I just <3 The IT Crowd. Plenty of current themes are spread on tshirts, posters, toys and stickers throughout the series.
Series 3, Episode 6 has a LOLCAT on Jen’s office door: (yes, that is an 8-bit Ernie and Bert T-shirt)
And here is the original:
more animals
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 “GHâ€. 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: 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.
It is possible that my paternal ancestor, some 11 generations ago, was born in Duns. Very close to Blackadder. Maybe not the same Blackadder, but interesting in a historical sense.
Epic laughs.
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:
 Onwards to Series 2 and 3, then Combat!
Oh, I love holidays
On previous holidays I have immersed myself in old TV Shows: Red Dwarf, The Office (two name but a few)
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)
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)
The reality is nothing like the TV show. Then again, what would I know.
w00t!!1!
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:
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
The Register, certainly not the most pro-Microsoft web publication (note: sarcasm), today states: “Apple more closed than Microsoftâ€
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.â€
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.
(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.
From Wired 16.12 “Ray Ozzie Wants to Push Microsoft Back Into Startup Modeâ€
“I think we’re going to take a lot of people by surprise” – Ray Ozzie, TechReady8
Steven witnessed Ray’s presentation at Microsoft’s internal TechReady8 conference: a rare treat for an outside journalist. What he saw was Ray Ozzie presenting at his finest.
Before joining Microsoft, I spoke to Mike Seyfang. One of my reasons for joining was to be a part of the Ray Ozzie smartness. In my first year inside the firewall, Ray Ozzie’s teams were very stealthy. Quiet.
At PDC late this year, Ray didn’t present quite as passionately (maybe not so scare the developer-centric audience) – but he started to publically show his vision for the future of computing.
Microsoft has moved from the “PC†centric model. This shift started with the hiring of Dave Cutler, one of the Digital architects of VAX/VMS. From his work at Microsoft came Windows NT. A server-grade operating system that arrived on mass consumer/business desktops 9 years later with Windows XP.
Windows NT, and its successors, did breed a family of robust server operating systems; and applications that moved Microsoft into the heart of the enterprise: the server room. This dramatically shifted Microsoft’s product strategy, and how it engaged with large organisations. No longer just the menacing PC on the desktop to an enterprise IT architecture, from soup to nuts. And the revenue followed.
In the midst of this shift from desktop to server room, Microsoft has seemed to ignore the Internet. standardised protocols, freedom of choice, open source, creative commons licensing, disruptive business models, loosely coupled applications. Microsoft only noticed when its enterprise-customer defensive wall was attacked. Like guerrilla attacks: the skirmishes were many, but the barbs were survivable. Revenue still flows.
Witness Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (for the Greeks, British, USSR and Coalition) and Pictish-lands (for the Romans) : guerrilla warriors ultimately win.
Ray Ozzie is the navigator that is changing Microsoft’s course from within. The fleet of supertankers that is Microsoft cannot turn quickly: unless facing imminent death as Apple did in 1995/6, large organisations have a momentum that is difficult to unwind.
We are witnessing the same shift today with a move into the cloud. Simply put: the platform is a collection of loosely coupled devices connected by the internet. Not PCs on desks, nor servers in racks in every organisation around the world.
The IT company most effected by this change in platform is Microsoft.
Ozzie felt that after losing its antitrust case, Microsoft had tempered its bullying behavior. “This is a different company,” he now says. “It doesn’t feel evil; it doesn’t feel inconsistent with my core beliefs.”
The fleet is turning. Ozzie has navigating the direction. We’re off.
Cloud Follow-ups:
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