Mat Bowles

British Passport Renewal; you have 18 months

Right, background here (me) and here ( on . Short version, the House of Lords has accepted a “compromise” wherein ID cards won’t be compulsory until 2010 (ie after the next Election) but being on the NIR will be from as soon as it’s set up (sometime in 2008).

This is apparently a good one for civil liberties campaigners as it gives us another election before the cards are compulsory. Problem.

It’s not the cards that we object to

It’s the National Identity Register. I do not want to live in a database state, where some “unhackable” database (the Titanic was “unsinkable”, remember?) has record of my biometric information and essential identiy details.

However, the Home Office confirms you can renew your passport at any time for any reason.

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

I am not a number, I am a free man.

National Identity Register? £2,500 fine for failing to keep your details up to date?

Say No2ID.

Yes, I’m at work, yes I’m swamped. Regardless, I’m angry and scared about this one.

March 31st, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 11 comments

Cap’n Jack

Which Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?

Hmm. Is anyone actually surprised by that one?

Which is worse, I did the meme, or felt the need to correct the html and add alt and title text? Still, is Barbossa. I win.

Aside, but related to an earlier similar meme. Which one of you gits voted for me as “women pirate“?

March 30th, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 4 comments

TrustFlow results for <lj user=”matgb”>

So…
Via

I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for are close by:

• (200 - 250)
• , , (250 - 300)
• , , , , , (300 - 350)

• , , , , , , (350 - 400)
• , , , , , , , , , (400 - 450)
• , , , , , , , , , , , (450 - 500)
• , , , , , , , , , (500 - 550)
• , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (550 - 600)
• , , , , , , , , , , , , (600 - 650)
• , , , , , , , , , , , , (650 - 700)
• , , , , , , , , (700 - 750)

Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift.

TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends
list?

From what I can see from the description and FAQ it’s a bit like the pagerank formula for Google, the less ‘friends’ each of my friends have, the more ‘trust’ is spread onto them, and those who are friends of more than one of my friends will also get more.

Slightly skewed by me having loads of friends and some of them being inactive accounts (’s girlfriend being one, for example, he hasn’t updated for years (although his article on Taktix is still one of the most linked to and read). Not sure if it’s worth anything, but still. Think of it as a “you should friend this person” if you get results below about 100 for anyone.

March 30th, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 4 comments

Which William?

Shakespeare - Probably not a geek.

Shatner - Seek help.
A refined version of ’s question.

March 29th, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 15 comments

Middle Earth Rhapsody

Becky’s Web

Sheer genius

Edit update: has an alternative version with MP3 recording here.

Now if I could get my PC to recognise the speakers…

March 27th, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 10 comments

Idiots online

Ladies and gentlemen. I present the death of intelligent humanity. Three posts, on the same LJ community, all of which boil down to a complete inability to either look things up, check the help files or indeed think!

I’m normally very willing to help give advise, but just look at her comment responses “I can’t restart my PC, I’m watching an eBay auction that will end in under an hour”, etc.

It’s not that she’s asking for help. It’s her complete inability to think for herself and/or understand basic answers that really got to me…

March 25th, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 12 comments

It’s April in just over a week.

April Fool
doctorvee	enlists you in the French Foreign Legion.
draich_goch	TPs your cat.
faeriecween	paints your car orange.
freddiefraggles	smiles. All the time.
jackthomas	buys you a Russian Bride.
lithium_doll	legally changes your name to MoonBeam Cappa.
mapp	glues your head to your bedroom ceiling.
nadriel	eggs your Russian Bride.
paulatpingu	trims your hedge into a replica of the Venus de Milo.
susannah_banana	shaves your dog.
Prank Me

Isn’t April supposed to warm up? At least a bit, anyway.

March 24th, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 7 comments

Pirate King?

This is cool:

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Via , you go click and vote on what sort of pirate I be. Not a bad little idea for a meme. Much better than that johari/nohari thing, which, now I’ve finally managed to get to the site (server overload is such a bitch…) I’ve decided I hate.

March 22nd, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | no comments

Icons, The GIMP, Internet Exploder and a summers day

Firstly. Apparently, this has nothing to do with .

Second, I have figured how to use the Gimp to make transparencies (so simple when you get it, but so not easy to find) and also to animate gifs. Um, why is gif animating an obscure save option?

Still, cool beans, I have made an icon.

Anyone reading will have noticed I’ve messed the template up. Apart from the colour scheme (bad idea, never should use colours), it should be perfect. Except Internet Explorer doesn’t resolve the CSS properly. Set width margins; that gives a variable width centre column you useless software! Gah! It looks awful. It’s either go back to the old, badly coded columns, or fudge it by putting an invisible table to not let the window resize below 1000px for IE users only. That would be a bad idea. Have I mentioned IE sucks? Oh, I think I did.

Apparently, it’s spring. Spring? Will you turn up soon? My flat is utterly, utterly frozen. OH, and my internal bodyclock thinks that the correct time to sleep is 5.30am. My alarm clock thinks the time to wake up is 8.30am. 6 hours sleep in 2 days not good.

March 22nd, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 11 comments

Don’t mock us Goths, we’re “highbrow” now…

Has hell frozen over?

Or maybe it’s just heaven is warming up?

goths are middle class to the core and have “very high-brow” values

- from The Telegraph.

That’s right, the bastion of English conservatism says I’m highbrow and (almost) respectable. The Independent wrote up a nice two page study (shame they got some band facts wrong, ah well).

The Guardian? Takes the piss.

Is your boss a goth? 10 telltale signs

1 Drinks snakebite

And, of course, gets the facts wrong:

That is the surprising finding of Sussex University’s Dunja Brill, whose doctorate in media and cultural studies looked at people with funny hair and eyeliner in London, Brighton and Cologne, and who is herself a former goth.

(Because, of course, 32 year old academics have to have grown out of that sort of thing, right?)

Or, as quoted in the Independent:

Dr Dunja Brill, a 32-year-old German with her own Gothic tendencies … “The Goth lifestyle allows you to lead a perfectly sane, stable lifestyle with a proper job, your own flat and even a family, then at the weekends or in your leisure time follow your Gothic activities,” said Dr Brill.

There’s a bit more on the blog of one of the Indy’s other interviewees Andrew Collins.

Still, it has allowed lots of journalists to “come out of the closet” and write up articles about their “dark past”. Let’s face it, drop something in the street; most likely to stop and help? That “dodgy goth type”. Least likely? The selfish fasion victim.

Plus ca change.

Should I be worried? Next up they’ll be saying I’m a respectable graduate with responsibilities in a challenging job…

Oh, wait.

March 22nd, 2006 Posted by MatGB | Uncategorized | 15 comments