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Scottish minimum alcohol pricing passed by parliament

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:56:25 +0100

Scottish minimum alcohol pricing passed by parliament :

Alcohol minimum pricing has passed in Scotland. Changing rules that affects almost everybody, to try to change the habits of the few.

If it passed here, not one person I know would change their drinking habits, they would make savings in other areas - like on food - to accommodate the change. We need to tackle the real problem, of why people drink to excess, not just try to price them out of it.

This is how I always imagined an “everyman” (or I)...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:53:30 +0000

This is how I always imagined an “everyman” (or I) would do Footloose.
I love this.

Photo

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:57:41 +0000

toptumbles: People from the future have rights too

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:01:01 +0000

toptumbles:

People from the future have rights too

Remember these Spotify ads that ran early last year for the...

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:51:11 +0100

Remember these Spotify ads that ran early last year for the business I was running at the time? I had almost forgotten about them until I came across the source files…

(Imaginary) Fears Tesco would 'destroy' Pontcanna

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:46:00 +0100

I love this story, which was published on WalesOnline yesterday.
People are now so afraid of Tesco that as soon as a shop closes down, they start protesting and imagining what it would do to the area - even when Tesco have denied that they are even looking to move into the area!

Talk about creating your own news…
How about asking shopkeepers and the local councillors, while you’re at it, how they would like it if an S&M parlour opened in the place of the old Ballantyne’s wine merchants?

Fears Tesco store would ‘destroy’ Pontcanna - yourCardiff

"Cardiff council’s leaders performed a rapid U-turn last night by insisting construction of a new..."

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:04:36 +0100

“Cardiff council’s leaders performed a rapid U-turn last night by insisting construction of a new city centre bus station could start before the London Olympics next year.”

- Anything COULD be done, it’s the DOING that gets it done.

I COULD eat 100 pies, but until I do it, it’s not DONE, and so would be pointless to say.

Council leader insists Olympics is not delaying Cardiff’s new bus station

"The most impassionate song To a lonely soul Is so easily outgrown But don’t forget the..."

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:55:38 +0100

““The most impassionate song
To a lonely soul
Is so easily outgrown
But don’t forget the songs
That made you smile
And the songs that made you cry
When you lay in awe
On the bedroom floor
And said : “Oh, oh, smother me Mother…”“”

If you can't beat them, buy them. Amazon to buy @BookDepository

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:28:00 +0100

In typical massive corporation fashion, Amazon have today announced their intention to buy The Book Depository, a humble rooted book seller based out of Gloucester.

The Book Depository has a very faithful customer base, me included, because of their great customer service, free delivery, competitive pricing and their “independent bookshop” feel.

It’s a shame that this should happen now, although we don’t know any of the details yet, will they close it down? I can’t see why they would buy a competitor and keep it running, with its warehousing arrangements, supply chain etc, but I guess that’s what we will find out over the next few days/weeks/months?

Yahoo Finance: Amazon to acquire The Book Depository - http://yhoo.it/lBhzPj

Second disaster recovery #Fail, bye bye @RedGate

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:58:00 +0100

Some of you may have seen my tweets over the weekend about having fun, fun, fun spending many hours of my weekend doing prep work on a SAN to get it ready for a new database - up until 5am on Saturday morning, whoosh, I do enjoy it - kinda.

Anyway, so that all went to plan - almost, save for being a few hours out because a process took 19 hours instead of the estimated 10 hours, but nevermind.

Anyway, Tuesday morning I come to restore one of the databases to the new LUNs using the latest backup that is created nightly using Red Gate SQL Backup 6.
I start it and leave it on it’s merry way, low and behold 24 hours later, 8am this morning the restore is still processing - and 0 bytes have been processed.

To say I was frustrated would be an understatement. And that this isn’t the first time that it has happened makes it even more the sour pill to swallow. In fact, the last time I did a disaster recovery dry run back in April the exact same thing happened, and after contacting support at Red Gate software I was eventually told to upgrade the SQL Backup software and all went well after that.

So, I call Red Gate this morning and after not being able to speak to anyone straight away, I eventually get a call back around an hour later (nice start).
So we go through all the usual stuff, I send dumps, screenshots, blah blah and I hear nothing until I send a nice passive aggressive tweet, when I’m told it’s with the developers.

I had this conversation with my boss this afternoon;

Boss: We have backups of all the databases, yeah?

Me: Yes, we do.

Boss: So can you restore it now?

Me: Well, no.

Boss: So we have backups, but we can’t use them?

Me: Yes.

You can see my frustration. I felt like a bit of an idiot having to give those answers.

So, it’s almost 6pm now and I still don’t have a resolution - I upgraded the software again and restarted the restore about 3 hours ago, and it’s still f0rked.
FYI, it should take about ~2hrs to restore.

It is a large database, 3TB uncompressed, 185GB compressed. It is spread over multiple SQL files, but this should not be a problem.

So, I’ll be moving all of our SQL backup processes back to the standard SQL backup offering that comes shipped with MS SQL until I can find a suitable replacement for Red Gate.

If backups are important to you, by all means buy Red Gate SQL Backup - it takes a backup pretty good. If you want to actually be able to use those backups to get your data back, then I’d probably think about looking somewhere else…

“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and...

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:14:47 +0100

“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing.

Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it.”

Roy McDonald, Conservative Republican who voted to legalize gay marriage in New York.

“Yeah, it’s broken” - Lewis Hamilton

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:05:06 +0100

“Yeah, it’s broken” - Lewis Hamilton

The ballad of @CardiffCouncil

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:19:41 +0100

If you’re wondering why
All the love that you long for eludes you
And people are rude and cruel to you
I’ll tell you why
I’ll tell you why
I’ll tell you why
I’ll tell you why

You just haven’t earned it yet, baby
You just haven’t earned it, son
You just haven’t earned it yet, baby
You must suffer and cry for a longer time
You just haven’t earned it yet, baby

Great, I can be in Bangor 9 minutes quicker...

Mon, 23 May 2011 17:32:00 +0100

So, at a time when we have no money to keep open day centres for the mentally incapable, amongst other things, it seems as though the WAG has enough to spend on taking 9 minutes off the journey from Cardiff and Holyhead.

The Welsh government will fund a new train service that will do a round-trip once a day until December, at a cost of £620,000.

Add to that the millions of pounds that are spent subsidising the Cardiff-Angelsey plane route, that nobody but Carwyn Jones takes, and a lot of money is spent trying to bridge the North-South gap that nobody seems to care exists anyway. The North go about their business and the South theirs, 9 minutes isn’t going to all of a sudden induce a shift whereby we become neighbours.

Faster north to south Wales train service launched (BBC News)

Here’s my latest pet peeve - taxis parking outside Cardiff...

Thu, 19 May 2011 14:27:55 +0100

Here’s my latest pet peeve - taxis parking outside Cardiff Central Station, queuing from the front of the station all the way up to Wood Street - the taxi rank is marked out for about 4 taxis, but every day there are about 18 parked, right up to here where they even park in the box!

This stops buses from being able to get into the bus station, as you can see in this picture, it also restricts the flow of traffic down to the front of the station - which is a drop off point - to one lane meaning there are always cars coming up on the pavement to get around the parked taxis, I nearly got taken out the other day by a car mounting the pavement!

Taxi drivers recently got what they wanted, higher fares, now start acting like human beings please and obey the laws - don’t park on double yellows, in yellow boxes and don’t cause traffic chaos and danger!

Mark Boulton design has revealed a job application that they...

Thu, 19 May 2011 09:34:51 +0100

Mark Boulton design has revealed a job application that they received (and subsequently used to hire) - and it surely has to go down as the best job application in the world ever.

If Colin’s enthusiasm persists, I can see him going far in the design world…

Colin’s Application (and why we hired him to be our Apprentice) - Mark Boulton Design

Snuggies

Sun, 15 May 2011 21:39:27 +0100

misia-kuczys:

Nathan and I like Snuggies so much that we keep extras for guests.
Also, note the evil-eyed dog in the background.

"Belligerent ghouls Run Cardiff Council Spineless swines Cemented minds Sir leads the troops Jealous..."

Thu, 12 May 2011 22:11:25 +0100

“

Belligerent ghouls
Run Cardiff Council
Spineless swines
Cemented minds
Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old suit since 1962

…

Belligerent ghouls
Run Cardiff Council
Spineless bastards all
Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old jokes since 1902

”

- Slightly modified lyrics, originally of The Headmaster Ritual by The Smiths.

The score for Law & Order: The Musical is coming on...

Thu, 12 May 2011 21:11:00 +0100

The score for Law & Order: The Musical is coming on nicely…

"Abdi Ahmed, chairman of the Union of Taxi Drivers, said the proposal received the unanimous support..."

Sun, 08 May 2011 10:31:34 +0100

“Abdi Ahmed, chairman of the Union of Taxi Drivers, said the proposal received the unanimous support of members at a meeting on Tuesday.”

- Surprising, that a meeting of taxi drivers would vote in favour of taxi fares being increased. Colour me surprised.

Cardiff cab drivers bid to raise fares - yourCardiff