For what it's worth...

OK - Not that Google have asked me or anything, but here's what I think they should do...

(Incidentally, why do I think they should do this? Because it would make my life easier. That's it. That's the reason. I am a selfish reprobate, whose only serious thoughts centre around his own comfort.)

Currently, I'm a Google-whore. They own me. Google's got my emails, my documents, my calendar, and my photos. They're even hosting this blog. And for as long as they'll continuing offering good products to me for free, I'll continue to be their whore. Their filthy whore.

However, the last couple of years have seen very few really exciting developments in Google's products outside Google Maps. Earlier this year, I was approaching the point where I was reaching my storage limit in GMail - I was seriously going to have to consider *shudder* a different webmail account.

But they fixed it. Suddenly, I, and everyone else, has lots of storage, and I don't wake up in a cold sweat, worrying about how to archive everything in a .CSV file.

Unfortunately, I'm now most definitely at that point with Picasa. Picasa is a good product, and the storage it offered along with the application made me use it for as long as I could, over Flickr, or any Adobe product. However, even storing photos in a web-ised state, at nowhere near their full resolution, it's full. No room at the inn.

I've now got six times as much storage for my emails as for my photographs. Which sucks. I need it for the photographs. However, I'm not an unreasonable man, I just don't want to pay for storage which might, even then prove inadequate in the near future.

Yes, I'm aware of the free storage available from other people, but I liked being able to get photographs off a camera, manipulate and organise them, and then store and email them all using the same free application. I'm not going to be able to do that any more.

So here's what i think Google should do:

Give you the option to make photos in your Picasa account returnable as search items in Google Picture Search, and give you free storage for them if you do that, geotag them, and add meaningful tags. Google thus gets to add to the value of its core search proposition (Picasa could even include a CC license so that people could reproduce photos from Picture search safely) in exchange for hosting a file.

And that, because I really like storing my photos for free, is what I think should happen. Any photo which you tag, geotag and open to public search should be stored for free, as Google then use it to drive their search engine. I could keep adding photos. Google's search could keep getting more useful, more tied to geographical data, and more meaningful.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there.

Mr Google, are you listening?

I very much enjoyed this. You might, too...

Occasionally, and with a heavy heart, I read Craigslist's adverts for writing jobs. Maybe, somewhere in amongst the 'great opportunities' to write free stuff for desolate websites there's the one. The big one. The perfect job.

Often these are pleas for 'writing partners', in which some witless talent-vacuum is looking for someone with discernible skills to take their half-baked pub thoughts and craft them into 'writing'. One that's there at the moment says: "I may have some good ideas but i need someone professional to wrap it out and make a good story." Yes, rather than a 'writing partner' you need a 'writer' to 'write' a story. Ideally whilst you look over their shoulder and mutter 'Brilliant!' in an astounded fashion, before pointing out that Howard shouldn't die until the next bit because you thought he should do something good with Marjorie, although you haven't quite worked out what.

The same advert I quoted earlier, however, also stopped me dead in my tracks. It contains the following sentence: "I am convinced if we are on the same frequency and share the same sense for humor we can change the shape of the earth forever!"

The shape of the Earth? The SHAPE of the Earth?

"I am convinced that if I get you to do my homework for me Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics will be suspended, and we can stop the universe drifting to a cold, entropic end!"

Not any of its more malleable qualities, but the actual shape of the actual Earth. Forever. We shall ignore the plaintive cries of those who preferred the Earth in its old shape, as its new, highly irregular gravitational pull lets them drift further off into space each time they sneeze!

I couldn't email him a response fast enough, quite frankly...

(PS - It's here)

It's the point in the evening where a real and palpable sense of self-loathing begins to hover behind you. You should, of course, be in bed. Any human should.

It's sad enough that's I'll sit up until absurd o'clock, working my way through bottles of red wine and swearing at the television for local British elections. I'm now watching returns for elections that are happening in another country. Except I'm not even doing that.

I'm watching primary results come in. Not Super Tuesday primaries, not primaries of a state that has a huge number of electoral college votes. New Hampshire primary results. Ones in which I do not care who wins.

Unfortunately, I'm addicted to those little bits of news showing that Hillary has an early lead with most of Manchester having reported, but that those districts yet to report the results of their counts were more likely to lean towards Obama. I don't find either candidate to my taste, but I love watching the numbers change, and seeing if her lead will hold. What will it mean if it does? What will it mean if it doesn't?

Right. That's it. I'm going to bed now.

(I will right after they hit 60% of districts reporting...)

Chicken Yoghurt » You can take the boy out of the Hitler Youth, but…

Chicken Yoghurt » You can take the boy out of the Hitler Youth, but…

Chicken Yoghurt delightfully tears the Pope into millions of tiny pieces and stamps the remains into the ground. Sublime.

OK - this is very silly, but the more you visit my city, here, the more imaginary people come to live in it. If you have either the time or inclination do click and see what happens...

Yes, it's that time of year again. No sooner does an important traditional religious holiday roll around than the PC-brigade feel the need to strip-mine it of its original significance, just so's no-one's feeling get upset. Fuck that.

For many years now, it's become unfashionable to talk of Geola, as Muslims, atheists, and Christians have all attacked our traditional holiday. It is the Christians who have the most gall of all, daring to attach the name of some first-century Palestinian to a once-proud British festival. 'Yule' I can live with, despite its being a continental bastardisation of our British pronunciation 'Geola', but 'Christmas' is just wrong. You even have to mispronounce 'Christ' to say it.

It's important that we remember that Geola isn't just about family and friendship, it is also about the ritual human sacrifice of male slaves, once every nine years. When was the last time any of our loony local councils allowed this traditional practice? Once again the feminazis and Health and Safety Ceaucescus have stamped their grubby little Christian boots over our heritage.

Just think of what we have lost because of our spineless governing elites. Where once we swore fealty on the back of our best boar, loud enough for the god Freyr to hear, before slaughtering it and spending 12 days eating its carcass; now we have dried-up turkey and Iceland breaded prawns.

What is perhaps most disturbing is the way in which the Christian brigade have felt free to take the bits of our festival they liked (the decorated tree, the holly, the mistletoe, the Yule log, gammon), and pretend that our holiday has nothing to do with our traditional celebrations of the death of winter. They even crow about it!

When Pope Gregory wrote to St Mellitus as he came to convert the Britons, he instructed him not to change too many of the details of our festivities, but just the god they were worshipping. Such blatant contempt for our pagan heritage is, quite frankly, frightening, and yet another example of what happens when you let immigrants from the EU roam willy-nilly, preaching their message of hate.

The fact that our once proud Joulenpukki, who came to distribute presents to good children and devour the bones of bad ones has been forced in many government depictions to take off his robe of rotting goat hides and wear instead a red coat is surely shame enough. Now, his belly shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly, rather than rattling with the femurs of naughty children. Will we never learn?

The really scary thing is that, by the Back To The Future scale, we are way closer to the world of Back To The Future II (2015), than that of Back To The Future (1985)... We live in what I thought was going to be the distant future.

We'd better get auto-clothes and hoverboards pretty damned quickly...