16 ways to know you are addicted to Twitter

  1. You received a tiny URL to this list via Twitter. And links to the other n lists of “How do you know when you are addicted to Twitter” via Twitter.
  2. You have re-followed @ev just to send him dm’s about features that were once in twitter, and have disappeared.
  3. Without thinking twice, you grok #2.
  4. Before a conference or meeting, you stress about which #hashtag to use
  5. When meeting people IRL (real-life) you immediately start talking to them where their twitters left off. “So, is your partner out of hospital now?”
  6. Your avatar based on your mood, season, latest craze or just random stuff. Never a normal picture of yourself.
  7. Of the 400-odd twitter client applications, nothing really works the way you want it to.
  8. There is a twitter client, or at least http://m.twitter.com/ bookmarked in all your internet-enabled devices.
  9. You have twittered whilst over caffeinated, intoxicated or medicated.
  10. After friends make fun of you on twitter, you have regretted #9. But now you are a dead-set legend for a few days on twitter, so it all works out.
  11. Each day, you speak to more twitter friends than IRL friends. In fact, you would consider your twitter friends as real friends, anyway.
  12. Twittering is the first thing you do before calling, writing or speaking to someone after a life-event.
  13. Before going to a news web site (or let alone the TV), you jump onto twitter to see what is going on.
  14. You lose concentration after 140 characters of a sentence. In fact, you miss the character count when typing blogs or emails.
  15. Rather than emailing a work-colleague, you dm them a link. To a twitter message.
  16. You will retweet this link almost as second nature.

My Relative from 18th Century: George Hodge

georgehodge_1745_p2

This is page 2 of a contract between Charles and Robert Fall of Dunbar, Scotland and the fishermen of Crail, Fife, Scotland.

Charles and Robert Fall held many interests in Dunbar in the 18th Century. They also had family connections in Fife. In an agreement signed by them on the 9th November 1745, the fishermen of Crail agreed to deliver their catch of white fish to them for a period of 6 years. This shows the final part of the contract made between the Falls and the fishermen of Crail. Here, agreement is made for the carriage of fish, notably saithe, to the Fall’s cellars, to be paid by them. At the end are the signatures or ‘marks’ of the fishermen of Crail. The most easterly of Fife’s fishing ports, Crail Harbour dates back to the 16th century. At one time the village was an important herring station. The few fishermen left today fish inshore, mainly for shellfish.

On the left hand side, just below the fold, there is the follow text: “George GH Hodge mark.” In this instance, George Hodge could not sign his name, and therefore marked with a “GH”. I am related to this George Hodge.

George Hodge was born in 1717 to George Hodge (himself born in 1686) and mother Katherin Moncrief in Crail/Fife, Scotland. He was 32 when he marked this document. His younger brother was a James Hodge, where my paternal line descends.

crail harbour 1850s

Crail Harbour: The harbour was ‘new foundit’ in 1610, destroyed in 1707, and what is shown here dates from the rebuild of 1728.

The fish stocks in this area started to drop in the later part of the 18th Century, and therefore there was not enough room in the family business. As the younger brother, James Hodge left the family business and slowly drifted north to St Andrews in the latter half of the 18th Century. From 1764 in Crail, 1766 in Kingsbarns (3.5km north of Crail) and 1771 in Brown Hills (just south of St Andrews). This George Hodge is also the witness to the birth of James Hodge’s first and second children: Andrew and Mary. The third child of James Hodge is a John Hodge; again from where my paternal line descends. This John’s son, Melville, emigrated to South Australia in 1853.

In the 1841 census, Mary Hodge (daughter of James Hodge, born in Kingsbarns in 1766) is listed as living in Thorgate, Crail. Based on the position in the census, it is likey she was living with the Scotts of Crail at this time.

I suspect that James travelled north either as a farm labourer, or as a hand loom linen weaver; as was his son. Kingsbarns has a noted history of both. And golfing, but I doubt my family was of the correct glass for golfing.

Note: This information was found using the http://scran.ac.uk system. Scran is:

Scran – part of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland – aims to provide educational access to digital materials representing our material culture and history. This is provided through the wholly owned trading arm Scran Ltd. We are one of the largest educational online services in the UK supporting over 4,000 schools, libraries, colleges and universities.

12 O’Clock High Trivia

1960sCoiffureDressStyles

Amongst the ladies with perfect early 1960s hair-dos and dresses in a series set in the mid 1940s; and the eucalypts of Southern California appear the episodes of 12 O’Clock High

And there is lots of smoking: even by the combat pilots in-flight! Maybe cigarette companies were primary sponsors of the original shows as the screened on US TV? Without a doubt, there are many young American fliers chasing after English girls in pubs and the countryside.

Many of the cut-scenes are repeated; both in air and on the ground. These were genuine WW2 gun camera footage and in combat shots.

In these stock shots you can see reversed insignia, old USAAF insignia, mixture of B-17F and B-17G types. The German planes are Hudsons rather than Heinkels, yet the interior of the B-17 seems authentic.

Robert Lansing is like a Brigadier-General Superman who commands his B-17 “Piccadilly Lily” with a constant sneer and consistent coolness. Nazis in the air, nazis on the ground and evil spies; he wins against them all. Never promoted with at least 3 crash landings and near death at least four times.

Other bits:

  • Hazel Court as common love interest, “Liz”
  • Tom Skerritt starred as 5 different characters in 5 different episodes. I did not realise that he was a common star of 1960s TV Shows.
  • Sorrell Booke, who later played Boss Hogg in the TV version of Dukes of Hazard
  • Famous screen sirens of the 1950s make an appearance in individual episodes, with many minutes of women swooning: Dana Wynter (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), Glynis Johns, Viveca Lindfors, Australian-born Victoria Shaw, Barbara Shelley
  • Norman Fell: was a tail gunner during WW2
  • A young Peter Fonda, with superb acting.
  • Episode 109, Appointment At Liege: Innocent phrases such as “If I could commandeer a Jeep, could you play hookey for an hour and a half?” and “I don’t know. I’ve never run away with anybody before.” <long eye gazing> “you wait here”  (Future 2001: A Space Odyssey Gary Lockwood playing Major Gus Denver’s sweet lines to Nancy Kovack, playing a perfectly 1960s coiffured weather intelligence Lt Cooper)
    wanna play hookey 
     
  • Sally Kellerman, to star in the later MASH movie, had a repeated role as a Nurse Lt. Typecast?
  • Episode 118 Lorelei. In this spooky episode, a haunted B-17 named Lorelei returns to UK by itself and continues to cause havok. Stars Rip Torn and Bruce Dern: one of four he was in as a bombardier. Bruce Dern as Lt Michaels quotation on the Lorelei: “We gonna get together an’ buy this here airplane. And then we’re gonna get us some matches then we gonna have us a bomber bar-be-que”
  • “That’s the thing with loners: they tend to be outsiders trying to get back in” (said of Keir Dullea; later to play Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • In Episode 124, the future 99 from Get Smart playing Lt Betty Cumming: Barbara Feldon

Onwards to Series 2 and 3, then Combat!

Oh, I love holidays

This Holiday’s TV Obsession

On previous holidays I have immersed myself in old TV Shows: Red Dwarf, The Office (two name but a few)

12oclockhigh

This year, it is two old TV Shows from the 1960s: 12 O’Clock High and Combat!

As a young’un, my parents kindly let me watch these shows in the 1970s. These shows left me with an enduring interest in WW2 history.

12 O’Clock High depicts the 918th Bomb group in Europe during WW2 and stars Robert Lansing. The first episode follows a similar story thread of the 1949 Acadamy Ward winning movie of the same name starring Gregory Peck. Combat! shows US soldiers in the European theatre of operations, post Normandy.

A sobering sight in our 2004 trip to the US where these two monuments: (note, the panels shown is only a small selection)

IMG_1191

Outside the American Air Museum, inside the Imperial War Museum, Duxford there are many panels etched with a mini picture depicting each of the 7,032 American aircraft lost during WW2.

In the lower levels of the museum, a series of American building is a list of over 30,000 Americans lost during WW2: (note, the panels shown is only a small part of the total panels)

US Airmen Lost in World War II, ETO

The reality is nothing like the TV show. Then again, what would I know.

Publicis Mojo accidental Spammer for Metamucil

Update, 3:20pm

Just off the phone to the Publicis. There are two issues here: one is the broken configuration of @pm.ad as the reply-to email address. A misconfiguration error.

Thanks to Publicis for reaching out and being honest; and starting to resolve the issue.

From earlier today:

  1. Potential source of the “follow”: I mention metamucil on twitter. No occurrences of this word on my blog until this particular posting. and others such have found the same issue with unsolicited email from the same sender, with similar contents.
  2. Up until this point, I have been a happy and regular user of said fibre supplement brand below. Note that this brand is owned by Proctor and Gamble. I am not going to link out to said product.
  3. The person that received this email is mentioned 5 times on my web site, and there is at least one link from my site to theirs (note: I have “xx”’d the name out below)
  4. The owner and publisher of this web site, Nick Hodge, in no way, explicitly nor implicitly gave permission for any brand: including Microsoft, to use to my blog as “trusted reference sell” nor source of email addresses. Reading Microsoft’s policy on Online Privacy, I am pretty sure that doing this style of “email harvest and reference social marketing” is highly wrong, and contravention of this policy is a serious offence.
  5. “Unsolicited email” is spam. Plain and simple.
  6. The content on my site is (cc) Attribution-Non-commerical Share-Australia 2.1, as per the link at the bottom of each page. I consider this spamming is a breach of my Terms and Conditions.
  7. Subsequently, I am very unhappy with Publicis Mojo. You do not get social media, you are a spammer. Of the worst kind.
  8. I am recommending the receiver of this email report both Proctor and Gamble, and Publicis Mojo as a Spammer as per the Spam Act (2003) and amendments
  9. It seems that the domain name “pm.ad” might exist, however further research by an white-hat security expert:
    • *.ad is a top-level domain owned by Andorra, the country
    • pm.ad would be a logical place for ‘publicismojo an advertising agency’ to register; or may be used for internal sites
    • if you send email to ‘postie@publicismojo.com.au’ the bounce back is from the same mail.publicismojo.com.au IP address as in the below spam example: 134.159.132.130
    • 130.159.132.130 is Publicis Mojo in Australia (as per apnic)
    • robtex has some interesting details on this domain range
From: Blog Seeding <BloggerRelations@pm.ad>
Date: 2008/12/9
Subject: For xx
To: xx@xx.xx.au


Hi xx,

Sorry for the unsolicited email.

I was reading your blog and noticed you're particularly influential in the blogosphere.  
I even saw your blog reposted on NickHodge.com.

I'm working on behalf of Metamucil on their new Fibresure product and 
I was wondering if you would be receptive to us sending you a xmas gift pack? 
No obligations, of course! 🙂

Look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Publicis Mojo

Follow the Code: Microsoft and Open

The Register, certainly not the most pro-Microsoft web publication (note: sarcasm), today states: “Apple more closed than Microsoft”

Transitioning to Apple-bashing is a simple journalistic mechanism to attract eyeballs. I am going to ignore the anti-Apple sentiment.

The interesting statements are: “however, the Microsoft of today, while not totally reformed, is a lot more open and well behaved than it was, say, 10 years ago.”

One highlighted recent ‘negative’ on Microsoft is the OpenXML as an ISO specification.

Personally, I am a proponent of open file formats. Completely open specifications, no patent encumbrances, for all to implement read/write and change. It is very important that our descendants are able to read and write the digital files we are creating today. By publishing the file formats for our binary and XML out of Microsoft Office is an excellent start. ISO puts the format in the hands of the world.

Yesterday Microsoft released more toolkits for OpenXML support (including Java)and an OpenXML/ODF interop kits:

My advice is to not listen to the idle rhetoric of any vendor: watch the code and see what ships. That is the ultimate test.

Understanding Thailand Politics

Mis-named Korat on old Thailand Poster

(ps: the Siamese Cat in the above poster is in fact a Korat)

A watcher of byzantine and machiavellian politics, the situation in Thailand is providing an interesting demonstration of power wielded by history, tradition and might vs money, corruption and popular politics. Neither side is clean, and neither side is completely right. Thanks to Stigherrian and ‘Pong for taking time out to explain the contemporary situation; and in a clearer fashion than I have seen/heard/read elsewhere.