I am a believer in logic and reasoning. I believe in things that can be scientifically tested and proven by independent non-biased parties. Things, in short, most unlike homeopathy.

Homeopathy is an alternative "remedy" system from the 18th century based on the bizarre conjecture that to dilute something to virtually nothing will increase its effectiveness. It relies on such nonsense as water having a "memory" so that it can "remember" what has been added to it even after it has been diluted so many times that it can no longer have any trace of the intentional ingredient.

Until recently, if you mentioned homeopathy to me, my mind would have conjured up an image of a dusty old shop with small windows in lonely back street. I certainly did not imagine that homeopathy was on sale bright and cheerful in every high street in the country!

Homeopathy for sale at Boots

Thanks to the 10:23 campaign i have learnt a lot more about homeopathy. This saturday, 30th january, at 10:23 hundreds of demonstrators will "overdose" on homeopathy remedies outside branches of Boots across England. This is in order to show that homeopathy does not work, and to raise awareness of what it really is.

I hope that the demonstration will put pressure on Boots to stop selling this nonsense. Homeopathy is not something that a reputable chemist should be indulging in. Paul Bennett, the professional standards director at Boots has even admitted that there is no evidence that homeopathy works. Paul Bennett cites "consumer choice" as an appropriate reason to sell and profit from the little pills.

Interestingly enough, some homeopaths are in support of the 10:23 campaign. They say that homeopathy needs to treat the person as a whole, and is to be given with consultation of a "trained" homeopath! Either way, we're in agreement that this stuff should not be available over the counter on the high street!

If you want to add your support to the cause, whichever side you're on, go to www.1023.org.uk where you'll find plenty of resources and more information.

Things like this sadden me: Mike Gunderloy resigns as a Rails activist, no longer wishing to be a public spokesperson for Rails. This is a great loss for the community.

Things like this disappoint me: the attitudes of a few people cause a tainting on the entire community. Even if David Naughton has misunderstood the issue, it is clear that the whole debate has had a negative effect on the Rails community.

Unexpected pornography at a professional conference surprises me, shocks me a little. I wonder whether Matt Aimonetti, at any point during the preparation of that presentation, thought "This is likely to offend some people", and if so, whether Matt decided not to care.

The refusal of some Rails representatives to even acknowledge that there is a problem angers me. Yes it was edgy. Yes it was creative. It can be those things and still be offensive. "Creative" is not a synonym for "acceptable". Offending people is a big deal. The unpology "I'm sorry that you happened to be offended" is a world away from apologising for having been the cause of offence.

It is not a person's fault for being offended. Without wishing to be a Bible-basher, there is a lot to be said for this little nugget of advice:

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

You can't please everybody all the time, but there are basic precautions that you can take, and when you have made a mistake, you can take responsibility for it and apologise for it.

I think that is the end of my rant, and i hope i will have nothing more to say about it.

I would like to say publicly, again, that i appreciate my job so very much. I am extremely lucky to work in a family-friendly, vibrant, fun, laid-back yet totally professional environment, doing a job that i enjoy with my whole heart. I don't expect expect to be discriminated against, nor do i expect any special treatment. I receive precisely the appropriate amount of respect and admiration that i deserve based on my skill as a programmer. I am extremely grateful for it.

Here's a picture of me loving my job today, along with some of my colleagues, sat on the picnic bench in the sunshine: yfrog.com/4o8a2j :)

Sort of related to the rant, i have been wondering tonight where my opinions come from. Different people have different opinions, and i can read and intellectually understand varying stances, so what is it that sways me so strongly in one particular direction? I have an opinion on almost any given topic, but i don't always know what it is that makes me feel that way.

I find the various out-of-control tram hurtling down a track thought experiments quite interesting in terms of moral dilemmas to which people often have a strong opinion, yet cannot quite explain why. Ethics and morals are curious subjects.

Look what happens when you try to log on to Nationwide twice without closing your browser in between times:

How rude! No, you may not close my browser!

*sigh* i guess we have the influence of Microsoft to thank for this kind of intrusion dressed up as helpfulness. We recently had to get a Vista machine for testing purposes at work, and literally every other click results in a stupid popup box offering to do something for us. It's ever more noticeable because of Vista's awful flip in – flip out dialog boxes which just look like such a failed attempt at a modern visual interface. Good visual effects should be sensed, but not noticed, in my opinion. Vista has got it so terribly wrong – it's just annoying is what it is.

Resumo: La retejo Twitter rifuzas preni agadon kontraŭ ofenda kondukto. Tiu ĉi estas komplete malakcepteble.

To all who use Twitter: you need to be aware of this:

Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service

This story is shocking in the extreme. After months of ongoing bullying, harassment, foul language, hate speech, smearing of a person's identity, Twitter had this to say:

"We’ve reviewed the matter and decided it’s not in our best interest to get involved."

This is absolutely shocking and Twitter need to change their tune fast. This kind of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable and there is no question that the abusive user needs to be banned from Twitter and all their hateful comments purged. Twitter are scared of a legal battle, but their Terms of Service clearly state:

"You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Twitter users [...] Violation of any of these agreements will result in the termination of your Twitter.com account."

As an internet community we have a moral responsibility not to let anyone get away with this kind of behaviour. I write this in support of the victim, but also for the good of the Twitter community as a whole. If one person can get away with it, people will soon learn that Twitter is a place where they can be as abusive as they like with no repercussions. This needs to be stopped as soon as possible.

Digg it, Stumble it, blog it … do whatever it takes. If Twitter will not deal with this, then we as a community most certainly will.

Update: Follow @wesupportariel and help take action on this! Oh, i love a good bit of activism!!

Where do you go to give feedback on web hosting companies?

I am rapidly losing my patience with HostingRails. MyChores is still not responding after all this time. Sure, they had some hardware problems, but why is it taking so long to restore? How come this blog is back but they still can't get Rails up and running? Why were they not prepared for this sort of situation?

I have been using HostingRails for 162 days. So far the downtime has been 30 hours. By my calculations that breaks their 99.9% uptime promise quite significantly – i make it 99.2%. I paid a lot of money for a service that i thought i could trust because i realised that reliability is extremely important to the people who use MyChores. I feel very angry.

Please somebody tell me … am i overreacting or is my anger justified? I really can't tell at the moment.

Did you miss me?!

I am very upset about this downtime of more than 24 hours – not about my blog being down, but MyChores site itself which people have come to trust and rely upon. It's still not back yet. :( I have written about what went wrong on the MyChores Journal … can't be bothered to go through it all again here now.

Well, at least the blogs came back – that's something. But as i suspected, i have lost data. They say that one backup restore failed so they have gone to a different one. Bad HostingRails, very bad. You'd think they would have alternative servers prepared and ready to go; you don't expect more than 24 hours downtime from a company that boasts 99.9% uptime. Let's hope MyChores is at least back up and running soon.

This is a LONG post about life, death, afterlife, religion, cosmology, extra-terrestrial intelligence … and probably more! Did i mention it's LONG?!?!?!! You have been warned! ;)

(more…)

Dear Windows Vista,

When i have logged on as an administrator and i have right-clicked on something and told you to 'Run as Administrator' and i have clicked the confirm button … DO NOT TELL ME this action requires elevation!!! How much more elevated can i possibly get?!

I am starting to think Windows Vista has been sent to us with the sole purpose of annoying us as much as possible.

I seem to have found a workaround: install the program you want on a different machine, then network to it and copy the entire program directory to your desktop and run it from there. Not exactly the easiest method, but it's the only one i've found that works.

I also love the double confirmation you need to give to create a folder. Once to create it as 'New Folder' and again to rename it to a proper name! When i'm logged on as a numpty user i have to enter an administrator username and password both times. Micro$oft, would you please go and visit your nice friendly competitors at Apple and learn a thing or two about usability? Kthxbye.

Somebody has written a post complaining about the performance of Twitter, and i have to say, i am upset at both the post and the comments in response.

I'm thinking if we get enough inspired commentary we might actually get some answers out of Twitter about why they have such a hard time just keeping the service running.

Isn't it obvious? Twitter growth has exploded exponentially in a short time. It's no great surprise they're having performance issues. If people would stop emailing them with their petty little whinges perhaps they could get on and fix things faster!

This can be particularly debilitating when we are relying on Twitter at conferences or to stay in touch when meeting up.

Newsflash: there are other methods of keeping in touch with people! Email, telephone, IM, text message, guess what – all those good things still work! In my opinion, if you're relying on Twitter to keep you in touch with people then you are in a pretty sorry state. By the way, do you really need to follow 238 people? It works just fine with 33.

This is not a usable system anymore. I think you should give your users an explanation.

I agree that it is polite to keep users updated when your service is having difficulties. A post on a blog is an easy way to do that. However, Twitter is a free service, offered to us in return for nothing. Their terms and conditions expressly state that they may modify or terminate the service at any time. None of us has a right to make any sort of demands upon them.

I think the reason i'm upset is because i can very well imagine how i would feel if this ever happened to MyChores. I am grateful that MyChores has so far grown in a steady linear fashion, not an exponential one. I recently heard someone say that if you're not having performance issues then you're not growing fast enough. I disagree. I know that if MyChores grew too fast i'd be out of my depth. I wouldn't know what to do.

I feel for Crystal at Twitter. Crystal always sends such calm, polite emails, explaining what is going on and apologising for any difficulties. That is what i try to do when MyChores has problems. I try to connect with the people who make use of MyChores, let them know that i appreciate them, and i'm doing whatever i can. So far people have responded well to that, and i receive many warm emails that bless my heart. One email recently even moved me to tears because somebody was so grateful for the positive impact that MyChores has had on their life. I'd be horrified if that were ever to turn against me – if people started abusing me for not providing a reliable service. I don't feel i deserve that, and i don't feel that Twitter do either.

If someone offers a free service, accept it graciously, use it gratefully, and if it fails to meet expectations, thank them for the gift they brought to you, and move on. Or let them know politely what disappoints you and wait to see what happens. There is no call for disrespectful emails or unreasonable self-centered demands.

After 5 days waiting for something from Six Apart i was honestly hoping for something better than this. I am indescribably underwhelmed. It took five days to put that load of waffle together?!

Here is my final word on the matter:

Really not impressed.

Where is the explanation of what constitutes artistic merit?

"You're only in trouble if you get reported" does not sound like a guideline to me.

Why have i had no response to the abuse report i made?

Where is the public apology from burr86?

Ugh. After 5 days waiting i was hoping for better than this. I determined not to post anything to my journal or any community until there was a decent explanation. In my opinion that has still not come.

Give brad a kiss for me. I loved LiveJournal when Brad was in control.

Six Apart, take the middle finger. Goodbye.

I refrained from making any posts since Sunday, even in the deathly_cntdwn community, which i miss. Unfortunately i can't even post OpenID comments there, since LJ treats OpenID the same as Anonymous, and the community has Anonymous commenting switched off. I was hoping that after a word from Six Apart i'd feel comfortable to log back in with my LJ identity, but i have to say i do not. Which is a shame. Eight posts full of comments prove that as well as being entirely pissed off, people really do still care about LiveJournal.

Personally, i have wasted enough time with LiveJournal. I'd love to see a mass exodus, and i'm encouraged to see all the discussions going on as to what people want, and maybe some very clever people will make a few new sites that will be just what fandom needs. I know a lot of people will stick with LiveJournal, but really it's creeping death now, since the Six Apart screw-ups seem to be getting more frequent. I hope that my getaway will prove to others that it's an easy and rewarding thing to do.