Emails :Oversight and Oversight

Perhaps it is in the wake of the NSA revelations, but according to the NextWeb, the Indian Government is planning to ban the use of email services such as Yahoo, Gmail, for official communications.

I have no idea whether that would serve to protect emails, but I am amazed if in fact official communications are supposed to be sent via Yahoo etc.

Or to turn this on its head, there have been cases in the UK where public officials have used Yahoo, Gmail, etc. and the allegations have been that they specifically used these to avoid having their official emails open to public scrutiny.

Note
I came across the NextWeb article via TechinBiz

White rhino munching grass

White rhino munching grass. 

I think it's pretty amazing that anything can get that bulky from eating grass.

It's not white and it's not supposed to be white. 

The word 'white' is a corruption of 'wide' because he has a wide mouth unlike the black rhino.

The black rhino has a pointed upper lip that it uses almost like a little finger that it hooks around branches to manoeuvre them into its mouth.

I photographed the this rhino in the UK on an animal reserve.

It Is Entirely Possible To Embed More Than One Google+ Post Into A Blogger Blog Post

These are a couple of my public posts from Google+ of photos I took on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Assembly Rooms Fringe: Unseen, not Unexplained - Functional Neurological Symptoms

9 August 2013 at The Famous Spiegeltent, Edinburgh

Dr Jon Stone, Consultant Neurologist in Edinburgh and a tiny audience gathered in the Spiegeltent on George Street in Edinburgh.

Dr Stone spoke about the meaning and treatment of functional neurological symptoms.

Example - stammering.

Example - a patient suffers from a tremor in the right hand, but when they are directed to pay attention to their left had by making some complex movement, the tremor in the right hand dances in tune with the left or stops trembling.

Some patients are wheelchair-bound because of functional neurological symptoms.

It's not 'all in the mind' and it makes no sense to say so. It's in the brain and the way the brain works.

More at Dr Stone's website at Neurosymptoms

Assembly Rooms Fringe: Simon Hoggart

9 August 2013 Edinburgh

Someone put his microphone on the breast pocket of his jacket so that every time he turned to the audience to his left, his voice boomed out. And every time he turned to his right, he faded like a fogbound ship.

Someone shouted out for him to speak up and Mr Hoggart asked the technical people to help by turning up the volume, but that didn't work because the microphone was still not where it should have been.

Then he took to holding the little mic. And then everything was interrupted by clunks and banging noises.

And he started half an hour late because the show before ran over. But he didn't run over because there was a show following.

He looked sad and a bit confused.

He had not need, really: He spoke very well.

Let's see, what did he think.

He told some funny stories about Steve Bell and John Sargeant that showed them as good people with the right motivations.

And about the politicians, he started by saying that in the main they were honest and hardworking, but it was a pity they were limited in intelligence. OK, I can repeat that because it attacks a whole class - and it's obviously part truth and part joke.

But what about specifics?

He said:

A was unaware of her double entendres.

B was constantly bad tempered.

C was a vicious bitch.

D etc.

I am not going to gossip and repeat the names.

I see that not gossiping makes the job of a political commentator difficult.

Contributing To A Widely-Read Page

Here's an article from Blogger Buzz: The Official Buzz from Blogger at Google on how to expand an audience with Google+.

One thing I notice is where the article says:

Kelly always shares her blog posts from her personal Google+ profile and the Miami Fashion Bloggers Google+ page, a page she contributes to with almost 400,000 followers. 

And that seems to be key to this, the idea of contributing to a widely-read page on a subject that one is interested in and write about.

Here's the link:

Expanding your audience with Google+: Kelly Sak's story

Pinboard Soovle Qwant Goolli

I don't recall where I heard about Pinboard but it coincided with me having become disenchanted with the Delicious social bookmarking site because I could never easily find things I had bookmarked.

There was also the small annoyance that every time I save something using the bookmarklet, Delicious would then open a blank page. Nothing on the page - nada - and I would then just shut it down.

So I read Pinboard's pricing system of a one-time very low fee and saw how it arranged things. And... then I read the blog and that told me that the man who runs Pinboard has a value system with which I could identify.

So I signed up and I'm happy with it.

The last couple of things I have pinned are Soovle, Qwant, and Gool.li - all alternative search engines.

Gool.li claims that Qwant copied its approach. I wouldn't know, but check them out and see what they do.