PigBlog

Well then, the private sector triumphs again eh?

National Express, the same people that have a near monopoly on buses in the West Midlands, have pulled out of running the East Coast Main Line, as they’re not prying enough money from passengers, and the passengers aren’t happy either. Ticket prices are high, the service is poor.

So then: a question. Do you favour privatisation? Does the private sector improve efficiency, or merely ensure someone gets very rich? Can the public sector manage things effectively? Should the following be publicly or privately owned?

* Healthcare

* Roads

* Public Transport

* Energy supply

* Anything else?

I’ll go on record: I think the private sector just creams off the profits and runs away when things get hard, and I think all of the above should be in public ownership with profits ploughed back in to keeping costs down and service good where the service has a potential to make profit. I think public transport should be run as an essential service, not as a way to make money. Maybe that’s a bit utopian.

Discuss.

Heh. Here I am again, picking on the Macintosh. Guaranteed to provoke a response from The Bumpkin for a start, and maybe Bob will join in too, as he uses a Mac.

But wait. There’s a twist to this one. There will be a brief swipe at the Mac.. but only that as per usual, the GUI isn’t good enough once you dig delow the surface- it’s fine for it’s target audience, but hides things- and lets face it, Windoze is no innocent there, is it, and compounds it by not having had a decent command line for years too.

No, I’m going to have a good go at consultancy companies (sorry again Andy), you’re excused from the rant), which is like shooting fish in a barrel to be honest, and my old favourites, Symantec (the fuckers).

***Warning: LONG geek content follows***

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s walk went a bit further- I’m building back up, and we took a very hot walk to the canalside festival at Brownhills, had a wander up to The Swan for a cheeky couple, and then came back, pausing for a botulism burger at the festival, and a wander back down the Daw End Branch, avoiding the temptation to kick the shitbag scrote into the cut.

On Saturday, we went for a pleasant couple of pints at the Victoria, and a lovely curry at the ever fantastic Golden Moments. A very enjoyable evening, with only one exception: the group of 4 people on the next table who were happily regaling how one of them was claiming incapacity benefit, and the others a veritable raft of benefits- fraudulently claiming to not co-habit, and ‘lying upstairs in bed laughing’ whilst the incapable one (who seemed capable of walking around the restaurant and shovelling curry down her neck) lied to the benefits officer downstairs.

Grrr. [expletives deleted] [visions of a killing spree suppressed]

I’m a very strong believer in the welfare state. It’s essential for a civilised society. Why, though, do we have to put up with people screwing the system and robbing us all? It should be there to help people that need it, not to pay for scumbag parasites to enjoy a slightly-more-expensive-than-average curry.

[rhetorical question]
Do they have no shame?
[/rhetorical question]

Evil Overlord 19: Bring back the workhouse (but not one preserved for tourism) for convicted benefit fraudsters.

Andy has had a whinge in the past about Firefox’s performance on low-end hardware. I had in the past, said that all was OK for me, even on a ropey old Celeron 2.4 with 384MB of RAM. This changed this weekend- performance had been lacking for a bit but really nosedived, with the disk thrashing for several minutes and no response. I first suspected an infected PC, but no signs.

The answer seems to be plugins and add-ons for Firefox. For a start there’s a couple Microsoft sneaked in, like the .NET framework asisstant add-on, Windows Genuine Advantage, and some DRM crap too. Then over in plug-is there’s Java, and some more MS rubbish.

A general clean of this lot has dramatically improved things. First of all, I removed the .NET whatsit, then cleaned up the Java, uninstalled ForecastFox (which I love, but if I’m cleaning up…), and then tidied the others I thought I could do without. Firefox is useable again

We had a wander up the cut to the Manor Arms. Very nice too, but sitting around on my big fat arse means I was knackered after a mere 3.5 miles or so- we caught a bus back.

Back to the daily grind tomorrow then. Ho Hum. Almost 6 weeks passes very quickly, even more so when you’re almost recovered.

It’s been a nice last weekend though- good weather, a moderate (rather than excessive) quantity of beer, and several decent meals (Sunday lunch here, as an example).

I’ve followed Lee H-W’s lead and upgraded this and PubBlog to Wordpress 2.8.

At the weekend we went and watched a round of the BTCC at Oulton Park. It’s an excellent circuit, with a refreshing lack of over-the-top rules (you can park where you want, sit where you want (within reason!), take food, drink, camping chairs, and even barbecues. Hell, you can even camp there, which seems like a giggle if the weather’s good. Practice day especially was very relaxed- a gentle wander, watch some qualifying, and then off to the pub for food & beer.

I’ve never been to motor racing before: TV doesn’t convey the noise or speed: the back-popping, the rumble over the kerbs, the scream of an engine at an awful lot of revs for a car.

It was an amazingly hot weekend: we left a little early, exhausted and sweaty (eeww), and got back into the aircon.