Paul's blog

Mario Kart Wii... just awesome! :-)

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Screenshot from my FaceBook pages just now... oddness!

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Pretty cool - 2nd hit on Google for Paul O'Brien. Quite surprising!

How on earth do I top Wikipedia for number one tho? :-)

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LOL!

You see it's not just us little guys that randomly miss a bit of important code! :D

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So i'm trying to convince myself that this constitutes a genuine effort to get fit(ter). Combined with a new regime of not drinking alcohol in the week (generally speaking), i'm hoping for some kinda of Wii recorded improvement.

That said, Wii Fit does say that my BMI is just in the ideal range, so it's not all bad! Heh...

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Woohoo! More details to follow...

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Edit: 10.5.4 too!

Wouldn't it be great if the government could do the right thing by the people?

What i'm talking about in this instance is the rocketing price of oil, and the impact it is having on the cost of living. A disclaimer first I guess - I drive a car that you could probably fairly call a 'gas guzzler' (~25MPG) so if it's costing me a lot to drive around then it's arguably my own fault. As a Norfolk country dweller however, the oil cost has more of an impact on me than just transport... with no gas here, our house is heated by oil too. And that's without factoring in rising prices of goods in general due to increased costs for haulage etc...

So what do I think should be done?

So far as 'bringing fuel prices down', there are really a limited number of options, but i'm going to talk about 1 in particular - the idea that the government could temporarily reduce the tax levy on fuel such as petrol, heating oil etc. etc. in order to ease the stress on the economy and regular working people. 'Doing the right thing by the people'.

Let's think about some numbers. Let's say that at the last budget the government expected the fuel price for the period to max out at £1 per litre (using Petrol as an example). Let's say that the government set their tax on Petrol at 75% (just an arbitrary figure mind you). This means therefore that they expected to receive up to 75p in every £1 into the treasuries coffers to go towards all those important things that it needs to pay for (you know, speed cameras and stuff, hehe) What has actually happened is that the price has far exceeded this, and with the tax still set at the same percentage, more money is flowing into the Mr Darling's purse than was expected. Why can't this be put to good use to ease the pressure on us householders and the economy as a whole?

This feels to me a bit like the no-brainer sensible government that we never ever see. Imagine the benefits if such a strategy was employed for perhaps even only a short time while the oil price stabilises (if it does!). It'd be muchos kudos for the government, it'd help the economy and I see no reason why it couldn't happen without impacting the governments environmental targets etc. etc.

Perhaps the tax discount would only apply to heating fuels, car fuels etc. and not fuels for 'luxuries' such as air travel. Perhaps it would be a 'look what we're doing, really think about your consumption of oil based products!' spin to help achieve the governments clear target of making everyone buy frugal and environmentally friendly cars.

Am I missing something in that there is a reason this wouldn't work?

Of course, it'll never happen... and it's one of many reasons why I and many others i'm sure have a general feeling of 'what's the point' when it comes to selecting and supporting the political leadership in our fine country. The current guys at the top won't govern the way i'd like them too, but then nobody will...

End of rant, comments welcome...

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EDIT: It seems that the rate of tax on fuel is a fixed amount, then VAT is charged on top, so the base rate isn't changing but the government IS getting more VAT. I guess this makes it more complex to reduce prices and still balance the books... the VAT amount would need to be capped I guess? I wonder how these price rises affect petrol co. profits (mega-earning BP / Shell etc.). I wonder if they take a fixed or %age cut?

EDIT 2: Duty rates - http://tinyurl.com/6hc3yh - can't wait for those 2 more price rises eh!

... jabber / XMPP support!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/13/facebook-working-on-jabberxmpp-supp...

Facebook Chat on Palringo here we come!

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Use Adium on your Mac for chat? Use Facebook chat?

You'll be pleased to learn that you can merge the two starting with the next Adium release... or even grab a nightly build here!

SWEET!

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Edit: There is an updated revision in the comments...

15:05 departure, didn't depart! DOH! Now showing 19:00 departure, which I would think is a 'finger in the air guess'.

This is how it went (imagine my parts as a conversation in my head)...

Me: Yay! On the plane, got a bulkhead row, loads of room. Sweet!
Me: Phew, quite warm on here, 15:05 now, I guess we'll be going soon.
Me: Yay, pushing back off the stand! Sweet!
Me: Wait, hang on, we're going back onto the stand, that's not right!
Captain: This is your captain, please don't be alarmed about the fire engines, it's just a precaution as we have fluid leaking from one of our engines
Me: WTF! A precaution, that doesn't sound good!
Captain: This is your captain again, the fluid appears to be hydraulic fluid, engineers are investigating, and we are aware the air con is broken and you're really hot. Sorry!
Me: Oh brilliant, way to inspire confidence!
Cabin Crew: distribute cups of water
Captain: Apologies for the delay ladies and gentlemen, we are currently determining whether to try and fix this plane or get another one
Me: Get another one, get another one!
Captain: OK ladies and gentlemen, it's a bit hot on here so we're offloading you into the terminal.
Me: Oh, brilliant, NOT!
Me: (getting off) - wow, a £5 refreshment voucher, how exciting.
Me: (to desk staff) - can I switch to the 17:30 Seattle flight?
Desk Staff: Only if you have no checked baggage
Me: Bugger!

So far, not great!

EDIT: Forgot to mention that they won't switch baggage to the other flight because, (quote BA guy), 'they'd rather spend the time fixing the plane'. I really hope it's not the baggage handlers fixing the plane!

EDIT 2: Announcement confirming they're fixing this plane, with a new ETD of 19:00.

EDIT 3: 18:15 - Boarding! Hurrah! See you in 9.5 hours ;-)

EDIT 4: Hello from Seattle... finally!

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