Category: General

Ibid.

It can be intimidating picking up a book of non-fiction. You’re lucky if you can find one with less than 600 pages. The sheer weight of these tomes is enough to put you off. Non-fiction books are thick. And there‘s a lot of dead wood in there.

The last 200 pages or so are filled with notes of sources. Is citing sources necessary? Why does what the writer say have to be verified? If it’s there on print I’ll take his word for it. He doesn’t need his expert pals to back him up. Because it is all back-scratching. From one book to the next all the usual suspects are roll-called in the source section.

I would hope that anything I write is taken at face value without the hard facts being questioned. Footnotes are like two left feet, they get in the way.

An Appeal.

This is a disgrace.

 

LCpl Isimeli Baleiwai, known as ‘Bale’ to his friends, is facing deportation from the UK after serving 13 years with the British Armed Forces. Bale is a foreign and commonwealth soldier from Fiji who was recruited by the MOD when he was 18.

He has served in 5 operational tours including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. His wife Kim is British and they have two young children a boy of 3 and a girl of 6; both British. Bale left the Army voluntarily to provide stability for his family.

He applied for British Citizenship in March while still a serving soldier, but was refused FFS! He appealed the decision, but received a letter from UKBA on 14/07/2012 stating he had until 9th August 2012 to leave the country. LCpl Bale was fined in 2011 after appearing on CO’s Orders for fighting with another soldier who instigated the fight. This was a purely military affair – which many of those of us who have served will know all about – there was no police involvement, no trial and no criminal conviction and therefore no criminal record. they’re chuckin him out!

A little anecdote.

I was going to add to my comment on TR’s post that it would be well to have a very large smile on his face should he ever consider – not that he would, of course, being the gentleman that he is – uttering a sentence with ‘men,’ ‘skirts,’ and ‘silly,’ in it where there was any chance that one of thee chaps might overhear it:

which reminded me

Raise your glass

“You’re not marrying her for her matchboxes?”

In a fortnight’s time my brother-in-law is making an honest woman of his partner and I have been chosen as the best man. This will be the third time I have been given the honour of being the “best”. Luckily, yet again, no kilts will be involved. A man in a skirt just isn’t right, now is it? Continue reading “Raise your glass”

Knockin’ on Heaven’s door

As probably the site’s only comic book enthusiast (lapsed) I feel great sorrow, as I’m sure everyone else does, about the events in Colorado. It’s still not known what made the madman go on the rampage. Some in the comic book fraternity say that there is a scene in an old Batman book that mirrors what happened. This was when the scriptwriters at DC comics started writing about more adult-orientated themes in their books; the old Comics Code Authority was washed away. Personally, I don’t think this was the reason for the tragedy. Time will tell. Continue reading “Knockin’ on Heaven’s door”

Security alert for Windows7 and Vista users

I subscribe to a couple of Window users sites and apparently Windows “gadgets” are not protected against malware and need to be disabled urgently

 At next week’s annual hacker gathering in Las Vegas — Black Hat USA 2012 (more info) — Mickey Shkatov and Toby Kohlenberg will deliver their presentation, “We have you by the gadgets.” As is common for Black Hat presentation pre-announcements, there are as yet few details. But Shkatov and Kohlenberg promise, “We will be talking about the Windows gadget platform and what nastiness can be done with it, how are gadgets made, how are they distributed, and, more importantly, their weaknesses. … As a result, there [are] a number of interesting attack vectors that are interesting to explore and take advantage of. We will be talking about our research into creating malicious gadgets, misappropria! ting legitimate gadgets, and the sorts of flaws we have found in published gadgets.”

Much to their credit, Shkatov and Kohlenberg have been in talks with Microsoft, apparently divulging some of their findings. (The point of Black Hat is to reveal detailed information on how new security exploits work, thus pushing software developers into rapidly patching their code.)

More details at WindowsSecrets.com.