Kate Phizackerley - Musings

There are suggestions that the remake of the Buffy movie is in trouble.  I can't say I am too unhappy.  I love the Buffyverse but Buffy without Joss Whedon is just unthinkable to me.  Maybe we can hope they will approach him with the idea of doing something - or even better he might buy the franchise rights.

Obvioulsy greatest hits packages don't count.  For a long time I thought it was Parallel Lines.  That is the first album I ever bought so it will always be special but it is wall to wall great tracks.  But I am begging to wonder if Autoamerica isn't even better.  Again great tracks but such variety.  The timing on tracks like Here's Looking at You is just fantastic. 

Hmm some more listening I think

Because of my interest in ancient Egypt, I have followed the news of the revolution in quite a lot of detail.  How can I properly write about reports of attacks on antiquities unless I have at least a passing familiarity of the political environment within which the sources are operating?  I'm now following the situation in Libya with one eye as well.

One of the key questions is how can there be peace afterwards when there has been such division during the revolution?  This article Thug Life from Almasry Alroum offers a comforting, if gritty, tale of how some people who thought for Mubarak in Egypt have changed sides.  For one of the interviewed men, it was an apparent moral conversion; in the other it was freedom from former coercion.  In other cases, it is likely to be unglamorous expediency.  People do get caught on the wrong side.  One of the lessons from South Africa is that peace can be secured if any overwhelming majority can be united in a new view of the future whatever their past.  It's a bit grubby; but it is reality.

See http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/362243

What nobody seems to be asking is whether the automatic shutdown of the Fukishima was the correct policy.  The unfolding problems have arisen because diesel generators failed.  While reactors are operating, they provide the electricity they need to operate thier cooling systems.  It is only when shutdown, that they need to rely upon diesel generators.

Would a safer policy to have been to  manually shutdown, albeit quickly, the four reactors most at risk, leaving one reactor running?  The remaining reactor could then have been shut down a few hours later, if necessary, once the other reactors cooled substantially.  Until then it would have provided a secure source of power to itself and to the other reactors.

Of course we don't know. I think emergency procedures ought however to consider whether an automatic shutdown really is the safest policy.

That has never happened to me before.  I was watching a live Twitter feed and it advertised that Mubarak was speaking so I switched over to the BBC News Channel to watch it.  And wow, it look like it is a resignation speech, saying that he will not stand in October!  That is the power of Twitter.

Many of my readers will know of my interest in Egypt.  I registered another domain just yesterday for Egyptopaedia our new Encyclopaedia of ancient Egypt (more work for the next few weeks!).  So today I have been following the breaking news from Egypt.  I was particularly concerned for the antiquities museum on Cairo (the Egyptian Museum) with the building next door on fire and the one next to that burnt out entirely.  The latest reports are that the protesters and army are united in their intend to safeguard it.  I would also like news out of Luxor, but there isn't any.

The Internet has been shut down.  Mobile phone networks have been turned off.  Even landlines seem to have been shut.  Technically though, how was it done?  Could it be done in the US for instance.  ZDnet thinks not, in a very good article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols  who analyses who the Egyptian Government have turned the Internet off.  Essentially it seems they used two techniques, clearly planned in advance.  Firstly they killed the DNS nameservers - that's the bit which translates a domain name like www.sis.gov into an IP address which tells computers where the hosting server is located.  By itself that wouldn't be terribly effective.  For instance my Vodafone mobile broadband has become unreliable and one probably seems to be the Vodafone DNS servers, so I now tend to use nameservers in the US instead.  Anybody in Egypt could do the same thing - or they could just type the relevant numbers into their browser.  So the Egyptian Government also shut down the main network backbone and its international connections so there is no web traffic between Egypt and the rest of the world.

The communications out of Egypt at the moment seem to be either high tech (via satellite) or rather low tech (amateur radio). 

It has had the effect of cutting off communications within Egypt as well.  That was in the intended effect.  Want to know if your daughter who is working in Cairo is safe?  You cannot contact here.  I agree with Vaughan-Nichols.  Cutting off communications so that people cannot find out whether their loved ones are safe is a certain way to antagonise the population.  Even the British Government has made that mistake, cutting mobile networks after terrorist incidents.  I think governments around the world are going to end up reassessing policies like that.  Now we all live with our mobiles and instant access with family and friends wherever they are, any Government which cuts that off just when we most want it is likely to face widespread popular wrath, whatever their reasons for doing so.

Yesterday is showing a biography of Fred Dibnah, who is sadly missed.  They have just shown the first time he was on TV felling a mill chimney in Rochdale (I think).  It is a clip I have always found said - I hate seeing the chimneys come down.  They are sadly missed.  I wonder whether future generations will one day realise how much was lost?

What is remarkable though is quite how commonplace his demonolitions are.  If you watch American demolition shows it is massive teams with plastic explosives and split second fuses.  Fred?  Ah now Fred uses a sledgehammer and lights a fire in the brickwork to crack them.  As it starts to tumble, he lifts a horn to his mouth and blows a few warning notes.  It is just so ... British.

As I have said before, I started News from the Valley of the Kings for myself, as somewhere to record the information I collected.  That other people like it too is just wonderful.   I'm very happy.

But there is a downside.  When I search now for any titbits about KV64 or look for photos of excavations in the Western Valley of the Kings, so many of my own pages come up in the searches.  When other people search that is great; it's somewhat inconvenient for me though when I am looking to see if there is anything new!  I shouldn't complain of course, and I really am very happy, but it's one of the downsides that people don't mention when one starts a blog!

I keep featuring some great videos, then a few weeks later the link dies. It makes the site much less valuable. It also suggests copyright violations are only addressed when someone complains. That's totally wrong, YouTube should check copyright on upload.

Of course they can't. Sooner or later though some lawyer is going to pin on them an obligation to do so. At that point the business model falls apart. It's typical Google. One might say it's typical California with complete freedom of information and Google publishing everything and anything on its sites. That's where it breaks down though. I don't see Google publishing their search algorithm. Apparently some intellectual property is still protected in the brave new world.

In truth we are living in a never-never la-la land of inconsistencies, one might say hypocrisies. A fudged compromise which doesn't work. We either need to move towards publishing platforms carrying the same responsibilty as newspapers for their content or two a world without copyright. Both have their pros and cons. Both are self-consistent. The present system of getting-away-with-it-until-challenged doesn't work and leads to wrong behavior. If I feature a photo I try to ascertain copyright. When YouTube has so much more resource than me, why should it behave any differently?

I'd not come across thix mix of flute playing and beatboxing before. I'm sure it's going to become one of the sounds of the decade. If you'd like to know more about this amazing flute beatboxing craze, then visit my Squidoo lens at that link for even more videos and material!

I'm amused by the White House response to the latest Wikileaks material on Afghanistan. They are simultaneously claiming the leak is minor and reveals nothing new while also claiming it's a terribly reprehensible breach of security.

Wherever one stands on the issue of whether the material should have been leaked and published, the hypocrisy of the White House response just makes them look stupid. It's also obvious there's mistruth in one limb of their claim or the other. If the White House wishes to have credibility abroad it needs to come off the fence and either admit a major and embarrassing security breach or accept these documents belong in the public domain.

I've been writing quite a bit about the 1920s and 1920s style.  It started by accident.  Tutankhamun's tomb (KV62) in Egypt's Valley of the Kings was discovered in 1922 and I have memories of watching old silent movies when I was a girl - Chaplin and Buster Keaton.  After all as a tiny tot I wasn't interested in the romances but slapstick is something I enjoyed.  (These days I really don't like slapstick anymore, but that's a different topic.)


The more I learn though, I realise just how special the 1920s were.  It was the start of the modern age.  Or put another way, I am starting to think that the Great Depression and World War II put back culture by two generations.  

There are clear parallels between the Bright Young Things, subject of the Stephen Fry movie, and the New Romantics of the 1970s and 1980s.    (I must read the Evelyn Waugh book.) 



The Charleston was the dance of the 1920s.  Dancers were accustomed to static upper bodies: the Charleston changed all of that.  In fact it was the arm movements which some thought to be like a bird flapping its wings that led to women being referred to as "flappers".   Fashion kept pace with this freedom of movement.  Women abandoned corsets, bustles and confining long skirts and dresses and wore short, simple dresses that wouldn't look too out of place today, although beads and feathers were more fashionable in the 1920s than they are today.  It still wasn't acceptable for a woman to show off much of a figure so a flat bodice was fashionable.  Nonethless, the 20s was the decade when women finally gained many of the freedoms modern women take for granted.  Suffrage saw women gain the vote.

As picture houses became more common, movie stars became the first celebrities.  Today we might think of Posh and Becks or Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.  Back in the 1920s it was Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.  Invitations to their Pickfair mansion were the hottest invites in America, perhaps even hotter than the White House.  The papers followed Douglas and Pickford intensely.

We all also know that the Great Crash has parallels with the banking crash of the late Noughties with roots in permissive banking regulation and consumer debt.  The Great Crash and the slump which followed was the end of the laughter and gaiety of the 20s.  As the political situation in Europe grew ever tenser, there was little reason for optimism.  The Camelot age had come to an end and it took the world 50 - 60 years to recapture the magic.


What is frightening is the risk of a repeat.  Could the Credit Crunch still become a sovereign debt crisis?  Is the political situation in the Middle East and Pakistan much better than Europe in the 1930s? 

It's always flattering when someone decides to follow one on Twitter isn't it? Maybe not. I tweeted about the Psychic Octopus and mentioned Ronaldo. Ten minutes later @ronaldofootball starts following me. Hmmmm. I suspect that it's just word watching rather than an interest in what I have to say don't you?

There's news that China will be launching an English language TV channel worldwide. Great. I was stuck in Bangkok 18 months ago when the airport was occupied. BBC World, CNN and Fox News were useless. Their coverage of Asia is grossly superficial. We turned to Al Jazeera. It's the first - and so far only - time I've watched it but they cover Asia in detail. BBC World always seems to spend more time 'explaining' China or Thailand or even India, than covering the news. It's TV IMHO for someone with a Euro-centric view. CNN is Amero-centric [or is that Ameri-centric]. An international channel with a Chino-centric view.

Will it be biased? Of course. But equally nobody in their right minds should rely on the BBC or Fox. In fact I'm increasingly disappointed by the dumbed down coverage of international stories on the main BBC broadcasts - in fact many top stories bearly get a mention.

Personally I believe these days more than ever that we need to aggregate our news from multiple sources most of which will have a State or commercial bias.

Commercial bias is just as bad. If you read News International you'll read a lot about British libel laws inhibiting the British press. Excuse me! Why should reliable, unbiased and accurate press fear libel laws. What we really need is much stronger privacy laws to protect us from an intrusive press - but you won't read that in next week's Sunday times.

So an International Chinese channel is great even though it will probably be deeply flawed.

A number of candidates chose not to show their home address on the poliing card. Fair enough one might say.

Not when their party workers are stood outside demanding my polling card and getting very sniffy when I wouldn't hand it over. Apparently withholding the candidate's address is fine, but they expect to have mine.

It seems the one-rule-for-them-and-another-for-the-rest-of-us has started even before the polls close.

At present they are second in the polls. The psephologists say that doesn't translate into seats. That's presently unclear I think because voting patterns are strange and many people on both the left and right are changing how they vote.

Perhaps more importantly the Conservatives and Labour have started Liberal bashing. That's surely misguided as it means a massive publicity campaign for the Liberals' policies This is also the election in which few are keen on any party. A great many voters' intentions seem to be not-the-Conservatives or not-Labour. In that environment criticism by those parties could increase the Liberal vote

It's the most interesting election in ages.

I've just been writing about Turing Machines (for an article on parsing hieroglyphs) and came across this video about a Lego Turing Machine.  It's way fun,  There's a blog and a video ...

So are proper nouns allowed in proper Scrabble?

It's a day or Internet oddities.  I've just found a software manual which claims to impart it's knowledge in an hour.  It's 176 A4 pages long!  Fortuately I am a fast reader but I wonder for how many people the hour claim is hyperbole?

I've been browsing ISO 3166, the international standard of country codes.  It ought to have been dull reading, but Scotland, despite being a separate Kingdom, doesn't merit it's own country code. 

There is no separate ISO 3166-1 code for Scotland. It is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its codes GB, GBR and 826 apply to Scotland, too.

Since Taiwan is not a UN member it does not figure in the UN bulletin on country names. The printed edition of the publication Country and region codes for statistical use gives the name we use in ISO 3166-1. By adhering to UN sources the ISO 3166/MA stays politically neutral.

Ceuta and Melilla are jointly identified by the reserved code element EA

I'm sat watchingt the uncut version of Pier Morgan's interview with Dannii Minogue.  It must surely have helped Dannii's popularity.  She comes across really well and very caring.

She was known as the botox queen a couple of years ago.  I wonder if it was that she didn't want her face to show the emotions she was feeling?  I think she is now self-confident enough to allow people to see how she is feeling.  It's a lesson many of us have to learn the hard way - but ultimatley we are better, happier people when we learn it.

My mobile showed battery at 40%. I turned it off for a meeting. Now it's back to 90%. Very odd.

Just to show that normality has been retained.  I'd like to celebrate the departure of the terrible twosome, Jedward.  After their antics at Boot Camp I have had very negative view on them. I was pleased to see Olly in the bottom as well.  He can sing, but he's another guy I dislike.

I'm backing Joe to win.

Some were worried that the post yesterday wasn't me.  It was and now I'm writing about Disney Princess birthdays - which I know even less about than Twilight.  Jessica who sold me the other two lenses, has just sold me her top lens about Disney Princess Birthday Cakes.  It was expensive.  This one will take a full 6 months' of earnigs from the lens to recoup my investment - unless I can increase the income from it.  Good commercial practice.

I'd totally missed how big a deal Twilight is.  I bought a couple of Squidoo lenses.  One was Beautiful Gingerbread houses.  I paid about 3 months income for that one.  It's a seasons lens so that could be a problem, but I know about gingerbread so I knew what to do with that.  Promotion has pushed it into the top 100 lenses on Squidoo.  Out of more than a million lenses, that's a decent performance.  I won't manage to keep it that high, but it's doing pretty well.  I wrote lenses about black cake icing and making royal icing to help support it.  Writing about cookery isn't my usual thing, but as a regular author these days I ought to be able to write about just about anything.

The second lens I picked up was about Twilight birthday cakes.  Squidoo pays royalties each month depending on traffic.   The 2,000 most popular lenses are in the top tier and paying most, perhaps $15 - $20 per month (plus and sales commissions).  The next tier may pay as little as $3 per month. The Twilight lens was just clinging to the top tier but I was worried it was going to drop out so I paid about less - something like 2 months' earnings - because I felt it was risky.  I knew nothing about Twilight.

Well, it seems that Stephanie Meyer's Twilightl is one of the hot teenage franchises at present and a new movie, New Moon is out this week in the USA.  I'm learning a lot.  I might even read the Twilight Saga books - or maybe just watch the movies.    So traffic has been hot.

What's more with a bit of promotion, suddenly my lens wasn't just ranking in Twilight Birthday Cakes, it is ranking right at the top of Google on Twilight Birthday.  Now that was an unexpected.  So I have been brave and just re-focused the lens so that it covers Twilight birthday parties as well as cakes.  That's a risk because Google may take a mood and I might loose all the traffic.  But if the immediate change works, then I am home and dry.

It matters.  Google Adwords reports that "twilight birthday cakes" which the len was optimised for when I bought it is getting about 720 searches a month.  "Twilight birthday" is getting 12,000.  It's sat at #8 on Twilight birthday at present so that isn't too bad.  If it can cling to that then traffic should go up now I've changed the title.  Most people who saw it weren't looking for Twilight birthday cakes so a title of that wasn't going to get clicked through.  So I've made the title more general - I just hope that those who want Twilight cakes don't shy away from it now.

So it could be a disaster.  A lens which was going to make me $20 a month might not.  Even if it works, there isn't a higher tier so there is no immediate upside.  The plan if I can get general birthdat traffic is to add other lenses on those topics and try to move some traffic across to them so they rise up the tiers.  They will need to be written of course.

So why have I taken this precarious route to getting traffic to those lenses, rather than just promote them directly?  Simply because I don't think they will rank well quickly.  There are lots of other Twilight lenses on Squidoo and they need to outperform them if they are to stand alone.  Realistically, one really strong "portal" lens pulling in as much trafic as possible is the best bet.  Then I can add lenses about Bells Swan, New Moon, Stephanie Meyer, Twilight Birthday Parties, Tiwlight Jewelry, Vanpire Novely food or anything else I can think of!  I've started a New Moon Birthday Cake lens but decided to spend the time re-profiling the Twilight Birthday lens instead.  Not sure when I will get back to it.  Tuesday I'd guess.  It should be a decent lens as the Bella Swan birthday scene is one of the big ones in New Moon and is on YouTube - I've watched it.

Which is course is part of this article.  I need to promote that Twilight Birthday Cake, Parties and More lens, as it is now!, as much as I can to try to keep it ranking in Google.

All good fun.  Well all good practice anyway.  And maybe in a couple of weeks I'll know enougth about the Twilight Saga to write a Twilight quiz!

I'm not someone who believes in worrrying about strict spelling and grammar online. Much of what we write is transient, of the moment, and so long as it gets the sense across the additional time spent agonising over spelling and grammar would, or me, be better spent creating more content, answering more questions whatever. Spell checking is not a discipline which yields great benefits or the time spent. Maybe in official reports it is worthwhile, but for general material, emails and blog posts, time spent is disproportionate to the gain. I do try and correct typos as I write, but I'm not going to spend hours on it.

One area though where it does matter is people's name. I was embarassed yesterday to learn that I have always spelt one person's name wrong. *shame* I'll fix that. I know I get upset if people mispell Phizackerley - either with an 'f' or as Phizackerly. That last 'e' seems to catch people out.

The thing is, there are people who spell their surname as Phizackely. I bet there is even a Kate Phizackerly out there somewhere too! And I bet she doesn't want to be mistaken for me and more than I want to be mistaken for her!  The world is a small place. With people relying more and more on Google, spelling of names - of both people and places - is important so that information can be found. Google does a decent job of suggesting alternative spellings, but it's best not to rely on it. So, while I'm not going to worry about typos in running words like "but", "beautiful", etc which add little additional information, key words like names and other items which could be search keys are more important and it is worth getting those spot on.

The XFactor crew just didn't touch those songs tonight. Other than Joe and Danyl their voices don't have enough presence, but Joe was lazy with the range and Danyl just plain boring.

Covering those songs - and generally failing - just proved again how massively talented Freddie Mercury was. Perhaps the greatest rick/pop singer of my generation.

I've moaned about it before. Google Reader is the worst Google product I've come across by a clear mile.

The latest irritation was I had a configured search to pull a certain very narrow range of articles from Technorati - essentially a heads up of any blogs which mention me (ie filtered on Kate Phizackerley). It worked successfully on Newsgator for more than a year and for 3 months on Google Reader.

Over the weekend, without asking, Google Reader dropped the filter and has sent me *everything* added to Technorati. My Inbox

I really hate Google Reader. I've moaned

I'm ultra cynical about Web 2.0 marketing. In the bad old days someone, networks of contacts were seen as a group to market to ... And that was bad enough. Web 2.0 marketing as exhibited by sites like Facebook takes it to the next level of using other people's networks of contacts as a marketing opportunity.

It's no wonder people are starting to resign sites like Facebook. The interface is cluttered but fundamentally intruding prominent advertising into social contact, and pimping someone's contacts is going to turn people off.

I doubt Facebook will ever turn a profit. I suspect that increasing monetisation will drive people away. Already FB seems to be reincarnating as a games platform (at the expense of uncluttered dialogue) any maybe that's where FB's future lies.