The new Blogger template is absolutely awful

Google are usually ones to get things right, like Google Maps and Streetview. Nobody 'wanted' this before it existed, but by now, everybody is used to it and it is bloody handy.

Originally, there were two modes for creating new posts. In 'HTML' mode you entered plain text and inserted your own html tags for formatting; in the other, you could highlight and format text in much the same way as you use Word. I preferred HTML mode because Compose generated a load of superfluous 'div' tags which buggered up the line spacing; you had to use HTML mode to get rid of them all again. But each to their own.

This time, in the face of zero demand from anybody, they've made HTML mode uneccessarily complicated. For no reason whatsoever, it now shows line numbers on the left, and you have to type in a line break tag at the end of each line and for every blank line.

Which is a pain in the arse:

Nothing else is as accessible as it used to be either. Detailed stats are now four or five clicks away which used to be two or three, and filtering your post list by labels is much more faff. And it puts "div" tags before and after images, so you have to go back in and delete them if you don't want to end up with weird closer line spacing on all text below the image.

Belated "Happy Blogday" to me

My first post was on 7/7/2007, which is thirteen years and one day ago by my reckoning.

Posts - 13,103 (including quite a few drafts).

Pageviews all time history - 8,812,623.

Happy Tenth Blogday To Us!

'Twas on the very day and moment, ten years ago, that I did my first post. Here we are, twelve thousand posts and five million pageviews later...

Thanks to all my fellow contributors and commenters (the two groups largely overlap)!

What I have noticed is that in the old days, we used to comment on each other's blogs, but nowadays, most people seem to have their favourite couple of blogs and only comment on those; and most bloggers only comment on their own blogs (I am as guilty of this as anybody).

Black Friday Special on this 'blog!

All posts will 50% off and comments will be free. There will also be a bewildering array of vouchers for new readers and discounts for regular commenters.

Civilised discussion

To my mind, here is how civilised discussions should work, the rules apply to the pub, the dinner table, the blogosphere, anywhere.

One person, the bloghost, kicks things off by writing a post, reporting what he believes to be the facts, giving examples, linking to a couple of sources etc.

Other people then either agree; or disagree by giving counter-examples where the facts are different, linking to other sources; or ask the first person for clarification on certain matters etc.

Then the bloghost has the opportunity to say, oh yes, you are right, my original assumption was wrong. Or it's up to him to present more evidence or to explain why the counter-examples are invalid etc.

There is a fairly large sub-set of time wasters and idiots don't understand this and think that debating is all about trying to refute the original claims by insulting the bloghost (or other commenters); by taking his explanation ad absurdum; by claiming he has no expertise or experience - but without ever stating their opinion or  answering a direct question.

Let me give you an example of civilised discussion:

Bloghost: "I think most politicians are quite tall. Look at Tony Blair and David Cameron." He adds a link to a newspaper article, Wiki page or academic study on the matter.

In civilised debate, commenters will either agree ("I met John Major once, he is surprisingly tall"); or disagree ("I met Nigel Farage once, he's medium height at best"); or point out that Churchill and Hollande were quite small, possibly linking to some academic study saying that successful politicians tend to be small - or at least giving their honestly held opinion that on the whole, politicians are of average height.

The bloghost then has the opportunity to withdraw his first claim in the light of better evidence; give more examples; or decide that he his original statement was in fact correct and damn the doubters. If he is asked for clarification then he will give it. If he ignores all the comments listing small politicians and academic studies saying that politicians tend to be small, then so be it, let the court of public opinion judge the matter.

Let me now give you an example of full blown time wasting twats who have no concept of civilised discussion

Bloghost: "I think most successful politicians are quite tall. Look at Tony Blair and David Cameron." He adds a link to a newspaper article, Wiki page or scientific study on the matter.

Comments left by time wasting twats will be along the following lines:

"Tony Blair and David Cameron are actually very short."

"I bet you've never met any politicians."

"The source you link to is unreliable."

"If that's true, and the tallest people are basket ball players, how many basket ball players can you name who became president or Prime Minister?"

"I bet you're a short arse yourself. You're using this to excuse for failing in politics."

"I bet you're quite tall yourself and think that this gives you a God-given right to be a political leader."

"Why is this important? What has it got to do with Land Value Tax?"

"What qualifies you to speak? Are you a geneticist?"

"Prove it!"

"Are you saying that small people shouldn't be allowed in politics? Women tend to be shorter. This is a myth put about by sexists who want to disqualify women from politicos. I suppose you think women should just stay at home doing the housework? Typical UKIP voter!

"Define tall! In the middle ages, 5'6" counted as very tall.

"Not according to this link" (which turns out to be totally irrelevant and hundreds of pages long).

If the bloghost makes the mistake of trying to engage in serious discussion by asking any of them "Go on then, you are rubbishing my theory, can you give me any examples of small politicians?" or "What exactly do you mean by that?" or "I am judging 'tall' by modern standards, i.e. at least six foot and a bit. Why does it matter how big people were in the middle ages?" the commenters will flatly refuse to respond.

If the bloghost is lucky they will at least acknowledge that a question has been asked and admit that they cannot or will not answer it, but the chances are they will ignore it or say things like "That is irrelevant." or "Don't think you can change the topic, your original claim is bollocks." or worse, they will answer a completely different question or repeat the assertion on which the bloghost was seeking clarification.

It does not matter than the bloghost's question is very simple and very relevant and that he wants to establish what the twat commenter is actually trying to say, the key is to ignore it.

So in response to the unfounded claim that Tony Blair and David Cameron are short, the bloghost might add links to some photos of summit meetings showing that Tony Blair or David Cameron were among the tallest in the photo, and ask the first twat commenter "Do you really think that they are small? Do you have any evidence for that?".

The twat commenter will probably refuse to answer the question and will not submit any evidence that they are short. At best, he will say "Photos can be misleading. The ones where they appear tall are photoshopped."

And so on.

Let me help you with that "digital detox"...

Happy 8th Blogday To Us

With the benefit of hindsight, starting a blog on 07/07/07 was maybe a poorly chosen date - the second anniversary of the 7/7 Islamic murder rampage in central London - but we are where we are. But it's easy to remember at least.

If I had to correlate the start date to real life events, I would mention "Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister" and "the smoking ban", those were the two things which pushed me over the edge.

And here we are, 10,670 posts later...

A good post about Indian bicycle marketing

Over in The Shed.

My top twelve blogs

I've had to transfer one 'blog from "Top Twelve" to "Dormant and occasional".

Whoever is the first to nominate a 'blog in the comments, be it their own or somebody else's, gets the spare place in the "Top Twelve".

Coffee and cigarettes

I had my upper wisdom teeth removed on Friday under 'sedation' which is, AFAICS, no different to a general anaesthetic. I can clearly remember him sticking the needle into the back of my hand at the start, at which stage I averted my gaze... and I can vaguely remember them turning off the drip, hoisting me out of The Chair and hoisting me onto a bed in the recovery room, but nothing in between.

You do appear to come round quicker though. I climbed into The Chair at about 9.55 and the first thing I did when I came round was to check the time, it was 10.15. A recovery room nurse once told me that smokers always come round quicker, their systems are used to getting rid of poison.

Her Indoors drove me home and I retired to bed. A couple of hours later, the anaesthetic had worn off and it hurt quite a bit, but no head splitting pain or anything, so I decided to do without the Aspirin I'd bought just in case. Saturday in bed as well, to be on the safe side, this Sunday morning I was right as rain, to be honest.

So far so good.

Problem with all this is, they hand you leaflets telling you not to smoke for at least one day (but preferably two days, but preferably five days) after the operation. They don't say that drinking coffee or booze is discouraged for that long but IMHO drinking coffee or booze without smoking at the same time is just not the same.

Which is all well and good, but I do not function properly without at least six cups of coffee and twenty cigarettes a day. I just remained in a sort of drowsy state all Friday and Saturday with no particular urge to do anything or say anything. Or even complain about anything.

Hence and I why I haven't posted anything since Thursday.

"Naa na na naa naa!"

Dick digs.

And uncovers some of the awesome persuasive tactics adopted by the bansturbators.

Happy seventh Blogday to us!

Post-It Notes and other stuff.

I'm at the Citizen's Income Trust all day conference today, so here's a few random thoughts to keep you going.

1. Post-It Notes

I left a pad of small Post-It Notes in a shirt that I washed on Monday (cotton 40 C cycle plus spin). They were bit crumpled when they came out, but blow me down with a feather, they still unstuck and stuck again just like fresh out of the packet. I do wonder, did the clever testing guys at the factory put them through the laundry and then tweak the formula a bit to ensure that they would survive this toughest of tests for paper-based products?

2. Specialisation

There are two ends to this spectrum.

At one end, it can mean that jobs are broken down into ever smaller tasks, like on a production line. At the other end, it means somebody who knows more about a particular topic than anybody else, such as the proverbial rocket scientists or brain surgeons, none of whom would be of the slightest use if they were one of a small group of shipwrecked people washed up on a desert island.

The other point is that although specialisation occurs of its own accord in a free-market capitalist society, even Communist-dirigiste-authoritarian-caste systems have specialisation; under the latter, they still have distinct categories of doctors, bureaucrats, factory workers, bus drivers, toilet scrubbers etc.

3. Slavery

The first thing that springs to mind is the Brits and others taking West Africans to work in cotton fields in the Deep South, or maybe the Israelites in Egypt before the Exodus.

Clearly, there are degrees to this, nobody can ever be completely 'free'; even if there is nobody else around to oppress you or for you to oppress: think Robinson Crusoe before Man Friday turned up. If you were all on your own on a desert island, would you feel particularly 'free'?

That said, seeing as we are commemorating World War II again this week (in the big build up to commemorating the centennial of the start of The Great War, presumably), surely the most horrific slavery of modern times was "forced labour" in Nazi- or Communist-run factories and building projects? Why does anybody even use the awful euphemism "forced labour"?

Compared to what they suffered, being a slave on a plantation or an Israelite in Egypt was a holiday camp.

UKIP, landowners and windmills: You can't beat a nice paper trail

Well done, Autonomous Mind.

I do not know how he got hold of some of these documents, but this is the sort of bureaucratic digging I have to do at work.

Comments here disabled, join the convo at his.

"Meanwhile, in other high-altitude cow transportation news..."

Spotted by JuliaM at David Thompson's blog (scroll down a bit).

"If they learn how to make fire, we’re buggered."

"I admit it. I got it wrong about UKIP"

Autonomous Mind's post title is slightly misleading.

After pointing out that UKIP is, much like the other parties, pretty much a policy-free-zone, what follows is an interesting summary of the actual mechanics of leaving the EU and what it might mean in terms of 'free trade' (which for the sake of this discussion we shall agree is A Good Thing).

I've disabled comments here, leave a comment over there instead.

My first million!

Seven and a half years and nearly ten thousand blog posts later (thanks to The Stigler and others for chipping in)…

Top blogging this week

There are weeks when other people save you the bother of posting it yourself.

On subsidies to the energy industry...

1. Nick Drew points out that your enemy's enemy is sometimes your friend.

On the whole 'ban smoking in cars' hysteria.

2. Bill Quango MP saves the best until the end of this.

3. Chris Snowdon is one of the go-to blogs for this sort of thing, but he ended up being beaten hands down by JohnB in the comments. JohnB merely forgot to point out that Britain's boozers, once sparsely visited places at best because the smoke drove all right-thinking people away are now teeming with life and flourishing hubs of the community.

4. Dick Puddlecote, the other go-to, veers close to forgetting what 'public health' actually means (but redeems himself in the comments).

On the weather

5. Daily Mash state the bleedin' obvious.

I'm sure there were others, but I wasn't keeping a list.

"In farming news"

Via JuliaM via David Thompson from the BBC:

Methane gas released by dairy cows has caused an explosion in a cow shed in Germany, police said.

The roof was damaged and one of the cows was injured in the blast in the central German town of Rasdorf. Thanks to the belches and flatulence of the 90 dairy cows in the shed, high levels of the gas had built up.

Then "a static electric charge caused the gas to explode with flashes of flames" the force said in a statement quoted by Reuters news agency. Emergency services attended the farm and took gas readings to test for the risk of further blasts, said local media.

Cows are believed to emit up to 500 litres of methane - a potent greenhouse gas - each per day.

I love that last sentence, they couldn't resist it, could they? But given the facts, would it not be more appropriate to describe methane as a 'cow shed gas' rather than a 'greenhouse gas'?

Tee hee

SS Alarmist trapped in thick ice