with what she said over here in general.
I’ll probably post about religion soon enough since I’ve been thinking about my position in regards to religion and faith a little bit.
Spamalike
Got a sudden influx of spam, all of it one line and on random posts. Looks like a tracking mechanism, so the bot makes a spam comment, and then looks for the tracking ID. If it shows up, it knows it’s ‘good to go’ with as much spam as it likes. Askimet stopped 2 out of the 5 and I manually flagged the other 3 as spam. We’ll see how it goes. If I end up marking 50 a day as spam I may need to force registrations on comments, we’ll see.
Red Autumn
I was out in the garden earlier because the apple tree in our garden has the brightest yellow leaves. The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but they are bright yellow.
But a few of the leaves have some amazing colours.
The small tree has a few stubborn leaves just hanging on until the bitter end.
And somehow, there’s a single fresh daisy in the grass, although we’re not sure where it came from.
Why ‘searching’ means something
Google have unveiled the Google Flu Trends website. Basically, if you start searching for ‘aching muscles’ or ‘flu symptoms’, and lots of other people in your area are doing the same thing, it’s an indicator that people are starting to feel ill.
Using that, Google is predicting how much flu activity there is in certain areas. If we assume people aren’t cynical on a big enough scale to ruin the data, this is a pretty amazing example of why searching isn’t entirely passive. Why collecting data about what people are searching for is an active thing. If you know what people are interesting in finding out, and you know what they’re finding, you can fill empty markets or predict trends.
Google – it’s the beginnings of a collective conciousness, a gathering of minds all asking the same question. A billion people all pondering vital questions.
Like, “Is Angelina Jolie still as sexy as ever?”
Sodding cold
Still coughing, still getting annoyed by it. Have another headache today from the coughing. Feel as though the cold is coming back which would be an officially bad thing[tm].
Grete had her dentist checkup today – and has passed with flying colours. It’s the first time she’s had a checkup in five years and she was pretty worried. On top of being worried about visiting the dentist anyway obviously. So she was pretty relieved to find out she doesn’t need any work. My wallet was equally pleased she didn’t need any work. So just the £180 for me next week, and then probably another £100 or so when I can find the time and energy to go back.
We’ve got guests this weekend so we’re tidying (extra-tidying honest) the house – which means basically Grete is tidying the house and I’m blogging about it, but it’s like a shared experience. Friday we have Tracey and her mum who are here until Sunday. On Saturday they’re going with Grete to a craft fair in Birmingham and meeting Grete’s mum and aunt there, who’ll be coming back on Saturday late afternoon. Lynda’s going with them, so she’ll be here Saturday morning.
The BBC news site has a story which strikes a chord with me and my NHS experiences. The comments are well worth reading (even though they didn’t publish mine yet). Here’s a (long) quote from the article,
Last year a friend of mine had an appointment with her doctor. Her local bus route was disrupted by road works. So, she left half an hour before she really needed to so as to make sure she got to the surgery on time.
As it turned out, there were no delays so she went to the reception desk prior to intending to sit down with a magazine to await her turn to see the doctor.
When the receptionist spoke to her, this was her loud greeting: “You’re early. You don’t expect to be seen early do you?”
In front of a waiting room full of strangers, my friend told me that she felt embarrassed and belittled.
In a health service that treats thousands of serious illnesses every day and has been a foundation stone of our society for 60 years, this was no life or death matter.
Yet, it is highly unlikely that a member of staff in a store such as John Lewis would address someone in this way. The people served there are customers. The people served by the NHS are patients.
It’s worth reading the whole thing and the comments. I can’t say enough how I agree with the general points made, and in the comments section many people agree with me that it’s not usually the medical staff that are the issue, it’s the administrative staff in the way.
Of course, sometimes it can be the medical staff, like the GP who told me to eat less cake and stop taking sugar in my tea (neither of which I did at the time) because I was now diabetic. You shouldn’t have to fight both your illness and the establishment to get good treatment.
I could rant for hours about the terrible treatment Grete has had over the years with her depression and associated issues in the hands of the NHS. I think the idea of a national health service is fantastic, and I wouldn’t want it to go away, but the processes and people around it need to understand more clearly that their role is to get people help, and that those people are already vulnerable, scared and in need of assistance.
Indiana Jones DVD
Couldn’t resist, bought the 4th Indy movie (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) on DVD today in Tesco. £5 off if you bought it with enough other stuff, which made it not too bad. I think it’ll be enjoyable on DVD (clearly, otherwise why did I buy it), and previous experience suggests the bits I found frustrating on first viewing will be easier to deal with on DVD.
I guess that’s because it’s less of an ‘event’, where-as going to the cinema I demand to be entertained so any distraction is frustrating. X-Men for me was a serious example of this, where I enjoyed it far more on DVD than I had in the Cinema.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Because it’s fun
Today Grete is having some Heinz Alphabet Spaghetti with her evening meal.
Another day nearly done
Played a bit of Lord of the Rings Online tonight (and last night), been a while since we played any MMORPG’s so was quite nice to kill a few orcs and goblins. The cough is still bugging me, the tail end of the cold and the part I hate most really. Coughing gives me a headache and just annoys me in general.
Weather has been pretty bad last few days, windy, heavy rain, the cats have given up all hope of spending any more time outside until the early spring and settled into winter mode. For Bubbles this essentially means trying to find the warmest place in the house to sit – and that includes on me or Grete.
Remind me to write a blog post about Fringe and/or Burn Notice.
Proposition 8 may not last
The language is a little confusing, but there may be some light at the end of the tunnel for people protesting against proposition 8.
It’s unfortunate, obviously, but it’s not the end,” Schwarzenegger told CNN. “I think that we will again maybe undo that, if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there and again lead in that area.
meh
can’t sleep. brain just won’t slow down.