Whilst sorting a few issues with other sites, I have been keeping an eye on other blogs, wondering if anyone else was going to post about issues with Izea’s PayPerPost and SocialSpark sites. Not a peep from anyone yet, and it is already 5pm, at least on the East coast of America. Perhaps the problem is somewhere in between, some random hardware amongst all the hops data make between here and there? I’ll give up for now, and check back in the morning.

We still have the BBC channels working on our satellite right now, and The Weakest Link was on in the background earlier (still no sign of the big money, originally BBC1, edition though). One of the contestants was a wood sculptress who used a chain saw! Just goes to show, with a bit of flair tools that are more normally used for workmen like activities can be used to create real art! I used to use a soldering iron to doodle in Technology lessons back in school, though I’m guessing the contestant’s art was a little more impressive

What is the connection between these two companies? One (Affinity) was a big ISP I used to work for back in Gloucester. Towards the end, just before the directors stripped the assets and fired everyone before the receivers arrived, tension was rising within the workforce. Employee sick leave was rising, people were beginning to complain we weren’t allowed to take cigarette breaks after 6pm, that sort of thing. At one point, management tried to tell us that we could only use the toilet at certain times of the day; those with surnames beginning with A-C could go between 8-10am, etc. etc. It wasn’t much longer after that before I was glad to have stopped working there. Anyway, how do Brown Brothers fit in with this? They are apparently automatically docking worker’s wages, (see here) depending on how long they are in the loo. As they need to remove their overalls for sanitary reasons, this can add up. Whilst the comments left after the article raise a few interesting points, I still think this sort of practice belongs in the 19th, not 21st century.

A couple of days ago I noticed that our internet connection was seriously slow once more. Convinced our pseudo-ISP (that all data goes via, before hitting Megaline) had goofed again, I checked what I’d been downloading so far this month. Unfortunately, it turns out I had indeed transferred more than my monthly limit within the first week of July from a friend’s FTP server. (Obviously copyright-free material such as linux distros only ). Now that our speed has doubled to 256kbit (actually it comes in at more like 384kbit normally, but I’m not about to volunteer that info to our ISP), download limits are probably going to be hit in half the time… At least the throttled speed on our ‘unlimited’ account has now also doubled to approx 64kbit, so I’m still better off than on dial up.

Dana is back in the country for a while, and after briefly seeing her at the in laws yesterday, she and her son popped round to ours this evening. It was good to catch up, and I happily played the part of baby sitter for a while so the girls could catch up a little with some gossip. Dana liked our new (to her eyes) TV, and was obviously thrilled to discover we had installed some patch panels for the network cables we have running between the rooms in this flat I stuck on the BabyTV channel as general background fodder for her son, though he was more interested in hammering away on the keyboard and watching our cats…

The British government is putting £20,000 into a competition to encourage people to create data mash ups, especially within education, criminal justice and health areas. The fact that ministers have taken on board advice and agreed to something relatively new as the process of mash ups is encouraging. I’m no New Labour zombie, as previous posts probably show, but this time around I’m happy to tip my hat their way. Check here for the BBC article. I already had a look round the FixMyStreet site, and although in some areas there haven’t been any updates on outstanding cases for a while, it was interesting to see what sort of things annoyed people in the different areas of Britain I’ve lived in. For example, near Ira’s old work, it would appear they still have problems with kids riding motorbikes on footpaths, and over in Gloucester, a naughty resident did not put out his rubbish on the right days. Apparently house prices weren’t too adversely affected

See the original PayPerPost and SocialSpark Sites Down post back from June 26th for the last time I noticed a problem. It looks as though the server/data centre is down once more. I’ve checked the main sites, the forum and their blogs, but all are failing to bring anything up. Anyone else experiencing the same problems? I’ve checked around on the Google Blog search, and can’t find anyone else posting on this yet, but that could just be because it is only 8.10am over there right now.
Anyway, hopefully they’ll be up again soon…

As most real life (as opposed to online) friends will know, I tend to prefer silver over gold when it comes to chains or ear rings. My wedding ring is gold, but other than that I’ve not worn anything gold since my first few piercings. Although some people see a gold chain as an indicator of wealth and/or good taste, I just don’t think it tends to look ‘right’ on me.

Natalya Kim arrived on the train this evening. We saw some photos of her baby. Except she isn’t a baby anymore, she is a proper, fully formed little girl. Awwwwwwww. Anyway, Dave came over for a meal and a little drink. We are hopefully going out for a session at some club near his. Anyway, need to make a move now, will try and write a post tomorrow to say how it went. Natalya arrived safely, we got home without too much hassle taxi wise, and now we are hopefully heading to A8 or Club Seoul…

Natalya (as in Ms. Kim, rather than the Dr. Natalya that gets mentioned more often on this site) should be arriving later today (Friday). We’ve not seen her in a while, so it will be good to catch up. She used to live with us in Cheltenham a long time ago, before returning to Kazakhstan. Dave is also supposed to be popping over for a drink or two, as well as some haute cuisine created by yours truly. (OK, it will probably be some processed & battered meat product deep fried with chips & beans, but he didn’t complain last time )
Finally, before I forget, Happy Birthday to the friend who doesn’t want their name or photo on this site. We hope you enjoyed your day, and we look forward to meeting again soon.