Actually, forget local news. Who needs it when international news agencies produce stuff of this quality?
Afghanistan’s only pig quarantined in flu fear
(via Peter Serafinowicz)
Yellow peril
Of course, the current crisis in local newspaper production is extremely worrying. We need local newspapers, if only for the occasional gems they publish…
Whitstable mum in custard shortage
(via Ben Goldacre)
Posted in Drivel
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What are you doing now? TELL US!
File under “funny but actually really serious”, this is required reading for Facebook users… Statebook
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Useful: Preamp valve outputs
This is probably only of use to the most insufferably geeky guitarist, but I’m putting it here mostly so I can use the URL in delicious. It also shows what a wonderful thing Twitter is…
@hifitubes_org
12AX7 (gain of 100)
5751 (gain of 70)
12AT7 (gain of 60)
12AY7 (gain of 45)
12AU7 (gain of 19)
12AX7 (gain of 100)
5751 (gain of 70)
12AT7 (gain of 60)
12AY7 (gain of 45)
12AU7 (gain of 19)
Posted in Guitar, Music, Technology
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Why we need experts
Let me introduce you to Expert Village.
A few mates and I have been swapping links from this exciting site recently, amazed at the high quality of tuition on their videos. Experts in a wide variety of subjects share their knowledge on the Expert Village site… for free!
My two favourite tutors are Athena Reich and the amazing Austin McBride.
Athena is particularly knowledgeable about the guitar. She encapsulates the entire subject of playing guitar into just one minute and eight seconds of video. I’ve been working at this stuff for over twenty years, so it was refreshing to hear her reveal that you “just pick at things”. It takes an expert to discover stuff like that. She also knows how to string a guitar showing that the open string notes are EADGBE, counting from high to low… not low to high, as I’d mistakenly believed! Duh, what a silly billy I am!
Austin is the piano expert, and I’ve learned loads from watching his videos. For example, his lesson on recognizing 5/4 time is a classic. He clearly demonstrates how it’s simply a matter of playing in 4/4 time, but counting “2-3-4-5″ instead of the boring old “1-2-3-4″. On another video, Austin introduces us to the little-known (actually, make that totally unknown) drop scales which can be found in several examples of… er, music, apparently. The reason I have no idea what he’s trying to say is because I’m not an EXPERT.
I urge you to visit this site and learn as much as you can. I think it’s great that they have a site where they can keep all the experts in one place. At least that way they can’t spend too much time on the rest of the internet…
Posted in Huh?, Music, Technology
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Downs on the up
I’ve probably been more willing than many British people to try and see a glimmer of silver lining in the Blair->Brown Labour government ever since the honeymoon period ended sometime in mid-1998. But even I’ve pretty much given up hope, growing tired of my “even a bad Labour government is better than any Tory government” mantra. They’re as bad as each other, and at least the Tories have the excuse of a fundamentally selfish ideology, so we can’t expect anything great from them.
And then they confound it all by doing something really kind of, like… GOOD!
South Downs is a true place in the country (Tristram Hunt)
As Tristram Hunt says, this is what Labour governments are for. Preserve a special part of the country for everyone, taking it out of the reach of property speculators and concrete blandness. Personally, I think the North Downs are more deserving of National Park status, but this isn’t a bad start.
Posted in Local, Politics, Travel
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Sunny!
This one is specifically for guitarist friends…
I don’t know about you, but as a big fan of Greg Howe’s playing, I’ve always loved his improvisation on the classic old pop tune Sunny. I had a burst of mental energy last week, and transcribed the whole thing.
If you’re looking to incorporate a slightly jazzy edge (working from chord notes rather than scales or blues licks) into your rock playing, there’s plenty to work on here. Start off by watching Greg’s Youtube video and then grab my transcription in Powertab or PDF format.
[By the way, if Greg objects to this, I'll remove the transcription immediately!]
Gumtree users – be careful out there
I’m sort of half-heartedly looking for a secondhand Mac Pro, in order to futureproof my setup a little bit. The next version of OS X will apparently be Intel-only, as are several nice-looking apps, and my Mac is a pre-Intel G5. Anyway…
As the expected recession-driven panic selling bargainfest on Ebay has failed to materialise thus far, I’ve been browsing Gumtree. There was one Mac Pro with an amazingly low price of £580, so I contacted the seller. I honestly thought it would have sold, but she replied…
If you are interested to buy it from me I have to tell you that I will only do this through eBay. I’ve choosen eBay for security reasons, all my online transactions were done through eBay and they were a success.
[...] As soon as I have the details I will forward them to eBay. Shortly after, they will contact you with the invoice to confirm our transaction. Further details about payment and shipping will be found there.
[...] You will have a period of 3 days for inspecting the item starting from the moment it arrives. In case the item is damaged, or not as I’ve described it, you can refuse to keep it and you will receive a full refund from eBay.
All very efficient-sounding, and I could kind of understand why a woman (the email was from “Claire Gordon”) would want to avoid having strangers coming round to her house to buy expensive items. But something kept nagging at the back of my mind… this ad is two days old, the price is ludicrously low, and no one has bought the computer yet!
I Googled her email address and bingo! The only result was from the Gumtree forum, in a thread entitled “Moneygram Scam”. Someone else had received a similar email from the same address, and this also resembled a number of other emails people had received (from other addresses) in relation to tempting car ads on Gumtree. Some users, unfortunately, have lost significant sums of money to this scam.
Coincidentally, I enquired about another Mac Pro (not quite as cheap, but still nicely priced) on Gumtree the same evening, and sure enough, the email I received was pretty much the same, except for minor details in the wording.
There seem to be two variants of the scam:
1. Seller sends similar email to the one above, asking to arrange transaction via Ebay/Paypal. Buyer complies, sending details. Seller gets back in touch, apologising for problems with Paypal account, instructs seller to make payment via Moneygram.
2. Seller contacts buyer, suggesting meeting in person. Buyer replies to confirm. Seller gets back in touch, claiming to have left the area on business, instructs seller to make payment via Moneygram.
Now, Moneygram is just a way of sending money. They won’t help you. If you comply with one of these follow-up emails, you will (as shown in the Gumtree forum thread) lose your money. There seems to be a huge number of email addresses involved in these scams, but just in case it’s of any use to anyone, here are the two people I received emails from…
pinky.claire@yahoo.com
dovada_de_iubire@yahoo.com
If in doubt, avoid like the plague!
Feline update
Regular readers will remember the arrival of our two new friends back in September. Well, they’re both considerably bigger, and have learned various useful skills such as walking along the apex of the roof (Merry), finding lumps of moss (Pippin) and hunting earthworms (both).
Let’s go back to the end of 2008. As they were nearing 6 months, we planned to have them neutered as soon as possible after Christmas. There was one slight hitch. Coming in from the garden on Christmas Day, Merry seemed unusually talkative and was waving her furry booty in the air. Oh, and look, that cuddly ginger tom is sitting outside the back door, with his whiskers slicked back and his best tail on. We kept her inside after that, but it was too late!
Having talked Merry out of going to Social Services and getting a flat of her own (teenage mothers, eh?) we settled down for the nine-week wait, and it all ended as stealthily as it had begun. She quietly disappeared into her nest (in one of the drawers under the bed) and spent an hour or two producing four tiny things, two stripy, one black and one grey…
Posted in Drivel
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Drinkers to join smokers in leper colony
I know the protesting parties referred to in this Observer story are more worried about actual alcoholics rather than people who just like to enjoy the odd tipple and damn the consequences, but still… remind me, just how much are we paying the Government every time we buy a drink?
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