Author: Adam

Amazon.com Universal Wish List

In case you missed it, Amazon.com has a wonderful new tool for adding items from any website to your Amazon wish list, so you can create a central repository of Stuff You Want. All you need to do is add a bookmarklet to your browser – instructions are provided – and click on it when you see Stuff You Want. Fill in a few details in a window that will pop up and you’re good to go, or rather your friends and family are when they feel you’ve Been Good.

Unfortunately it’s not available on the laggardly Amazon.co.uk yet, but that doesn’t really have an impact on functionality. Just make sure you send people to both when you’re scumming for Stuff. :)

Hosting365 loses ICANN Accreditation

Over 28k? Absolutely bizarre. I wonder is it actually Hosting365, or is it misdirected mail for Register365. They only have 900-1000 domains, which hardly seems worth accrediting for in the first place. (Accreditation costs $2.5k up front, $4k a year, $1-2k a quarter, plus 20c per domain; so it ain’t cheap.)

ICANN: Section 3.9 of the RAA requires registrars to timely pay accreditation fees to ICANN, consisting of yearly and variable fees. Hosting365 currently owes ICANN $28,089.20 in past due accreditation fees. Notices regarding Hosting365’s past due accreditation fees, including detailed customer statements, were transmitted to Hosting365 several times over the past year.

On 20 April 2009, ICANN sent Hosting365 a notice of breach of RAA based on Hosting365’s failure to pay past due accreditation fees. Hosting365 failed to cure this breach in the time period allowed by the RAA.

Based on Hosting365’s failure to cure the breach of Section 3.9, and in accordance with Section 5.3 of the RAA, ICANN hereby gives Hosting365 notice that Hosting365’s accreditation will terminate on 4 January 2010.

Homeopathy Users: Dumbest People On The Planet?

This is doing the rounds of homeopathy forums. Fiver says it was seeded by an “enemy” for a joke, and they’re watching the response open-mouthed…

There is a parliamentary ‘scientific committee’ which examines the scientific evidence for certain contentious problems, and the anti-homeopathy brigade have asked this committee to examine the evidence base for homeopathy.

[…]

So, as you can see, it’s a stitch-up. When the results of the enquiry are published, it is highly likely that they will find “there is no evidence for homeopathy.. .blah…blah. ..blah… and therefore we recommend that homeopathy be removed from the NHS”. As it’s a parliamentary committee, the government always takes thier conclusions seriously, and will probably implement them.

[…]

Anyway….we are not taking this lying down. We have decided to carry out an Intention Experiment, and we are doing this every day, at 9 p.m. GMT until 30th November, day when the committee makes its final deliberations.

PLEASE WILL YOU HELP IF YOU CAN? This involves 15 minutes of focussed, meditative, positive intention-making in order to support homeopathy and try to confound our enemies.

[…]

1. Choose a place away from electronic interference, mobiles, phones, TV etc. Add a plant, meditation music whatever helps you personally get into a meditative state.

2. Sit either in an upright chair or cross legged or similar

3. 1st 5 minutes: slow your breathing… in through your nose and out through your mouth for 15 seconds each minute, then

4.From 9:05 – 9:15 pm focus clearly on the statement below in whatever way suits you, see the Committee accepting Homeopathy works, or people being able to
have Homeopathy treatment on the NHS, feel positive and joyful, really see, hear, smell, sense (whichever way you imagine/visualize) the reality of it.

“We intend the outcome for the UK homeopathy evidence check to be wholly and fully in favour of homeopathy. We intend for the vast and thorough body of scientific data supporting the efficay of homeopathy to be seen, heard and recognised as valid, solid and scientific. This is so, and it is done”

Uri Geller must be pissing himself.

Cork County Council Crest

The Cork City Council crest is an excellent example of simple, representative design, but the County Council one is much more interesting. Well, for nerds anyway. Here’s the logo:

corkCOCO

And here’s your anecdote for the pub:

TeachNet: In May 1899 Mr. Robert Day was appointed by the Council to select the most appropriate design for the seal of Cork County Council from 65 submissions. The winning entry was from Guy and Company Ltd., Cork, and is described as follows:

“The design contains within the trefoil shape the shields of four ancient boroughs corporate, Youghal, Kinsale, Bandon and Cork, the latter occupying the central position as the chief city of the province, and which gives its name to the county. In the angles of the trefoil are placed the shields of three of the less important towns within the jurisdiction of the County Council. The whole enclosed in circular form, the upper part bearing the title and at the bottom the year of institution. The raised outer rim is composed of a running border of shamrocks. Celtic ornament is introduced into the sunk trefoil shape.”

The three towns not mentioned are Castlemartyr, Charleville and Midleton, all of which had been boroughs corporate prior to the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act, 1840. Clonakilty had also been a chartered borough but surprisingly never had a shield or coat of arms and this perhaps explains its omission from the shield.