Category: General

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I Need a Job

My contract here runs out at the end of July and I am now looking for employment. I will be putting an updated CV online soon or at least as soon as I have got it onto a few of the major search engines.
I am also considering putting it on UKlug since it gets a fair few hits and I own the site.
Wish me luck.

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Scuba Diving in Key Largo

I finally got around to getting my PADI Open Water diving qualification while I was on holiday. Its something I have meant to do for a long time.
We decided to go to Key Largo to do it. Jenny made a few phone calls and to be honest the prices where all quite similar, $400 to $450 each. We eventually phoned Pleasure Diver.
Jenny asked them if they could squeeze us in the following day and they said they could, they also offered to lend us their DVD player so that we could watch the PADI DVD’s in our room. This extra effort on their part sold them to us and although we did not know it at the time we had really landed on our feet.
What we liked about Don and Janet was the fact that they had paid attention to lots of the details and that they went out of their way to help us. It was a real personal service and judging from what I have heard about larger dive outfits this is quite rare.
Everything was very relaxed and when we went out on the boat if the visibility was bad we would move somewhere else. We could have quite happily have dived in the areas and got the qualification but as far as Don and Janet was concerned getting the qualification should be fun which means you should be able to see wildlife or anything else you wanted to see while doing it.
It was also made interesting each time because instead of going through the motions and coming up we would do some exercises and then go looking at the wildlife and then do some more etc etc. This took the monotony out of the course while consolidating the pool work.
Another thing I didn’t expect was to have Chocolate Brownies waiting for us after each dive. They also laid on complimentary refreshments. After breathing all the dry air an ice cold bottle of water and a chocolate Brownie was exactly what the doctor ordered.
We both noticed that a lot of effort was put into customer service. We did not know it at the time but they had owned a B&B in Virginia which meant they really knew there stuff when it came to looking after guests and it showed in everything they did. The fact that they limit passengers to 6 on a 40 foot boat is a good indication that they know what it means to travel in comfort.
We spent 4 days there and I want to go back to dive with them again. For anyone interested in diving and thinking about the Keys then I could not recommend Pleasure Diver enough.

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Jet Lag

I always wondered what it was like to feel the effects and to be honest I thought that it was a bit of a myth and that people made it out to be worse than it really is. I can confirm that it is every bit as bad as they say it is.
I got back to the UK from Sanford at 5:55am on Sunday and most of the day was spent trying to get to sleep but my body was having none of it. Managed a few hours that night. Monday was spent at work trying to focus on the monitor. Monday night was abysmal, passed out then woke up again at 3am and was unable to get back to sleep. I phoned in sick and then passed out again until 15:30. I am going to try to go to bed at a normal time tonight and see what happens.
It must be pretty bad for those that go to Australia.

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Free Gmail Accounts

I have no more gmail accounts to give away.
I have some gmail accounts to give away. If someone wants one email me.
I need your.
First Name.
Last Name.
Email Address.

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What makes a successful blog

I came across an article of sorts detailing what makes a blog successful:

I’ve recently received a few e-mails asking for advice on creating and maintaining a successful blog. I decided to sit down and think about what I felt made a blog (or blogger) successful. It was a bit of a challenge because I’m not sure how to define success in terms of …………………………………..

I can tell you hear and now what makes a blog successful, the one true fire way to make sure that your blog becomes the next Lawrence Lessig Jihad……………………………….
Actually there is no true fire way to anything. Nothing is simple in this life, if you don’t believe me, ask me a question?
So, forget about making it popular and write about what interests you. Don’t worry about what people say, spelling mistakes or any other sort of crap because everyone is different and you could never accomodate everyone.
I don’t have a blog roll or a list of blogs I read (the two might be the same thing, I don’t know). I don’t read tabloids, peridicals, newspapers or magazines and I am not interested in slashdot, the register or any geek news portals. Neither am I interested in new fangled gadgets, latest trends or famous people so some might say I am quite boring, so what!
Things I like:
1. The BBC:
Why? I grew up with David Attenbourough. In fact the only thing we could watch on a Sunday was his nature programmes. This was quite ironic considering his take on religion etc.
I like BBC Radio 4. It has some of the funniest programs you could imagine and has been the springboard for hundreds of famous acts ie The Goons (Originally started out on BBC Home Service, became R4).
2. Music:
I love music but detest the industry.
3. Food.
I grew up hating it, then after my first 3 months in the Navy eating nothing but chocolate (food was awful at HMS Raleigh) I realised that savoury is better and have not looked back.
4. Google
Gets me what I want, when I want it and has saved me more time than anything I can think of.
5. People.
Far more interesting than some text on a monitor. People are what make the world go round not money.

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Is Canada a Communist state

I came across the following article

This year in Canada exactly two provinces – Alberta and Ontario – will contribute to the federal equalization payment pool, while the other eight provinces and three territories are on the receiving end. Ontario is quickly moving towards becoming a have-not province which will leave only Alberta footing the entire federal equalization bill. According to Stats Canada, Alberta CONTRIBUTES about $3,000 per person per year. Provinces like PEI and New Brunswick RECEIVE $1776 and $1537 per person respectively. This means that a family of four living in Alberta earning $30,000 dollars a year will pay $12,000 to other p! ! rovinces; $3500 will go towards community improvements for a family of two earning $150,000 per year in PEI.

I was quite shocked to learn that certain areas in Canada are funding other less well off areas. This sounds normal ie we all pay our tax and everyone benefits but this is not what is happening. For instance, if you live in one state you pay $3000 a year which gets given to families in another state.
And what are “equalization payments”? Sounds a bit like communism to me.

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Google Talk

I received an invite the other day to a Google talk in London. For those that don’t know me I am fascinated by search engines, particularly google since there is more online about how they did their stuff than any of the others. You can imagine my enthusiasm at the prospect of going so I registered my interest and decided to go.
I then discovered that the talk has been organized by Pulse Group. From what I can gather they are the recruitment arm of Google for Ireland (wild guess). This rang recruitment company alarm bells for me, (I wrote an entire site to circumvent the need to go through a recruitment company, I don’t trust them.)
I am making bets online that it is going to be some corporate nonsense recruitment drive with more emphasis on that than on Googles tech.
I was also disappointed by the website.
1. No document type
2. It is mostly flash so a lot of people cannot see it.
3. Most of the menus are tiny and hard to read.
4. I was unable to resize the text.
5. The text is embedded in flash so it cannot be indexed by Google the people they are representing.
6. Some of the menus are mouse dependent (The mouse must hover over them to view the content)
Its another site designed by managers for managers. I suppose they have a different set of requirements than me.
Anyway I didn’t go. I would be interested in hearing from people who did go and what they thought of the talk………….
As a follow up I was correct. A friend of mine went and was quite pissed off because it was a total waste of his time.