Superfast fibre broadband and the morons who sell it.

golly gosh dear thats nice

The zoo can get ‘superfast’ broadband.  However the monkey house is not bothering with it.  Why i hear you ask?

Well – i did enquire and got a very generic response from a sales person,  eg yes and its up to you.  Technical points like ip range location (no ipv6 either)  and what it uses where not addressed. just in case things we use cannot support it  I like challenges and so i researched it, i guessed that protocol 1* was the thing and left it that.

I was not waiting for the role out (early bird) and the isp where advertising it as being available and for sale just in case you think im being too critical of the sales staff.

The good news is that we support ’1′ on our routers. but im not recommending it to the alpha.

The other problem is nobody believes the large providers as to speeds of service and the capacity is a problem with overselling. So if you are with british telecom, or that billionaire who has never had sex you might well be lumped in twelve months of disappointment or pay that nice sex starved billionaire a fee to dump the contract.

If you think im going to use a Rupert Murdoch or news international company who will then spy and sell my data then you need your head examined.

Its not Luddite: I would not object to a fast connection but i am ok with what we have, viop calls would be nice but that’s hardly mainstream and 8mb dsl might (an upgrade for us) be ok with that.

Extra problems lay in censorship, and neutrality – suppose i use a dvd site to send disks out, does this service stop british telecom from making extra money [maybe], gets worse with streaming issue and if say both try the us cable industry approach am i not providing free bandwidth for cable tv as well as an extra fee.

The speed and usage caps are another issue – suppose i want to download a debian iso** so its not a a photograph it seems i am unable to plan to run the download as an overnight job.  Did you know that ofcom deem downloading open source .debs (package file) to be piracy ?

Despite our broadband being slow i don’t have problems with it, it is reliable and i do not need to regrade our internal network from 100mb to gigabyte (a fair job in itself) or upgrade laptops to n from g.

So i am wise to the issues.  Im not sure what our good*** isp can do for us, everything apparently but that also raises other issues.  The good news is that while the marketing staff have ruined this tech with ‘upto’ speeds that nobody gets and all that is that not many humans have opted for it either.

The telecom marketing chickens have come home to roost.

* i don’t wish to divulge this information as it might help some stupid salesman ** ask your techy friends  *** our isp staff have had sex and are not based in india

wir sind die nacht.

German film of 2010, very action-ery, and worth a find after all its got to be better than the usa childrens comics stuff at the cinema*.  funf/funf bananen.

*wir sind die nacht has cigarettes, that’s an adult film and so unsuitable for the cinema chains .

The Harry Potter generation apparently to read another book,

Karen Matthews a victim of Harry potters sucess

Being devils advocate that while reading an announcement one might assume all those ‘A’ star gcse grades where due to children reading just seven books.  With an ‘adult’* book that possibly makes eight books read by that generation**.

You never have thought the mainstream media was that patronising ?

the count.

Anyhow news reaches me that Karen Matthews (my blog) and family have no intention of reading it and seeing the films does not count..

* it might have naughty words in, maybe a cock lock ?.  ** humour

Too much retail space ?

buyless

The tribe was watching one of those non mainstream tv channels which has adverts on.  The program in question was ok and i will not be blogging about it nor is it associated with the image.  As i don’t do a lot of television to start with i found the adverts most interesting take the dangerous movement (my blog) of human girls fashion to websites with instant gratification and all sizes in stock with next day shipping.

I wonder what that will do to retail retail rents.

I also read of faint praise by a us electronics retailer that by closing there shops [never visited] that they improved the ‘service’ of the rest of the industry whom have a reputation of not being experts.

Somehow i find that hard to ‘get’

Dark City

well this boat sank and you know the rest

imdb: tt0118929 was wrecked at the cinema in 1998, subsequent cuts and widescreen then saved the film on dvd and eventually caught my attention recently as it proves that cinema operators are rather big in chav and asbo films.

It is an interesting film that uses tricks used before Keanu Reeves used them, and has an inception like quality too, although extremely murky to watch is worth the happy ending. 5/5 bananas

Giving up on the ebook

I do not have an ebook reader, why? well i have probably good reasons written down already as to choice (not just of content) and tax on e books.

Recently i had to buy books and the option to get ‘electronic’ access via clouds and as pdfs with the zoos address in on every page being untrustworthy or something .   I declined and opted for paper only.

Although i have a light computer, and i can get code samples of the book for free the ebook had no appeal and the one i did buy at heavily discounted rates with the paper version is sitting on the hard disk unread.

I don’t hate the idea of an ebook and ebook reader.   Just theres too many monopolies in waiting, and tax that the paper version does not have makes it a deal breaker.  OK i might have saved some money with the ebook only version but the paper version seemed a little more convenient despite the availability of ‘now’ that the ebook also offered.

I the idea behind ebooks and think great, then i see tax and restricted choice.  Perhaps i might come back when both are removed.

Star Faction, Ken Macleod

isbn: 1857238338 won a gong in 1996, surprisingly this book is also a series, and shockingly my library could obtain it, something that will become an issue for libraries who are not buying books at the present time,   That is another blog post though.

Its genre and instead of leading events it plays catch up with a post communist 1990′s europe.  The author is suitability overqualified in zoology to be out of hs depth and the non fiction on communist europe is impressive, mind you reading this book in 2011 does not help.

.In echo’s of the moon is a harsh mistress the author gets to debate the right left wing methodology for peace,love and happiness amongst evil un and americans trying to keep the planet suppressed.  It is also great for buzz word bingo i got bonus points for east timor – house*.

The books characters are jarring, and feel incomplete, the ending feels rushed and edited in sets up book two which did not impress me.  Its a shame that s/f once a explorer of the new [authors like Philip K Dick] can do this and the relatively newer set are told to do things in series of books and have to then current events to inspire

0/5 bananas

* humour

The Marriage plot, Jeffrey Eugenides

isbn: 9780007441297 is the latest book from an author i like (my blog).  Not a prolific writer but the books do something.  It starts with the literary concept of the marriage plot that has disappeared from most books and points a finger at those industrial revolution types.  Interesting without getting boring, and counterpointed by the religious student who sees bad in romance in passion it is book that thinking on it plays results as a counterpoint while exploring the r factor through homosexuality, and helping out in calcutta in india.

Set in 1980 it essentially follows four people. One sick with depression,the others english literature students.  Its interaction between the four and the issues it raises via direct or through other characters is worth the read.

An interesting dialogue on marriage.  5/5 bananas.

Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec

imdb: tt1179025 is a witty french film that mixes amiele with old Egypt.  Its not heavy going and even has humour in it.

A fun 2/5 bananas.

unhappy songs in the pub

Bananas is no demon boozer monkey in fact it was a Christmas eve (24/12) and the whole tribe decided to go and invade a local pub (no there not monkey suits) and what did they play ? Luka by Suzanne Vega.

Luka is a song about child abuse, it was a hit of hers some time ago.  It still holds up and as a ape whom likes most of her music [when she remembers the lyrics live*] but its not a happy song.

Its nice to know that the odd things i like are still being played ? to those whom might not have heard of her.  i think that validates her talent and although i find Luka to be not one of her best it shows that while many songs are written not all get played a long time after there release.

I hope she gets paid for it rather than loose the money in the record industry thinks its due.

* flat fizzy drinks [horrible] where also on offer at the venue in shepherds bush.