Andy Ramblings

Oh what a surprise, Israel announces a ceasefire in time for Obama's Inauguration. Who would have guess that ? Oh, Olmert won't be able to ring Bush up and ask him to delay the inauguration, like he he did for the UN resolution when Condi Rice was told by Bush via Olmert to abstain. 

Israel is to halt its three-week military offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said. He said Israel had achieved its aims and the unilateral ceasefire would start at 0200 (2400 GMT). But he said troops would remain in Gaza for now.
Source

This issue here is, Hamas don't really agree with the fact that the IDF will be lurking around Gaza, would you like to have the IDF in your back yard? I just can't trust what anyone from the IDF say. There was this website, Israeli Defense Force Spokeperson website. Now, this is a very new website. It hasn't been a website that has been around for the purpose telling people what the IDF does. 

Registrant:
   IDF
   206 Jaffo St
   Jerusalem,  91342
   Israel

   Registered through: Automattic
   Domain Name: IDFSPOKESPERSON.COM
      Created on: 31-Dec-08
      Expires on: 31-Dec-09
      Last Updated on: 31-Dec-08

   Administrative Contact:
      Foreign Press Branch, IDF  idfnadesk@gmail.com
      IDF
      206 Jaffo St
      Jerusalem,  91342
      Israel
      25485807      Fax -- 

   Technical Contact:
      Foreign Press Branch, IDF  idfnadesk@gmail.com
      IDF
      206 Jaffo St
      Jerusalem,  91342
      Israel
      25485807      Fax -- 

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS1.WORDPRESS.COM
      NS2.WORDPRESS.COM

Looking at the WHOIS information of the website. It's using the Wordpress servers,

IP Address: 72.233.2.58 Domain TLD: com Domain Length: 15 chars Response Code: 200 Location: Plano, TX, United States

Yep, very simple guide on how to convert all your Imperial measures into Metric..

Simple really yep

Enough said. Bush, claimed 18 months ago in Annapolis, that there would be Peace with Gaza before he left office? What a way to leave office? Can't find any words to describe how much a failure George W Bush has been; but this review of his time pretty much covers all points of his failure

OK, in the techy world of beta testing. Microsoft announced that it was letting loose the next Version of Windows, names imaginatively Windows 7.  Better than giving it a name like vista, which quite frankly was daft. Anyway, MS announced that they will be releasing Beta 1 of Windows 7 at 20:00GMT to the world, but they said that they would only allow 2.5million CD keys. So, yours truly was there, waiting for the server gates to open, so that I could get a CD Key. Wow, were Microsoft so unprepared?!

Firstly by saying that they would only allow 2.5 million keys, they were bound to get a rush on their servers. SO, what happens? yep the party is over.

Due to very heavy traffic we’re seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to the Microsoft.com properties before we post the public beta. We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and I’ll be posting here again soon once the beta goes live. Stay tuned! We are excited that you are excited!
Source

I know, this may sound silly, but why didn't MS predict this? It might have been a good idea to use Torrents, rather than try and have 2.5 million users trying to download from a server farm, But that's Micorsoft for you. Torrents for them always = bad stuff. But it is the most efficient way to send a high volume of very large files.

The 32Bit version downloads as a 2.5G file, the 64bit version runs at 3.2GB file. Yep, Torrents are a lot quicker.

Now need to hang around to get that CD Key!

Update: Website to download a beta copy of windows 7 is open again.. find it here. You will be able to download both the 64bit and 32 bit versions and their CD keys.

So says a big banner on a lot of new London buses.  This is a campaign the British Humanist Association .

The campaign, which is supported by the British Humanist Association and BHA Vice President Richard Dawkins, and in Scotland by the Humanist Society of Scotland, is a response to a series of evangelical Christian adverts running on buses in June 2008, which featured the URL of a website saying all non-Christians were going to hell. Comedy writer Ariane Sherine suggested the rational, positive slogan to reassure people who may have been scared by the evangelical adverts.

This campaign is, in my view important, as quoted. If religious nutters can go around and tell everyone who doesn't believe in their view of the world you don't have the right to be on this planet. quite frankly these people are part of the problem of why things like world  peace can never be achieved. Though they go around saying that the love their neighbour, wll they do, as long as your not, this that or the other, as long as you agree with them. So, here's one bus with Richard Dawkins.

If you want to see more images, you can click on the link below.

This could happen, maybe not out and about, but just out on holiday and have no access to your favourite graphics application and the only one available is the sad excuse that Microsoft provides, you know, Paint.. Well, worry no more. Some cool guys up in Finland have produced a pretty neat website, that has a fully fledged graphics program.

It's very easy to use, you can if you want, have your account on the webiste. You can of course upload images, which is where the application comes into it's own. Just a sneek preview of what you get to play with....

Not much of a review, but I think it's darn neat, can be useful. if you want to make nice wonky images when your bored at the office ? not that I'm recommending that you

Oh you want the URL ? well, here is its... www.sumopaint.com

Go on, give it a try you know you want to .

OK, a bit late. but just felt that, you know, better late than never. Anyway, how many of you have set yourselves up with resolutions for the year? I made one a few years back, t'is very easy to keep, in fact, I've kept it ever since, that was, to never make them again. It appears that I was correct in this, it has now been shown that making resolutions is bad for you, not only in the fact that, well, you will never keep it, but that it's bad for your health. SO says the BBC.

Deciding to turn over a new leaf in the new year could do more harm than good, a mental health charity has warned. Mind has urged people not to feel they must start 2009 armed with resolutions for self-improvement. The charity said resolutions which focus on issues such as the need to lose weight or job worries create a negative self-image. Source

I can imagine that the resolution to loose weight is most likely doomed to failure. Job worries, why is that a resolution? no idea, maybe I'l get of my arse and look harder. But I don't think that in it's self will not help too much with the current prevailing economic situation.

They use the forever usefully line, It will create a negative self-image. This is, I bet the same folks who also say, that telling a kid that they have failed and exam could damage their self image for the rest of their lives. What a load of Bull.  You learn from mistakes, you learn from failures it's called learning, it's part of life. You never stop learning. I bet the last thing you learn in life is that there isn't any heaven, but you have no way of telling anyone. My view anyway.

So, now that we are now 3 days into 2009, things are, so far, pretty much the same. Only time will tell.

Well well well, that's 2008 all done and consigned to history, never to come along again. good riddance I say. So All my readers, well the 1 or 2 of you who pop by every now and then to see if I have written anything new? I haven't since well November 2008. Just too busy sorry. You know the credit crunch and all that boring stuff. I wish you all a great 2009 and hope that. though it will start tough for a lot of us, that it does turn out good.

One big change that is happening, is that the lovely folks in the USA have gotten rid of a Dick and A Bush who have been doing nothing but make the world a worse place to live, all OK in their fine Ranches, Tax paid security guards and all that. Lets hope that the Obama team can bring along better things.

Israel and Hamas currently are behaving like a bunch of teenagers who are having a squabble over who's the Daddy again. It's a no he started it first, no he did arguments, either way, they both need to grow up and learn that fighting isn't the answer. It's a waste of energy, in more ways than one, like how much does it cost to fly 80 odd F16 fighter bombers for a 5hr sortie? Not the same as it costs to fill 80 odd SUV's. Who's going to pay for all the buildings that have been demolished? Oh, yes, us tax payers here in Europe, we paid for the last lot to be built! I'm sure there were other ways to knock them down if the Israelis didn't like the look of them. I don't think it will be the Israelis who will be paying to have them rebuilt, Oh, yes, that's the US Tax payer. I guess it's fine going to war when someone else is paying the tab.

The credit Crunch? yep, that's mainly the banks not trusting each other. Ya, tis fine if your mate thinks he has a nice scheme that will guarantee you a return of 12% every year, only to find that he was on top of a huge pyramid scheme, well that's Mr Madoff (or Made off with your cash).

So I can say good riddance to 2008 and welcome 2009!

It's been a long night, an even longer nightmare for the world, 8 years to be exact. Thanks to the youth of the USA, who have woken up, were inspired,  that they can change their president, that they can change the world, that they have the power to make changes. Thanks for making the change. Only on the 20th of Jan 2009 will we all wake up from the nightmare that was George W Bush. Someone who just couldn't, shouldn't have taken the role of president. I have always believed that he was actually a puppet. and Dick Chaney was the real president.

Lessons to be learnt? That religion and politics really do not mix, I don't have problem with people believing in religion, I'm pretty agnostic, but believe, let live, we all share this small planet somewhere in what we know as the universe, so why can't we, you know, just get along? Naive maybe, but we really do only have one planet. 

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, just super glad that Obama has won. There was a song that came out at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I think it's a good one for today, maybe the lyrics aren't 100% correct, but the feeling is most certainly there.

Wassup 2008 style, keep it real!

 Hopefully, the folks on the otherside of the pond also want change, by the looks of it, the do.