Grand National 2011 Sweepstake Kit

Updated version now available here.

For those who like me am a sucker for a sweepstake I have made a sweepstake kit. Its very simple, very cheap (its free after all), very early and subject to change.

Sweepstake kit

Feel free to take it and do with it as you would! I'll post updates when I can if you want to check back but it'll at least let you get a sweep going in a timely fashion. Even if you may have to swap some horse as they are replaced.

Grand National 2011 CSV

Its the Grand National a week on Saturday, and I'm not going to be here (bad times) as I'll be in sunny Cyprus (Good Times.) So have been setting up our grand national sweep database early this year.

So in the spirit of sharing for all those of the nerdy ilk here for your importing pleasure is a csv of the runners for the 2011 Grand National. I'll post further updates if they change.

Book 2/50 : The Lost Fleet Dauntless

The Lost Fleet: Dauntless a mini review.

Jack Campbell real name John G. Hemry is a retired Lieutenant Commander from the US Navy. This really comes across in his writing. His prose is pulpy, and the universe he creates has some logical flaws that he has to cover through character exposition. This is easily countered by his exquisitely crafted space battles. He describes battles between large fleets of ships spread across distances that make the travel time of light a problem, with such detail and so believably you wonder if he hasn't actually been involved in such battles. His navy background is also easy to see as his thoughts on duty, honour and the necessity of following orders are very large parts of the plot.

This is my first delve into the Military Science Fiction subgenre and it was very enjoyable. Its not going to win any literary prizes and its most definitely the first book in a series (as nothing much is concluded,) but its a very good read. Rating 7/10.*

The Challenge Update

Just into week 2 and 2 books down. Helped in no short order by reading this book in less than 24 hours.

*I'm being necessarily harsh.

Book 1/50 : Surface Detail

So Surface detail a mini review.

I'd give Surface detail 8.5/10. As you would expect from Iain Banks the prose is fantastic this really is the acceptable face of Science Fiction literature. Iain's M books (his Sci-Fi books) could easily join his main stream non M books on English Literature courses. What's more it obvious he has great fun with his characters, The Mind who controls/is the General Offensive Unit "Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints" is well Generally Offensive but ultimately great fun and though proudly eccentric deeply moral. The story is engaging and thought provoking. Where technology can transfer your mind on death to a virtual reality Heaven, its just as easy to create virtual Hells. The plot centre's on a young women revented (brought back to life,) after her murder at the hands of her owner. With a war in the virtual Heavens, over the virtual hells, threatening to spread to the real. The future of the virtual hells may just pivot on her decisions.

If you aren't familiar with the culture books, this isn't the place to start. The Player of Games is the best place to start.

The Challenge Update

Well into week one and it's going to get harder from here. It's took me a week to finish this book. Time to take my finger out.

Tuesdays Ten "Interesting" Facts 7

1. As a youth "Rapper", Actor and producer Mark Wahlberg was convicted for attempted murder.
2. When a young writer approached United Artist's with his script for the story of a club fighter who gets his shot at the Heavy Weight boxing title, they loved it. The executives wanted to cast Robert Redford but the writer insisted he star in the lead role. The executives gave in and the young writer Sylvester Stallone was cast as the title character Rocky Balboa.
3. ....Stallone's first acting job was in the soft porn film "The Party at Kitty and Stud's". A job he took out of necessity after he was kicked out of his flat.
4. Dick Van Dyke claimed to have once been rescued from drifting out to sea and possible death by a pod of porpoises.
5. In a show of her skills Actress Toni Collette, once pretended to have appendicitis and was so convincing her appendix was removed.
6. More people die every year from donkey related injuries than in plane crashes.
7. Chickens that lay brown eggs have red ear lobes.
8. The first draft of Steinbecks' masterpiece "Of Mice and Men" was eaten by his dog.
9. The first music video to be shown on MTV Europe was "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. For those of you to young to remember yes MTV used to play music videos and hardly any reality TV.
10. This is the 3D shadow of a rotating 4D Hypercube.

Ohhhhhh pretty.

My 50 Book Challenge.

ConDem Minister of Education Michael Gove, has said that all children aged over 11 should be reading 50 books a year. I'll get the rant over first before moving on.

Rant 1. So the ConDems are cutting budgets to libraries (indirectly admittedly,) and than they have the audacity to say children should read more. Where are poor families to get these books from? I wonder if any of the Tory's old school chums just so happen to be in publishing?

Rant 2. Surely its not the quantity of reading that is important, but the quality.

Rant 3. ...and the Tory's said Labour where making a nanny state. Next step approved book lists.

Anti-Rant. At least if the next generation are well read they'll be to intelligent to fall for stupid right wing propaganda.

phew rant over. 50 books a year seems excessive to me and I am a prolific reader at times. To that end I intend on taking Michael Grove up on his challenge (yes I know I'm not a child,) but I think it'll be interesting to see how feasible it is. So by the 22nd March 2012 i will have read(or reread) 50 books.

I'll post mini reviews and the name of each book as I go.

First up Surface Detail by Iain M Banks.

Cheating a little here as I have already read the first few chapters but it needs finishing.

Halifax Advertising Meeting.

Advertising Consultant 1 : To make our adverts cheap but engaging lets use the Halifax staff as a source of cheap actors?
Advertising Consultant 2 : Great idea.
Advertising Consultant 3 : Wait a minute, what if it comes across as amateurish?
Advertising Consultant 1 : Oh yeah. What if we got actors to play Halifax staff?
Advertising Consultant 2 : That's even better.
Advertising Consultant 3 : Hang on the actors wont really be convincing talking about serving customers, branches and accounts.....
Advertising Consultant 1 : I've got it what if we have the actors play Halifax staff running a crap radio station instead of doing banking?
Advertising Consultant 2 : Swish!
Advertising Consultant 3 : I can't see anything wrong with that. Well done.
Advertising Consultant 1 : That's why i earn the big bucks.

This is why all meetings should have a chairperson, a designated note taker and a common sense monitor(or bullshit filter if you would)! To stop this and other stupid ideas from ever leaving a meeting unchallenged.

iCalendar for Saints Super League fixtures 2011.

Just because their is a gap in the market ;-).

Here for your usage free of any licence or other stupid legal double speak, is an iCal file for Saints fixtures in the 2011 Super League.

This iCalendar can be imported into pretty much any calendar software(even Lotus Notes.)

Sucker Punch

Mainly for Jones.

Sucker Punch has been described as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns". Babydoll (Emily Browning) has been locked away in a 1950s asylum against her will. Their she meets the outspoken Rocket (Jena Malone), the street-smart Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), the fiercely loyal Amber (Jamie Chung) and the reluctant Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). Sucker punch follows her and her 4 friends escape as her vivid imagination overlays her real existence with something a little more interesting, with dragons and B-25 bombers. Its in cinemas from the 1st April.

Simon Peg and Nick Frost's "Remake" of Star Wars

This is what Simon Peg and Nick Frost get up to in their free time.

So funny.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The Kat's tips on staying safe online and beyond.

Scammers scammers everywhere. Their are people out their trying to trick you into providing them with your information. I thought I'd give a few tips on keeping safe online and beyond.

Spam

Like the junk mail you get through the post, but ever so much more dangerous than fast food menu’s and fake clothes collections. Spam emails will offer anything from share tips to cheap Viagra. None of which is real and is just designed to have you part with your good money.

A good rule of thumb is if you have not asked for the email by signing up to newsletters on sites, than don’t even open them just delete them.

Phishing Emails. Banks/Shops/Deals etc.

Dangerous little beasts, appearing as emails from your bank or a shop you are signed up to (e.g Amazon or Play.) They will vary from the easily spotted ones from a bank that isn’t even yours to the very sophisticated well made emails that appear the same as legitimate emails from the business.

The emails will have a link to the banks/Shops site and will gather any information you happen to enter. Giving them access to your accounts, passwords and other information. Easily spotted phishing emails are emails from Halifax@jeffsStore.com the banks name will always appear after the @ of an email. Slightly harder are ones like accounts@Halifax-bankingservice.ac.uk at first glance its fine, but Halifax-bankingServices.ac.uk is not Halifax’s email domain. Also don’t assume a phishing email will use the old “you must log in and update your details”, more devious emails will just be looking to get you onto a fake site to steal your login details.

Top tip is assume all emails are phising ones, if your get an email from your bank wanting details (and there are legit ones,) or an offers email from an internet shop, don’t click any links or images inside the email. Open a new browser window and go direct to google.co.uk search for the bank or shop you received a mail from. This will make sure it is the real website you are entering, there you will be able access any offers you received by mail or be asked to enter any required information.

Phishing Phonecalls

This is one that catches a lot of people out. This is a very simple scam, a scammer will phone you saying they are from company x and ask for your security information. They than use it. This isn’t helped by the fact that legitimate companies do phone you, and they do ask for this sorts of information.

Top tip. Never give any details to someone who has phoned you. If its something important or a must not miss deal ask for a number you can ring them back on and check that number online before phoning it. Most scammers will hang up when they cotton on your not an easy target, though some will brazen it out seeing you as a challenge.

Cold Calls

These are not scams but are almost as bad. A person phones you offering you a deal on something. They say they are phoning from or on behalf of a well known company.

Top Tip. Again don’t give out information to someone who phones you. If you already use their services they should have your info. It will be at this point that you normally find out it isn’t Orange that’s ringing. It is in fact someone who has been authorised (sold the right) to phone you on their behalf. Hang Up.

Some parting tips on Internet Browsing

Turn the url bar on, in your browser. You should be able to see at the top of this page. http://the-kats-blog.blogspot.com/… This give you a lot of information about the sight your on.

URLs should match up. Urls can be complicated but the first part is called the domain. It’s the bit that follows http(s)://. Examples are Spree4.com, Google.co.uk and uk.yahoo.com. This is where to look if you think you on Spree4.com and the url domain is hackersDen.au.com than hightail it out of there.

Don’t trust direct links. If you are given a link that has ip address ( e.g. http://10.1.1.1/) don’t click it. Domain names are cheap and easy to register. The absence of one means the site is very very dodgy.

Hover over links, when you surfing if you see a link you can hover over it and your browser will let you know which url it is pointing to. If it isn’t what you expect than don’t click.

Google is your friend. If your on a strange site and don’t trust links posted on it. Simply google the site suggested.

Hutton Report on Public Sector Pay

Will Hutton who the Tories brought in as a well respected expert to review public sector pay has released his report, and what a report it is.

Highlights of the report and his interview are:

The fact that the Prime Ministers pay is an arbitrary figure and completely useless as a comparison. Actually he agrees with me that when all benefits are taken into account (free house, free transport, free holiday home. Etc) The PMs salary is in excesses of £500,000 per year. Which is significantly above any public servant.

That a cap on executive pay at 20 times the lowest paid member of an organisation is a good idea in theory but rubbish in practice as “large complex corporations” with low paid staff(councils.) would be capped lower than simple small organisations with only (relatively) high paid staff(Schools).

He also up holds my viewpoint that Chief Officers are paid at market rates. They are paid at what the market says is appropriate, already incurring reductions due to sources of funding and reductions due to political oversight not present in the private sector, leading to them earning considerably less than their private sector compatriots. As he says how much would you want paying to manage child services in Haringey? Would you want someone doing that job that wasn’t up to the task, which is what would happen if pay was reduced. This is a point the right wing press would wrongly appose, saying “There is no direct comparison between Chief officers of private industry and public..” blah blah blah. Of course there is, if these positions where so easy and so overpaid why aren’t there 10s of thousands of highly trained private sector staff gunning for them when they come up, and through that driving the wage down? Don’t say its some strange sector loyalty that only works the other way. If Ms X at Capita is paid £100,000 a year and is more than qualified to run her local council where she would receive £200,000 a year and a decent pension, are you seriously saying they wouldn’t be typing their CV as we speak.

Another interesting suggestion from Hutton is that both public and private sector companies should have to publish executive pay and the multiples of median/lowest. Again right wingers suggest it is no place of government to control CEO pay in the private industry and that this pay is controlled by share holders and market forces, where as public sector has no such control. Rhubarb! Firstly I happen to be a shareholder of several companies, I have never been asked my opinion on executive pay or bonuses. If you’re interested its to much! Pay the workers more or give me higher dividends! Also the checks on local government pay are greater than private sector! Yes a ridiculously large pay settlement will not lead to a council going bankrupt (I’m looking at you Marconi!), but as has been shown these payments are subject to democratic review both locally and nationally, effectively making the general public the shareholders and the Councils their board of directors. They also are subject to market forces in the same way any job in the private sector is you get paid what the market deems appropriate or someone else will take your job and do it better or cheaper.

Tuesdays Ten "Interesting" Facts 6

1. TV Physicist Brian Cox, played keyboards for D:Ream (of "Things will only get better fame.) and appeared on Top of The Pops.
2. Tsutomu Yamaguchi who was unfortunate enough to be present at both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings as a young man, was fortunate enough to survive both and live till the grand age of 93.
3. The Great wall of china is not visible from space. It would require a resolution 7.7 times that of than the average human.
4. Iron (in particular Fe58) has the highest (net) binding energy. That means that you can't get (again net) energy out of iron through either nuclear fusion or fission.
5. The Fontainebleau Resort is Las Vegas' tallest building. (The stratosphere doesn't count as a building for some obscure reason.)
6. On average a performance of Macbeth starts every 4 hours.
7. Annakin Skywalker(aka Darth Vadar) has been "played" by 5 people. In the original films David Prowse was the body, James Earl Jones the voice, and Sebastian Shaw was the face when Darth Vader was eventually unmasked. In the prequels Jake Lloyd played young annakin, while Hayden Christensen played a grown up annakin before finally donning the Vadar suite for his final scene.
8. In "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" as Harry enters Dumbledore's study, a portrait of Gandalf the Grey is included in the collection of paintings. (It is above the doorframe.)
9. For Lord of the Rings Sean Astin gained 30 pounds for his role as Samwise the "Stupid fat Hobbit.".
10. Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days following an argument with her soon to be ex husband. Though theories from nervous breakdown to publicity stunt abound the 11 days where never accounted for.

Neal Asher Dabbles with Self Publishing.

In a possible sign of the future, Neal Asher author of the excellent Polity Books, has self published one of his earlier works "The Parasite." Its a move he and other authors have been looking into recently with the kindle and iPad driving increased eBooks sales. This definitely represents him dipping his toe and seeing if the waters are to his liking.

As I have said before I’ll be interested to see how it does without the editing/marketing that publishers demand such high percentages for. Especially as he has chosen to sell it for around the same price around 30% less than (although he aimed for closer to 40%) his published works are demanding at the moment, (so no skewing of sales due to it being a bargain) hopefully he'll be able to get a real idea if he is getting his moneys worth out of the publishers.

Review to follow.

eBook Prices.

With the fantastic Kindle leading the charge for the eBook reader. Eyes are now falling on price for the eBooks themselves.

In an mind numbingly stupid re-enactment of the music industries baffling reaction to the growth in mp3 players. They have gone for the "fingers in there ears" use the exact same model as you use for the physical version business model. Shortly to be followed by the shock realisation that, given the choice between paying £10 for a book you can source for free illegally just as easily, a lot of their market choose the later. Ending in the realisation (several years down the line) that reduced prices will deter piracy, increase sales and incur no further cost.

The Agency Model

Recently most publishers have adopted an agency model for eBooks. The agency model means that you are actually buying the eBook straight from the publisher, the shop you use are simply the agent, they receive a commission for each purchase. This means that the publisher sets the price and shops get no option to discount etc. While this could mean that smaller shops can get a march on the big boys (amazon and iBooks), in reality each publisher has a preferred agent in each territory.

Tantamount to Monopoly?

Competition brakes down here, from a far you might say the different stores and publishing houses constitute a market. However due to the agency model and the plain fact that books like music are art not products. One publishing house has total control over the price of a particulair book. Leaving customers who want that particulair book with little to no consumer choice. This means the usual market forces that would prevent extortionate prices are effectively absent.

For that reason the EU have recently raided publishers officers to investigate if they are price fixing or if the agency model is an effective monopoly. The answer is yes.

Are the current prices fair.

I'd definitely argue not. The price of eBooks seems to be aligned with the book prices, if only the Hard Back is available it will be about that price, if the paperback is available its around that price. Generally though they will fail to be available at discounted prices, meaning you can normally buy the physical book for less than the eBook. For a product that has no/little overhead per unit, compared to the paper, printing , transport, storage etc costs of real books this seems to defy logic. Next take into account both the problem of piracy (which as i have stated would be reduced by reduced cost.) and the threat of self-published Authors under cutting published authors and it doesn't seem a good time to own shares in the publishing houses. It is worth taking into account the fact that a lot of work goes into editing/promoting/publishing a book and this needs to be compensated but the current model just doesn't work.

All this is a real shame because the Amazon Kindle is an amazing product.

Harry Potter Studio Tour

For those who were baffled by Warner Bros's decision to build a replica Hogwarts and Hogsmeade not only after they'd finished the movies (wtf?) but in sunny (as un British as you can get,) Florida. A little ray of sanity, Warner's have been busy setting up the studios where the films were created, into a show piece of the craft that brought the books to life.

>

This new attraction will be at Leavesden studios near watford and will open in 2012 ready to monopolise on the Olympic games tourist boom.

As a big fan and someone who is interested in film, i can defiantly see us making the journey down to see it.

New Tracks off the upcoming Foos Album.

For those of you who are like me and ultra excited about the new Foos album out in April. Here are two tracks off the new album.






Proof if proof need be that Foos are the saviour of music. Forget the crap commercial stuff the radio is awash with pre order the Foos now and save your musical soul.

Spree4 Eye on Technology: iPad 2 Hits Britain's Stores this month!

Just wrote up the excellent news that iPad2 will hit the shops at the end of this month.

Why not have a goosey?

Spree4 Eye on Technology: iPad 2 Hits Britain's Stores this month!: "Around about 2 hours ago and several thousand thousand Miles away. Steve Jobs took the podium..."

PS3s Banned in Britain, and (iPa)D-day looms.

Spree4 Eye on Technology: PS3s Banned in Britain.: "In a rather bizarre turn of events LG have successfully won a ten day import ban on Playstation 3s."

Weird. I guess this makes the argument on if you actually own a PS3 when you buy it moot.

Oh while I'm reposting stuff. Its (ipa)d-day tomorrow.

Spree4 Eye on Technology: Apple Confirms Date of iPad2 event.: "Bringing months of speculation to a close. Apple today have sent out invites to join them on the 2nd March in San Francisco for a very speca..."

Oh Dave....

Foo Fighters long long long awaited album is available for pre-order now.

I can't wait, its been a long time since their last album "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" was released and i've been good and i've not complained to much. That was yesterday though and in a little over a month the waiting will be over. I'm so excited i may wee.