Edits part 3

The adding of images to the Dirk Maggs website, is I think going well in that I can find the images for the page that I am editing, but I still have not worked out how to correctly scale the images so that they are all one uniform size.

The end result is that the pages that I have done all look well a bit scrappy is a word I could use, I am sure that you could think of other works ect to describe it better but lets not get into that.


So I know that I will have to revisit each page once I have found out how to scale the images but at least now some of the pages look better, in that they don't have large empty boxes on them where the images should be.

I have as I have gone a long made corrections or even added stuff to the pages. I have found so far one page that had no content, which was a bit of a surprise as I am sure that I went through each and every pages at least twice to make sure that I had not missed anything in the transfer from the old site to the new one.

But as I am only human it's something that is bound to happen and so when I found it, it was not to much effort to correct it.

So The Dirk Maggs website is doing well I think, I have changed the theme of the site again, but I don't know if I like it that much it will have to something that I will need to look at in the new year, which as I write this is only some 6 hours away!

Last Day

So the last day of 2009 which means that I will have done more blogs this year than i ever thought I would, not that this blog is about how many time I have bloged a week month year, well you get the idea I hope.

Just want to update the progress on the Dirk Maggs productions website, the good news is that I have started to add pictures to the pages!

The bad new is that I have not found a way to scale the images to the page layout yet, not to sure what is going on with that.

The page navigation issue has still not been solved but I think I now have all the content on the site, apart from the images of course!

I shall just get all the images up on each page that needs them and then worry about getting the layout of the pages right later, as its something I do in my spare time it will take a while to sort out.

Reading Now 3 whatever

Just finished what I think will be the last book I shall read this year. Its call How to make a tornado and its by New Scientist.

A good read but very different in character to the previous books that they published over the last few years.

Not sure why the change in book format, there must be one but I for one don't like the change, as I like it when you got everyday people ask the kind of questions that do occur to you and you have no answer yourself to them.

Uploading

Why is it so difficult to upload images to some programmes

Edits part 2

I have just spent some 4 hours updating the Dirk Maggs website pages, and the end results is that to the casual user there is no difference, but the number of things that I have altered and what's not you would think there should be lots of visible changes.

oh well.

Site updates are not complete there is still lots to do.

Website Nav

I have had a series of website since the very early days of the WWW. I had thought that I had solved for my websites the problem of navigating around the sites even if you come to the site via another page and not the front door.

Since I move the main Dirk Maggs website to a databased one, I have found that I don't like the way it allows me to set up the sites navigation system. This could be me in not understanding how the programme works or it could be that the programme just doesn't offer what I want or what I want is just not possible with a database driven website.

You might shout read the manual, well yes I would if there was one and that it covered what I need to know, may be what I want to do is so straight forward that it appears obvious to one and all, except me

More head scratching is needed I thinks.

The Dirk Maggs website did get edited yesterday so it is a step nearer to be back to where it was before the changeover.

Edits

I have had some time, not a lot of it , it has to be said and have got my finger out and done some work on the Dirk Maggs Website, which has been static for a while as other things in real life have got in the way, such as son braking his ankle very badly and then not having a good time under general anaesthetic.

All of which does tend to steal free time.

So as I was saying I have had some time to look at the Dirk Maggs Website of mine, and as you will know if you have rad this blog, earlier in the year I changed over to a web-host with more storage and all that sort of stuff.

The idea was to have the Dirk Maggs website sat in a database, and that is what I have done or am doing if the truth be told.

Progress is not been good due to all the above and also because the website layout and setting up has had to me a bit of a learning curve.

The end result it that at this time most of the website has been copied across to the new one but and this is a big but some stuff has been broken by the move.

One of the reasons for stuff getting broken is that I have yet to work out a good navigation system for the new site, I also have to work out if I want to have full screens of screens with a menu bar down the side on them.

It turns out that these are not easy to sort out and the help system given for the software that I am using is not to forthcoming on how to sort the problems that I have with the navigation. One of the problems is that I have a lot of pages and that they have very specific ways of being organised which appears not to help with the type of navigation system I need and what the programme can provide.

The other thing that got broken by the move of stuff from the hand created site to the database site is that all my internal links and pictures are broken and do not work.

This means that I will have go through every page and put back the images and also to redo all the links, this will not be a five minute job, but then the site was not built in 5 minutes either.

The number of hits that the Dirk Maggs website gets has dropped off as well.

Nearly Done

So 2009 is nearly all done, lots of things have been done, lots has not. I suppose 2010 will be the same, I suppose that I will not be the only one looking forward and backwards as it seems it's something that a lot of folk do at this time of year.

I do wonder if it does you any good all this reflection, and I supposed it must do otherwise lots of people just would do it the once and then give up.

So I think there are a few things that I want to do next year, I just wonder if I will get them all done.

1. is to finish moving the Dirk Maggs website to its new home
2. is to hand over to James Follett the website that I have being doing for over 5 years to him.
3. is to finish a book which book not a clue but a book all the same, which would be good.
4. is to actually get down and compose some music, as it's something I like to do but for one reason or another have not done for some time now.
5. is to enjoy taking pictures again with the camera.
6. is a bit of a cheat in that I already do this but do want to keep doing it and that is to keep reading.
7. is to listen to music and just enjoy it for what it is and not try and work out how it was done.
8. is to have holidays that you can be relaxed at
9. is to update the family tree, I did a lot of work on it a few years ago and then it all sort of stopped for one reason or another.
10. is to just enjoy what I have got and not what I haven't.

As you can see a large list just how many of these goals I will do will be interesting, as some are easier to do than others but they are all things that I do want to do.

2009

So it's getting very near to the end of 2009 and what a lot of different things have happened over the year, some good some not so but overall apart form some nasty weather not a bad year overall.

I hate to try and even think what 2010 is going to be like, one thing that I think I can be certain about is that it will be nothing like how I can think of it now this minute that's for sure.

I do wonder how many blog entry's I will do next year and I think that the answer is it does not matter, I shall just do them when I want.

Boxing Day

So its Boxing Day here in the UK, which is good as its a day off and also no where else do they have a Boxing Day.

Xmas

is wishing a merry christmas to all

How they used to say it

Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας

Weather

Good news is that a bit of a thaw is going on, I for one am very happy about this.

Good News

Some time today Ty will be home from hospital which is good for him us and I think the hospital, as I am sure there are people with far more serious problems who are in need of his bed

Work

No more work this year ys!

Ty

Ty is still in hospital after breaking his ankle, we hope that he can be home tomorrow, as hospitals and him don't agree with him.

A good phrase would be hospitals are toxic to him.

Snow & Ty

Well the snow started at 12ish here in Hampshire and did not stop. The result is that Caz had been on the M3 for 3 hours and Donna is stuck on the Farnborough road for 1 hour and she is only going a distance of 5 miles.

Ty is still in Hospital and it looks like he will not be let out until Wendsday some time so all in all the weather has a lot to answer for.

Hurt

I am the parent of two children called Tyrone and Charlene, now Ty as we call him is the 1St born and hats had an interesting life in that he has Asapers syndrome ( not to sure how much) any way he is for various reasons without a job, so today what happens to him he breaks his ankle in 3 places, I am told that it is a serious break in that he will need to have surgery.

As a parent this is worrying to me, I know my son is 23 but still I am worried for him, will it go okay, the date and the time of his surgery is not yet known as one of the problems with ankle injury's is the swelling frank goodness that his pain is under control at this time.

I have just heard that they are x-raying him again why?

see I am worrying about all of this!

I feel for him as tonight he was going out to see Avatar the film and have a meal with the friends that he has mad( this is a big event for someone with aspers).

I am told that ankle injury are one of the more painful injury's you can have so the next six to eight weeks are not going to be very nice to Tyrone.

I do hope that he is out of hospital over Xmas

lets hope so.

By the way he broke his ankle slipping on ice.

Global What?

I do wonder as I sit here looking at the weather station gauge sitting at minus 4 C and think what global warming?

Winter Solstice

So the mid winter day will so be with us I am not sure if it is the 21 st or the 22 nd but which ever day it is one thing that is for certain is that the nights will so start to get shorter which means summer is coming!

This is some thing that I can say I am very happy about, as I think one the whole I like summer more, not for the sunshine and the warm days and nights but for all the daylight and the blue skies which is something that I miss in the winter.

I do wonder if at the winter solstice there will be any one at Stone or wood henge at 8 in the morning, which I suppose is far more civilised than the summer solstice which I think sunrise is at 4 am!

Any way I am looking forward to more daylight and blue skies!

212

I have just noticed that this is the 212th blog of this year which is a record. The last time I had done so many posts was back in 2006! so if I keep doing blogs at this rate I might hit 220!

Hill Starts

Well as you may or may not know this week the winter weather has well happened and today we we got up we found that the weather men had been right for once in that the snow that they said we would get did arrive.

Now I happen to leave in a road that has a hill or incline at each end and the local council for reasons that our not known to us do not grit our road so when it snows getting out of our road on to the major road that is always gritted can be and has been very difficult.

In February 2009 when we had 3 feet of snow the result was that we were snowed in. Today we where lucky in that there was only 2 to 3 inches of snow and that we tried to get out of our road before the road had been turned into a sheet of ice.

It goes without saying that coming home from work was not to bad the only bit of the trip that I was not looking forward to was the last 200 meters or so.

Snow

Lots of very cold weather and so it goes without saying there is snow due and if I believe the weather men lots of it, not to sure if it will hit my part of the UK

Bum

How is it that the colder it gets the more visits I have to do to jobs outside!

Why?

Never happens in the summer, strange that....

Stress

Sometimes I hate this time of year due to all the stress in all the stuff people think you have to do or need to do just so stuff happens on the 25th.

I am beginning to think that it is not worth it.

If it does not get done then leave with out what ever it was that did not get done, I am sure life and universe will carry on.

Colder

So its going to get even colder.


Bum

Xmas Lights

So today I had the joy of putting up some outside Xmas lights, now we don't go for loads and loads we go for light colours that the other folk in the street don't have like pinks and purples, while every one else has blue or white.

Fun no cold yes, end result nice.

Cold

Looks like its going to get colder for the next week or so

Hunt the Lights

Playing one of my least fun games called hunt the missing Xmas lights, this time its a set of blue lights seen 11 odd months ago.

Fog

I have after this morning decided that I don't like to drive in thick fog in the dark

Reading Now 2+1

The other book that I have just finished in the last hour or so is by Jon Ronson and its called The men who stare at goats.

I really don't know what to make of this book, one part of me thinks that its all a load of S*** and that nothing in the book is true, then the other part of me for some weird reason hope that it is true, so the book was not for me overall entertaining, as I just don't know what is true and what is made up.

The book reports to be telling you the truth about some very strange physic stuff that the Americans are supposed to be doing, but there are no references or any thing like that to provide evidence that any thing in the book is true.

There is at the time I write this a film in the cinema called the same as the book, but I think the only thing that is the same between the book and the film is the title and as far as I can make out the film is a comedy of sorts.

Reading Now 3+1+1

Just finished, well not just about 2 hours or so ago another book by Charles Stross called Scratch Monkey, which is a book that I had never heard of but I am glad that I found it and read.

As it usual with books by Charles there are lots of good ideas in this book which I must admit at times did make me stop and think.

The old question? was it entertaining, the answer is yes, but I would say that it should not be your first Stross book to read.

200

Yes I have done it this is the 200th blog of 2009, I feel proud that I have so much stuff that I needed to share it with myself and anyone who happens to get lost on the net and find my blog.

Blogs

I see that this is the 199th blog that I have done this year which is almost a record, the record is 205 in one year, which means that I will pass that total before years end.

Updates 2

As I have said before on here I am now in the process of moving the Dirk Maggs productions website from hand coded into a database driven cms.

I did not realise just how many pages there are in the site, as it goes I will end up having to edit every single page on the site as the layouts from the hand coded site and the cms site are different.

I hope that by spring 2010 the job will be done.

Updates

I have continued to convert the old Dirk Maggs producer website to the new database powered one, progress has been slow as there is so much stuff to move.

I have nearly got all the basic productions by years moved across, with only the years 2006 and 2003 to go, which I think is not bad going as each production page has to be moved by hand.

The next task after that is to make each page look right, as some how or other some of the layouts gets broken in the process of being transferred.

After that task which will I think take weeks I have to restore all the pictures to each page, and I have no idea just how long that will take.

But when it is all done it should make it easy to update the Dirk Maggs pages and also to enhance the content.

Reading Now 3+1

I have just finished reading Genesis by Andy McDermott as entertainment goes it's good and it's a non stop ride, the main idea behind the book is a good one which I liked. For some reason or other some of the things that the characters do in the book are sometime not quite believable, but as this is a book that only has one purpose and that is to entertain I can forgive that as Andy does entertain and very well.

If Hollywood ever got hold of this story I would I think hate it as they would not leave the story as it is.

Cold

Cold and cold and some rain, yes there has been lots of rain and now I see we are due our first frost of the year.

Blues Brothers

Went to Guildford to see the Blues Brothers Xmas Party! yeah I know not something you associate with the Blues Brothers is Xmas, but actually it all seemed to work very well.

I must say that the band of which there where seven members all seemed to be having lots of fun especially the base and lead guitar players because at the end number then actually came down on to the stage and played, which is something I have never seen and it worked real well, all the normal songs that you would expect at a Blues night where there and for most of the songs we that is the audience where standing up and bogeying and singing the songs!

A good night out and as it has been a very long time since I experienced live music its something that I think we will do again

The we in the above sentence is the whole family.

Wet

it's been wet, wet and wet

Reading Now part ??

I have just finished reading yet another book by Charles Stross, this time the book is called Saturn's Children, it was a fun book to read with a some what complicated story/plot line, but in the end it all works out and it was for me good entertainment, which as I have said before is the main reason I read books.

It felt to as if the book had been cut down in some way, perhaps Charles had written too many words and was told to cut out some of them, if so I think we the readers were short changed as I am sure the extra words would have made for a better or smother ending to the book.

Not Happy

some **** idiot for reasons only known to themselves decided to key my car, its only 6 months old! no other car was vandalised.

I hate to think what the bill will be.

Windy

At this time it is very very windy, first big storm of the year.

State of fear

I have just finished reading State of fear by Michael Crichton, and as I said in an earlier blog the book to me was more the authors attempt to say it's not the fault of nations on the Earth for the way things are and the way that the worlds climate is changing.

In fact one thing I have taken away from the book is that global warming is a theory not a law or a fact its just a theory.

The book itself I think suffered as it was difficult to get lost in the make believe world when every so many pages or so there would be a footnote to a real world link on real information about what the characters in the book happened to be talking about at that time.

for entertainment I would only go as far as to say low to medium because of the real world stuff getting in the way of the make believe stuff.

Fog

Lots of fog today

Oh my!

Funny thing coincidence

by that I mean at this moment as I write this I am reading a book by Michael Crichton called State of Fear very recently I read a book by Clive and Dirk Cussler called Arctic Drift, now the first book was written back in 2004 or2005 and the Cussler book 2008 both have settings or scenes that are in the Arctic.

Both mention two British warships called HMS Terror and HMS Erebus no what is the chance of that?

That I pick up two book published so far apart and they both feature the same ships?

I must admit that I did then look up these two ships and it soon becomes very obvious why they are in both books as they are famous for what happened to them and the crews of the ships so in the end the coincidence is not that big as there are very few other ships that are so famous in that part of the world.

Reading Now 5

I have started to read a Michael Crichton book called State of Fear which I think may have been one of the last books he wrote before he died.

So far I am getting the feeling that the book is at the part that I have got to just a mouthpiece for Michael to show how clever he is in proving that there is no such thing as global warming.

he does give lots of real links to the papers that he has found to prove his point. The trouble is I picked up this book to be entertained not lectured at. If I had wanted to read a science book then I would have brought one on the subject.

So it goes without saying that so far the story has not been to me very entertaining.

if the whole idea of the book is to stop and make you think about the global warming theory and that not everything you see in print and on the telly might not be as correct as you should think, then Michael has to me succeeded in making think about the global warming theory.

One thing that I have taken on board so far is that what ever is going on it is not black or white its a grey colour as there is so much information that points both ways in the argument.

So I shall continue to read the book and hope that Michael does not short change me, and will give me a story and some entertainment, if a bit of learning is thrown into the mix I don't mind as long as I get to be entertained

Clouds

Tonight the clouds at sunset were red, this is something here in England big news at for 75% of the time its cloudy.

These were your very red clouds with lots of red shades, so it was really very nice to look at, because of this it was enough of a reason to record it here.

Someone reading this in the future will have no interest in this what so ever, but hey it was really nice.

Light

I have noticed just how weak the light that we are now getting during the day, so I am recording this fact here just so I don't forget.

Book Read

Just finished a fun read book, you know one of those books that is full of facts and for some strange reason you just can't help but read.

The book is called The speed of nearly everything by Peter Macinnis. It's not a big book in size or in the number of pages but it is a good fun read.

Hot news

It has just stopped raining

TGI Friday

As yesterday was my son's birthday, as a family we went for a change to TGI Friday's it was good, I just want to record here that the Jack Daniels sauce is well... great

Reading Now 4

I have just finished reading Arctic Drift by Clive & Dirk Cussler, and as I have said before I read books for entertainment, well this book did entertain me, but and I am sad to say there is a but parts of the book became to me a bit predictable, why this should be I just don't know but that's what it felt like to me.

The ending of the book was also a bit rushed? if you can say such a thing about the printed word, as surely the speed of the story is controlled by how quick you the reader read the book.

But overall the story was good there were a few twists in it that I liked, and as is always the case these days with a Cussler novel some of the stuff in the book is based on real events, which I like, and I am sad enough to go to Goggle and look up stuff and see what is real and what Clive has added to me the story flow.

Would I recommend the book to some one else?

Yes if you are looking to while away a few hours and you want to be taken away to some other place, this book will do that.

Ty

Well it's Ty's birthday today all of 24!

I know


Where did all the time go?

Arctic Drift

Still reading this book by Clive & Dirk Cussler, so far I have been entertained, and to me that's what counts and the book has become less formulaic if there is such a term.

Darkness

Click shift right

End of October right

So why is so dark so soon after the shift?

Broken Links 2

Just had a look at my main Dirk Maggs website, and still for some reason pages are not working.

I have re-uploaded, I don't know how many times, I have checked that the pages that I am linking to exsist and yet still there are pages that are not working.

Why?


It's doing my head in.

Scammed

No news on the scammed front, is this good or bad?

Only time will tell

Reading Now 3

Just started to read Arctic Drift by Clive & Dirk Cussler, so far the story is not bad, but in places I get the feeling that I am reading a book that has been written by numbers. Not sure why I get that feeling.

So I shall read the rest of the book hoping that I get entertained which is my sole reason for reading the book in the first place.

Books

I have just done a quick count on the books that I have in my to read pile, it stands at 6!

Which for me is a lot, 1 of the books is 1500 pages long.

At this rate I don't think I will need to buy a new book until 2010.

Book reading

Have just finished another book that I have been looking for, in fact I first heard about this book some 20 years ago but never managed to get a copy.

In fact for some reason I never even went to the library and requested it, even though it was a book that I had wanted to read.

The book was just reprinted as a special 40th year anniversary edition!

The book is call Carrying the fire and is by Michael Collins, now people of a certain age might know who he is but I can tell you that both my children had never heard of him.

He was the Command Module pilot of the Apollo 11, yes that's right, he was the chap who went all the way to the Moon and then went round it on his own while Aldrin and that Armstrong went and walked on the Moon.

Its a book I think of it's time in that it was written just a few years after Apollo 11 had landed and in fact after the Apollo flights had been cancelled.

I found it a good read in that to me Collins is one of the more forgotten astronauts, saying that, of the 12 men how walked on the Moon I would struggle to name them all, and I have an interest in space and that sort of stuff.

One thing that the book does not discuss is just how close to things going wrong was the whole Apollo missions, I think mainly because the book was written so close to the events it talks about.

So if you want to learn a bit about one of the more forgotten men from the man landings on the Moon this is a good book to read.

Timeshare Scam 2

Well the cancellation letter has been sent by recorded delvery

The TCA The Consumer Association has also written back saying that it was gross misrepresentation,they say I will probably loose the deposit and that they will threaten legal action.

As they claimed (lots of times) to be member of the OTE and RDO they should just refund the money and that be the end of the matter.

I have also been told to expect a phone call from them.

Timeshare Scam

It is with head hung low that i have to admit to being scammed while on holiday in Greece with a Holiday Club.

I have a bad feeling that I will loose the deposit paid, I just want to know why I shut the bullshit detector down while on holiday...

An expensive lesson is what I have learned, but will try and see if I can get my money back(deposit only, which is not so bad)

Put the debit card payment in dispute, so might be lucky

Did not realise that a debit card has less protections built into it than the credit card.

Will report back

Have even sent registered letter under the 10 day cool off rule to cancel everything, so watch this space

Posts

I have been looking back at some of my Blog posts, and I have noticed that they are getting much much shorter, I think that one possible cause of this is that I am also on Twitter, and 140 characters or less really does not leave you or even lead you into expanding your ideas and what you have to say about different things that you notice and want to record in your Blog.

I have read some of my very early Blogs and there is stuff that I talk about in them that I had completely forgotten about, what's more I did fell at times as I was reading some body else's stuff and not mine, which was a bit of an eye opener.

So what to do about my Blog posts?

Nothing is what I am going to do as it's my Blog and how I write the Blog at this time reflects who I am at this time, it goes without saying that it will all change soon anyway, such is the way of things.

Clouds

lots of cloud again, I do sometimes wish that the weather in the UK was well just a bit more predictable, but then again having weather that is always going to be different is I suppose what makes us Brits brits, if you get what I mean.

I suppose it was nice to have some blue sky but in the UK you pay for that by having lots of grey sky.

As I write this it's not yet raining, but I am sure that given time the weather will get round to it real soon

Blue

Today we had blue sky and warm sun, and it was great.

Read

Have just completed reading Quantum by Manjit Kumar, overall a good read and it went a long way to giving me an idea how quantum physics all came about and all the different people involved in finding out all about it.

It would have been great if the book had had another section on how today we use this physics today and not know it.

Another great addition would be what we still don't know and what we thought we knew but has since found to be wrong, may be that's a whole new book, if one came out then I would love to read it.

Reading 200000

Just a note to myself I am now reading Far Out by Mark Pilkington, this is a small book that has very short items on 101 strange tales from science's outer edge.

Only read the first 10 pages so far and , well not to sure I like the way that the tales are presented, as the authors tone is not quite right, in fact can not put my finger on what makes it feel not right, but it's not.

Blood

Just given blood the last time for this year, I have now given 113! units

Broken Links

Had a good look at my websites and I still can't find out why I have broken links to pages that are all stored in the same directory.....

Blog Layout

Not sure what has happened but the layout of the blog appears to have changed all by itself, I am looking into this.

Projects 2

If you have read some of the other posts on this little blog of mine, you will no doudt be aware that I have several projects that I have been doing for a long time and that one minute they are on and then the next they are off, deping upon what is going on in my private life.

We at this moment it's sad to say that all the various projects are off again.

The reason?

I simply don't have the time or the right software and also the expertise.

I will deal with each of the above separately

Time
Its in very short supply at this time, as things in the private life have some how or other expanded to such an extent that it leaves nothing left for anything else, and boy have I tried to make spare time, but there does come a time when you do have to sleep.

Right Software
This is one that is proving to be a bit difficault, in thaat in years passed I used Dreamweaver version 1 to do all the websites, now for reason that I just don't understand the software does not work very well, or not a tall under Vista, and I can't not afford to buy a new version of Dreamweaver, it's just to expensive, hey I brought the first version for less than 10 pounds!

I have sorted out the FTP side of things, in that I have found a freeware programme that does everything that I need to do.

Lastly

Expertise
A little while ago I changed web hosts, this is allways a very scary thing to do, the experance has not been plsent in that the transfer from one host to another took some time, now I have an exact copy of all my websites eg the Dirk Maggs site, and the James Follett sites, when I uploaded them to the new host I made sure that the storage of the files and all the other stuff was the same.

The result?

My Dirk Maggs site has links that are broken! I don't know how or why they are broken as I have not changed anything, I have rechecked the site and I have also uploaded it more than once, I even went so far as to delete everything and re upload it all, the result the same! broken links
Why!!!!

I am going to stop now before I start swearing

Winter again

I think the season has changed and that it happened in the last 7 days as the light levels and the wind have both changed and some how or other I have even noticed this event.

I have so far lived through more than 40 season changes, but I think that this is the very first one in which I am aware of the exact week and I think day that I noticed the changes that herald the fact that here in the northern hemisphere winter is on it's way.

Now in some ways winters nice, by that I mean that without winter you would not know what summer is like, would you?

I know that there are folks who live in climates where it is almost the same all year long, I don't think I could cope with that, having been brought up in a country where the weather at nine in the morning can be completely different at twelve mid day.

So welcome winter, may you be short sweet and with no snow!

Tanglefoot

Just want to record here that as far as I can tell there is no difference between Tanglefoot in a bottle and a Can, both taste great and both can tangle one's feett.

Low Light

I have noticed over the last few days when it was sunny that the intensity of the light when we get some is now much much less than it was just a couple of weeks ago.

Now I know that this is not to be unexpected as we are here in the northern hemisphere rushing towards the winter solstice or winter, but it's the fact that this year at least I have spotted it and have decided to record it here as a reminder to myself of this fact.

Winter 2

I think that for once the weather men have got it right and that winter is on its way the temps around here are dropping.

In fact I am starting to find it hard to believe that this day last week I was in a tee shirt and it was hot! no really it was nice and warm and the sun was so bright and all that, sunglasses were need, and not just to look cool.

Winter

So the warm weather we were having looks like it is coming to an end, and I can tell you the nights are now colder, than they were last week

Surround Sound

Why are there so many diferant cables need to connect a surrond sound box to a tv and a cable box?

I mean you have scart, Hdmi then component and also audio leads, why> so many, why can't there just be one cable type that does what ever it has to do and you just plug it in to each box?

I have had to buy a new surround sound box, nothing wrong in that I suppose as the old one did last a few years and it did get used very heavily.

Now because things have moved on (and not necessary for the better) I find that I need a optical cable to link the surround sound box to the cable box as that is the only way the surround box can get a digital signal... Why?

So as its Sunday I will now have to go get an optical cable from somewhere so that I get sound from the cable box on the tv.

Hissed off is what I am, wish that the audio and tv companies could get it all sorted.

And no before you say anything none of my tv or cable box is older than 2 years.

Hols

Been on a week holiday, and I must admit that was very lucky with the weather for this time of year in England, Dorset.

Lots of days with lots of sunshine and temperatures of 18-19 centigrade, the walking was good and the scenery was , well fantastic.

website troubles ?

Its been a few days since I last spoke here about the trouble that I have been having with my website since I moved it to another web host.

Well, I think I might have it sorted, mostly, so it will be interesting to see if I have got it right in the end.

It appears that I can not have a sub domain point to a file with a space in its name, why I just don't know. My old web host had no problem with doing this, but different hosts will have different ideas.

So I shall wait a few days and then look at the web site logs to see what is going on.

website troubles

I have had a slight problem since I transferred my websites for my old internet hosts to a new one, mainly for extra features and also cause it was a bit cheaper, I am now starting to have some doubts about it, as for some reason I still can not get the websites that I have fully working, and I just don't know why.

I have made sure that every file on the site is where it should be, in fact I have gone as so far to upload all the site files more than once.

I still get error 400 which if I understand the error codes correctly means page not found.

One of the problems is that there are quite a few websites that now point at my website and now all they are getting is error pages, I suppose that in the end people will just give up.

My master plan to convert my static websites, Dirk Maggs and James Follett is still some time away from being completed.

At this time both databases are set up and working. Both sites have the password system in and also working. The James Follett site has had some wiki extensions installed and working while the Dirk Magggs one has not.

The James Follett site at this time has about 186 articles and has only got to 1975! so there is a long way to go on adding the content.

The Dirk Maggs wiki is even worse for content, in that all I have at this time is the main index page and not much else.

Part of me want to just redirect all the web traffic to the wiki, but with no content that really is something I feel that I can't do as those folks who have used to internet to find out about James or Dirk really do deserve to find what they are looking for if I have it on any of my website pages.

Spotify

Been a user of the spotify music site for a while now, one I like about it is that so far most of the trance music that I have looked for has been there.

Sunrise

Today I saw a nice and interesting sunrise, it makes me just a little sad as it means winter must be on its way as it was only 7ish when I saw the sunrise.

It was interesting sunrise with some light clumpy clouds which all light up in some interesting ways, the colours and hues of the clouds changed as the sun rose, I must admit that I sat looking out of the window for a good 10 minutes or so

Projects

As you know if you look at other parts of this blog going all the way back to 2005, I have several projects on the go.

Some of the projects have been a success in that I have completed them and that I have been happy in they way they turned out.

Others have for one or more reason failed in some way, which when I read about failure of such things is not surprising as there are always failures of projects whether it's for work or for pleasure.

As all the projects that I talk about here are done because I want to it has also been a bit sad for me that a few of my projects have failed.

As I have just moved hosting sites it has been the cause of a delay now in all my website projects and has pushed the Dirk Maggs book project so far back that I really don't want to even think about it.

Actually that's not true as I did have a good idea the other day about it, and that was to change the name of the book from chronology to yearbook, I think that I will let that one similar for a while just to see if in a few weeks it is a good idea or not.

So I suppose I will like others have to get used to the idea that project failures are just a part of life and that the best thing to do is to just accept that and to move on and learn why so that it does not happen again or is less likely to happen.

Reading Now part something

I am still reading Wireless by Charles Stross, and I have to admit that one of the short stories in the book to me was a total misfire.

So it was just a bit of a surprise when I got to the afterword by Charles that he said it was very difficult to write humour, you should have got from that statement that the story in question was supposed to be a fun piece, in the still of PG Woodhouse, I can tell you now, that there are some very good reasons why Woodhouse is so admired, as what he does in print is very very hard as Charles goes on to say in his afterword.

So out of all the short stories that I have read in the book so far one misfire can't be bad can it?

Has the book been entertaining? Yes

Ipod Touch

Well yesterday that is the 9th September Apple updated the OS in my I pod touch to 3.1.1 now that's not a big event in the grand scheme of things, but for me and my I pod it is.

You see my touch which by the way is named DMP is a big part of my life as I use DMP to play a lot of pod cast's for my music that I like, and also for some of the other pod cast like the IYA year of astronomy pod cast and also the Astronomy pod cast, both of which I have listed to since they started, I also happen to like the fact that I can play the odd game or also check the weather while on the move.

Now as I was saying DMP got updated from 3.0 to 3.11 that all went very well in that I did not loose anything and DMP is okay and works okay, the problem is that when linked to I tunes it decides( and I suspect for a very few reasons ) that it needs to back itself up.

Now DMp is a 32BG touch and has left at this time 9 Gigs free, so why has it been backing up since 5 pm and it is now 8.30 pm, surly it should not take all this time to backup?

Then just to add to all that fun itunes has also been upgraded from 8.21 to 9.0. Now it looks nicer, but apart from that I can't see many other differences, although I am told that there are many.

As for the touch from 3.0 to 3.11 the only change that I have seen is that in the music section there is now something called utunes, at this time I don't have a clue as to what that is all about.

One pet peeve that I have on the backup system is that there are no percentages or tine remaing to give you a clue as to just how long the whole backup process is going to take.

James Follett wiki 3

I hope I have the spare time to push the wiki item count through the 200 barrier.

James Follett wiki 2

Things on the wiki are going okay, apart from some templates that for some reason or other I just can't get going.

the wiki system reports that it has 187 articles and I am still on productions from 1975!

Template and wiki's

Templates in wiki's why can't I get them to work how I want them to?

James Follett wiki

The wiki is doing great, I think, it is growing slowly which is what I expect, to tell the truth as it's a long term project I expect to be saying pretty much that for a while to come.

I have got to 1975 on the content that I am adding to the wiki and I only started in 1974!

So a long way to go.

Reading Now 2

Have just started to read yet another book by Charles Stross, I know I seem to be reading an awful lot of his books lately, and that's because I live the ideas that he puts into his stories, and they are also great entertainment, and that is the main reason why I read his books in the first place.

Now I have to admit that the book I am reading called Wireless by the way is the first time that I have read any of his short stories.

I have so far not been disappointed, in fact because the short story allows an author the chance to play, so far the twists and turns in several of the stories have been great.

It goes with out saying, that there are a couple of stories that I think Dirk Maggs could make into great radio shows.

One thing I like about short story collections, is when the author says a few words about the story as an afterword as sometimes it brings into focus just what was or what influenced him or her at the time they wrote the story.

Wiki pt 2

www.jfw.dswilliams.co.uk is the new James Follett wiki that I am working on, I must admit that at this time it's not very nice to look at and it does not have a lot of content.

Last count today gave it 139 articles, but some of them are very short articles.

I have a feeling that we are talking months before it's got most of the James Follett website.

Wiki pt 1

As you know I have started 2 new wiki's which in time are going to replace my existing static websites, I have to admit that it was something that I have looked at over the years, but for various reasons the use of the wiki's as the main websites did not take place.

But I know think that the time is right, so I have started, but to make it easier I have started with the James Follett site as it is smaller, and hopefully it will not take to long to get the basic content into it.

Once I have done that I will the move the old site out of the way and point everything to the wiki.

Currently I have 114 articles, and have only done 3 radio play and 1 TV show!

So I don't know how big it will be.

wiki

So I have a few new wiki's( 2 to be exact!) which in a later blog, I will give the url's to.

Now I must admit that I have played with wiki's before, and have had a lot of fun in working out all the different things that you can do with a wiki.

The thing is, that as the software that makes the wiki and in this case the software is (mediawiki has got much better) I suppose the time has now come to commit the 2 main websites that I have and convert them to wiki's

This is a process that is going to take a lot of time, which one thing about it is, not so unreasonable, as it took some time for the websites to get to the stage they are now, I think that as a first phase the conversion in that just getting the website content into the wiki would be a very good first step.

After getting the content into the wiki, the next step is arranging the content to take advantage of the wiki workspace as there are big differences in holding the content in the static version compared to the dynamic, which is what you get in effect, when the content is stored in a wiki database.

So for the next few months the plane is to move the content from the static website to the wiki, as I have two main websites the plane is to move the smaller static website, which is the James Follett one.

At the current rate of progress ( remembering that I have to learn the wiki mark-up language)it could take until December, (and as I write this, it's only September) so this is a project for the long haul, when I have got all the website content in the wiki it goes without saying that I will have to change the url pointers such that instead of pointing to the static website they will point to the dynamic of wiki website instead.

The day that I do the re pointing, is in the future as so far I have only done 30 or so pages of the James Follett website and it has over 200 at the last count.

Ark

Have just reading Ark by Stephen Baxter and I must say that for me it was great entertainment. The story does not have too many flat spots and does let you the reader into the Ark.

A couple of things that must have passed me by was what happened to the folks who saw ARK 2?

What happened to the folks on Earth II
What happened to the folks on the ARK after Earth III

Overall a good story told well, if the above is anything to go by there might be a book 3 in the series, not sure if I want it as in some ways its great that the author has left some questions for the reader to decided what happens.

I still think it would make a great radio show, which means that it will never happen.

Wiki

Got on the new host 2 wiki's very early days, but also lots of fun.

Bank Holiday 2

Aug Bank Holiday here in the UK as I write this at 8 in the morning the weather doesn't look good e.g its wet and there is wall to wall grey sky why?

Mediawiki

I have just got the 2 wiki's that I want on my websites working, lots of fine tuning to go but at least I have them working,

Domain Names

As I have said in this Blog earlier this month, or may be even earlier I have changed my hosting company.

Now that was not entirely a painless switch over from the old to the new, for some reason the new host took longer than I thought it would to move my old domain to their DNS system, not that I am an expert in these matters.

I also brought a new domain called www.citrusdreams.info, which at one stage was working well, now for reasons that I can't fathom it has stopped working.

According to one look up service eg whois there is no record on the hosts DNS servers of my domain that I have brought from them and what them to host ect..

So it appears that I will have to have a moan again.

Oh by the way did I tell you that I hate Cpanel?

Reading Now pt whatever 1

Still reading Ark by Stephen Baxter, and I must say that so far the story is great, as I have only just read Flood which is Part 1 of this series its nice to be able to see some of the events in Flood from other viewpoints in Ark!

I am not sure if that makes complete sense but I hope you get the idea as to what I am trying to say.

The entertainment quotient is I think high, I would love for this to be made into a radio series as I think it would work great.

600 not Out

So this is my 600th blog and has taken some time to get too, but there you go these things happen.

I came back from a very intense training course on Friday. Now the trip according to the GPS should take 4.15 hours to travel 241 miles. As you can tell from what I have written above that is not what happened.

Their was 2 hours before I started to travel a truck fire on the M1 near junction 28. The result the M1 was cream knackered from junction 32 to 25!

This added over 2 hours to the trip!

I count myself very lucky as the M25 was okay the way I was travelling and so was the M3!

Folks on the M5 had it much worse with a 28 mile tail back!

Reading Now pt whatever

Now reading Ark by Stephen Baxter, which is good as I have only just completed book one in the series the other week, and the idea of having to wait a year to find out what happens is not some thing I would like to do.

As I have only just started to read the book, eg I am on page 12 of 465 odd pages I can't say much as the first few pages set up things for later.

I did look to see what Stephen Baxter has got next in the pipeline, but nothing is listed.

Books reading

I have completed the Charles Stross book Iron sunrise, and like I said in an earlier blog the book bounces around in viewpoint and time.

You know what it works!

On completing the story it is the only way the story could have been told and for it to work the way that it does.

Well worth the money and the time a great little story.

Changing Hosts pt5

The last update for a while.

The main site www.dirkmaggs.dswilliams.co.uk is working okay
The James Follett site www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk is working okay

The flash intro to the Dirk Maggs site still does not work even though all the files and links are all in the right places, why? not a clue

The new web domain www.citrusdreams.info works but from cpanel I can't access it, why? not a clue

Changing Hosts pt4

Well just an update to say what I have got working and what is not working.

The subdomains are working now, and I am being to hate cpanel so www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk and www.dirkmaggs.dswilliams.co.uk are now mostly okay.

www.citrusdreams.info I have a holding page on as I have to decide just what I want to do with it.

What is not working is the flash page I had as the into to the Dirk Maggs website its all there all the files and all the correct links it just does not play, why? not a clue.

So apart from that the new host do give some great toys so that you can look real easy at what pages on the website are most popular.

Changing Hosts pt3

Things have got better I think!

My domain www.dswilliams.co.uk has been transferred to the new hosting company and appears to be working well.

My new domain www.citrusdreams.info also appears to be working well.

The only problem that I have is setting my subdomains on www.dswilliams.co.uk mainly www.dirkmagggs.dswilliams.co.uk and www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk

Have now tried all sorts and have decided that cpanel is not very friendly to idiots like me

New website

As I said the other day I am in the process of transferring my websites from one hosting company to another.

Now it's been some 7 years since I had to do this and so far the experaince has been poor and as each day goes by it's getting to be poo.

You would think that by now this sort of thing would be straight forward and well painless. But so far my experaince has not been like that, I have the feeling that one of the causes of the hassle I am having is caused by money.

Yes I said money the reason as far as I see it is companies don't want to loose customers even if one of the reasons the customer is moving on is because the company fail to provide what the customer need or wants.

So the company make it difficult, without doing anything illegal for you to chop and change.

So the result is that my Dirk Maggs site and my James Follett websites have for the first time in 7 years disappeared from the web.

To say that I am upset about this would be an understatement, but that is what has happened.

Both the above sites are or were on my website www.dswilliams.co.uk and for some unknown reason the transfer of this domain from one hosting company to another has so far taken 3 days and there appears at this time to be no end in site as to when this domain will once again be on the internet.

I don't know if it's because of something I have or have not done, as the process of moving a domain is a secret, why?

My new domain which I have got is up and running, the new domain being www.citrusdreams.info the only snag with it so far is that I have to learn how to use cpanel, which is something that is completely new to me.

So tonight I am going to plead stupidity and as the new hosting company why the domain transfer has appeared to have disappeared into a black hole, so wish me luck

Changing Hosts pt2

Things are at this time not looking to good.

According to the sites I have looked at my domain should be transferred in 72 hours or less. So far its not happened so all my websites are gone..

The new isp has also not made my new domain citrusdreams.info live yet so I have no sites at all in over 7 years on the net.

What I should have done was had the new site live for a while and then transferred content later.

The just to make me twitch a bit I have now read some very bad reviews on the isp I have just signed up with so not good.

Changing Hosts

Well in an effort to save some money on the running of my websites, I have decided to change to a web host that is some 60% cheaper offers more and has won lots of awards.

But the thing that has got me just a bit worried is the transferring of my domain name from the old host to the new, and all these things called TAGS and ULM's.

If all goes will I should be on the new host in 72 hours or so I am told, if it all goes wrong I suppose my websites will disappear from the web.

Pod Cast or not?

I have reported here before that I have a pod cast which is the audio version or part of my static websites.

As of Jan(2009) this year it had got to 16 episodes and then for some reasons that I can't quite grasp I have stopped, not because I have run out of things to say, it must be said that it did not help with the pod host company going through a bad patch, which also included loosing all my pod casts! luckily they had backups, which I have also, but its the fact that the lost the lot for more than a week, and then there have been problems with uploading and downloading from there site.

I know that I could do it all myself on my own web space, but I don't have the time to learn all about feeds and all that sort of stuff so hence why I went to a pod host.

yes I know that it is a free host so that I should not expect it to be anything special but I think not being able to download the pod casts is some what of a large problem in the grand scheme of things.

I could pay for a pod host, but and this is the big but what if I don't like pod casting it's a lot of money to throw away on something you don't like!

I suppose what I could do and this is a thought that I have had more than once is to just keep recording the episodes and then find another pod host and upload them and see if any one else likes them and the if I go with the host I am thinking of I can then convert the free hosting to a pro package which gives me more space and bandwidth.

Reading Pt 4

I am still reading the Charles Stross book and having got into the book, some 200 pages in I have to say that the multi view point and also flexitime line approach appears to be working and that for the story to work Charles had to employ something like it for it all to work.

I am also pleased that the story is not predicable and that's good, I want to be entertained and not get the feeling that I have been ripped off because the another has gone formulaic or predicable.

So far I have had a good read and have also been entertained, thanks you Charles.

Meteor Shower

Well it has to be said that the weather in the UK is such that you can all most guarantee that if there is anything almost interesting going on in the sky at night that it will be cloudy, and that was just so for where I live in the UK last night.

For you see last night the 12.08.09 was supposed to be a great time to see a Meteor shower, one of the better ones in the year, and the predictions where for a go show, some 100 meteors an hour or so, which is something that I would just love to see, I think the most meteors that I have ever seen has been some 4 or 5!

So you can imagine my disappontment last night when having a look at the night sky at 10.30 pm that not only was it cloudy but it looked like it was going to rain!

I am told that the next meteor shower is going to be in November, so I shall make the effort then to have a look, that's assuming that the weather for once gives us a chance to see what is going on up in the night sky.

Reading Pt 3

Iron Sunrise is going well so far not to sure about the several viewpoints and the switching between them and also going backwards and forwards in time but apart from that the story is good and I believe that the author Charles Stross is proving good entertainment and value for money.

I am at one level glad that it is not his first book that I have read of his, as I don't think so far that it shows just what he can and does do.

As a side note to the above the first book of Charles's that I read is one that he has released into the creative commons and that was called Accelerado, if you ever get chance to read do so it will really stretch your mind, it did mine.

New Book

I have a new book that I am reading yeah, it's by Charles Stross and it's called Iron Sunrise, as I have only read some 20 pages I can't tell you what I think about it as I have not got into it yet.

Odd Thought

I was reading somewhere, not to sure where it was now, but anyway I was reading about how in the late 1890's London's streets had a real problem with the waste material from all the thousands of horses that used the London streets back then.

Now my odd thought was where did all that horse manure go to, and who moved it all and when cars and buses started to come in and started to take over the jobs of the horses, what did the people who cleaned up after the horses do?

I know lots of questions, and when I did a Google it was not very good at giving me the sort of answers I wanted, for some reason it was far more interested in giving me results that lead me to stuff to buy, which not what I wanted, this is not the first time that I have been let down by Google, if this sort of thing carrys on I shall have to look at using a differant search engine.

Sunshine

For the first time in a while the sun is out and I can see Blue sky yeh!

Flood Pt 4

Just been thinking over the last day or so, since completing the the reading of Flood by Stephen Baxter could Dirk Maggs do an audio production of it?, how long would the show or shows be, who would be cast in the principle characters?

I think that yes, it could be done as an audio production, there would have to be some clever adaptation, but I think there is great scope for a fertile mind like Dirk's to get over to the listener just what is going on, since one of the best characters in the book is the flood itself, I am sure that someone of Dirk's talent could find a away to get this character across to the listener in interesting ways without going over the top on sound effects.

The duration of the production? that's a difficult one as the book covers a lot of ground, even with some adapting it will not I think fit into anything less than say 120-180 minutes, of course the big problem would be the cost of production and finding a market for it.

But it is nice to dream, well isn't it.

Flood Pt 3

So at long last I have completed reading this book. I got the feeling that the end of the book was some how a bit rushed? not sure why I think this but that's the impression that I got, I have since read other peoples thoughts on this book and they do not make this comment on its finish, so its just me I suppose.

Overall I did enjoy the book so much so that I even had a look on the internet at a couple of sites that let you see what the area you live in would look like if the water level started to get higher. I am safe at the 10 to 30 Meter mark but after that will Ben Nevis is looking real good.

As entertainment I think I had my money's worth, so I say thank you Stephen for some great hours of entertainment.

Flood Pt 2

Still reading this book by Stephen Baxter, and it has not got any happier, so it would make a great story line for EastEnders?

Flood

Still reading the Flood by Stephen Baxter, it's starting to get a bit ...well depressing with all the bad stuff that just keeps on happing. I am beginning to wonder what book 2 in the series called Ark is going to be like.

Otherwise it's a book to make you think..even if only a little bit

Books read

So just had some days off, and as is normal had the chance to do some reading, like you do. I some how read 2 books they were

Plague Ship by Clive Cussler

and

The Borgia Ring by Michael White

both were very easy books to get into and did there job in proving some great entertainment, I read them as a way of whiling away a few hours and that's what they did, neither of the books are presented as anything but a form of entertianmaent and for that they both delivered.

Reading Now

Now reading Flood by Stephen Baxter
Which so far has been a great read, the way that he destroys London is so real that you feel that you are seeing it on the TV, at this stage in the book 200 pages in I don't have a clue as to how its all going to turn out.

As I only get the chance to read for an hour a day its going to be a few days yet until I find out, and I can't wait to see what Stephen is going to do.

Rain

Why is it so wet this July, I was in June just getting used to it being hot and bright and well you know what I mean, now less than a month later I have a fleece on as its not that warm and I am getting really **off that I can't sit out under a blue sky and read a good book.

Rant over.

Reading

Still reading Alastair Reynolds

Better than static

Just got to thinking what is better a dynamic web site or a static one?

Alastair Reynolds

So its been a while since I did a blog, mainly as life just gets in the way and other things that some how steal your time away and before you know it, the free time you thought you had has gone for ever.

So as you can see from the title of this blog its about this welsh writer Alastair Reynolds. Now I know that I have spoken about him before I know I have and well I have read all the novels that he has done in mass paperback or soft cover as the folks from over the sea put it.

I am currently reading his paperback book House of Suns, and I have a admit that I have not read very much of it, in fact so far I have read book 1. The story has got me interested and I do want to see how all the different viewpoints are going to come together I am sure that Alastair will not disappoint. I must state here that I am reading books for fun, entertainment and not to be a critic if I want that (which I don't) there are lots of places where you can get that sort of thing. Its for that reason that I do not tend to read the reviews on Amazon, as I have found that what some readers want from a book is not the same as what I am after and for some reason lots of the reviews are very negative, and I wonder if any of these so called reviews have them selves every tried to create something like a 400 page novel. I suspect that there views would change some what. Yes I know that there is a time and a place for reviews and that lots of folks find them very useful, I don't but then that's just me.

28 C

17.00 28C so it's getting cooler...

Warm

30 centigrade today, it's warm me thinks the humidity 56%

Website Updating

As you know if you have looked at this blog, I have a number of websites that I have had since the very early days of the internet, not on the same ISP silly!, anyway these websites of time have got to be ...well large in fact very large, in that they are hand edited by yours truly and he is starting to wonder if there might be an easier way to keep the site up to date.

One of the websites is on James Follett and the other is on Dirk Maggs, both sites are I suppose fan sites in that they detail the work both of these men do.

James Follett used to write very good tech thrillers, but he has over the last few years basically stopped writing, if you discount the stuff that he does on the newsgroups, in fact I have a sinking suspection that, all his time when he could be writing books is now taken up with the newsgroups, its become like a drug to him and that he is hopelessly addicted to them.

Dirk Maggs is a director writer of audio productions and I am glad to say still very active in the field and still producing some very good work.

The problem is that both sites have more the 100 pages each! they are all hand done.

The James Follett site does not get updated as much as the Dirk Maggs one as there is very little new material ( in fact in the last 2 years: none) the Dirk Maggs site gets an update every 6 to 8 weeks or so

The other day I had the spare time to look at the website logs, and to my surprise the website that gets the most hits a day is the James Follett one, this was a bit of a surprise as like I said before it does not get updated very often, also James has not got any books in print at this time.

I have not found out why this should be, but there must be a reason for it.

So why this long blog on websites?

The reason for it is that most of the very early websites, that have not gone on to be huge money making sites are as far as I can see dead, yes that's what I said dead, you may have heard a term pod cast fade, well before pod cast fade there was and still is website fade, and I can tell you it's still very much a live and well and still getting lots of trade.

Lots of reasons have been put forward as to why pod casts and websites die and I suspect that most them have to do with the fact that people get board and also they get no feedback on what they are doing so they give up as no one will notice there passing.

It's a sad fact that most people on the internet are users and not creators, that's just how it is, and as far as mu understanding goes it has always been that way ever since there was stuff that could be consumed by others.

As for my websites, well they are made for me, if others like them use them or even comment on them, that's a bonus,

I must admit that when I get feedback it's nice, but I only have to look at the number of hits I get a day to the amount of feedback a day to notice just how much more consuming goes on compared to creation.

So I am glad that I am a creator.

Not Much

Not much to say except that the last few days the weather has been nice and well its time to enjoy it all.

Just a note to myself that I have updated the Citrus Project website, which I last did back in Feb 2009, there is no new content yet, I will really have to get my finger out and updated it.

104 to go

Can it really be true, I only need to do another 104 posts this year to match what I did years ago, not that I feel any need to beat the total, as I set myself the idea of doing 100 posts and that I have done. So any more posts that I do this year will be a bonus.

It does not make it any easier but I have also now got a twitter account, and I am very afraid to say that it does indeed kill boggling as you can say a lot in 140 characters or less.

BBQ

Well is it going to be BBQ weather later on today, the reason for this ask is that 3 different weather sites on the web all give different answers!

100

So this is Blog post 100 for June 2009 so I am doing well this year, so far I never knew I had so much to say.

Blue

The other day after some 5 to 6 days here in the UK I got the chance to see the sky with a blue colour. Now I know that this is not an unusual occurrence in some other countries, but here in the UK the sight of a sky that is mainly blue is something to be celebrated. We Brits do a very good line in grey skies, in fact grey skies are I think what we do best.

I mean for over 50 percent of the year us Brits have to put up with various types of grey skies. Sometimes for just a little bit of variety with have some white cloud but some how we just don't know what to do with it and it tends to get placed here or there, mainly anywhere that seems right.

Sometimes you wonder how people in other parts of the world manage to cope with all that blue sky. I mean it don't seem natural from where I am sitting; I'm sure that the normal state of affairs is that the sky is grey with the odd bit of white sky thrown in for good measure.

I must admit that I have been to places where the skies are blue most of the time; the first few days are rather nice as it’s a nice change, but over time you start to get an uncomfortable feeling that some thing is just not right. And it gets worse as you just can't seem to nail down what it is that it is that is getting to you. It’s only much later when coincidently you are back under grey skies that you realise that it was all that blue sky that was getting to you in some way or other.

Maybe being brought up in the UK makes you sensitive to what the skies above you head are doing, maybe being British is being able to live in the gloom of grey skies for over fifty percent of your time.

I can present to you an observation of mine that famous people who have lots of money move from the UK to places that have lower tax and blue skies, I not sure which one comes first, but tax might be the main reason. any way if these people where in the art e.g. pop stars it seems to me that with in the year they just don't seem to produce the same kind of work and the same quality of work anymore. And that pretty soon they end up either moving back to the UK or having holidays back in the UK, can you image that!

Yellow

I suppose that this is one of those words that as soon as you see it your mind normally brings up something that you normally associate with the colour yellow. Most of the time I suppose people will associate the Sun with yellow, or if they like them Bananas. Another fruit that most people would also mention with the colour yellow is the humble Lemon.

Just as a matter of point I happen to like both Lemons and bananas and I don't mind the Sun either. If we are not talking about fruit that is yellow, another thing that is also yellow that lots of people like is gold. Now Gold is one of those things that can be spoken about I suspect for pages and pages and here I am not going to go into it here in any great detail.

One thing that has just stopped me cold is the sudden realisation that the word yellow is one that looks strange when you stop to think about it. I don't know at this time where the word came from and I have not yet had the time to look up to see how other people in the world describe objects that are yellow.

If other languages have a very similar word to yellow, I suppose this could mean that we share a common language and a common way of looking at coloured objects. If the English word came from the Latin then it would I suppose be no surprise that a lot of European countries will have a word that looks very similar to describe yellow.

Well after all that I then did a few hours or so of research, like you do and I think I may have got just a bit carried away, anyway here I present what I found, hopefully its not too much in the school teacher mode, I hope you find it at least interesting so lets get on with it colour fills our world with beauty. We delight in the colours of a magnificent sunset and in the bright red and golden-yellow leaves of autumn. We are charmed by gorgeous flowering plants and the brilliantly coloured arch of a rainbow.

I know this is starting to sound just a bit flowery and I appear to be repeating myself but honest I will get on with it and tell you things that you promptly forgot when told at school. We also use colour in various ways to add pleasure and interest to our lives. For example, many people choose the colours of their clothes carefully and decorate their homes with colours that create beautiful, restful, or exciting effects. By their selection and arrangement of colours, artists try to make their paintings more realistic or expressive. And most of the time I think they get it right, an example would be W.Turner and his sunsets, don’t tell me that it does not evoke some of the sunsets that you have seen yourself, this assumes that you are not colour blind, and if you are all I can say is sorry.

It goes without saying that colour serves as a means of communication. In sports, different coloured uniforms show which team the players are in. On the roads, a red traffic light tells drivers to stop, and a green light tells them to go. On a map printed in colour, blue may stand for rivers and other bodies of water, green for forests and parks, and red for roads, well on my United Kingdom maps they do, your mileage my vary.

We use the names of colours in many common expressions to describe moods and feelings. For example, we say a sad person feels blue and a jealous one is green with envy. We say an angry person sees red. A coward may be called yellow, yes I know I am repeating myself, but you may have already forgotten what I said earlier in this article.

So it really goes without saying, but I am going to say it that colour plays an important part in nature. The brilliant colours of many kinds of blossoms attract insects. The insects may pollinate the flowers, causing the plants to develop seeds and fruits. Colourful fruits attract many kinds of fruit-eating animals, which pass the seeds of the fruits in their droppings. The seeds may then sprout wherever the droppings fall. In this way, fruit-bearing plants may be spread naturally to new areas.

The colours of some animals help them attract mates, but you know this, but here I will give you the odd example, a peacock spreads his brightly coloured feathers when courting a female. The colours of many other animals help them escape from enemies. For example, Arctic hares have brownish fur in summer. In winter, their fur turns white, making it difficult for enemies to see the hares in the snow.

Although we speak of seeing colours or objects, we do not actually see them. Instead, we see the light that objects reflect or give off. Our eyes absorb this light and change it into electrochemical signals. The signals travel through nerves to the brain, which interprets them as coloured images. However, there is much that scientists still do not know about how our eyes and brain enable us to sense colour, so if you want to get yourself a Nobel Prize then just work out how we see.

This is another techno bit, actually this bit is really needed, as without it the rest of this article will not make sense so to understand how we see colour, we must first know something about the nature of light. Light is a form of energy that behaves in some ways like waves. Light waves have a range of wavelengths. A wavelength is the distance between any point on one wave and the corresponding point on the next wave. Different wavelengths of light appear to us as different colours. Light that contains all wavelengths in the same proportions as sunlight appears white. Some other mixtures of wavelengths appear white too, and no I don’t know why, is this another Nobel Prize question?

When a beam of sunlight passes through a specially shaped glass block called a prism, the rays of different wavelengths are bent at different angles. The bending breaks up the sunlight into a beautiful band of colours. This band contains all the colours of the rainbow and is called the visible spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, the light appears as violet. It consists of the shortest wavelengths of light that we can see. Farther along the spectrum, the light has increasingly longer wavelengths. It appears as blue, green, yellow, orange, and red, each fading or shading into its neighbouring colours in the spectrum. The longest wavelengths of light that we can see appear deep red in colour.

Light waves are electromagnetic waves, which consist of patterns of electric and magnetic energy. The visible spectrum is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum the entire range of the wavelengths of electromagnetic waves. Beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum are ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and Gamma rays.

Beyond the red end of the visible spectrum are infrared rays and radio waves.
Such objects as traffic lights and neon signs appear coloured because the light that they give off contains a limited range of wavelengths. However, most objects appear coloured because of their chemical structure. They absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others. When sunlight strikes an object such as a carrot, for example, molecules in the carrot absorb most of the light of short wavelengths. Most of the light of longer wavelengths is reflected. When these longer wavelengths of light reach our eyes, the carrot appears orange.

An object that reflects most of the light of all wavelengths in nearly equal amounts appears white. An object that absorbs most of the light of all wavelengths in nearly equal amounts appears black.

This is a techno bit on how we see colour, so it goes without saying that we have to mention the roles of the eyes and brain. Our ability to see colour depends on many highly complicated workings of the eyes and brain. When we look at an object, light coming from the object enters our eyes. Each eye focuses the light, forming an image of the object on the retina. The retina is a thin layer of tissue covering the back and sides of the inside of the eyeball. It contains millions of light-sensitive cells. These cells absorb most of the light that falls on the retina and convert the light to electrical signals. These electrical signals then travel through nerves to the brain.

The retina has two main types of light-sensitive cells rods and cones. The cells are named after their shapes. Rods are extremely sensitive to dim light but cannot distinguish wavelengths. For this reason, we see only tones of grey in a dimly lit room. As the light becomes brighter, the cones begin to respond and the rods cease functioning. The retina of a person with normal colour vision has three types of cones. One type responds most strongly to light of short wavelengths, which corresponds to the colour blue. Another type reacts chiefly to light of middle wavelengths, or green. The third type is most sensitive to light of long wavelengths, or red.

The brain organizes nerve signals from the eye and interprets them as coloured visual images. Exactly how the brain makes us aware of colours is still much of a mystery, yes you know what I am going to say here, yes Nobel prize time, some scientists have developed several theories to explain colour vision. And I will have a small section later in this article on the history of colour and how mankind has worked out several theories on how we see; no one has one that Nobel Prize for this work yet!

Some people do not have full colour vision. Such people are said to be colour blind. There are different types and degrees of colour blindness, depending on different abnormalities in the retina's cones. In severe cases, one type of cone may be absent or not functioning. People who have such an abnormality confuse certain colours with others. Very few people cannot see colours at all. Most colour-vision problems are inherited and cannot be cured. This means it’s genetic, that is not to say that at some time in the future ways and means may be found to help cure these problems.

While doing all this wonderful research and as I hope you can tell, rather enjoying it I did come across some surprising colour-vision effects. Many operations of the eyes and brain work automatically and almost instantly in providing us with colour vision. We have learned unconsciously not to "see" certain visual effects of these operations, especially as our eyes adjust to changes of colour. When we do become aware of such effects, they may seem dramatic or startling. Some of the colour-vision effects that we normally do not notice can be easily demonstrated.

We can demonstrate one colour-vision effect by covering half a sheet of brightly coloured paper with plain white paper. If we stare at the coloured area for about 30 seconds and then remove the white paper, the area that had not been covered will seem much lighter than the half that had been covered. It seems lighter because our eyes adapt to colours. Such a visual effect is called chromatic adaptation. These are all good techno terms and I will be asking questions at the end of this article, well maybe not its just amazing just how these technical terms get created.

If we stare at a coloured image for about 30 seconds and then look at a white surface, we see an afterimage. The afterimage has the same shape as the original image but different colours. Where the original image was red, the afterimage will be green. Where the image was green, the afterimage will be red. Blue areas become yellow, and yellow areas become blue. Black and white also reverses. The technical name for this amazing colour-vision effect is successive contrast.

We can also demonstrate that the appearance of a colour is influenced by surrounding colours. If we place the same colour against different background colours, the colour will look different in each case. In addition, a colour appears lighter when surrounded by a dark background than when surrounded by a light background. This colour-vision effect is called chromatic induction or simultaneous contrast.

Sometimes, we may see colours in areas that are only black and white. Such colours are called phantom colours. Phantom colours may be seen by staring at flashing black and white patterns, such as those produced by a rapidly rolling black and white television picture.

I suppose that with all the research that I have done, that I should say something about colour vision in other animals, how they did this research, I think would make another great article, which maybe one day I might write, but back to animals such as Apes, monkeys, many kinds of birds, and some species of fishes have colour vision much like ours. However, numerous other animals see colours differently from the way we do. For example, research shows that crocodiles see colours as various shades of grey. The eyes of certain other animals are sensitive to light that we cannot see. For example, bees can see ultraviolet light, which is invisible to people. On the other hand, bees cannot see the colour red. So it goes without saying that many of our everyday plants we see in the garden in summer look very different to bees and other creatures that can see in other parts of the light spectrum.

Right after all that, I suppose I have to say something about different methods of colour production manufacturers, artists, and craft workers produce objects in a tremendous variety of colours. To create so many different colours, they use one of two basic methods. These methods are mixing colorants and mixing coloured lights.

Let’s first talk about mixing colorants a great variety of colours can be created by mixing colorants. Colorants are chemical substances that give colour to such materials as ink, paint, crayons, and chalk. Most colorants consist of fine powders that are mixed with liquids, wax, or other substances to make them easier to apply to objects. Colorants that dissolve in liquids are called dyes. Colorants that do not dissolve but spread through liquids or other substances as tiny solid particles are called pigments.

When two different colorants are mixed, a third colour is produced. For example, when paint with blue pigment is mixed with paint that has yellow pigment, the resulting paint appears green. When light strikes the surface of this paint, much of it penetrates the paint layer and hits pigment particles. The blue pigment absorbs most of the light of long wavelengths light that appears red, orange, and yellow. The yellow pigment absorbs most of the light of short wavelengths light that appears blue and violet. Most of the light of medium wavelengths is not absorbed but reflected through the surface of the paint. When this light reaches our eyes, we see the paint as green. In a colorant mixture, each colorant absorbs, or subtracts, some of the wavelengths of light that strike it. For this reason, colorant mixtures are sometimes referred to as subtractive colour mixtures or colour by subtraction.

Any three colorants that can be mixed in different combinations to produce nearly any other colour are known as primary colorants or primary colours in paint. A common group of primary colorants consists of red, yellow, and blue. When primary colorants are mixed in pairs, the resulting colours are called secondary colorants or secondary colours in paint. Orange is formed by mixing red and yellow, green by mixing yellow and blue, and purple by mixing blue and red. Colour experts have found that magenta (purplish-red), yellow, and cyan (blue-green) also make a good set of primary colorants. These three colorants can be mixed to produce an extremely wide range of colours.

Mixing equal amounts of three primary colorants results in a colour that is almost black, well I think it looks like mud. However, special black colorants, such as a fine black powder called carbon black, provide better blacks. Mixing black with a colour produces a shade. Primary colorants absorb much light, and so they cannot be mixed to produce very light colours. For such purposes, either a chemical compound called titanium dioxide or some other special white colorant must be added. Mixing white with a colour produces a tint. The combination of black and white forms grey. Mixing grey with a colour creates a tone.

After all that talk about pigments and such things I want to talk about mixing coloured lights. When lights of different colours are projected together onto a screen, they blend and form new colours. Mixing coloured lights produces new colours differently from the way mixing colorants does. Mixing colorants results in new colours because each colorant subtracts some wavelengths of light. But mixing coloured lights produces new colours by adding light of different wavelengths. For this reason, coloured light mixtures are sometimes called additive colour mixtures or colour by addition.

In an additive colour mixture, the primary colours differ from those in paint. The primary colours in light are red, green, and blue. When red and green lights are mixed, the result is yellow light. A mixture of blue and green lights forms blue-green light, and blue and red lights form purple light. If you combine all three primary colours in light in the proper proportions results in white light. Now don’t forget I am talking about light not pigments, otherwise what you get is called mud, e.g. not black but a horrible brown mush of a colour. And don’t say that you never made mud in art class, because everyone I have spoken too seems to have done it.

The colours of any two lights are complementary if they form white light when mixed. Therefore, the complementary colour of any primary colour in light is the colour formed by combining the two other primary colours.

The complement of blue is yellow (red light plus green light). The complement of red is blue-green (blue light plus green light). The complement of green is purple (red light plus blue light). Not sure that I am telling the truth?

Well why not go look it up I was surprised that all the above was true.

Colour television pictures are created by additive mixtures of the three primary colours in light. A colour TV screen has thousands of tiny areas that glow when struck by a beam of electrons. Some areas produce red light, others produce green light, and still others produce blue light. When we watch a colour programme, we do not see each red, green, or blue area. Instead, we see a range of many colours produced when the red, green, and blue lights blend in our vision. We see white light when certain amounts of red, green, and blue light are combined. The combining of the primary colours to produce white light makes it possible for a colour TV to show black-and-white pictures.

When neighbouring colours have a pleasing effect, we say that they produce colour harmony. In selecting clothes or decorating homes, many people consider which colours look good together. Artists and scientists have developed guidelines for combining colours. But there are no fixed rules of colour harmony because too many factors affect whether colours go well together.

A colour circle, or colour wheel, shows the relations among colours. It is a helpful tool for choosing harmonious colour combinations. A colour circle consists of a range of colours in the form of a circle. The colours run from red, through the other colours of the spectrum, and back to red again. Three colours an equal distance apart on the colour circle are called a colour triad. The colours in a triad often go well together. The primary colours on the colour circle red, yellow, and blue form a triad. The secondary colours green, orange, and purple are mixtures of two primary colours. They lie at equal distances from the primary colours and also form a triad. Intermediate colours are mixtures of a primary and a secondary colour. They lie between primary and secondary colours. A mixture of two secondary colours forms a tertiary colour.

Any two colours that lie directly opposite each other on the colour circle are called complementary colours in paint. Such pairs of complementary colours include red and green, orange and blue, and yellow and violet. Complementary colours often go well together. A colour also may harmonize with colours that lie next to its complement, such as red with blue-green or yellow-green. Such colours are called near-complementary colours or split complementary colours. Colours that lie next to each other on the colour circle, such as blue-green, blue, and blue-violet, also may form pleasing combinations. Monochromatic colour schemes are made up of shades, tones, and tints of a single colour. Such colour combinations can create pleasant effects.

This is where I go even more techno and get down and dirty on characteristics, so every colour has three basic characteristics. They are hue, lightness, and chroma. Colour experts describe an object's colour in terms of these characteristics.

So let’s talk about the first characteristic and that is hue, hue is the property that gives a colour its name for example, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or violet or a combination of such names. The dramatic differences that we see among the colours in the spectrum are produced by very slight differences in the wavelengths of light. For example, the wavelengths that appear as yellow are only slightly shorter than those that appear as orange. But there is a great visual difference between orange and yellow. This difference is a difference in the hue.

Lightness is a measurement of the amount of light reflected from a coloured object. The lightness of a colour may be expressed by comparing the colour's level of reflected light with that of samples on a lightness scale. A lightness scale runs from black, through shades of grey, to white. Black reflects very little light. A colour that reflects about the same amount of light as black has a very low lightness level. Grey reflects more light than black. Thus, a colour that reflects about the same amount of light as a shade of grey may have an intermediate level of lightness. White reflects nearly all the light that strikes it. Therefore, a colour that reflects about the same amount of light as white has a very high lightness level. Colour experts use the term brightness to describe the lightness level of a coloured light source.

Chroma is a measurement of the saturation of a colour. For example, a teaspoon of red poster paint powder mixed with a teaspoon of water produces paint of a deep red colour. The paint has a high concentration of red colorant, and so it has a high chroma. If we dilute the paint with a cup of water, the resulting mixture will have a low concentration of red colorant and, therefore, a low chroma.

It goes without saying that some one has to try and classify colour, so it should be no surprise that yes indeed that is what has happened and that from my research I have found two common ways of classifying colour, so without more delay lets talk about how colours are classified. Experts estimate that we can distinguish perhaps as many as 10 million colours. Each colour differs from all others in some degree of hue, lightness, or chroma. Our names for colours are far too inexact to describe accurately all the colours we see.

As a result, people often have difficulty trying to describe or match a certain colour. Matching colours is especially important in such industries as paint and textile manufacturing. Manufacturers of paints and textiles must minimize differences in the colour of a particular paint or fabric from one batch of paint or bolt of fabric to another.

To overcome problems in describing and matching colours, colour experts have developed various systems of classifying colours. Two widely used classification systems are the Munsell Colour System and the CIE System of Colour Specification.

The Munsell Colour System is one of the most popular and useful means of classifying colours. It was developed in the early 1900's by Albert H. Munsell, an American portrait painter. The system classifies colours according to the three basic characteristics of hue, lightness, and chroma. However, Munsell used the term value for lightness.

The Munsell system may be displayed in many ways. A common display shows samples of different colours arranged around a vertical axis. Different hues are arranged around the axis like the spokes of a wheel, with each spoke consisting of a different hue. The axis serves as the value, or lightness, scale. It is divided into 10 sections. These sections correspond to 10 levels of value from black at the bottom, through shades of grey, to white at the top. All colour samples at the same level have the same value. Colours close to the axis have low chroma. The farther from the axis a colour is located, the higher is its chroma.

To match a particular colour using the Munsell system or a similar system, one must find that colour among the colour samples provided. However, the number of samples in such systems cannot approach the number of colours we are able to distinguish. For this reason, it is sometimes impossible to find an exact colour match.

Let’s now talk about the CIE system of colour specification. Manufacturers of such products as foods, paints, paper, plastics, and textiles must often match colours precisely. Because colour vision varies among people, two colours that match for one person may not match for another. For this reason, manufacturers do not rely on the human eye to match colours precisely. Instead, they use the CIE System of Colour Specification. CIE stands for Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage, (International Commission on Illumination), an international organization that establishes standards for measuring colour which as all you clever readers out there know is French.

A paint manufacturer who wants to produce the same colour of green paint at two factories may use the CIE system to make sure that the two greens match. First, colour experts analyse the colour of the green paint made at one factory to determine the wavelengths of light that compose it. They make the analysis with a spectrophotometer. This instrument separates the light reflected from the paint into its various wavelengths and measures their intensity. Then, tables of numbers are used to convert this information into three numerical values one for each of the primary colours in light, which will match the original green when mixed. These tables of numbers, called standard observers, define the colour-matching properties of a human eye having normal colour vision.

The paint made at the second factory is also analysed using a spectrophotometer. Small amounts of pigment are then added to adjust the colour of the paint. Pigment is added until the analysis results in the same three primary colour values that were produced by the paint made at the first factory. When these three primary colour values are reached, the two green paints will match, even though they may contain different mixtures of pigments. I now purpose to leave this classification of colour as it can get even more complicated, and I think I have gone into it as far as I want to here, I suspect that you could if you wanted to go to the library and find some very thick volumes which you could read for the next few years on the subject.

This is where I present my research on the early theories of colour vision. Many thinkers in ancient times developed theories about the nature of colour. Since then, scientific experiments have confirmed some of their ideas and disproved others. I also would like to state here that for some reason progress was very slow, why this should be I just don’t know.

Empedocles, a Greek philosopher of the 400's B.C., believed that colour vision was caused by tiny particles that were given off by objects and passed through the eyes. He thought that the eyes either produced a colour reaction to the particles or recognized them as coloured. In the early 300's B.C., the Greek philosopher Plato proposed that colour vision was caused by rays that shot out from the eyes toward objects. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher of the later 300's B.C., may have been the first person to realize that there is a relation between colour and light. However, he also thought that colour was caused by something transparent between objects and the eyes. Galen, a Greek doctor of the A.D. 100's, believed that colour vision arose because rays from the eyes empowered the surrounding air to carry tiny images of objects to the eyes. He thought that these images then were analysed by a visual spirit which moved between the eyes and the brain, well he could not use any modern terms as they had not yet been invented.

As the early 1000's, turned up, an Arab physicist known as Alhazen recognized that vision is caused by the reflection of light from objects into our eyes. He stated that this reflected light forms optical images in the eyes. Alhazen believed that the colours we see in objects depend on the light striking the objects and on some property of the objects themselves, which I think is a brilliant bit of thinking I suspect at that time he must have been the only person on the planet who had this insight.

Thing then started to progress some what and during the late 1600's and early 1700's, Sir Isaac Newton, an English scientist, yes that bloke who told us all about gravity, performed many experiments to investigate the nature of colour. Using a prism, Newton demonstrated that white light contains all the colours of the rainbow. He also was the first person to show that coloured lights can be combined to form white light. Newton realized that light rays themselves are not coloured but that the sensation of colour is produced in the brain.

Not to be left behind by a mere Englishman, during the late 1700's and early 1800's, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German poet, experimented with coloured lights and shadows. He wrote a book on optics that seemed to contradict many of Newton's findings. Goethe did not believe that coloured lights could be combined to form white light. He thought that all coloured lights were actually mixtures of light and darkness. Goethe's experiments were useful in demonstrating many aspects of colour vision. However, Goethe's theories of colour vision based on these experiments are no longer accepted as being the whole answer to question.

The three-component theory of colour vision was first proposed in 1801 by a Thomas Young, who was an English physicist. It was further developed during the 1850's by a German physicist, Hermann von Helmholtz. The theory proposes that the eye has three types of fibres that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light. When light strikes the fibres, they generate electrical signals that travel directly to the brain. According to the three-component theory, the colour sensations that arise in the brain correspond to the electrical signals in a simple and direct way. Scientific experiments have confirmed the existence of the three types of fibres, which are now called cones. Each type of cone is particularly sensitive to one of three general ranges of wavelengths of light--those corresponding to red, green, and blue.

The opponent colour theory was proposed in 1874 by Ewald Hering who was a German physiologist, who went on to suggest that, somewhere in the nerves of the eyes and brain, there are two response mechanisms, each of which involves a pair of opposing colours. This means that the response mechanisms can signal only one of the two colours at a time. One response mechanism signals either red or green, and the other signals either yellow or blue. A third mechanism signals the level of lightness. The brain interprets these signals, producing our sense of colour.

The opponent colour theory explains many aspects of colour vision better than the three-component theory does. For example, the opponent colour theory provides an explanation for the fact that we see no such colours as reddish-green or yellowish-blue, I must admit that when I found out this bit I had to stop and think, just to check that my research was correct, I am glad to say that it’s all true.

From my research the most recent theories combine ideas from the three-component and opponent colour theories to describe the various stages of colour vision. In the first stage of colour vision, three types of cones in the retina, of the eye absorb light and generate electrical signals, as proposed by the three-component theory. During the second stage of colour vision, nerves in the eyes and brain create three new signals, which correspond to those described by the opponent colour theory. The nerve signals may pass through further stages before the brain finally interprets them as the sensation of colour, or what the brain thinks of or we think of as colour.

Well that’s it I have nothing more to say on yellow and colour, I bet that you could write a whole thick book on it if you really tried.
My favourite Things

I suppose that this could be about anything I like. So what I propose to do is to just talk about those items that have had or have some personal attachment to me in one way or another.

I should state here and now that some of the things that I want to talk about are really very personal tome and that you may say that’s silly that a man of your age should have that as a favourite thing, but hey this is my writing and if you don't like it do some of your own.

The first favourite thing that I have, I suspect that this is one of those items that you may call silly for a grown man to like is...Bagpuss.

You may ask what is a Bagpuss? The answer is that he is a saggy old cloth cat that has bright pink stripes and was the star of thirteen half hour children’s programs back in the 1970's. So this really is a childhood favourite of mine.

Why? You may as and the answer is that the programmes where very well made and the stories where written in such away that you had and wanted to stay to the end to find out what happened. The shows had music that was okay and normally fitted in with what was going on in the particular show.

It goes without saying that my kids have picked up on this like of mine and so I am now the proud owner of a DVD of all the episodes ever made, and also a stuffed Bagpuss. Once sometime ago I did have a mobile phone with the theme tune to Bagpuss as the ring tone, but sadly the phone that it was on has seen better days, in fact the phone has gone the way of the Dodo and has stopped working, and my new phone dos not have a way of putting your own tunes on to it. You also find that going to one of these ring tone companies, they do not offer Bagpuss as a downloadable tune.

So what other things are my favourite things, well some of them are very mundane such as a tune or album by a particular artist, a favourite dish.

What you ask is my favourite dish? That would be ham eggs and chips, which is a simple meal that has lots of different flavours and tastes and is easy to do if you are short of time.

Another thing that is a favourite is those big power kites that you see pulling people along the beach while they are sitting in a 3 wheeled buggy at speeds of up to 50 mph. it is a sport that is great fun and can at times be very dangerous, but like other extreme sports it is only as dangerous as you want to make it.

If you want to go out to the very edge then the chances of you getting hurt go up, but the frill also goes up. I suppose it’s a bit like skydiving or motor racing or any other extreme sport.

The next thing that is a favourite thing is I think a bit of a cheat as you can not call the love of your life a thing. But I have to state that my wife is a favourite thing that I also love very much, but as you can't own your wife anymore, she will just have to be one of my favourite human beings that I love to be with. Also in this category I will have to put my two children as well, they are important to me and I do love them.