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Archive for Knockabout
Exclusive: Things you need to know today: No Excuses
There are a few pieces of knowledge that you just cannot get through today without knowing.
This is an arrow pointing UP. If you want to know where “UP” is, you should try looking for the side of your room that doesn’t have a table standing on it.
If you didn’t, know, this is a table:
This is a hyena, laughing:
This is the IPPR logo.
And this is a new IPPR report:
It is “groundbreaking” and says - for the FIRST (got that?) time:
Poor secondary school teachers can mean the difference between a pass and a fail, according to a report published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr).
New research shows for the first time how ineffective teaching can mean the difference between a C and D grade at GCSE.
And these are the initials BO:
They stand for “Body Odour” or “Blindingly Obvious“.
I trust that you feel that you have been educated…
Oh, and they want to spend another £481 million. In accordance with Gordspeak, spending is termed “investment”.
Now go and enjoy your Bank Holiday.
New Cryptographic Technique: Harman Hash with Smokescreen
Here is Harriet Harman talking about the importance of absolute data security, which is essential in order to prevent theft of personal data and other people pretending to be you.
Various people have been calling it a “hack”. It is not a proper hack - a hack involves technical ability. It is the IT equivalent of a driver leaving their car in a car park with the doors unlocked, and the ignition key hidden in the glove compartment. Somebody has been around and - so to speak - tried the doorhandles of lots of cars to see if they are unlocked, and guessed where the key is hidden. The fault for the security breach is as much with the idiot who used such an obvious password for a public account.
The conversation:
HH:
“Having just actually having surmounted the technical problems of working out how to do a blog, I’ve really been getting into my blogs, so I’m absolutely gnashing my teeth taht somebody changed my password so that I couldn’t even … but I think that I am going to be back onto it on Monday and blogging away”
Adam Boulton:
“Is it true that your password and your login - one was Harriet and the other was Harman?”
HH:
“I think that you have identified that I am perhaps not as security conscious as I should be, and I’ve got to face the challenge of both remembering my own password and not having one that is so simple that everyone else can zoom in onto it.”
Good Karma for HH on one point
First point: kudos to Ms Harman for not blaming the web developer; it would have been cheap. Blaming the messenger is - in my opinion - a characteristically New Labour approach when they are trying to slope shoulders on something they have done. She has not done that this time, and that is to her credit.
Mr Galloway has a makeover: Gorgeous George
My Galloway decided that he needed a makeover…
but the “Mandelson” cut did not work for him.
Inspired by Friday Lolcats meme.
Can you put Humpty-Dumpty together again? Ed Balls
Hands off my website, you dirty rotten swine !
Ed Balls is living up to his name again. Via Mark Pack.
File this in the bizarre but true category: take a look at Ed Balls’s website, and in particular his terms and conditions for use of the site:
The User undertakes:
(a) that they will only view the Information for their own private purpose and it [sic] will not publish, reproduce, store or retransmit any of the Information contained in the Web SiteIn other words, if you’re - say - a journalist you are not allowed to view his website as part of your job. Hmmm.
A bit rich bearing in mind that we are possibly paying him £10k a year to produce it.
Awesome web design, though. It reminds me of one of those sliding tile puzzles that children so enjoy. Spot on for someone who is always going on about schools, and does so much mental arithmetic involving six figure mortgages and Commons Allowances.
It even has a blank spot to let you slide the tiles around; I’ve left that where the policies would normally go.
Can you put Humpty-Dumpty Together Again?
Rather wonderfully, there’s a website - slidingpuzzle.com - that let’s you build a puzzle from your own picture.
So, can you help Ed put his website back together again?
(Just to be kind, there’s a hint how it should look after the “more”).
“Lack of Stats” -pr0n for the Last Week
There’s been a rash of stats-porn, and anti-stats April fool porn, this week on UK Political Blogs. Stats are interesting (because traffic is one of the first two items people ask about when trying to assess a blog), but the comments about blogs vs big media are a far more interesting current issue - especially with “Politics Portals” (my term) with their origins in the blogosphere on the way.
Since this is Free for all Friday again I thought I would make my contrarian contribution.
Wardman Wire Stats summary: Tankety Tank
The Wardman Wire stats have gone the other way as a result of our friendly hacker earlier this week. To illustrate, here are a selection of tweets from earlier this week from me:
Average Goog visits each day last month: about 200. Yesterday: 6. Today so far: 0. What Cialis hacks do for you.
Currently rebuilding blog on different account, and transferring 6000 or so files.
Wonder how long it will take to get Goog friendly again. Guessing 4-8 weeks.
Interesting RSS clickthroughs have tanked too by half. 70 today. Would usually be 200-300 over day.Wonder if came from finding feed via Goog
Never mind. Content is king … eventually. I hope.
Overall, reckon traffic is down by a third to 40%. Grr.
(Aside:my Twitter feed, full of fun, wisdom, and foolishness, is here).
The impact seems to be that traffic has tanked by about 40% - that is down from roughly 1500-1700 uniques a day to something just under 1000.
Does it matter? Yes and No. I’m not hugely bothered about the absolute numbers (which have roughly gone back to where they were in December), but I am concerned that the segment of traffic that has vanished is the “general public” segment - who come largely via Google. Some of those are people who “bounce in and out”; others are “non-politicos” who are interested in particular questions.
One of the aims I have for the blog is to see if it is possible to break through (or over, or under, or round) the walls of the “political blogging ghetto”. That project has been put back some way.
Do I See - A Visitor from Google?
This afternoon I spotted my first Google visitor for a few days. Just one. It could be a straw in the wind, or a fish that escaped the Google net.
I’ve managed to lock down the implanted hacker for the last 24-48 hours (I’ll tell you how if you email me - not posting it), and they could be coming back.
Time will tell.
Wrapping-Up
In the meantime, the blog is still moving. Didn’t make it last night, but I am nearly there.
Just in case you need help getting to sleep after drinking 257 cups of coffee, read this comments thread.
The thing that I find even more interesting is that the Devil is using the rephrasing “pr0n ” in his title - as if it will mitigate for the 699 appearances of “c*nt” in his archives. He may have a good reason.
For the record: Dale: 10 c*nts. Fawkes: er.. 1840 c*nts. Wardman: 0 c*nts (and 3 tw*ts - 2 duplicates in reaction to Mr Gordon’s 2007 budget, and one quoting somebody else about Egyptian politics). Hamish the Greek: 157 c*nts. Bloggerheads shades Iain on this metric: 17 c*nts.
The Devil will be mortified at being on 699 not 700, and will probably call me one to make up the numbers. Iain Dale’s are probably all in the comments. Guido’s are probably mainly in the comments too. And that is probably more than enough. I want my tea.
Tags: announcement, google, hacker[tags]announcement, google, hacker[/tags]
Site offline later tonight
I am planning to move the Wardman Wire to a different server later this evening.
Service will be intermittent while I am testing the new install.
I suggest visiting www.mattwardman.co.uk, which has most of the same articles (and all of today’s parliamentary Reports).
Tags: announcement
[tags]announcement[/tags]
