The English Guy Web Design

I don’t have a cellphone, but I do use a PDA and I keep up on the modern world and see what’s new. So there is all this hullabaloo about what the next big thing is in SMS and recently people doing morse code were faster than SMS messaging so some guy suggested morse code, literally, very smart move! Perhaps a pressure-sensitive casing he suggested, and got quite a few comments on it on his thread. But it was suggested to use a rocker switch that is already on the phone/PDA, such as a volume switch, but then the commenter wondered how they would tell dots and dashes apart. But here’s my take - why bother? Pressing the switch up is dot, pressing it down is dash. That way there would be no need to worry if you held a dash down long enough, a single button click would act as a substitute for a dash.

Today was a mixed one for some, former hostages who say that the current President-Elect of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was one of those who took part in the 1979 hostage-taking. Not only that but one says that Mr. Ahmadinejad took part in interrogations, proffering advice to the protagonists. The article is over here and here - right now, it is just an accusation by former hostages.

I think we’ve all had our share of them, those funny IM conversations where meaning is lost and slapstick timing is just a keystroke away. This blog is that place, I had a good laugh at some of them - did I post one though, eh? - post your hilarious IM, change the names to [...]

I wrote about this a few days ago, the eminent domain case before SCOTUS. A lot of people are angry over the decision and bloggers have had a field day with it but apparently one man, a Logan Darrow Clements has filed a lawsuit (and associated letter) to take Justice Souter’s farmhouse, citing that a [...]

We use it daily all over the world in non-stick pans, Gore-Tex, computer chips, engine fuel lines: Teflon, the miracle of the plastic age…

I just noticed one or two problems with the site. For one, archives only show a certain amount of posts, not the entire posts for that month, I’ll fix that today. Also, they show the entire post rather than just the exceprt which would cut down on the verbage. Any suggestions for things to add, [...]

I was working on a page today and was playing around with Google AdSense…

Oh dear, looks like a good thing for some Americans is going to end horribly. Ostensibly however this is being done to keep the prices of “affordable prescription medications remains stable and sufficient to meet the needs of Canadians,” according to federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said in a statement today. Now this is going to cause an uproar because I bet people will just find somewhere else Americans can get cheap medications.

When I went fishing as a teenager, I was SOO proud of my 20-lb Pike I caught on the Norfolk Broads. I used to love fishing, and I still do a little bit here but nowhere near as much. But this afternoon, browsing along I found this picture of a Giant Mekong Catfish over at Msnbc, which just serves to show that some guys really can brag about how big their catches were (and are bigger than their arms can stretch). Now THAT is a MONSTER fish, weighing in at a staggering 646 lbs!

I have to write this because it is a bit of sad news that might never reach any big media outlet. It’s about suburbia, and living here. Where I live, on a small island in the Florida peninsula, near Orlando, it’s nice and quiet. It’s not really an island but it IS secluded, one of those psuedo-private communities that have grown up over decades, where people come to escape the rat race and live life at a more leisurely pace.

We have a 15 mph speed limit here, which is necessary for single lane roads. Jan walks her dogs nearly every day and cars race past her at 35mph+, and these are some of the island’s inhabitants, large trucks for construction or deliveries, nearly everything you get on main roads. They ignore the speed limits. When she protested and asked one man to slow down her harangued her with curse words and threatened her dog’s life.

So she took action, and wrote an article for the island’s gazette, a newsletter for the inhabitants. She correctly pointed out that young children wander freely and play on or around the roads, as well as loose-running dogs (which are strictly illegal, since leash-laws SHOULD be in effect). The gazette’s editor agreed with her, because it IS dangerous and this is a place for families, not racing up and down the small roads.

This morning, someone had toilet-papered the editor’s front garden, a retaliatory action that might send a message to her to shut the hell up. Is this a backlash of little old ladies and families on the island, who want drag racing up and down their streets, or teenage children speeding in golf-carts? Doubtful, but it probably is a message from the one or two who feel that living here grants them the right to live as they please, to speed where they will, and to ignore the fact that their neighbors want that peaceful suburban life oh so dreamt of.