Monthly Archives: January 2008

What Am I Doing Wrong?

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This is a message that was posted to the US website Craigslist. Best reply ever…

THE QUESTION:

Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy. I’m not from New York . I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 – 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically: Continue reading →

Behind Closed Doors

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Transatlantic

Look at this picture. Pretty dull and uninteresting. This is a photo of the submarine telecommunication cables that extend more than 8,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean before reaching this endpoint in Avon, New Jersey. They transmit as many as 60 million simultaneous conversations.

“There’s a humor because the cables are so important, yet they look so unguarded and unimportant,”

This is from the book: Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.
More Here

Police hunt for 189mph biker!

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Police are hunting a motorbike rider who appears to hit 189mph on a UK road in a YouTube video. It is said to be the fastest speed ever recorded on a British road and then posted on YouTube.

The video shows the rider negotiating a roundabout before making a high speed run. The clip is called ‘first run on cam’ and in the description the rider says the ZX10r was spinning its wheel at 180mph. Some internet users have questioned whether the bike’s speedo may be out, noting it takes under six seconds to go from around 100mph to 189mph.

The video has now been viewed almost 15,000 times, most of which are probably by police trying to identify the rider.



The Battle of Google Vs Wikipedia

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A few months ago Google announced on their blog, their newest venture entitled “Google Knowledge” or “Knol” for short. Basically they are going to create something quite similar to Wikipedia, but it will differ because each knol article will be written by a single author, and other users can edit it only with permission from the author. Readers may rate or comment on the articles. There can also be multiple articles for the same topic, each written by a different author.

 

In response to this, it seems that today Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales has launched a search engine that takes a leaf out of the Wikipedia book. It’s called Wikia. The site still has an index of the web like Google, but the idea behind this is that they take from the expertise and knowledge of the Wikia community, to give you better and more relative search results. I’ve always thought that somehting like this would be a good idea. I’m sick of search results being the battle of who’s designers are better at SEO – rather than which sites are going to give you the information you need.

The ‘Super Trendy’ new sound of Electronica

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I’ve been into electronic music for about 10 years now. Before that I was into metal and rock, but as soon as the rhythm of house got into my blood, there was really very little for anything else. I’ve always been pretty close minded compared to others when it comes to the variance of music styles. I like what I like, but no much else… Electronica is absolutely vast when it comes to sub-division of different genre’s, but really I’ve always been pretty much into the same stuff; mainly ‘House’ and it’s many variants. Funky, Deep, Progressive, Disco, Electro, Tech and Tribal have always been there, and there was almost no need to go anywhere else… Until now.

The most recent and significant progression of my musical tastes, is my recent exploration into the realms of Minimal. “Minimal Techno” or “Microhouse” as it is sometimes known, is a more recent spin off from the well known Techno genre, focusing on the more basic and stripped down repetition of rhythms and beats, somewhat lacking in the melodies tha are moreso found in House and Electro. The thing is that only about 18-24 months ago, being the big music snob that I am, I hated anything of the such, but have more recently grown to be listening to very little else!

There was a very interesting article in The Guardian a few weeks back:

The sound that has been filling those clubs and distributed on those labels, and which has exploded across the continent, is broadly known as “Minimal”. Over the past five or so years, it’s grown from an arcane subdivision of techno into an ubiquitous buzzword on the dance scene. Even two years ago, minimal techno was still the preserve of the so-hip-it-hurts sunglasses-at-night set. Its trendiness was endearingly encapsulated in the ubercoolische.com website, a charming soap opera written about the adventures of minimal figureheads Ricardo Villalobos, Magda and Richie Hawtin. In 2006, minimal finally crossed over, though, when Gabriel Ananda’s 10-minute percussive epic Doppelwhipper exploded across Ibiza.

Minimal is not exacltly going to burst onto the Irish Club Scene any time soon. It is much more suited to dark and dirty underground Berlin clubs at 5am, but it has grown so much on me that I listen to it most mornings on the way into work…

Why bother with Share Trading?

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I’ve always had an avid interest in investing and share trading, but what really scares me is the volatility of the markets. Unless you really now what you are doing, picking your own stocks is a serious gamble, and even if you stick to the blue chips, 5%-10% gains would be considered pretty good…

Managed funds on the other hand are, to me, a bit of a no brainer. You’ve got a full time fund manager who is probably one of the brightest minds the company has, managing a collective pool of money to invest in a specific industry or region. Personally I’ve no issue with trusting an expert with my money more than myself who is comparitivly clueless.

Rabo Direct have a very straighforward way of getting into funds. You can start with as little as €100, put in money whenever you like, and the charges are pretty good value I think anyway. The fun comes in choosing which funds to invest in – this is where it is up to you. Now I know all the “Past performance is no guarantee of future returns” bullshit, but really,take a look at some of them, and you have to just laugh at anyone who has money on deposit in a bank.

Take a look at the following funds and their performace over the last 12 months:

China Fund – 44%
World Mining – 51%
Emerging Stars – 35%

The Islamification of Europe?

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Following on for Pat Condells funny video’s on Atheism and slagging off most modern religion, I saw a fascinating documentary by the UK Channel 4 journalists “Dispatches” called “Undercover Mosque“. It was filmed over 12 months detailing some pretty scary goings on in Mosques around the UK. I highly recommend you see your yourself and Watch it on Google Video Here.

Pat Condell has said that he believes the biggest problem that the world is going to face in the next 50 years is the impending “Islamification of Europe”. There is a lot of stuff out there on the web to support his theories. Pretty Scary

A comedian with a serious message

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I recently stumbled across a British Comedian and Political Commentator called Pat Condell. His website starts off with a fantastic introduction “Hi, I’m Pat Condell. I don’t respect your beliefs and I don’t care if you’re offended. Cheers” which sets it off nicely for what’s coming up.

Pat is an avid atheist and has some remarkably interesting thoughts on modern day religion, especial Islam. He has a travelling comedy show, but is much better known for his collection of short clips on Youtube and Liveleak which spark huge amounts of controversy, resulting in spin off rebuttle video’s and he has even recieved Death Threats!

I think this is a fantastic example of how one person can use the Internet to really spread their message to great effect, as his video’s have been seen my many millions around the world, and heads are turning…

There is a book currently high in the bestsellers lists called “The God Delusion” which supports the Creationist views

Diesel Supercars

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Diesel is no longer just a fuel to power trucks and farm machinery. In a pretty short space of time they are now a perfectly respectable alternative in even performance cars. Audi won the 24 Hour Le Mans race in a Diesel in 2006, and they have just announced that their flagship supercar the Audi R8 – will soon be released with a 5 Litre, 600BHP Diesel Engine!

I always loved the VW ad for “Don’t forget it’s a Diesel“:

So this is my new blog, eh?

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Blog’s are pretty commonplace now and almost everyone at least knows what they are, or have one of their own. You get a free one on bebo for god’s sake, and my dad even asked me if he should have one on his companies website. However, I actually had a blog way back in about 2002 when they were still pretty new. I was the first person I knew to have anything of the such and people didn’t really get it. I went travelling for a year and instead of sending emails to everyone I posted on a blog and had photos etc. Seemed like a great idea as at the end I’d have something great to look back on. But few read it and they just demanded the normal emails, so I abandoned it and now it’s gone forever…

Anyway hopefully I’ll do something better with this one. I find lots of random interesting stuf on the web. I’ll try to post some of it here, I hope you like it.