PLAYING SAFE...

 
Only a little post today, call it a Public Information Film web-style...

If you are not using the latest versions of internet browser, you’re putting yourself at risk. Most banks, PayPal, gmail and most other web-based email providers all support the next generation of web browsers.  These have anti-phishing technologies built in. The new generation of browsers make it easier to spot web forgery of sites id's (“phishing”) and alert or block you from entering personal information that could lead to identify theft.

Firefox 3 upwards, Google Chrome and the latest versions of Internet Explorer (version 8+) have built-in features that alert you when you're on a fraudulent site. This means if you accidently click on a fraudulent email, or mis-type a site address you'll be alerted and warned before the page opens.

To check whether you are using the latest version of Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer click the browser's 'Help' button and select 'About'.  It should be Firefox version 3.x or above or Internet Explorer version 8 and above.

If not, you are ready for an upgrade, you should download a latest browser technology...

Since I use Firefox and think it eats Internet Explorer for breakfast... here's a link to that download.

There's nothing wrong with Chrome either (only I didn't really like the first generation version I tried out so a link is not here!).  Feel free to google that and download if you want to. Just do something and update!
  

A QUICKIE...

Polko is getting busier.. so a quick few nods to other things I've found on the web rather than anything fresh..

It also avoids me uttering anything to do with the up coming election on this blog (apart from that statement itself). There's gonna be a lot of hot air and crap blogged between now and the election and I for one am not adding to the Gigabytes of wasted storage on it.Put simply, I'm already bored of it all.

This is hilarious - basically somebody taking apart a stupid poll about how bad teenagers are at managing finances, etc.  The main point being the publisher gets it seriously wrong with a few pie charts that don't add up or shouldn't be pie charts at ll..  Funny enough, but then the original publisher tries to be funny and clever about their use of the pie charts and gets it wrong again in the comments to the blog! doh!  Worth a read - it's only a short article.

Freakonomics - Steve and Steve are at it again, pushing their brand forward!  As if taking the two fantastic books Freakonomics and and Superfreakonomics and adding to them with a lively website and blog, then taking this and airing a downloadable Freakonomics radio station on iTunes were not enough...

Apparently a Freakonomics film/documentary is in post-production stage and is scheduled to air at selected film festivals in the USA this Spring. Details are posted on IMDB and I will blog further information if and when it becomes available in the UK.  I'm off to America in June and will dig further when there too.  I always knew the age of the Economist would arrive!

Possibly even more exciting is the fact that Zoe Sloane plays a lead role... woo hoo! She's drop dead gorgeous as far as I'm concerned and can only add more glamour to an incredibly glamorous subject matter!

To cool down a little, consider this.  The nail varnish below retails in a High Street store at £19 a 13ml bottle for colour #505.

Why during MArch 2010 did it sell at £30 - £45 a bottle on eBay then?  Remember, there's little or no guarantee that you're getting the same product as you are in the likes of Harrods, House of Fraser or your local independent when buying from a faceless eBay seller either?

Firstly, those who are happy to pay £19 for a bottle of enamel paint (for that is all it is) because it comes in a nice glass bottle as opposed to a tin like a Humbrol paint (incidentally Humbrol #62 looks a very similar match and can be had for £1-40 for a 14ml tin in model shops or here) and bears the name Chanel are likely to be little interested in the difference between it costing £10 and £30 or more.. the demand for the product is 'price inelastic' or those who want it are unlikely to change their demand with an increase in its price (to a point obviously).  Mind you, if you consider that Humbrol are making profit at 10p/ml on their product Chanel must be laughing all the way to 'le banque' charging £1-46/ml!!

Secondly, #505 is a limited edition Spring 2010 only colour. For economists this translates into a fixed supply curve.  That means only one thing, higher prices to consumers than if supply could be increased as more people demand the product.  Matched with an inelastic demand curve a fixed supply means steep price hikes will always result from very small increases in demand for a product (following advertising for example).  Little surprise then that Chanel are happy to pay high prices for glossy magazine ads promoting #505 as the new black!

Wonder if Zoe wears #505? Doesn't say so on her website?

GOD IS MR PAUL HEATON...

Upon browsing through Paul Heaton's - he of The Housemartins, Beautiful South etc fame and some say infamy - blog today I found this all too true comment and prophecy that Heaton penned at the end of 2009...

These indeed are low times for a high brow singer and it would be tragic

for us to lose home grown artists such as Hawley, Cocker and Heaton, to

the passing storm of The Cowell Dollar and the plastic breast. We must

cling to the rocks together, safe in the knowledge that this storm, like

all those before it, will pass or burn itself out, battering the very

rocks we cling to. Then slowly we shall rise- Tilbrook, Costello,

Morrissey, Difford, Heaton, Hawley, Cocker, Weller, Bragg and many more,

til next year will finally herald the return of something we thought

we'd lost, the sweet call of the English Songbird!

Now I might have a slightly different view of one or two of these artists - I've never been a fan of Elvis Costello for example and I personally think Paul Weller is a pumped up wannabe-cool haystack-haired southern puff - but all in all never a truer word has been spoken about the malaise that is the British music industry.. and the international one (read American) is in all too much of the same dire straits.  And a lot of the blame has to be foisted on the same black t-shirted individual to be honest.. and I ain't talking about my black t-shirts!

So, sat in 2010 I'm eagerly waiting the passing of the silicon/shit storm and, in my mind anyhow, today I have elected that God is Paul Heaton.. 

Turns out Mr Heaton has been busy cycling around and getting fit for a bike tour of British pubs to sing new songs.  Who better to highlight the plight of 100+ local pubs closing every week around the country than the man who has sat in a lot of them for a lot of time - watching, waiting, observing, writing in between drinking himself very nearly into the grave at one point in order to bring us some of the finest songs (of all time?).

Ol' red eyes is back, this time they're only red from all the miles that he's cycled!

The full blog and details of his pub cycle tour during 2010 are here