Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Author: Geoff

Hear from your MP

Following on from my recent post where I was one of 162 (now 168) people who have signed up for the Hear from your MP service.

Last week David happened to turn up at the door promoting his local bod (Steven Cooper whose interests I note are ethereal – Music, Singing, Film, Holiness, Justice rather than the hardworking local campaigner as on his flyer.) in the Cambridge City council elections. I harrangued David about his failure to reply to emails (denied even getting them) and pointed out Ellee’s comments about him been an academic and hence aloof.

So imagine my delight to receive from him today a letter and also that he has posted its contents to the hearfromyourmp website.

Apparently he is on the committee that is poring over the “the Abolition of Parliament Bill” or its more arcane title “Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill“; yep the one that will allow ministers and their lackeys to produce laws that allow you to be locked up for 2 years without parlimentary scrutiny.

Unusually we had the current incumbent for our ward, Kevin Blencowe of Labour knock on the door last night. He thought maybe he knew me – I’ve only lived here for 20 years and stood as an independent canditate a few years ago!

Feeling cold in Cambridge UK


I wonder if this is why I have been feeling the cold more than usual “They also found that volunteers who restricted their caloric intake by 25% or achieved similar results by cutting calories and upping exercise had a reduced average core body temperature at the conclusion of the six month trial. Lower body temperatures are also associated with longevity” from the New Scientist

Here is my weight loss chart from the Treo650 created by the excellent Eatwatch programme. Not quite in the same league as the volunteers. About a 7% reduction in weight over a year. (The screenshot is taken using the Screenshot utility from Linkesoft).

But then again it could be that the UK has been having more easterly winds this winter (As a result a cold east to north-easterly flow dominated the weather, strong at times across southern part – UK Met office or even since “The White House”redecoration, the windows are no longer sealed shut with paint!

The blogosphere today (maybe)

Two takes on the role of the blogosphere.

First post by Morgan McLintic reflects on Dale Wolf’s post based on people who are subscribed to rss feeds on Bloglines where apparently there are “only” 36,000 feeds with more than 29 subscribers. Personally I think this is a gross under estimate. As off the people I know who read blogs etc only one (apart from me) use RSS aggregators. Also I suspect Bloglines is very USAcentric whereas blogging isn’t.

Second post is on The maturing of the blogosphere by Mary Hodder which uses link counting as an indication of popularity particularly on the relationship between inbound and outbound links. with 4 blogs having more than 10,000 links.

Interesting how both exhibit similar long tail effects so vividly. With millions of people having just a few links or a few readers. But the fact is people are gradually turning away from big media and spending more time on their own media.
/>Which to me as a true anarchist is excellent.