Amazing – if you have an SBCGLOBAL email account – now AT&T and run by Yahoo – there’s no way to change your email password online. Un believable!!!!

How do these people stay in business?

British businesses are being warned that they could lose their internet connections during the Olympics due to a surge in the number of people going online at key times. The demand could be such that internet companies might be forced to ration access, according to official advice.

The warning, in the Cabinet Office’s official advice, Preparing your Business for the Games, says that the country’s telecoms system may be unable to cope with demand to access the internet in certain areas. Businesses are being encouraged to offer staff flexible working arrangements to try to ease the pressure.
[snip]
The Department for Transport (DfT)will launch Operation StepChange, a week-long pilot across Whitehall departments, in which many staff will work from home. Ministers believe the project could result in a “permanent revolution” in which home-working becomes common practice for civil servants, who are expected to use technology such as video conferencing to communicate with colleagues.

However, the initiative is not without its setbacks. The DfT conducted Operation Footfall, a pilot, last August, that resulted in participating staff experiencing internet connection problems, according to those familiar with the project.

Millions of teenagers will suffer from social media withdrawal. Oh the humanity!

For what it’s worth I have created an alternative to SOPA and PIPA where what we now call piracy become free advertising and distribution. Here’s how it works.

People take part in the 2012 No Pants Subway Ride…Started by Improv Everywhere, the goal is for riders to get on public transport dressed in normal winter clothes, but without trousers, and keep a straight face.

Looks like fun – though a tad chilly.

Gas prices in the United States increased by more than a dime over the past three weeks, the first increase seen since mid-October…

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.35 as of Friday, the Lundberg Survey found. That’s an increase of 12 cents from the last survey of 2011, conducted December 16.

“The price hike comes from higher crude oil prices, which pulled up wholesale gasoline prices, but retailers have yet to pass through to motorists all the hikes they received,” publisher Trilby Lundberg said…

And then there’s this:

Gasoline prices may rise above $4 a gallon next summer as refineries along the U.S. East Coast close, reducing fuel supply, said Edward Morse, New York-based head of commodities research at Citigroup Global Markets.

Sunoco and ConocoPhillips have idled two plants and plan to shut a third that together can process more than 700,000 barrels a day of oil, or about 46 percent of the region’s refining capacity. That will increase the dependence on imports to meet fuel demand in the region that includes the delivery point for New York Mercantile Exchange futures contracts, the basis for national prices at the pump…

“We have a real supply problem ahead this summer because these refineries have not made money and they are shutting down,” Morse said yesterday in a Bloomberg TV interview with Tom Keene. “Summer gasoline is harder to make than winter gasoline, and we could see $4 as a floor price rather than a ceiling limiting demand…”

“The area could be left vulnerable to price spikes if there are ever any unplanned outages or supply disruptions,” said Tom Bentz, director with BNP Paribas Prime Brokerage…

RTFA if you have the stomach for details. The layabouts in Congress will have beaucoup rationales for why they’ve nothing to prepare for this – you know, something silly like an energy policy.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus was released today so I went to my local Verizon store to check it out. Unlike some cell phone users I actually use it for a phone and I like a phone with high speaker volume. Don’t bother with this phone. The Galaxy Nexus has really low volume. It’s so low in fact that it has to be some sort of bug. So it might be fixable. But I wouldn’t bother to look until it’s fixed.

Phone had 4.02 on it so it is today’s release of the OS.

I was also interested in the bigger screen. The screen is longer but not wider than my Droid X. The extra length however is mostly used to draw buttons on the screen. Some apps make the buttons go away using the extra space. I was expecting the screen to seem bigger than my droid X but it seemed the same size. It was a pretty screen.

Android 4 seems a little awkward to use. I think it needs to mature, say 2 more releases to get it right.

I did however get to play with the droid Razr which had the loudest volume of any of the phones. I like being hands free without bluetooth. Just using the speaker phone.

Of course the government wants to take that away too now.

I remember when computers used to actually work. Now, like everything else it seems things are getting worse. Adobe flash used to just work. Now it crashes several times a day. When it first started I thought it was a temporary thing and Adobe will fix it. But months later it’s not getting any better.

It seems like dysfunctional is the new functional and standards are dropping. I remember back when Yahoo Messenger used to work. It was a little app that just did chat and no problems. Now it’s bloatware and barely works.

It’s not just limited to the Windows world. the Linux KDE interface has yet to catch up to where it was 10 years ago. In some ways when it comes to text mode editors Linux has yet to catch up with where DOS was 25 years ago and Linux file permission are way behind where Netware was 20 years ago.

We all love Google but I just bought one of their “Google TV” operating systems built into my new Sony TV and to say it sucks is implying that it works at all and comes up to the level of sucks. When they said it was Android 3.1 I had an expectation is was as good or better than my Android 2.3 cell phone. It’s like it’s not even the same operating system. It’s totally incompatible with every other Android app I run. It’s like it’s a completely different operating system. Nothing I’m used to works. Shame on you Google!

I don’t know what others think but I’m getting really tired of things going down hill and that becoming the new standard. It’s like technology is reflecting the deteriorating state of society. Everything is going to hell.

My 2 cents …

Global warming is the most significant scientific and political issue of recent decades. Manchester United is the most significant soccer club of recent decades. Could the two be linked?

I examined this one afternoon, by looking at global temperatures and Manchester United’s FA cup appearances since 1881. I averaged the data over 11 years, to mitigate the impact of the solar cycle.

The results are remarkable. Each Manchester United FA Cup appearance in an 11-year period raised global temperatures by 0.1º Celsius.

A plot of global temperatures and the Manchester United Climate Model reveals that half of global warming is the result of Manchester United.

As if I needed another reason to hate The Red Scum.