Following on from the virus attack and the hoax virus email, I am once again amazed at the sheer lack of insight applied by some people using email.
Here’s the scenario.
Mr A receives a “joke” email with 10 “funny” pictures attached to it. This email has done the rounds a bit and now contains 150K of headers, plus the original 500K of photos. He then forwards it to 12 of his closest friends and colleagues, some of whom then forward it to their friends and so on. Some people further down the list end up getting two or three copies of this. And every time it is sent, it gets a little bit bigger.
Then someone decides to send a reply, adding nothing more than a “that was hilarious! When I pick myself up off the floor I’m going to the pub” comment. Note that this comment is a mere 76 bytes in length. However they send it at the bottom of the original 650K email. I mean… this just amazes me. Don’t people even think to take the attachments off? Or write a new email instead of clicking reply? I know that in isolation this is probably not a major issue… but this sort of thing happens all over the world, all day long.
Just think how much faster the internet would be if it wasn’t clogged up with the same huge attachments flying forwards and backwards and forwards again all the time.
I think email bandwidth should be charged to the user on a per-megabyte basis. Web and usenet bandwidth should be free, natch. Just charge for email. Would get rid of one or two spammers as well, I should think. Hopefully.

Last night I saw Schindler’s List on DVD. It’s not the first time I’d seen this film, I went to see it in the cinema when it was first released, and I’ve owned it on video for a while. But it’s the sort of film that stands up to repeated viewings, even though I can only stand to watch it every couple of years or so. My cousin rented the DVD from user comments on the Internet Movie Database. Most people commented on the fine acting and directing. One thought that occurred to me, though, was that we should be grateful we don’t live in a world where this sort of thing still happens. But then I had a re-think. We do still live in a world where this sort of thing still happens, it just doesn’t happen in the part I live in. I can get in my car and drive to work, go to the corner shop, practice my religion (if I was that way inclined) and look at other people in the street without fear of having a bullet put in my head simply beacuse I am who I am. For that, I am grateful. Most people don’t even think about it – they just carry on their daily business as normal. Until, of course, the worst happens and some army or other marches in, causing chaos and destruction in their wake.
I’m not a political person, so I can’t comement on more recent atrocities. All I know is that they have happened, and it seems to me that in a so-called civilised world we should have learned the lessons from the first half of the twentieth century. It appears we haven’t completely taken heed of them.
I urge everyone to see Schindler’s list. It will make you laugh and cry, and it will also make you take a step back and think about the world you live in. It’s not merely a film about Nazis and Jews in the Second World War, it’s a film about humanity and inhumanity.
While making the film, Steven Spielberg set up the Shoah foundation in order to record the testimonies of those who survived the holocaust. Again, I urge everyone to take a look at it and, if possible, make a donation. At the very least, be aware that it exists and make your children aware of it. This sort of education is just one way that we can endeavour to make the world a safer place in the future.
I’ll get down off my soap-box now.

Or, put another way, what’s up my other nostril. I’ll have to find a different orifice for things to be “up ” when I get to part three…
This time the thing that really infuriates me more than anything else in the whole wide world ever is the phrase “fine toothcomb”. As in “we searched the area with a fine toothcomb but didn’t find a thing.” This is the wrong phrase, people!! Come on, think about it. What the hell is a toothcomb? I’ve brushed my teeth in the past (on occasion) but I can safely say, without fear of contradiction, that I’ve never combed them. Not while being sober and in full control of all my faculties, at least.
The correct phrase, as you all should have figured out by now, is “fine-toothed comb”. In other words, a comb with fine teeth (that’s “fine” as in “thin”, not “fine” as in “lovely”). If you comb something – let’s say it’s your hair – with a fine-toothed comb – let’s say it’s a nit comb – you’re likely to find what you are looking for. In this case, nits. If you’re unlucky. But if you should comb your hair with a “fine toothcomb” then not only will I be asking you where you found one of these non-existant objects, but I will also be asking you what you comb your fine teeth with.
I’m not the only one who feels this way, as the top result in this search proves.
Maybe it’s just me. Deal with it.

There aren’t many things in this world that really gets up my nose, but people driving badly is one of them. I can’t stand it when, for example, approaching a junction behind someone in a small car, and they don’t move forward into a gap which is obviously big enough for them, and maybe a small light aircraft as well. I have to wait for the car(s) in front them to move, so they can crawl forwards. This evening on the way home from work I spotted someone driving the wrong way round a supermarket car park. I know this is hardly the end of the world, but the arrows are painted on the road for a reason, people! Also on this slight more evenful than usual journey home, when coming off the motorway, the car behind me actually reversed up the slip road, in order to change lanes. Some people just deserve a flat tyre or two, in my opinion.