DARnet Andy Roberts

Building a log pile

2009-11-07T09:55:45Z

I started building a small log pile a couple of years ago in order to add to the environmental diversity in my back garden. There were only a few pieces of wood though, left over from some grubbing out and thinning. Then there was the incident with the dangerously overgrown eucalyptus tree which had to be taken down or severely pollarded. When the tree surgeons came to do the job I told them to leave me the logs, so this is what I had as my raw material to build my substantial log pile with.

The rest of this story can be told largely in pictures, I think. Unless there are any questions.

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Building a log pile

Rowan Tree Folk Song

Wordpress Developer Required for Small Coding Job

2009-11-03T16:11:11Z

Are there any good coders out there with an hour or two spare?

I think I’m going to need a WordPress developer of some sort to help me try out an idea I’ve had for better navigation within some of my blogs. To begin with it’s probably just a chunk of code to create a single loop inside a template file, but if it works well there’s a good possibility to turn it into a handy plugin that would be helpful only to certain types of blogs.

WordPress developer required

So where do I go from here? I could go onto one of the rent a coder type sites and ask for a quote I suppose but I thought I’d start by putting this down on my blog so I can refer to it within my networks.

If you think you might be interested in discussing my requirements and starting very soon then do please get in touch.

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Wordpress Developer Required for Small Coding Job

Wordpress 2.7 and the Redirection Plugin

How to Photograph a Ghost

2009-10-31T18:52:35Z

How to Photograph a Ghost using free image editing software

As it’s halloween night tonight, and I have been requested to publish more image editing video tutorials using the Seashore free image editor for Mac, here’s the latest lesson in the series, which should be a lot of fun. It’s called “How to Photograph a Ghost” and will enable you to produce a well executed picture of a ghostly transparent human body against a real background without any noticable edges and even with the perfect shadow effects. As this is tutorial number 4 in a series, following on from :-

… we do use some slightly more advanced techniques then in the first three image editing with Seashore for Mac videos, but nothing that the beginner cannot master with just a short amount of practice. You can’t use an existing photograph, you’ll either have to go out and take a picture specially in one place, twice, or else you can download and use the two creative commons licensed photographs used as an example in the video.

Image Editing Video Tutorial – Seashore for Mac 4

So first watch the video all the way through, then decide on your subject matter:

After watching the video once, you can wind back to the beginning and try copying the same technique yourself using the seashore software. The best thing would be to go out and shoot a similar pair of your own photographs, being careful to hold the same camera position for both.

If you do decide to use the example pictures to practice on, you can download them by cmd+clicking the following two thumbnail pictures then selecting “save target as” or else clicking through to the larger pictures then dragging them off to your desktop.

Background Picture

Man against Background

Image editing Photo Credits

You are welcome to these or any of my photographs for online publication provided you abide by the create commons license which require you to attribute the photographer as “Andy Roberts” and link back to this blog.

If you found this free video tutorial useful, it would be nice if you would please rate and favourite the image editing tutorial 4 on youtube and blog, retweet stumble etc this post,

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2009/10/31/how-to-photograph-a-ghost

cheers.

Andy Roberts

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How to Photograph a Ghost

Blog Action Day : When The Waters Rise

2009-10-21T16:35:31Z

When The Waters Rise – Blog Action Day

My contribution to Blog Action Day, this year on the topic of climate change, is a song called “When The Waters Rise” here recorded from one of my live Webcasts ( Tuesdays 7.00pm )

When the Waters Rise Lyrics

When the waters rise, when the waters rise,

It’s started to rain, could go on forever
The puddles grow then join together As the waters rise

With energy a change of current
The trickle soon becomes a torrent And the waters rise

We’ll have to move abandon camp,
where once was desert now is damp And the waters rise

The balance kept by plants and sea
has pushed beyond the boundary
The gas surrounds us like a cloak
a million years gone up in smoke

With climate change, a world in motion,
Then the ice caps melt and join the ocean And the waters rise

In the short term we can head for the hills,
In the longer run we’ll all grow gills and the waters rise

The weather warnings made no mark,
Now there’s no time left to build the Ark As the waters rise..

When The Waters Rise Blog Action Day #BAD09

Blog Action Day

The aim of Blog Action Day is to raise awareness through concerted blogging about a single issue coordinated on one day.

When The Waters Rise – Live at Havering Folk Club

I mentioned Blog Action Day at the end of performing a version of my song “When The Waters Rise” on the eve of #BAD09 last night at Havering Folk Club

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Blog Action Day : When The Waters Rise

7 Best London Theatre Breaks

2009-11-08T23:36:48Z

London Theatre Breaks

London Theatre breaks involve short breaks to London to see a top West End show and stay in a smart hotel close to London theatreland. Top tickets to the most popular shows are hard to get hold of, especially for a Saturday night or close to holidays but the hotel and theatre packages hold block tickets in reserve so it’s often the best way to secure the dates you want and also make sure you don’t have to worry about getting back home again after a great theatre night out. Theatre breaks can also be extended to include discount rail fare from any UK railway station, and arriving in London by train is a very sensible plan by the way, and also London attractions such as the London Eye, Thames river trips, Madame Tussaud’s etc. If you’re one of those people who always like to know where you are going to be eating you can get a good deal booking pre-theatre restaurant meal at the same time too.

Here is a selection of 7 from the current top musicals on offer:

Les Miserables Theatre Breaks

Les Miserables (or Les Miz) has remained one of the most popular London theatre breaks after becoming the longest running musical with a 25 years unbroken run. This spectacular musical show with a highly emotional score tells of the epic story of Jean Val Jean, an ex-convict who could not escape his past, all against the background of turmoil sweeping through 19th century France.

Sales of tickets for Les Miserables went up by 46 per cent after Susan Boyle sang I Dreamed a Dream in the first round of Britain’s Got Talent.

Grease West End Theatre Breaks

“Grease is the word” Come on, haven’t you always wanted to get up and sing like Sandy or Danny? The songs are so familiar that with a Grease theatre break in London, you know exactly what kind of fun you’re going to get. The super line up for the West End staging makes sure this is the most professionally stunning production of Grease you’ve ever seen.

Oliver!

“Can I have some more please?” Oliver the musical is the famous Lionel Bart staging from the Oliver Twist story by Dickens. Jodie Prenger the leading lady confounded sceptics by holding down the part she won in a TV competion and will continue to delight audiences with her powerful voice and dedication to the hard West End lifestyle well into 2010. The part of Fagin has been played by big names Rowan Atkinson and Omid Djali and after December 14th is taken over by Griff Rhys Jones. Legendry classic musical songs such as “Food glorious food”, “Consider yourself” and “You’ve got to pick a pocket or two” are all part of the timeless Oliver theatre breaks experience.

Mamma Mia!

Did you see the movie with Meryl Streep? I loved it. This is the stage musical the film was based on and they do turn the inside of the theatre into a fabulous sunny Greek island. It’s both funny and fun. Mamma Mia theatre breaks with the enormous feel good factor are great for parties, groups, couples young and old and if you do drag somebody along who thinks they dislike Abba songs they still end up having a brilliant time.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Another musical that has its origins in a film of the same name, Priscilla Queen of the Desert on stage has taken on a life of its own. After years of success in Australia, Priscilla finally arrived on the London West End scene in spring 2009 with Jason Donavon and Tony Sheldon. The costumes and sets are completely mad and Stephen Fry said “It’s one of the most fantastic evenings I’ve ever had in a theatre. It’s just simply infectious.”

Phantom of The Opera

The Phantom of The Opera is another very long running musical which relates more towards the classical side of musical theatre, having superbly visual gothic scenes and a big soaring orchestral musical score. Worth seeing more than once, Phantom of the Opera theatre breaks are appreciated for anniversaries and smart city breaks. With the impending launch of an unusual sequel musical, called “Love Never Dies“, there is likely to be more interest in the Phantom than ever.

Dirty Dancing

Nobody seems to be able to explain quite why Dirty Dancing theatre breaks attract such enthusiastic devotees, but Saturday night tickets are always scarce and the glitzy young people who do turn up are usually all set for a big night out. You have to be impressed by spectacular dancing and expect to get caught up in the music and romance.

Other Theatre breaks in London

Of course there are plenty of other choices for theatre breaks in London if none of these top musicals are exactly your cup of tea. How could I leave out “We Will Rock You” for example, the only British rock musical currently in the West End ( but not for long we hope ). And if it’s a good play that does more for you than musicals then there’s an opportunity to see Lenny Henry’s powerful Othello, The Shawshank Redemption and of course long term favourites such as The Mousetrap and Woman in Black. For information about the logistics of planning London theatre breaks you can also browse the theatre breaks magazine or join the theatre breaks facebook page.

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7 Best London Theatre Breaks

Rowan Tree Folk Song

2009-10-22T18:02:22Z

The Rowan Tree

The little wild rowan tree (sorbus aucuparia) in my front garden is looking great at this time of year, although half the berries are gone already thanks to hungry blackbirds. I planted it there about ten years ago, and it’s taken its time to grow upwards in the shadow of a great big sycamore, but in the last two years it has managed to get itself firmly established and is turning into a mature specimen tree. I was told that its not uncommon for people in Scotland to plant rowan trees in front of houses, partly from sentimental attachment to the wild Scottish countryside, and also to help keep the witches away. I didn’t know anything about that at the time, but it does seem to have worked.

Rowan Tree Song

So I wrote my song about the rowan tree, whilst I was in Scotland as it happens, and then worked on the music and finishing off back home. Motivated by the approach of Halloween, which tends to get celebrated at Havering Folk Club, I’ve tried it out twice now, once at the regular Tuesday Evening 7.00pm webcast and once at the folk club last night, where it was encouragingly well received. There’s no video from the session last night, but the early prototype from the webcast is embedded below, followed by some form of the lyrics. Sometimes called the mountain ash, this is a native rowan tree, not a cultivar, and the berries glow a light red colour in the autumn sunlight, making for welcome food for blackbirds and thrushes, although they always leave the more difficult bunches at the end of delicate branches until last, due to the danger of falling off.

Lyrics of The Rowan Tree

Lyrics to “The Rowan Tree”, a folk song by Andy Roberts

Come hear my story, it’s a tale of four witches
but I could have added three more
And heed my advice if you’re troubled by witches
Just plant a Rowan tree outside your front door

And the branches sway in the faintest of breezes
the berries are red bright and fair.
And I’ve not had much trouble with those witchee witches
Not since I planted my Rowan tree there

Well the Witch of the West was cunning and sly
She had me always on the run
And I never knew which way her nose was pointing
Not until after she’d been there and gone.

And the branch tips dance…. planted my Rowan tree there

The Witch of the East was just counting the years
and somehow that three became five.
Then her time was up and she vanished away
Now nobody knows if she’s dead or alive.

And the branches sway…. planted my Rowan tree there

The Witch of the South was trouble from the start
Her fancy was playing with fire
The anger rose up as the coals glowed white
and the smoke billowed higher and higher

And the branches sway…. planted my Rowan tree there

The Witch of the North is not like the rest
She uses her powers for good
As the Rowan tree watches and nods in approval
and keeps us both safe from the dark witchee wood

And the branches sway…. planted my Rowan tree there

So that was my story the tale of four witches
I could have mentioned three more
Now heed my advice if you’re troubled by witches
Just plant a rowan tree outside your front door

And the branch tips dance in the faintest of breezes
The berries are red, bright and fair.
I’ve not had much trouble with those witchee witches
Not since I planted my rowan tree there.

Rowan Tree Berries

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Rowan Tree Folk Song

#TEDxTuttle – Rachel Armstrong Living Architecture

2009-09-18T07:58:54Z

Rachel Armstrong was one of the speakers at Ted X Tuttle yesterday, talking about her work with proto cells to create a new living architecture (non belligerent) which holds out a prospect of rescuing Venice and then the world.

Rachel is unashamedly anthro-optimistic and radiates intelligent thinking with almost every well chosen word. I think most of the audience found the presentation quite breathtaking in the audacity of the ideas, as she explained new and almost alien ideas with expert simplicity.

As a Ted X event, the video of the talk should eventually surface in a shareable form but in the meanwhile, here’s a clip from a short interview at a previous event where the Cytoplasmic Manifesto is outlined:

Preview to SCi Fi London - Rachel Armstrong @viewmagazine.tv from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.

There’s also a ‘live blog’ writeup on Adam Tinworth’s One Man and his Blog entitled #TEDxTuttle : The Future of Buildings

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#TEDxTuttle – Rachel Armstrong Living Architecture

No related posts.

Image Editing 3 : Colour Select with Seashore for Mac

2009-11-01T15:05:29Z

Image Editing Videos

I’ve been asked if there are any more image editing tutorials after having published image editing lesson 1 layers and image editing lesson 2 the clone tool so here’s lesson 3 which looks at the colour select tool. The use of gradients is also introduced at a beginners level. Seashore free image editing software for Mac is free and open source, it fills a sizeable niche doing much more than iPhoto but being simpler and a lot less expensive than photoshop.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’d like to try this exercise using the same example you may download the picture used below in various sizes from the Flickr photo page.

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Image Editing 3 : Colour Select with Seashore for Mac

Theatre in Scotland Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

2009-09-08T11:27:52Z

Tonight I’m going to the theatre in St Andrews, Scotland to see a musical play called “The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band Changed My Life Forever”. I’ve been told the that the Byre theatre is a great venue which puts on quality productions but to be honest, just going by the title, this would be a subject close to my heart anyway.

Written by Patrick Prior. Directed by Jim Dunk. Performed by Pat Abernethy & Dave Marsden.

Q: Is there anything more frustrating than being a one hit wonder? A: Maybe being a One hit Tribute Act

This play with songs tells the story of two tribute wannabees, Bob and Eric, who meet at an audition which might be their last chance for fame.

The Bonzo Dog newsgroup was proposed by Andy Roberts on 19th March 1998 and gave rise to the Bonzo Dog FAQ which, after several re-re-unions and fallings out is now severely out of date, like much of the world wide web, but the usenet group survives in some form and tells us that the latest incarnation is something called “Three bonzos and a piano“.

Well there’s not much more I can say about the show before having actually seen it of course, so I’ll leave it it at that for now, and may be put a placeholder down just below here >>>>>>>…

||||Place Holder||||

<<<<<<<<<

ready for my attempt at a review afterwards, if I feel like it.

Which I might not of course, especially if it’s not very good, but that’s unlikely.

I hope.

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Theatre in Scotland Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

Location Independent Again

2009-09-03T14:39:01Z

So I’m trying to do some blogging and so on from a location away from home again. The mobile dongle is kind of working intermittently here by the harbour, and I haven’t tried driving to higher land in search of a stronger signal yet. I did find a pub with wifi in the next village and we tried that one afternoon. I couldn’t help thinking that it would be a bit of a shame if this becomes the future of pubs – people sitting down by themsleves staring at laptops while nursing half a pint.

Another possibility for the future of pubs is as a local community service where you can go to collect your parcels and other deliveries.

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Location Independent Again

BE Broadband ADSL2 – Best Broadband Deals

2009-09-17T21:48:05Z

Best Broadband Deals

BE Broadband ADSL2

My BE fast broadband box arrived today but I can’t start using it before the activation date on Friday, which is a bit frustrating on the one hand but on the other it’s great that they actually sent it out two days earlier than they said they would. I only actually got my home land line switched back to BT last Friday so that means only one week without home broadband while making the two-step switchover. It seems to be a good idea to do this at a time of year when most people are thinking about going away on summer holidays rather than upgrading their info telecomms systems.

The BE Broadband deal is the best for me because of the ADSL2 technology which allows speeds up to 24Mb and the Professional deal which has an option for faster uploading at the expense of a little bit of the huge download bandwidth. Upload speed is important to me when moving websites from one host to another, uploading high definition theatre breaks video or loads of pictures to Flickr. It should also be just the job for ensuring my Tuesday Night broadcasts on Ustream.tv run smoothly. Not everybody can get the BE broadband deal, you have to be lucky enough to live near a telephone exchange which is equipped with ADSL2 capability and that hasn’t been rolled out all over the country yet. Well neither has ADSL1 yet! So location is still very important for getting the best broadband deals.

Mobile Broadband Dongle Deals

In the interim we’ve been making do mostly with a couple of T-Mobile pay as you go mobile ‘broadband’ dongles. It’s the only deal we found that doesn’t tie you into a 12 month or longer contract but hasn’t been as successful as I’d hoped due to the 3Gb monthly data transfer limit which I quickly used up in less than a week. All the dongle deals have that though, even the longer contracts After that I expected to get progressively capped the following month, but no – the service just stopped working until the next calendar month which is no use to me. In fact the realisation that mobile broadband just isn’t good enough yet for business use makes the whole idea of location independent living seem more like a dream for the future than a practical reality for here and now.

Getting by temporarily without Broadband

I found it much harder than I expected to adapt to offline working with sporadic broadband access. After a few days I’d resorted to installing google gears for offline gmail reading, re-installed an old client RSS reader and installed WordPress Turbo (google gears again) on quite a few blogs for faster updating when I did get through. I finally got around to looking back through some old mini-dv tapes to capture some old video clips – very time consuming, and I tidied up my apllications and downloads folders a bit. I couldn’t really settle down to proper ‘flow state’ work though, and I suspect it would take weeks or more to really get back into the habit of working mainly in batch mode offline, if at all. The conclusion therefore is that a good, fast and 99.99% reliable broadband connection is absolutely essential to the conducting of any business even with just an online element to it. I would happily pay upwards of £100 per month for such a system if it existed, so the difference between a £9.50 a month cheap broadband deal service and a £24 one is not the price but the vital quality of service which needs to be the best.

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BE Broadband ADSL2 – Best Broadband Deals

Location Independent Working

Ustream.tv Tuesday Nights Andy Roberts Music 7.00pm

2009-07-27T14:48:02Z

Andy Roberts Music on Tuesday Nights

I’ve been trying out ustream.tv for making live broadcast videos and I think it’s something I’d like to experiment with further. So I decided to pick a day and time to see if I can persuade a few people to tune in for some simultaneous music and chat.

I decided on Tuesday Evenings at 7.00pm UK time for now, but that could always change if turns out not to be a good choice. I have broadband issues right now, so this may not start with immediate effect but I’m intending to broadcast most Tuesdays throughout August and then resume mid September. It should be easy enough to notify anybody of schedule changes once we get going.

Ustream.tv

Ustream.tv is essentially a narrowcast media, allowing anybody to start up a channel and ‘broadcast’ live from a computer. All you need is a webcam, and built-in microphone to start with, and a decent broadband connection, which I intend to have very soon.

So what’s going to happen on Tuesday Evenings on the Andy Roberts Music channel?

Well that depends who turns up, but the intention is to busk a load of songs, as the whim takes me, and keep an eye on the chat room at the same time. Maybe there’ll be somebody else, who knows. The technology allows for the show to be transferred across to other hosts, so in theory we could end up with a series of ‘floor spots’ as it were, all the while keeping the same crowd connected.

Bands, ustream and youTube

One of the big advantages with the ustream system is the way the live shows can also be recorded and saved, and instantly uploaded to youTube as well. Bands can do this quite successfully by building up support for a ‘live internet gig’ weeks in advance, then performing in a room with a webcam placed in the corner to pick up the whole band. The online audience an get a real sense of being present at a live event. But me , I’ll just be sitting at my iMac with a guitar and keyboard, generating lots of song files and interacting with whoever turns up. I hope by making it a regular event that some kind of build up might happen over the weeks, to amass a small group of regulars from amongst the billions of internet users out there who might be interested in acoustic music with me.

Andy Roberts Music Video from Ustream to YouTube

As an example, here’s a video that originated in ustream as part of the prototyping session and is now embedded here from youTube. It’s a song that I always thought was a Wizz Jones song because he likes to play it a lot and recorded it but it turns out to be by Mose Allison

You can count on me to play my part

Click here to view the embedded video.

So there you go – just one last reminder then:-

>>Tuesday Nights at 7.00pm<<

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Ustream.tv Tuesday Nights Andy Roberts Music 7.00pm

Theatre Breaks Magazine

2009-07-27T12:15:56Z

Theatre Breaks Magazine

A couple of months ago Linda and I quietly launched the Theatre Breaks Magazine to supplement the London Theatre Breaks blog. The idea is to have a place where there’s less of the news about individual theatre shows, extension dates and cast changes, but much more of the general information for people thinking about going on theatre breaks to London. Using the magazine metaphor with a Wordpress magazine styled blog theme, we can distinguish between the more timely news orientated short posts on the blog, and the longer lasting, more in-depth advice and tips we are able to explore on the magazine. Underneath it’s still the industry standard WordPress platform of course, just being used for a slightly different purpose.

So far we’ve covered subjects such as how to get get hold of your tickets, internet security, issues concerning motorists, theatre breaks with children, and a wide variety of things to do in London. Further answers to legitimate questions are building up into a Theatre Breaks FAQ.

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Theatre Breaks Magazine

How to Prevent Swine Flu

2009-09-17T21:34:02Z

Dr David Hill ( from the World Innovation Foundation ?) left a comment on my previous post – “Swine Flu Caccination Plan” which I feel deserves to be promoted to a post of its own, below. He points out the real danger of a mutated swine flu variant, the problem with a vaccination plan due to the timescales involved, and proposes a solution for preventing swine flu and other fatal flu pandemics based on eradicating the conditions in which new variants arise.

Here is the comment from Dr David Hill in full:

The problem is that no one listens including the media. Swine flu if it mutates to something equivalent to the Spanish flu of 1918/1919 (Spanish flu was a swine flu variant) has the same potential to kill humans on an unprecedented scale as it did 90 years ago. The problem is that both swine and avian are constantly mutating into something different. So by the time you have isolated and made a vaccine for the last one, it has changed again and circumvented the old guard and becomes useless. The problem is that this happens all the time and where drugs become irrelevant. The reason, it takes three months to develop an antidote and 6 months to mass produce and distribute it (a logistic nightmare in itself alone) and where on average therefore the vast majority have to wait 9 months for the cure. The problem is that even in slow coach travel times 1918, the Spanish flu which took between 20 and 100 million lives worldwide (there is no authoritive number but where it is estimated between the two), did its deadliest between week 14 and week 26, some 12 weeks at least before the masses would ever receive the drug cure presently. The 1918 killer flu had a very similar circumstance as today, a mild version before the deadly version arrived in the fall of 1918 with a vengeance. The only way that this deadly killer can be stopped therefore, if anyone is listening out there, is through a complete overhaul of modern farming and husbandry methods and to give considerable financial help to those who breed the livestock that we all eat. Basically as a single example, just stop them sleeping with the animals on cold nights in the tropics as this is how the flu virus passes from pig to chicken to man – eventually; and where the pig is the receptive incubator. Simply give them a heater and fuel, a much cheaper option that global suicide in both human and econmic terms as it will be. For the ‘Tropics’ are where some of the most eminent virologists and micribiologists in the field say is the place where the killer virus will emerge.The philosophy of not letting it happen in the first place. The drugs strategy is futile and it is only a matter of time before the killer strain that will kill literally 100s millions appears. The problem is that the vast profits of drug companies and the government’s ignorance to the real facts will be the nails in all our coffins. The statistics and potential speak for themselves,

World Population 2 billion – 1920
Range of deaths
20mil/2billion = 1 in 100
100mil/2billion = 5 in 100

World Population now at 6.8 billion now equates to,
1 in 100 – 70 million min. today
5 in 100 – 340 million max. today

But, these figures could well be higher, as rapid world transit now makes for faster and wider transmission than in 1918.
I therefore say lets start now as I have been saying for the past three years and defeat this mass killer like no other by field work and not the futile drugs strategy that will do very little indeed to save lives. For presently we are all fooling ourselves.

If we put only £50 billion into this field work globally ( a small price for the human nightmare and financial melt-down that a global equivalent to Spanish flu would bring),we could eradicate the situation but where this £50 billion will no doubt end up alternatively in the pockets of the large pharmaceutical companies with little effect whatsoever. Get real everyone before it is basically too late and I am not joking – force governments to change their strategies from something that is impotent presently to something that will eradicate the problem at source. Common sense really but where currently no one seems to have any.

Worryingly also is the fact that as examples of other problems on the horizon is that the United States makes only 20 percent of its flu vaccines it uses and my country Britain makes zero percent of its flu vaccines, as all its flu vaccines are produced abroad. When a killer pandemic happens it will be hard for the producing countries to release any before their own people are serviced. Little known but true (Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota – 16.07.09).

I have been stopped from putting these comments and facts out by the media before. Let’s hope that minds are fully opened now and that the real solution can be heard and not just the bottom-line for drug companies!

Dr David Hill

So Dr Hill has identified the main obstacles to implementing a simple cost effective solution to prevent swine flu –

1) World health strategies are distorted by the production of drugs for profit.
2) The production of food still takes place in semi-feudal conditions in large parts of the world.
3) Nation states will compete to look after their own populations first rather than collaborate internationally for the good of all.

And hints at a solution – the people have to wake up and force governments to change strategies. He doesn’t go as far as I would, and point out that the implementation of a global plan to make food production safe and the harnessing of all the modern scientific understanding and technologies for the benefit of world health instead of the drugs companies can never take place all the while these means of production are in private hands run for the purpose only of making a profit for shareholders. So ‘forcing governments to change strategy’ will mean in practice, forcing governments to take over the industries involved and run them under some form of democratic ownership and control.

The first step must be education and I hope the reproduction of this alternative viewpoint here stimulates further thinking and debate, and in due course maybe, action to prevent the possibility of further killer swine flu pandemics and other variants of what should surely be preventable human diseases.

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How to Prevent Swine Flu

Swine Flu Vaccination Plan

2009-07-21T10:55:14Z

UK Swine Flu Vaccination Plan

As I write, a massive vaccination plan is swinging into action for the UK. There has been a noticable media cautiousness when reporting the swine flu story in recent weeks, perhaps a responsible reaction to a perception of over hype when the epidemic was still very young. This is ending now as daily reports of increasing fatality numbers roll in. People are understandably worried and cannot understand why schools and workplaces are not closing where the swine flu has taken victim, to help prevent the spread of the virus. In fact, any idea of containing the outbreak has now been dropped. It’s too late, the disease cannot be contained, it has already spread widely. What would happen if we all stayed away from school and work for two weeks? – an interesting question but the emphasis now is on trying to keep serious cases to a minimum, and on vaccination.

The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population.

GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign.

Dr Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead negotiator on swine flu, who has been attending Department of Health meetings on the outbreak, said GPs’ surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years. Although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups. First, the jabs would reduce the chances of a shortage of hospital beds because of people suffering from swine flu. Second, it would reduce the effect on the economy by ensuring workers were protected from the virus.

“The high-risk groups will be done at GPs’ surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent.”

Holden said it was likely the elderly would be given their seasonal flu jab as well as the swine flu vaccination. The new vaccine is likely to require two doses.

Five Days Safety Fast Track for Swine Flu Vaccine

The swine flu vaccine will be safety tested and fast-tracked for use in Britain within just five days once it is developed.

In the week after the fictional Torchwood – Children of Earth, was shown on TV, with a government using an emergency vaccination programme as the cover story for taking ruthless action against their own population, people will want to know more about this vaccination programme before submitting their familes to it.

Some of the main questions will be:

What are the aims and objectives of the vaccination programme?
How safe is it, what are the risks?
Will the vaccine protect against a future, more virulent strain of the A (H1N1) virus widely expected?
If I’ve already had swine flu do I need to take the vaccine?

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Swine Flu Vaccination Plan

Now I’ve Got Swine Flu – Really

2009-07-18T22:01:17Z

First Person Swine Flu

I have written about swine flu recently from an epidemiological point of view but now, unfortunately, I’m in the position of being able to provide a first person account of the disease as it progresses in my own body.

I’ve been ill for two days, not had a thing to eat, and the symptoms showed no signs of easing up. Then the sore throat and cough started up, adding to the intestinal discomfort. Temperature still fluctuating, so it was time to call the GP. Linda phoned in for me, but could only speak to the nurse and they made an appointment, if you call it that, for a doctor to call back and talk to me which they did a few hours later. After a question and answer session which I was really not able to cope with very well, she decided I needed Tamiflu which is being sent out to chemists, not on prescription but as part of the emergency preparations for the swine flu pandemic, or any other flu pandemic for that matter such as avian flu ( H5N1) which is also on it’s way perhaps, but was suddenly overtaken by the swine flu A H1N1 virus, first reported in Mexico.

Swine Flu In London

So anyway, after some fussing over which was the nearest chenist and whether they had stocks yet, Linda went out to get the tamiflu. Apparently there was a queue of people there, all for the same purpose, so this gives an idea of how widely the swine flu has spread around London now. No hype, it’s here amongst us and multiplying fast despite it being high summer in England now.

Tom Reynolds, the London ambulance driver reports that ambulance call outs have increased dramatically:

Our call rate has gone from the normal 4,200-4,500 calls per day to around 5,200-5,700 in the last few days. This is an increase of around 26% Rather obviously this is having us run ragged.

The tamiflu arrived and I’ve taken one tablet so far as well as some rehydrating fluid. It’s too early to expect anything positive but adding nausea to the symptoms was most unwelcome. Unpleasant as this is, not to mention extremely inconvenient (we were due to go out to the theatre tonight) it’s generally less severe than ‘normal’ seasonal flu. Not the headcolds that some people call ‘flu but influenza.

Thanks to the people who sent well wishes via twitter and facebook etc, and for suggesting I might as well write about it – it’s a useful distraction in between times. For those concerned about Linda, she’s not 100% but doesn’t seem to have gone down with the swine flu, which the doctor said would usually be both at the same time, but there’s some evidence that people who had Spanish Flu in the 1967 epidemic have some residual immunity.

PS: The Symptoms of Swine Flu

People might need to know so here are the symptoms in order of appearance in my case – for others it may be different. Look away now if you don’t want read it.

Diarrhea
Stomach pain
Fever – high temperature
Total loss of appetite
sore throat, mild head cold symptoms
tickly cough with phlegm
weakness
nausia

The only one missing is muscular aches and pains I think.

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Now I’ve Got Swine Flu – Really

Image Editing lesson 2 : The Clone Tool

2009-09-17T21:44:20Z

The second video tutorial in this series about image editing concerns the use of the Clone Tool. In the first lesson we looked at image editing with Layers, and again I’m using the Seashore free image editing software for Mac but the same principles apply to many other image editing software packages.

Image editing with the Clone Tool

Click here to view the embedded video.

One simple use of the clone toolis to extend some background over part of an image that doesn’t fit in, effectively making some obtrusive feature vanish. The limitations to this are that the background has to be something relatively uniform. If you want to try your hand at editing the photograph used as an example in this tutorial then you will find it here on Flickr with a creative commons license that allows derivatives to be made and published, with attribution.

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Image Editing lesson 2 : The Clone Tool

New Brazilian Swine Flu Discovered

2009-09-17T21:56:59Z

A new strain of swine flu has been discovered in Brazil, showing that the type A H1N1 swine flu virus is fully capable of mutating.

New Strain of Swine Flu Discovered in Brazil – Infectious Disease – FOXNews.com

A new strain of the swine flu virus has been discovered by Brazilian scientists.

The scientists uncovered the new strain after examining samples from a patient who was hospitalized in Sao Paulo in April, Agence France-Presse reported.

The 26-year-old, who developed flu symptoms after returning from Mexico, has since made a full recovery.

The variant has been called A/Sao Paulo/1454/H1N1 by the Adolfo Lutz Bacteriological Institute, which compared it with samples of the H1N1 swine flu from California.

It was not yet known whether the new strain causes more severe infections than the current H1N1 strain, which has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization.

Nearly 36,000 people in 76 countries have been infected with the H1N1 virus, according to the latest figures from the WHO, causing more than 160 deaths.

So they don’t yet know if this particular strain of swine flu is any more dangerous than the one which has recently been declared a global pandemic, but the fact that a new, separate strain has been identified already could arose fears of a repeat of the 1918 H1N1 Spanish flu virus pandemic which evolved into a much more harmful strain, eventually killing tens of millions of people around the world just after the First World War.

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New Brazilian Swine Flu Discovered

Image Editing Lesson 1 : Layers

2009-09-17T21:31:07Z

Seashore image editing Video

On request I’ve made some Image editing tutorial videos and this is the first in a series of at least five. Lesson one is an introduction to using Layers. Layers are essential to the construction of drawings and can be used in a similar way when building up effects onto photographs. They make it much easier to come back and change or redo image effects later by leaving each stage intact – a process called non-destructive editing. Anyway, here’s the video from youtube, I hope you will bear with me and keep watching, it gets much more useful after a bit of a slow start I know that – and your comments and reviews are very welcome both here and on the youTube page.

Free image editing software for Mac

The software I’m using is called Seashore and it’s an open source image editor for Mac using the native Cocoa interface, so it feels like a proper Mac application, not a migrated one.

You can download this free software from Seashore at Sourceforge. If you find that iPhoto doesn’t do all that you want and photoshop is just too big and cumbersome then Seashore could be the image editing application to get you started on acquiring some really useful skills.

Future image editing Tutorial Videos

The next four tutorials will cover:

Using the clone tool effectively
Selecting colours and applying changes
How to photograph a ghost
Subtle use of tinting

If you’d like to receive notice when these are published then you need to subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog and join the newsletter (see sidebar)

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Image Editing Lesson 1 : Layers

Swine Flu Pandemic Level 6 Declared

2009-06-11T21:18:10Z

Swine Flu at Level 6 – Pandemic

The World Health Organization today said last week it was getting closer to officially declaring a Swine Flu Pandemic Level 6 and level six is the highest level you can get, reflecting the global spread of the type A H1N1 Virus. Now on Thursday 11th June, that declaration has been made.

So it’s officially a pandemic, meaning it’s now everywhere, but the new strain of flu virus itself is proving to be a lot less severe for sufferers of swine flu symptoms. The percentage of deaths is remarkably low for a completely new strain.

The declaration of level six on the 11th June comes at a time when scientists have known it’s a pandemic for some weeks already but this is the first time the WHO has called a global flu epidemic in 41 years.

WHO’s director-general, Margaret Chan, announced in Geneva after consulting health experts in an emergency meeting:

“The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century. The virus is now unstoppable. However, we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump in the number of severe and fatal infections”

The WHO’s six phase system for declaring a pandemic focuses on how widespread the disease is, not how dangerous. The organization’s flu chief says the disease has reached 64 countries and infected nearly 19,000 people, so it’s well on the way to becoming endemic everywhere. The danger then, is of the new virus mutating further into a strain that is more deadly than that currently spreading.

While the overwhelming majority of cases have been reported in Mexico and the US, the swine flu is increasingly spreading from person to person all over the globe, causing more than 100 deaths worldwide. The WHO calls the situation “moderate” rather than “mild” while some experts have reported patients with symptoms different from those expected and the virus is causing severe infections in some healthy, young adults. A worrying sign.

What is a Pandemic Level 6?

Phase 1: virus discovered in animals but not infecting humans.
Phase 2: Animal influenza virus known to have spread to a human, indicating a potential threat.
Phase 3: Sporadic cases or small clusters of influenza disease in people, no sustained human-to-human transmission. The virus has not yet reached a level of transmissibility among humans to cause a pandemic.
Phase 4: Verified human-to-human transmission with “community-level outbreaks”. This marks an increased risk of pandemic, but not yet inevitable.
Phase 6: Pandemic phase. Community level outbreaks in at least two countries in different WHO regions, on top of level 5. A global pandemic is now under way, and probably has been for some time already.

Swine Flu has been spreading geometrically from human to human in both North America and Japan in Asia for more about two weeks so why is the WHO still waiting to declare a level 6 pandemic?

Well, at a World Health Organization meeting on May 18th, 2009, several countries urged the agency to use great caution in deciding whether or when to declare a full-scale pandemic. UK Government Health Minister Alan Johnson was the leading voice for caution, according to press reports from that meeting. He warned that moving to phase 6 could unnecessarily trigger costly and risky actions such as switching from production of seasonal flu vaccine to pandemic vaccine, even though the virus so far seems mild.

Johnson said a pandemic declaration should also reflect the severity of the disease, not just its geographic extent, thus changing the agreed protocol designed exactly for such a situation. ”It’s very important that that’s reflected in your ability as to whether to move from 5 to 6,” he said. “So I would like to propose that you have more flexibility in that rather than follow a mechanistic process.”

Johnson was backed by New Zealand, Switzerland, and the head of the Pan American Health Organization, according to reports.

Origins of the Swine Flu Pandemic

Thought to have originated in Mexico the Swine Flu Pandemic could have been avoided with better animal husbandry. If you’d like to see industrial pg production regulated then sign the petition to investigate and regulate factory farming:

To Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO and Dr Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the FAO: We call on you to investigate and develop regulations for factory farming in accordance with public health safety standards. Food production must be regulated to ensure global health security

Sign the petition.

Levels of Severity Within Swine Flu Pandemic Phase 6

Updated June 9th 2009

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general of the WHO agency gave a telephone press conference today and said:

“One of the critical issues is that we do not want people to over-panic if they hear that we are in a pandemic situation”

The number of confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu rose above 1,200 in Australia on Monday June 8th and the type A flu virus is no longer restricted to schools and other institutions in that country. This suggests strongly that a community-wide spread has begun. Such a spread in a region outside North America, where the swine flu virus originated, is the primary criterion for raising the alert level to Phase 6 so why the delay?

WHO officials worry that a pandemic declaration would lead people with mild illnesses to flood emergency rooms and might lead to border closings, travel restrictions and other “unwarranted” actions.

In the early stages of the current outbreak, Fukuda said, people stopped eating pork, pig herds were killed, and imports of pork were restricted by some countries. “These are the kinds of potential adverse effects” that the agency is trying to avoid, he said.

Reporters repeatedly pressed Fukuda about why, given the clear spread in Australia, the agency has not increased the alert level. “We are really getting very close to that,” he said. “We are working very hard to ensure that everyone is prepared for that.”

In an effort to mitigate over-reaction in response to an increase in the alert level, the agency last week decided to augment the current warning system with three tiers inside Phase 6 to indicate the severity of the pandemic. Barring changes in the next few days, the agency will most likely indicate that the severity is at the lowest level when the stage is raised, indicating that the virus is spreading through populations, but that its effects remain relatively mild.

So it looks like we will be having three possible levels of swine flu pandemic

Phase 6 level one – H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic with mild severity
Phase 6 level two – Pandemic with medium severity
Phase 6 level three – Pandemic with strong severity

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Swine Flu Pandemic Level 6 Declared