libertus

My friends know that I’m a bit of a political geek and like to keep abreast of what our elected representatives are doing, so I follow the Official Reports of the UK Parliaments with an almost religious fervour, although I’ve been a bit lazy recently and just been watching the BBC Parliament channel.

I’m also a huge fan of theyworkforyou.com, a volunteer-run website which republishes the Official Reports of the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Northern Ireland Assembly in a far friendlier form than the “official” sites, with the added bonus of public commentary and statistical analysis of the MP’s performance.

Missing from theyworkforyou.com is the Official Report of the Scottish Parliament, all the more sorely missing due to the now very interesting constitution of that body with its minority SNP government. Republishing an official record is no easy task, for a number of reasons that I’ll go into later, but I know for sure that I have all the requisite skills and tools to do it.

I’ve had this project on the back-burner for some months now and since I’m starting a new job soon, any spare time I might have to work on hobby projects is going to vanish.

So here I go. I don’t need to get it perfect – just far enough along so that someone else can pick up and complete the task.
Continue reading ‘Scraping the Scottish Parliament Official Record’ »

This picture may tell a thousand words where The Google AdSense Team will utter not a one. So far I’ve had no response from a human concerning my lost revenue from valid clicks.

The irony may be, I found The AdSense Insider by clicking through a Google ad on here!

See also: Sellout posted 1^st November 2005

The conjuring discussion regarding security checking on the WordPress wp-hackers mailing list and my subsequent testing have revealed a serious security flaw in Liberated WordPress 1.5.2, the software that runs this blog.

The flaw allows anyone I trust to post drafts, to make a draft post containing images with appropriately forged source hrefs, to subsequently destroy the entire contents of the blog when an administrator views the draft, with no interaction required.

In other words, an automatic nuclear bomb.

Fortunately, the only person entrusted to write posts on this blog is me, so unless I decide to nuke myself, I’m pretty safe. On the other hand, knowing my blog could vapourise at any time gives me the willies. I can’t wait for someone else to issue a repair.

I’m going to have to fix this one all by myself.

Continue reading ‘Repairing Liberated WordPress 1.5.2’ »

Elegant, perfect and eternal.

Continue reading ‘The Windows® Way – Still Good’ »

Dear Igor et. al,

PAY ATTENTION! YOU ARE IN TROUBLE. YOU ARE BREAKING BRITISH LAW.

For some time now, you and others like you have been attempting to use my blog to sell drugs. The drugs you sell are available only by prescription in the UK which is where I am based. Your attempts to sell drugs only available by prescription through my blog is breaking British law, or worse, asking me to break it for you. so YOU MUST STOP.

My blog has a readership which includes children, my own in particular. Was it your childhood dream to make a living pushing pills to kids, Igor?

May I help you do something better with your life?

Yours sincerely,

Paul Mitchell a.k.a Libertus, Sheffield, UK

How would you prefer your attention drawn to it?

Hello! Hello! Aaaaaaaachoo!

Breaking glass.

Please cast your vote on my kuro5hin diary.

I’m open to argument.

Could sending more children to state-sponsored faith schools tip the balance one way or the other?

Watch Google squirm.

How about the full text of many recent posts on several of the WordPress developer’s blogs? Without your knowledge or permission? Does that sound like a valuable option?

You will need: SQL knowledge or interest, geekiness, a cup of coffee.
You should have: A WordPress blog, PHPMyAdmin, half an hour.
My intent: poke fun at WordPress developers, for poor customer service, again.
Your reward: entertainment, enlightenment, knowledge.

Continue reading ‘What Do YOU Store In Your WordPress Options? Spam!’ »

Oh yes! It’s getting hot in the House as the heart and mind of Great British political life battle it out, in a most civilised manner, over who’s going to get their way on the Identity Cards Bill.

Continue reading ‘ID Cards! Hot! Hot! Hot!’ »

On Making It Up, Tim, Jax and guests talk proper politics. Highly recommended.

1. Democracy
2. Today’s More Positive News
3. The Observer | Comment | Henry Porter: How we move ever closer to becoming a totalitarian state