Blog 200901041915

Sunday 4^th January 2009 Brighton, England.

O Oo I've noticed two sets of numbers for pageviews in posterous. One immediately after a new posting and another after the page refresh. Also these are not the same as I viewed before posting. [no screenshot of that unfortunately]

immediately after post:-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzelp/3167126345/

after immediate refresh:-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzelp/3167128321/

I have to admit ~ I cant understand this. I have witnesses pageviews going down – is this when someone unviews a page? Its all above me.

Then there is the mysterious google echo, reposting the same thing on the blog? Alice in Wonderland anybody?

Happy Day everybody.

Eric.

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This document has been imported into Google Docs on your behalf:
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Just FYI,
The Google Docs Team

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Blog 200901041843

Sunday 4^th January 2009 Brighton, England.

Oh boy, had a good meeting with another twitterer which has assured be that the is at least a small income to be made from blogging. So onward... … …

It seems that every one is interested in blogs at the moment so I will do my utmost to discipline myself to make blog entries on a regular basis. But what really frightened me was him saying that quantity was important. O Oo I'm poor in that department. I'm all for brevity. But within the brevity to model the very subject you are talking about. Oh I see use the confusion technique. What ?

Of course economy of the written word is translated from economy with the key strokes. I believe in maximising efficiency and minimising effort. Do I remember correctly? somewhere in the depths of time there seems to be a message about machines reducing the amount of work we do... … ...

Happy Day everybody.

Eric.

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This document has been imported into Google Docs on your behalf:
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Just FYI,
The Google Docs Team

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Blog 200901030530

Saturday 3^rd January 2009 Brighton, England.

We are now back in reality after our holiday in the States. England seems so small and certainly overcast, windy and cold.

Of course as always, when getting back from holiday, there are a million things to do. So I have had to put off other things in order to get this blog written. We got into London Heathrow early morning yesterday and were meet by our taxi for Brighton, getting home about midday. We left from JFK on the 1^st with Virgin Atlantic. I asked the check-in clerk if we could sit in emergency row seats. She said we could but would have to pay a fee of $75! That's the first time I have heard of that. Although I know they have invented a new class of travel, between cattle class and business class, called "Premium Economy". This is where in exchange for an upgrade fee they give you a few more inches of foot room. So now they have found yet another way of screwing a few more dollars out of the customer in the form of charging you for the responsibility of opening the exit in an emergency. Anyway, she said she would put us in a seat with no one behind us so we could fully recline our seats. This turned out to be a euphemism for squashing us into the last seat at the back of the aircraft. Subsequently I didn't get any sleep in the way back and as a result I am suffering from jet lag. I lasted until dark when I just had to crash out and sleep. I woke up at midnight and couldn't get back to sleep so I have been up since then just catching up with things.

We have the weekend to get sorted then next week will be truly back in gear.

Happy Day everybody.

Eric.

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Blog 200812311200

Wednesday 31^st December 2008, Greenport, Long Island, New York.

So here we are, at the gateway to another year – what will be the same what will be different?

One thing that will definitely be the same will be the retrospective navel gazing over the past year. Dredging up things we may well rather wish to forget and their regurgitation on TV and the Internet. So I won't do any of that.

Looking forward – what will the year 2009 bring? Certainly more recession/depression and lots of pain for many folks as they loose their jobs and houses. This wont affect the richest bankers who have too much money to feel the downturn and anyway will probably be getting a big wad as their reward for their negligence and greed which lead to this chaos in the first place [sorry to any of you that fall into this category]. More companies will collapse and mergers will take place to safeguard others from collapsing – leading to more job losses of course. But hopefully by the end of the year there will be light at the end of the tunnel as this down cycle turns round. It will turn round of course – everything that goes down must come up, eventually.

There will be more talk of it never happening again [it will of course]. Slowly most people will forget about the downturn, get overexcited by the upturn, and it will all happen again!

I wonder if there will be sufficient learning form these happenings? Gas/petrol WILL go back to $4/ £1.5 per gallon again eventually – it is just a question of time – how long will it take? It will go back to these prices for a simple reason – market forces. As the demand for anything outstrips the supply it will inevitably go up in price. Its a fact of life. But will the nations prepare for this now in light of 2008? Will new sources of energy be tapped in an adequate way to mitigate the next hike in oil prices? I am afraid I am very sceptical that this will happen before the next energy crisis, the capital investment in the new energy sources will become uneconomic again, now the energy prices have gone back down.

Will there be good cheer in 2009? I am sure there will. There will be the success and triumph over challenges, both on a corporate and individual level. My challenge will be, as always, to manage the prolonged mental disorder that I suffer from. This is kept at bay by meds but surfaces from time to time to try to overwhelm me. From my introduction to twitter and the blogosphere through Stephen Fry I have found several blogs from people who suffer even more than I do. It has been heartening to see how they have benefited from the use of blogs to expunge some of the darker moments.

Fortunately over the last three weeks I have had lots of time for the blogosphere because I have been on vacation. I am not yet certain what will happen when I get back to reality next week. That is IF I get back to reality since it had started to snow heavily here in Greenport. We are supposed to leave from JFK tomorrow. As it is at the moment, I am not even sure if we will get to the airport!

Finally, may I wish you all a happy new year's celebration and not too much of a hangover on New Years Day.

Happy Day Year everybody.

Eric.

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Blog 200812282200

How extensive is the web of information about you on the internet? Blog 200812282200

Sunday 28^th December 2008, Greenport, Long Island, New York.

Have you googled your name lately? You might find it interesting to do so. I entered "Eric Brighton" [the inverted commas to force the search to look only for only the whole name and not the first name and last name separately]. I was quite surprised about some of the entries, in particular I was interested to find that I am a "top conservative". This determination comes about from aggregation technology which has determined due to my followers and those I am following that I am a conservative. There is obviously some work yet to be done with this technology - my political interests are in fact amorphous,.

For more information see:

http://www.topconservativesontwitter.org/index.php/component/userdetail/?twitter_id=zzelp

[Aggregation technology & site implementation by Kithbridge, provider of fine new media services:

• Strategy

• Tracking & Monitoring

• Custom Blog & Twitter Feeds]

It is worth bearing in mind what your internet tracks leave behind and how these tracks are interpreted by others. You may also find your intentions are misinterpreted.

It will be interesting to find out if I am still on the list after this blog although it is my experience that once I am subject to an internet search, the footprint remains for some time, kept, no doubt, on various mirror sites etc.

Happy Day everybody.

Eric.

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Blog 200812271840

Saturday 27th December 2008, Harborfront Inn at Greenport, Long Island, New York.

How many twitterers are there? Does anyone know – I guess the guys at twitter know but they are not letting on. TwitterTroll has figures for the number of tweets per day and per hour and this seems to be the basis of many estimates. The speculation will be around for a long time I expect, unless twitter goes under or can find a way of monetization.

In any case twitter does seem to have caused a blossoming of associated activity, judging by the numbers of twitter connected websites and applications. If it goes down (like if GM did) there would be a radiating collapse of these associated apps.

Would you care? Is twitter an important part of on-line life or just an addiction? What do you think? Please let me know by comment.
 
I just realised that I didn't name the hotel we were staying in in Manhattan, no particular reason for this – other than I is generally a bad idea to bad mouth something when you are dependant on it. On a previous visit to Manhattan I stayed a the Algonquin hotel. I liked the old world feel, the cuteness and the friendly staff. Unfortunately we made our reservation on the Saturday before arriving on the 23rd December and the Algonquin only makes reservations Monday to Friday. I therefore make a reservation with the Sofitel New York which is two hotels up along the same street. I didn't want to risk arriving at Christmas time without a reservation.

Because I have stayed at the Sofitel Washington DC, and was happy with my visit, I didn't have any hesitation in staying at another Sofitel. Regrettably the New York version did not have the charm of Washington and was rather impersonal as a result. Of course most businesses are in it to make a profit but sometimes they become mercenary in the process. This was the impression I was left with at this hotel. I understand that to some people money is no object but for me I do have a budget and so I try to get value for money from what ever I spend. At the  Sofitel New York I felt fleeced. Some examples: internet connection direct on line is $5.99 via T-Mobile but buy a prepaid card at reception and it will cost you $9.99. When asked to explain this there was no reply from management. When asked if they had any aspirin, for a fever I was suffering from, their reply? … “We can get you some for $15”. When checking in I asked the cost of valet parking ($50) but was charged $100 on checkout and was not guided towards a facility directly opposite offering parking for $35 with a hotel stamp. In the hotel the price of a meal would feed an African child for a year. I refused to eat in the hotel, as did many other guests to be found in the Red Flame Grill nearby. Pleeease, you are already charging top dollar for the room there are some things you should throw in with this price.

Today we decided to explore Long Island prior to retuning to the UK on January 1st. So yesterday I did a lot of  internet research to find a hotel which is good value for money. This in itself is a labor of love. There are so many ways to find reviews, Tripadvisor, Frommers, Lonely Planet, hotel.com, expedia.com, lastmiute.com, booking.com, travelocity etc etc etc. I rely a lot on tripadvisor having been using it since 2005 and find it fairly reliable, although reviews can vary wildly for the same hotel, from absolute trash to the best thing since sliced bread.

I made a short-list of 4 hotels on the east of Long Island. Best Western featured, as it usually does, as one likely to be good value for money. It did result in a good price when we visited and it was a very serious contender but lost out on location score. A hotel in Hampton Bays was eliminated on the basis of being too cold and not having internet. Another was too remote and that left this one which is in a town, has internet and a decent location. A bit more expensive but... … … [we think] good value.

Happy Day everybody.

Eric.

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