On a jet plane (not really)

Don’t know if I’ll be back again (hopefully never)

Hello, you might be reading this because you saw it linked from my Facebook page, you might be seeing . . . → Read More: Leaving Facebook]]> a.k.a. Facebook can go f*ck itself

a.k.a p*ss off you over-subscribed bad medium

a.k.a. once annoyed the comments get bad but you’re still sh*t

So I’m leaving (indeed)

On a jet plane (not really)

Don’t know if I’ll be back again (hopefully never)

Hello, you might be reading this because you saw it linked from my Facebook page, you might be seeing it from Twitter. it doesn’t matter the message is still the same. I will soon be leaving Facebook.

I have a hard decision, but I have determined to make it.

I am leaving Facebook.

It’s true, I don’t completely like it but it is happening.

It is because I have had enough of this service, the launch of Places was the last straw… Well, no, it wasn’t, the launch of like button was the last straw… Well, no it wasn’t, the launch of the new security was the last straw… Well, no…

Actually, it was all of these and more. My laziness was the only thing stopping me, but now I am convinced I have to go. For all of you bothering to read this who only know me through Facebook, find me on Twitter (while I am still there – for a long while yet I think), or email me, PM me so we set up an email route, or whatever, but please stop thinking that Facebook is the route – as it is not – I have to go,

I can stand it no more.

It is a shame as I own my own name on Facebook. I have used Dopplr. Twitter and others with Facebook, I have reached people, but that dearest ones is over.

But why?

I could do a long treatise on why social networks inspire redundancy in communication skills by removing the onus to be active in pursuing ones familial network. But I am not going to.

Instead I am going to rant.

I would like to point out hate things against a certain Facebook founder who stated:

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity”

Well f*ck you.

Harsh words but I feel harsh. What kind of w*nk statement is that? The arrogance, the sheer ignorance. What the hell has your identity got to do with your integrity? That is either a gross simplification by someone who doesn’t understand those terms or a gross simplification by someone who does understand those terms but is talking sh*t.

I think it is an easy platitude but I am going to use it:

Those who know everything understand nothing.

We can all come up with the one liners but at least mine comes from a familiarity with the actual words.

So it is goodbye!

So long, farewell (and a song from The Sound of Music) I am going. Follow me on Twitter (shadowcat_mdk) or perhaps since we are friends ask for my gmail email and if you like use Buzz.

Please don’t rely on Twitter, for sometime soon it will be gone. I will give a few months for people to filter through and know me elsewhere where I will welcome them for the loved ones they have become (for I was selective in my Facebook attachments). But then I shall be gone.

No doubt one day people will look back and say “why did he do it, silly fool, when all we have is this marvelous tool”, well because for the reasons mentioned above – and perhaps others I will add in edits to this post.

For now, use this time to make sure we stay in touch – I may not have any other contact than Facebook and if so it will be sad to lose you. Let us use email, and those other social tools I am using for this time. But, mostly to email let us be consigned. True it may not have the immediate appeal and one has to choose who to inform, but surely that should be celebrated as at least you know I mean it…as opposed to: look, you knew I was here as someone I once knew told you so and now you feel obliged to contact me…

Facebook is no longer a tool for communication, it is the monkey we feed on our social back, it makes us feel good and wanted but is still a burden to bear…

So I am going…

Just not yet. I have to let you all catch up with me yet…I have to let you all know…I have to make sure all the services that this provides are replicated or replaced…Don’t I….

Will I really go…

The images do not load quickly, there is an option . . . → Read More: Rotating Headers]]> You may have noticed that the header on this site contains images that change when you hit page refresh or navigate around the site. All the images were taken by me and are only to be used on this site – I will supply images on request.

The images do not load quickly, there is an option to pre-load images for the site but there are so many of them – at a decent compression quality – that I turned this feature off to allow the pages to load at a faster rate.

Anyway – enjoy – try presseing refresh to see a new image

This is the size of the large suitcase I have, the A4 sheet is for a size guide. The depth appears to be about 21cm (but the suitcase lid is quite deep so the whole depth is closer to 30cm. From the image you can see that the . . . → Read More: The size of a suitcase]]> Well this is odd for a first post but….

This is the size of the large suitcase I have, the A4 sheet is for a size guide. The depth appears to be about 21cm (but the suitcase lid is quite deep so the whole depth is closer to 30cm. From the image you can see that the width is approx 40cm and the length approx 60cm so an overall volume of circa 72,000cm (cubed – approx 72 litres).

I am not that old, okay I am . . . → Read More: A mess of our own creation]]>

Britain seems to be toatlly unprepared for any level of extreme weather, and it seems year on year we have the same excuse "we are not used to this in our country so we don't know what to do when it happens.". I have an answer to that, "bollocks".

I am not that old, okay I am starting to get older, but not that old. The only really severe snap I can recall aside from this current one was in the early 1980s, and yes I can recall some levels of chaos then. I don't however recall every pavement being iced to buggery and every train stopping, also schools (mostly the newer schools) losing their heating control. Certainly there was a level of chaos but it was meidated by a few other measures.
Firstly there used to be yellow grit boxes almost everywhere. The house I was born and raised in was near a junction. There was a grit box on that junction and one on the corner of the street at the other end of the road. They were everywhere, now the only place you see them is in Welsh valleys or in Scotland (who of course get more spells of severe weather). These grit boxes were for the use of everyday people to aid them in weather such as this. They would often sit unused (except as bins/ashtrays) for years. But boy could we use them on every street now! I have no idea why they disappeared:

Cost: really how much would it cost to leave them there for years? A lot less than the cost of the current situation I'd guess.
Vandalism: Make them out of steel then and I don't think grit burns.
Complacency: Ah the British disease.

Public transport: if we can call it that since it is by majority privately screwed-up, has suffered embarrassing displays of fail. A train service was rescued by a, get this, replica steam train. So a design that was -ancient- beat the modern super-trains we have been forced to subsidise. Bus services cancelled. So why don't they have snow-chains for the tyres. I clearly recall those being used, is there a law or ruling that prevents them now? Did all the bus services retire their chains? Or did they simply not restock and lay aside contingency plans for situations like this?

Schools. Well this is an easy one. The high school I went to didn't close in the cold snap in the 80s because it had three janitors. A senior and two junior janitors. One of whom was on the night shift so kept the heating/boilers going at night to keep the school warmn and to prevent failed systems. They also gritted pathys/playgrounds. I remember playing rugby on a pitch that had two feet of snow as a border where it had been cleared for us (we helped as part of our lesson). But schools don't have those anymore, they have automated systems that seem to fail in any adverse clime, and security guards who patrol and don't really care about what happens when they go off shift (they are neither paid for that, nor trained for that – this is not blaming them, they get enough stick).

The final element in all this is the Litigation Factor. I am reliably informed (though don't take this as read IANAL) that the council often don't grit the pavements for fear of litigation. If you slip on an un-gritted pavement it is an accident, but, if the council take some action that you then deemed to have 'failed' you and allowed you to slip then you can potentially sue. The same is said for schools. If the school clears the pavements and opens they take responsibility. If you slipped thirty years ago you'd get a trip to the hospital, the school would apologise and caution other children to be careful and that would be it, now there is the worry that the "Accident -Shite-Line" will be called in by parents seeking reparation.

If you've had an accident, no matter whose fault it is, you can f*ck someone in a court room and make us all some money – turn a natural chance occurance into someone else's failure and cost.

Perhaps we deserve this and I should stop bitching…

</rant>

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Dear people on Twitter.

I know you want to be the first to say something, so do I.

I know you share your thoughts on things, so do I.

I know you like to boast when something happens in your life, so do I.

I know that in the increasing noise of Twitterspace, the Twitterverse where Twitterati gather (and this . . . → Read More: Spoiler Alert, too f*cking difficult for you?]]>

<rant>

Dear people on Twitter.

I know you want to be the first to say something, so do I.

I know you share your thoughts on things, so do I.

I know you like to boast when something happens in your life, so do I.

I know that in the increasing noise of Twitterspace, the Twitterverse where Twitterati gather (and this makes me sound like a Twatter) you need to say it quickly….

But….

You are the c*nt who just told everyone Bruce Willis was a ghost and that Darth was Luke's father, well done dickhead.

I have now had Avatar and Doctor Who ruined for me by people I genuinely like who couldn't use the word SPOILER to warn me. DOCTOR WHO SPOILER, AVATAR SPOLIER, what did that waste too many of your f*cking 140 words you arsehole.

Well done.

Not even going to spitefully remove you from my watched list, or answer on Twitter in some angry way as my argument is not with you, directly, it is with this behaviour.

Twitter may be new(ish), this way of behaving isn't.

Stop it.

You're being a c*nt.

</rant>

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