Something is wrong with the Brighton lights...

Always difficult to know if this sort of thing is genuine, but it still raises a smile.

What to do when it snows

Man and bear working together

A video to cheer you up.  Man and bear can co-exist happily.

Don't panic!

It looks like the engineers have saved the day, and rigged up a fuel supply to the roof of the building so that the generator can carry on without the human chain of fuel carriers.  I'm impressed by the indomitable spirit of the New Yorkers who have kept it all going.  They could almost be British.

Countdown to blackout

After super-human efforts, including a human chain of thirty people passing bottles of fuel up thirty stories to keep a generator on the top floor going for four days now,  it seems that the hosts of this site are about to be defeated, finally, by the unhappy situation in Lower Manhattan.  It is possible they will be denied access to the building for safety reasons.

They are predicting that they may no longer be able to keep all the sites they host alive beyond about 6:30 pm today, Thursday 1 November.  So we might not be visible for a bit  - but I have every confidence the screens will not be dark for long.

Meanwhile, here is a video of salmon crossing the road on a road flooded by the hurricane in Washington:

Website blown over...

If you have had difficulty seeing this site, it's the fault of Hurricane Sandy.

This site lives within computers that are in Lower Manhattan, where there is a major electricity blackout.  Ever prepared, they are well equipped with emergency generators, and have survived other similar dramas, but when their basement filled with water, their fuel pumps and fuel tanks were completely flooded and unable to deliver any more fuel to tye seventeenth floor, wher the generators are.

So they sat and watched the generators slowly run out of fuel, apparently unable to do anything...  but New Yorkers are not so easily beaten.  They ordered fuel from elsewhere, marshalled their software coding types, and stood by to carry bottles of fuel up seventeen floors (the lifts were off, too).  That's what I call customer service.

USA wind map

Given the current Hurricane Sandy progression in the USA, this map is fascinating - it is an art project, not scientific work, but is baswed on data from the American National Weather Service.

Click here to see the moving map.

James Bond - in all of us

Many thanks to Adam at the babyping blog for this

Another scam...

I'm afraid that another Oldie reader has fallen  foul of the scam that purports to be a call from an anti-virus "centre" (whatever that is).  This is what he told me:

"I was contacted today by people who said that my computer was the source of error messages they had been receiving and that they would have to blacklist it unless they scanned and restored it to a bug free state.  After extensive discussion they persuaded me to pay £199.99 for a lifetime warranty on my Windows system.  Have I been had?"

I'm afraid the news is not good; he has certainly been conned, and the £199.99 has achieved no more than enriching the crooks.  

The Guardian has an article about this scam here and Microsoft themselves write about it here. 

There is also useful advice on how to deal with the aftermath here.

I also suggested that he calls his credit card company and tell them what has happened and ask them to cancel the card, and refund the money, if possible.

Please remember - these calls are ALWAYS con tricks. I get three or four each week.  Just put the phone down.

Human Clock

I have recommended this one before, but it's worth revisiting.

It's a web based clock but with a different picture for every minute of the day.

You can submit your own if you want - and really have nothing better to do...

You may have to tell it where in the world you are to make sure it tells you the right time.

Click here