Woooooo-hoooooooo

My personal effects from UK finally arrived on my doorstep today!? I am as we speak typing this on my trusty old Dual-Core Pentium system, all be it ever so slightly cracked at the front of the case!! FRAGILE it was marked for goodness sakes?! At least it’s as funstional as ever :happy:

In other news….there’s now zero room in my bedsit… o.O

Explanatory note… Well, it’s a new expressional form linking Sci-Fi with Hai-ku. Ok reasonably new - dates back to the mid nineties…

Echoing Descent;
Through the chilling sphere
rocking - must have blown a vent?

This has a very tenuous link to a film that is one of my ALL TIME FAV’s and Nikki….if you don’t be the first to get this??! Then your not a “true” fan =P

Was George Orwell really a prophet in disguise?

The whole “customer care” domino effect is quite fascinating, if you greet someone in a shop pleasantly, actually give them a service and perhaps use their name once in a while, they leave feeling happier and maybe it even changes them on a deeper level. Why? It’s powerful stuff in this day and age because it is so rare!

Here’s the kicker - it doesn’t take the governement, or huge corporations to make a change in the “customer-care” world….next time YOU go to a shop, and the person servicing you (you know what I mean!! you dirty miinded lot!!) is wearing a name tag, instead of blythly taking your bags and leaving; take a small moment out of your day, and thank them personally using their name. It happens so rarely these days (especially in the UK) that you might actually make someones day, you might even change someones life profoundly. Your tiny little effort of saying a personal thank you to this person could mean the difference between another day on anti-depressants or not! I don’t jest! This is powerful stuff, and we ALL - every single one of us have the ability to make this happen. Oh and that’s not all either!!! Once in a while, if you keep doing this you might make one or two new friends? Now it’s one thing to have over a hundred friends on a site like Facebook; but a lot of the time they are just names on a virtual page and aren’t the most tangible of friends (I mean this is in the nicest possible way of course)…but if we all take away this small lesson; our very real and tangible friends could increase, and the whole social healing of the world which I think is desperatley overdue can begin.

I guess the biggest problem we; as individuals have is, we’ve gotten so used to preaching to the big people (governements, media etc…) to lead by example, that we’ve forgotten how to lead the example for ourselves. I don’t know about you? But I’m about ready to grow out of spoon-feeding; and I’m ready to move onto solids =p

Always saddens me when I read things like this I mean, it’s a timeless story. Frankly I’m sick and tired of the whole ‘politically correct’ brigade…seems to me if they didn’t exist the government might actually save a penny or three?

So what if people occasionally get offended by something; whatever happened to freedom of speech? Or is Censorship really that high on any governments agenda that they see fit to belittle a kids story?

The mind boggles…

First interactive Widget of the day! I will never need to navigate away from my blog to enjoy my Dilbert Mantra! This is sooooooo cool!

It still amazes me the number of stories about apparent lack of security where IT information is concerned - but are moves like THIS perhaps too little too late? For many people all this media attention of alleged security lapses with laptops in security organisations does nothing to instill any confidence, especially post 9/11. It certainly drags something of a stain across the IT industry in general, I mean - just who are these people hiring?

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not ‘the’ expert on IT security - but there are basic common sense approaches that don’t cost huge budgets, and certainly don’t require extra equipment. A lot of security lapses are usually down to a lack of education within the staff hierarchy which negates any and all security efforts at the end of the day. It’s like building a farm and filling it with accountants! The crops won’t grow on money alone. You can have the best infrastructure in the world, the best firewalls money can buy, but when it boils down to it - when you throw ignorant (and in this context I mean ignorant as in lack of the correct knowledge) end user’s into the mix? You may as well remove all encryption, and switch your firewalls off. I have to say also that from my experience and perspective it’s sometimes IT staff who are the worst offenders!

This is a gross generalisation but it’s just the way my point appears to have come across. Too much Arbitration not enough Control where security is concerned. That’s my current take anyways

Or is that the other way round??? :loopy:

well I did it?! I walked there and back again (but this was no Hobbits Tale?!)….went for a bit of a “tramp” (aka hiking) with Andrew (bossman) and Ann-Marie up the ridge line to the top of Mount Lowry, then on to Day’s Bay for a bite to eat, and then back by a ’slightly’ different route - probably the longest one we could take too!!

This whole round trip took somewhere in the region of six hours, yes you read that right six hours…..I am currently creamed crackered to the Nth degree. I may be having a lie in tomorrow that’s not entirley by choice. Still was worth it for the exercise since it is a close comparison to Mount Butler - I’ll be looking at walking this a few times (Rachel?? Bring it on!!) unfortunatley Mount Lowry is only 1224 feet high; but there are a lot more ups and downs (and if you walk our route back) some barely visible track and fallen trees to navigate around, which when you are trying to climb up to the ridge line is certainly a challenge!

The above picture was taken approximatley a quarter of the way to the top of Mount Lowry at the beginning. When I do this walk again, one lesson I have learned is that I will be taking a lot more fluids?! I needed to ration my water supply slightly on the way back. Anyhoooo…. one last photo for you picture junkies out there - this was taken of the “Shrooms” we saw along the way; and my guess is they could be bonifide Toadstools!!! Certainly looked the part…I’m currently boiling some up now to give em a try! (joke!!)

Fun Fun Fungi… (cough)

…(waits for tumble-weed)…

That about sums up today, I’m gonna grab an early night to sleep this whole thing off!