"Almost" Quantas

Summer news can me misleading. As I was once reminded by a close friend, with finance and politics taking a back seat over the summer months, papers can sometimes struggle to avoid those slow news days.

Lets take the prime example of the recent Quantas incident. Newspapers in the UK headlined with "Terror Plunge" and "Horror at 30000 Feet", and at first glance of the tabloids, you could have easily expected that the poor passengers were literally falling to their deaths. Not true.

Not to belittle the experience of said passengers, but let's outline some key facts:

1. The "explosion" was more of a decompression that sounded like an explosion, many media sources would have you believe that it was such.

2. The "terror plunge" was a controlled descent that the pilot chose to make for the safety of the plane.

3. Some newspapers claimed that "luggage almost was flying out of the cargo hold". Hmm... either luggage does fly out of a luggage hold, or it doesn't. In this case there was no such departure, no luggage left the plane... it was simply visible through the hole.

4. "Sources" that claimed the plane was "riddled with rust" at the last inspection seem to be difficult to tie down, and are most likely fictitious.

5. The "massive hole" reported by sources was between 2.5 to 3m in diameter. For a 747, this really isn't "massive".

Again, I'm not underplaying the saga... CNN managed to report it just fine, with no flimflam whatsoever... why couldn't the UK tabloids report properly also... maybe that was just too much to ask. Many of the broadsheets incidentally did not headline this story.

ATBye

As you might know from my UFBlue Linux pages, Linux has been a way of life for me for the last couple of years now. In that time, I've managed to completely switch from all that is evil to something... well maybe a little less evil.

My only concern when it comes to Linux still has to be vendor awareness. Why is it that a vendor (and large vendors such as ATI), simply puts Linux on the back burner the majority of the time?

I guess I can understand in some ways; you've got to lean towards the majority... but why are core issues simply ignored for months on end? It seems to me as though some companies throw together initial dev teams, and then as soon as a version of the driver is released, they are disbanded.

Of course I am being specific here, talking about Fedora compatibility with the ATI flgrx driver, but nevertheless, this is something that happens Linux-wide so to speak, with a wide range of vendors. In their defence, at least ATI actually have taken the time to create a Linux driver even if that driver may be closed source so that the community at large cannot even redress the problem.

The low down with the flgrx driver is that the new version of XOrg that accompanies some distribs (such as Fedora 9), is not compatible with the driver and therefore XOrg must be downgraded on the distrib, sometimes resulting in instability.

Another rant for me has to be x64 compatibility at large, across the field of computing. Come on people, are we or are we not supporting x64 computing? Using both Windows products and Linux distribs I've seen a huge lack of interest for x64 support. The Windows platform for example took a great many months to catch up, failing still to this day to release an x64 version of Office 2003, and Abode with it's flash product failing to install in to the x64 version of Internet Explorer.

Linux-wise, in my experience, has created similar problems in unstable distributions and software not building properly.

The net result to all of this? Simply put, people with x64 hardware have just been installing 32 bit operating systems and distribs. What a waste of technology. I think I'm done ranting for today.

Bradford & Burned

All in all, Bradford & Bingley turned out to be a pretty raw deal for me. Buying 1k's worth back in May for 112 pence, I've been burned with a loss of 50%. I considered selling when they reached 80 pence at the end of June, but reconsidered, deciding that this was a long term investment and remembering the golden rules of Warren Buffet:

"Rule one is never sell for a loss and rule two is never forget rule #1."

So where does that leave me? Well waiting out the market... waiting for that time when the nation does not believe it is on the verge of recession. For the record I do not believe that a recession is possible in the West any more; its my opinion that we have evolved financially, and that there are just too many systems in place, tagged with prior experience, to allow such an event to occur. I sincerely hope of course that I am not proven wrong.

My reason for this blog, along with exploring the socio-economic development of the West a little, is in response to a corporate action... of course I'm referring to B&Bs latest share rights issue. It turns out that I have until August 7th to make a decision on my holdings. I've outlined my three "options" below.

Option 1: Take up your Rights to buy 1165 BRADFORD & BINGLEY ORD GBP0.25 shares at a cost of 640.75 GBP.

Option 2: Sell your 1165 BRADFORD & BINGLEY Nil Paid Rights.

Option 3: Fund the take up of the Rights by selling some of your 1165 BRADFORD & BINGLEY Nil Paid Rights.

Option 4: Do nothing.

Let's break this down:

Option 1: As of today, if I chose option 1 I would hardly be benefiting at all, as the current price to buy is hovering around the 55 pence mark. If B&B do recover at all before Aug 7th of course then this option may become more attractive. Simple.

Option 2: Selling my rights to by the share is an option, but right now those rights are worth next to nothing. Similarly to option 1, if the share price recovers some, then this option may become viable. Simple.

Option 3: My understanding of this option is a little more shaky. Apparently this involves selling the nil-paid shares that I have been allocated and using that money to buy new shares at the offer price, so that no new money is spent. So I believe here you are maintaining proportionate ownership of the company. With option 2, your share price is diluted, thus decreasing your ownership of the company.

Option 4: Is probably the only viable option at this moment in time. I would imagine that few situations warrant this option, but offering the same-as or even a higher-than trading price, options 1, 2 and 3 become worthless.

Phew. Investopedia's article on Understanding Rights Issues was invaluable.

Feel the Brush Luke

Why did the Jedi brush his teeth? No, it's not some cheesy tag line, its something I saw yesterday in the dentists office. The sign read: "Jedi's don't wet their toothbrush, they don't rinse either".

So it prompted me to think (as a regular pre-wetter AND rinser) and also be a little embarrassed that I should have learnt this key piece of knowledge from grade school. Always searching for reasons, I decided to Google the information, and expected a whole ream of information on perhaps the damaging effect of water on toothpaste, or the benefits to not rinsing. Nothing... nada. So many people had posted their own thoughts, comments, suggestions and routines on toothbrushing that any useful information was obviously engulfed.

And that, my friends, is where the Internet still has a way to go. I think I will term this phenomenon (although a term most probably exists) Imboogled. Let's define imbooglism:

imbue · to permeate or saturate.
google · to search for (something) on the internet using a search engine
imboogle · to saturate (something) on the internet using a search engine

Am I any the wiser when it comes to brushing? No. Will I adapt my brushing habits? Probably not. Will I actually check with a real person to explore the validity of the jedi tooth brushing principle (JTBP)? No. Will I use the term imboogle at every available juncture? Most definitely.

Through the Looking Glass

Here is something that irritates the heck out of me. Glass desks. Why the heck would mankind have, in his wisdom, taken a highly markable material such as glass and thought to use it as a desk? Sure, on the surface it adds space to a room and looks pretty neat... but how exactly are you supposed to use it?

I find myself wearing long sleeve articles of clothing just so I don't mark my desk... now if that's not crazy I don't know what is. If I had the money right now I would be in the new desk market for sure.

Espresso Ahoy!

They say that you learn something new every day. If that was the case you would learn approximately 30,000 new things in a lifetime. That's a lot to take in. Thank goodness for espresso.

I was talking with someone today about espresso. I had previously thought that espresso was some clever blend of coffee to give it that extra pow, but as it turns out, it's not at all. The method of brewing is different (as in using a stove pot versus a filter) and the consistency would be finer for an espresso... but the actual coffee is no different. According to the big W, retailers like to use the espresso tag line for their darker blends, but that is pure marketing (and consistancy of course).

So who would have guessed? If you get a chance, head over and check out this blog post on the 'And I am Not Lying' blog. National coffee incident ahoy!