Spead of 'news'.

I have put the word news in quotes to highlight the fact the our newspapers, both on-line and paper type, often allow us to read things that are anything but news.

In this report on the BBC web site one quote caught my eye and that was "News took longer to get into the public domain and tended to have different focus.". The reason it caught my eye was it is something my long since dead Nana used to say in relation to world news and how in a couple of decades previous people would not have heard about various famines and atrocities that happened abroad. And here we are now looking at a quote said by some professor about news within Britain's shores.

The world is shrinking that is for sure. It is shrinking in the sense that it now takes a lesser time to get to some other place in the world. It is shrinking in the sense that news from anywhere abroad can be handed in to ones editor for inclusion in that days news outlet in real time and that means almost as the news happens.

The Internet is largely to blame for this shrinkage. But is this shrinkage of the world a good or bad thing? I reckon it is a bit of both. It is good because at its heart it can be used to bring the worlds people closer together. It is bad because the news outlets abuse this peoples desire to be close to others.

We are by design a group think animal. We are social creatures. We have an innate desire to want to feel close to others within our creature set and it is this desire that the news outlets abuse. They abuse it by stating something is this or that rather than just reporting what has happened. They have the power to shape our thinking. If there is something, or someone, worth reporting about that they happen not to like they can force feed their readership lies and propoganda so that that readership ends up disliking the same thing or person. We all like to think our thinking cannot be altered in this way using this time honoured method but I ask you this:

How do you know for absolute certainty that something reported on that purportedly happened half the world away actually happened?

Sure news aggregater's abound on the Internet and if something is reported on in several countries simultaneously then surely the news must be true? Not really. Do we know for absolutely certain that the news moguls worldwide are not in some massive collusion? We do not. And that is worrisome.

My old Nana always said that unless you see something unfold before your own eyes or unless you know someone who saw that something unfold before their own eyes who then relayed to you a firsthand report of that something you should not trust any other source.

As overall people have become more educated in the Western world one would hope that they would see through something like this and see it for what it really is but alas this is not the case. As the use of the Internet has grown faster than any one expected it to the people have come to trust whatever they read. This is a dangerous trait that one day will be exposed but for now at least the news outlets have within their grasp a chance to shape the world to the views of their owners and if we were to find out who really owns the news outlets around the world we would probably find that the ownership is in the hands of a few people.

As I grow older and more cynical with age I can see a lot of what my old Nana used to say as holding a lot of water. Of course, some of what she said was utter tosh as she came from a different world that had different standards to how things are today but her underlaying philosophy holds true. Do not trust anything you cannot verify yourself.

KC talk to us again.

As I mentioned a while ago KC are now talking to us again. The last meeting was last night during which most of what was spoken about can be revealed but some of it cannot.

What annoys me most about all of this is those who claim HWWNBN (He Who Will Not Be Named) and I are somehow getting something extra out of it. That is simply not true on any level. Sure, at the meeting last night it was disclosed that my partner in crime and I were to be added to some future unnamed beta program but that could end up causing us more headaches than anything else. But there are some out there that see this as some sort of plus thing. What they don't now is that we two being added to some beta program opens the doors for other users to be added at a later date. I was going to mention this during last nights argument but in the end I felt so pissed off with the whole lot that I never bothered to mention it. Not that they would of taken any notice. They would probably have twisted my words and made it sound like I was just saying it to take the heat out. Such things happen at a boring regularity in there. Such is life I suppose.

There are times when we both think it just is not worth the effort to carry on doing these meetings. KC seem to enjoy sharing what they want to share and more importantly they are actively taking notice of us and implementing things we have brought up, for the benefit of everyone connected via Karoo, but the hassle we both get for doing it is sometimes just is not worth it.

They, KC, are listening to us. They are actively looking to sort out any issues raised via us. They are looking to improve their service offerings. They are listening and in some cases implementing things that we have brought up that will make things better for every user. None of this however seems to go down well with the closed group we belong to. No sir. A few are claiming we know nothing about what we talk about at these meetings. One even went to far as to infer that we get backhanders from KC. Sometimes I despair of the group I really do.

Microsoft

Am I the only person in the world that sees Bill Gates leaving Microsoft as a good thing?

To read the Internet news sites one would think all he did was good. It wasn't. He stole to get his first leg up which got him on the road to making his fortune. He never innovated. Ever. Instead he bought everything then put it into his operating system called Windows.

Every single part of Microsoft Windows, from DOS to Vista was bought, rebranded then incorporated into Windows. His latest Windows, Vista, brought nothing new to the operating system world either. The Areo interface that sucks the life out of the average machine is a copy of the Linux Compiz stack. The compiz stack was available for Linux users 2 years before Vista hit the shelves. Areo is a poorly done copy of it.

The UAC in Vista that irritates all but the simplist of users is a poor attempt at creating a 'sudo' like setup for Windows. i say poor because it is so badly done it is a joke. I will say it again. There is nothing new in Vista that Linux and MAC users haven't had available to them for years. In some cases 10 years.

Hopefully, when Windows 7 comes out that will be the final nail in the coffin. Vista is the start of the death knell. The rot has already started and Bll Gates leaving before the death bells toll should not surprise any one.

Bill Gates leaving Microsoft should be seen as a good thing. Not least because his stewardship of Microsoft was what made the company pervaisive in almost every market they bought into. Now he has gone there is no-one to take his place and no-one capable of holding the company together.

Ofcom whitewash.

In this article on the awful thisishull web site Ofcom once again say KC/Karoo are angels in the ISP business. It would not surprise me one bit if Ofcom are taking backhanders from KC/Karoo. I am not saying they do just that whenever things like this come up Ofcom always, and I mean always, comes down on the side of KC/Karoo.

Neither care about customers who are locked into one broadband provider. Neither care that Karoo are, while improving, awful in every area from customer service to provision of service. Their business offerings are laughable. Their home customer offerings are worse.

The broadband offerings from Karoo offer as little by way of extras as they are allowed to get away with. their package offering as as basic as basic is basic. They give their users a no frills service which means you get the connection and that is it. Sure they offer a very very very small amount of 'free' web space and provide email accounts with viri scanning (which incidentally they palm off to a 3rd party who for all we customers know look at every email passing through their systems. More on this later). Hull's broadband users are the laughing stock of almost every other broadband providers users throughout the U.K. and that is it. No frills that most other broadband customers throughout the U.K. take for granted as part of their contracts and usually cheaper too.

Karoo do not care. All they care about are profits and because of that their users will remain the laughing stock of the broadband users the U.K. over.

Ofcom say they received 111 responses from Kcom's Karoo customers as a result of the public consultation process in November last year and that those responses revealed a general discontent about having no choice of broadband. Ofcom did not listen though nor did they investigate further. Instead they trotted out this bilge masquerading as a report what KC/Karoo have said many times and that is that other ISP's felt operating in Hull was not cost-effective. Actually, that is word for word from many emails and conversations I have had with various high up on the ladder at KC. A coincidence? Perhaps.

All in all the report shits in the faces of the people of Hull as KC/Karoo have been doing for years.

Thugs.

Okay. This post could be awkward. But then I have never been one to shirk away from
anything, some of it may be a tad blunt to some.

Teenagers have always congregated in groups and crowds. If anyone older claiming to
be an adult denies this they are quite simply lying. The slogan for the 12 to 20 age
group should be


Do not make the majority suffer due to the actions of the minority

I am racially tolerant. No, really, I am. What I cannot stand is brutal thugs who go around attacking
anyone who is not white or as in some cases, because those they attack are simply different. This difference could be skin colour, dress code or any other minor thing that just happens to be different.

What these thugs do is not racial intolerance, it is out and out thuggery.
Those who behave in this manner are wanton thugs out to attack the very thing that makes this nation great. They have no view of right and wrong. All they see is that somehow their target differs from them.
I see this kind of thought process amongst parents at my children's school. Children are impressionable because of that this thug mentality is obviously passed down to
their children. The school my children go to, like so many other schools, has a lot of non-white pupils. Pupils with dark hair or ginger hair. Pupils that are overweight etc etc. A right mixed bag as you would expect. Children, in the main, have an ability to see passed all these differences, they tolerate each other in a way that somehow gets lost as they grow older. They lose it because of what they hear their parents saying about such things. As these children grow
older what does the future hold for such attitudes?

Take ethnic migration as an example of how people differ in looks as well as in how they act. These differences enrich the country as a whole. If we as a nation are
going to allow these thugs who are so short minded as to believe ethnic differences is a bad thing then I strongly
suggest you look back into this nations history. We have always had a mix of races.
My own children are taught that outwardly we may differ but internally we are all
human beings with the same feelings. I pity the day this mixing of races is stopped because of some shortsightedness or because the thugs won.

Those bastards, the lower level of human scum, that beat up pensioners should be strung with cheese wire which is
attached to the back bumper of a car and then driven the full length of the M6 from
north to south or south to north, whichever way the route runs. Twice. If the sub-human persons body
parts fall off which detaches him/her from the car then the cheese wire should be
reattached elsewhere on the body until the full journey is completed. Same goes for child molesters and anyone else belonging to the sub-human category of human beings.
I would get TV makers to film the journey live on television via a program all of its own, each episode would be on for the length of time the journey takes with snippets being shown during the evening news so that their victims and families of victims and other possible offenders and everyone else, can see we will not tolerate such atrocities
against our pensioners and children.

And before some ¨Human Rights¨ crusader
(AKA Blankethead) comes along and says ¨One cannot do that!¨ I say let your grandparent or child be a victim of either of these heinious
crimes voluntarily. You couldn`t could you. Your crusade is a sham.

Though control

You see, it works like this. We the general public, the great boring unwashed, the very backbone of this
country vote into power a lot of egocentric twits whose only concern is making as much money for themselves as possible and then those same egocentric megalomanical
people shit right into our boring faces by bringing in all manner of Laws that stifle
the words and actions of the very people, boring as they are, that voted them into
power in the first place. The boring unwashed then complain. Around and around it goes in a never ending cycle.

Boring isn`t it? Boring it is, but that
is how it is.

However, these great boring unwashed then start having thoughts about the whole process. We do not
yet have the thought police on our tails (soon baby soon) so having thoughts is still allowed. Once those in power get bored of the great unwashed and their thoughts or if those thoughts undermine the whole process as outlined above then they will seek ways to stop it.

They will attempt to stop thoughts, random thoughts that go off the beaten trail, in schools first. At the primary age level which they will hope that by the time these primary children reach an age when the random thought process could be a problem to those in power the children will be devoid of all such thought traits. But until that time thoughts are allowed and often encouraged because for the great unwashed to think they can make a difference encourages them. Keeps them placid so those in power can do as they please behind teir backs.

But even there there are those who have random power undermining thoughts. These thoughts then get out
and those in power hear them. To stifle these thoughts they bring in more powers
against the great boring unwashed masses. This boring vicious circle goes around and
around and around and around until the day arrives those in power cannot stand by any longer. Until the day the country explodes.

Boring is not
quite the correct word for this circle of events but boring it most certainly is.

Obesity.

I have mentioned before that my two sons from my previous marriage are like chalk and cheese in most things. One plays sport (Rugby League) the other does not. One likes a drink with his mates down the pub, the other likes social drink. One drinks to what is now called excess, the other does not. The one that plays Rugby League is the one that does not. Yet, the one who plays Rugby League is labled 'clinically obese' whereas the other lad is not.

This highlights what is wrong with the current method of measuring peoples weight. The BMI is fundamentally flawed at the core. Because of this one can dismiss the Government scaremongering numbers regarding how many adults and children are any level of obese in this country.

Look at old family photographs, the chances are you will see people of all shapes and sizes. Go further back, to the late 1800's and early 1900's and the chances are you will ever more plump individuals, especially woman because at that time in our history skinny woman where abhored. Plump woman where adored.

People, men especially, have always had a drink. My Grandfather who grew up during the 1920's often recounted tales of drunken brawls at pub chucking out time. Indeed, my Grandfather himself was arrested more than once for 'disturbing the peace' after a few fights. No-one back then suggested he may have a drink problem (which he didn't, he was a seaman who would go months without alcohol passing his lips). He was also of stout stock. Never unfit. Never had a beer belly.

The fact that the Government, in collusion with the medical profession, are sending out specialist teams of civil servants to target several towns and cities around the U.K. should tell you all you need to know about this freedom removing Government as they continue to encroach of our freedoms and private lives. The very fact that they are using a plainly flawed metric in a poor effort to backup their meddling plans shows exactly what they think of the people who put them in power. They are assuming we are badly educated dweebs who cannot think for themselves hence the need for the Government to poke their collective fingers into our way of life.

Don't get me wrong here. There is an element of our late teens and early 20's who are causing problems for the general public with their weekly habit of binge drinking. Back in my own youthful days we went out every night drinking. Rarely got into fights and even rarely did we fall asleep on the streets. Nowadays it seems that during the week the pubs are quiet but come the weekend that minority come out and get blathered. The ale on sale in pubs these days contains so many chemicals it is no wonder the youth of today cannot handle it.

Still, to do as the Government plan on doing is really taking a hammer to break a nut.