Leeson’s rouge trading caused the collapse of Barings bank in 1995. Nick for his part spent six and a half years in a Singapore jail. Why have none of the traders been prosecuted for their part in the current financial fiasco?

We will now return to the number one reason for the economic collapse: the extraordinarily high oil prices ($150/barrel). The economy is a delicately balanced eco system. There needs to be sufficient money running throughout the system for all the parts to function properly. If you like, the economy needs financial lubrication, or cash.

If one resource gets all the lubrication then other parts of the economy will be starved of that vital lubrication. In the UK we have statistics like 7% of the population control 90% of the wealth. Of course if that 7% got greedy and tried to up the percentage of wealth that they controlled then parts of the economy would dry up. They would no longer be able to buy goods and services. The goods and services parts would also then dry up. The system would begin to fail.

This is what happened when oil prices escalated out of control. People had to spend five times as much on energy costs and other parts of the economy went without. In the UK petrol went as high as £1.30 per litre. It cost some people more than a days pay to fill their tanks for a week (20% of their earnings just to get to work). The system began to fail.

There is no doubt that that catastrophe was made far worse by our greedy bankers gambling their assets on high risk investments which they clearly did not understand. They were paid huge salaries because it was assumed that they new what they were doing. In fact they knew didly squat. We need to remember this and adjust the salaries of business leaders in line with their abilities and not their job titles or their inflated egos.

It must be obvious that many of our leaders are running around like headless chickens. The US Republican Party and their spin merchants are spouting the most unutterable garbage. Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, is full of bluster and bullshit.

Banking chairmen and Business Leaders are the first to look for the lifeboats. What ever happened to Women and Children first?

It must also be remembered that the decisions taken by Tony Blair, George Bush and every single politician who voted in favour of the war in Iraq are primarily responsible for the events that have unfolded since that ill judged decision was made.

What do we need to do here in the UK?

1. Oil prices must be lowered still more to 2002/2003 levels ($30-$35 / barrel).

2. Domestic energy charges for Gas and Electricity must be returned to 2002/3 levels.

3. The massive amount of Government spending must be turned towards investment

projects which will return our investments within 10 years.

4. The UK must be self sufficient in energy (includes vehicle fuel, domestic energy, and

industrial energy usage) within 10 years. This is the best investment we can make.

5. The banks must work out what their investments are really worth and look to see if there

is any true underlying value that can see then make use of these assets. They should not

be permitted to just write them off and let the tax payer pay.

6. High speed broadband (100mbs/sec) should be available to every home and office in the

UK by the end of 2012. The current plans are truly pathetic.

7. Roads, Bridges, and Rail projects must be brought forward and completed by 2015.

8. Hospitals, Schools, and Prison Projects must be brought forward and completed by 2015.

9. The country’s infrastructure must be in a fit state to take full advantage of the economic

upturn when it comes.

The real concern for everyone here in the UK is that the same morons are still in charge.

Online Shopping made easy

The RatingsWorld website gives you the ability to search approximately 300 stores and 1.5 million products from a single site. You have the best choice on product, price, availability and service.

Find exactly what you want, whether it is clothing, dvd's, video games, or anything else you can think of.

Items I found:

Ipod Touch

Wii Fit

Sony HD TV

London Theatre Tickets - This is the best layout of London shows I have seen.

The search function is really easy to use and the filters help you remove all the items which are only loosely associated with what you are looking for. It is then easy to do price comparisons from the results returned.

How to post html source code to your blogspot blog

I had a project the other day which required that I post some HTML and some vb.net source code to a blogspot blog. I was fortunate to find an entry for the Microsoft MIX 10K competition that did just that.

The entry is called Blog My Source Code, by the Luddite Developer.

Before downloading the app I would recommend that you have the .NET Framework Version 3.5 SP1 installed.

You can find the application here.

The application does just what it says on the tin. Simply cut and paste the source code to the application, press the Encode button, and copy the result into your blog. Job done. I gave it five stars for its simplicity.

The Solution to Entering a British Football Team at the Olympic Game

Only people based in England appear to be in favour of a British Football Team competing at the Olympics.

The English have absolutely no concern that competing in the Olympics could cause Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to lose their status as independent football nations. That would mean Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would no longer be able to compete independently in the European Championships or the World Cup.

Of course, they appear completely oblivious to the fact that England would no longer be able to compete as England in these competitions either. There would be only one team representing the United Kingdom in all football competitions world wide. It would NOT be called England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Even club team representation in the European Champions League and EUFA Cup competitions could be affected.

The situation is highly political as many football nations are unhappy that the United Kingdom has four independent votes in FIFA and EUFA and would dearly love to have the UK reduced to a single football association and a single vote at these levels. Sepp Blatter appears to be no friend of British Football, just witness how helpful he was to Real Madrid in the Ronaldo situation. Michelle Platini was also quoted as suggesting that Ronaldo should be allowed to go to Real Madrid. So much for unbiased leadership.

Given the current political situation (in football) it would be extremely unwise to set a precedent by entering a combined British team in any Olympic games.

However, it does appear extremely presumptuous of the English FA to then assume that they should represent the United Kingdom.

The most reasonable solution would be for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland to compete for the honour of representing the United Kingdom at the Olympic Games, just as any athlete has to compete to earn their place in the Olympic team.

Road Tax Fiasco – Is it Government Fraud, Financial Conspiracy or Simple Incompetence?

The current debate on road tax, the environment, pollution is a massive government deception born out of the need to raise cash to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let everyone be quite clear that the road fund licence, or road tax, is meant to fund the building of roads in the UK.

Let us also be quite clear that the Government collects far more in road tax than it spends on roads, and that toll roads simply add insult to injury.

Raising road tax and raising fuel duty is all about raising taxes in general to fund the government’s excessive expenditure on unnecessary wars, second homes for MP’s, and millions on pounds in bonuses paid to incompetent government departments, which by the government’s own admission are not fit for purpose.

Let us also be quite clear that these extra taxes have absolutely nothing to do with reducing environmental pollution.

The Government needs money, so they mug the helpless motorist. It is Highway Robbery.
What the government don’t want is for the motorist to fight back and vote for representatives who would safeguard both their civil rights and their finances, but you do have that right and now is the time to use that right.

Write to your MP and tell him that unless fuel duty is reduced and road taxes kept in line with expenditure on roads that your vote will be going to someone else.

Bill Gates disappointed with Microsoft Windows Usability

A Microsoft internal email from Bill Gates tells of his disappointment at his user experience and that he thinks that Windows Usability has been going backwards. This was five years ago, in January 2003.

Well the big news today. It has continued to go backwards for these last five years and Windows Usability is at an all time low.

If the chief geek can't use his own product then what hope do the rest of us have?

Here is a copy of the original email:

=============================================================================
---- Original Message ----
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)

Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Updale again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.
So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.
=======================================================================

Dulux Paintpod Review - It really Sucks!!!

Problem: When you squeeze the trigger, the motor turns the rachet at 'B', this will then turn the rachet at the top of the tube, point 'A'. This should generate sufficient suction to draw the paint into the tube at point 'C', and all the way up the tube into the clear plastic tube and all the way to the roller.

Well in practice the paint never made it as far as the clear plastic tube.


Sounds great when you see the ads on TV.

Bought one. Got it home. Set it up. Pressed the button to start painting....

Nothing! Absolutely nothing! You can hear the motor running, but no paint is making its way up the tube to the roller.

Put Simply "IT DOES NOT WORK !!!". It is a 70 quid piece of crap.

The working part is the tube that you slip into the paint pod. Unfortunately, it is NOT powerful enough to suck the paint up the tube.

The paint pod really sucks. The colour choice is really pathetic and they charge you an arm and a leg for the specially formulated paint.

Save yourself time and money and stick with normal paint and a manual roller.

It is going back to B & Q tomorrow.

It has cost me my time, I did not get my room painted this weekend, and it will cost me a couple of gallons of petrol to take it back. Petrol is not cheap these days either. The extra money I am spending on the petrol would have paid for the normal paint that I would have used to paint the room in the first place.

That will be the last Dulux product I ever buy.

When is Microsoft going to stop ripping off the British People?

Back in September 2007 , we wrote about How the British Consumer is being Screwed. Then we showed examples how we were being overcharged by up to 37%.

Today, I was researching prices for Microsoft Expression Studio Version 2 and found that the overcharging by Microsoft had now reached over 58%!

On the 14-Jun-2008 the US Price was $699, the UK Price was £669.27.

The UK£ / US$ exchange rate closed on 13-Jun-2008 at £1 = $1.945.

Therefore our Price comparison is as follows USPrice = £359.38, the UK Price = £669.27.

Now the UK Price of £669.27 includes VAT at 17.5% and the US price does not include any tax.

Removing the VAT from the UK price £669.27 – (17.5% VAT) = £569.36.

US Price = £359.38 excluding tax.
UK Price = £569.36 excluding tax.
UK more expensive by £209.98 (58.43%)

Now the British Government do not give a toss about the British People and will NOT do anything to change the current price gouging , but the EU has been going after Microsoft with a vengeance and one would hope that this information would be of significant interest to them.