Just a quick note to say I took part in Round 3 of the competition on Wednesday, but didn’t get through to Round 4 due to a combination of a bad car and my stupid driving. When (if) I get a chance, I’ll write more fully about what happened another time.

Thanks for all the messages of support I’ve had.

Quick post to say I have had confirmation that I’m through to Round 3 of this competition.  It takes place Wednesday.  Will let you know how it goes.  Wish me luck.

I’m getting a lot of visitors looking for information on the So World F1 Driver competition.  The current news is that Round 3 is on next week, and some people have received letters saying they’re through.  I haven’t had a letter so I’ve contacted So World and I’m waiting for confirmation one way or the other.

If you want to find all articles about this competition (and the previous one, which I was also in), click ‘Select Category’ top left of this page, and select “So You Want to be an F1 Driver”.

Wish me luck!

Thanks.

Introducing, the new MacBook Wheel!

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

I’ve just exceeded the number of people I feel I can effectively follow, 60.  Any more than that and I feel that Twitter will become less interesting/useful to me.  I want to stay close to the people I follow, and see a decent proportion of their tweets. 

Already I have come to the conclusion that I can’t read all the tweets, I’ll just dip in and read what I can in the time available.  If I follow more people, it just reduces the number of tweets I see per person.

So, what do I do if someone new follows me now?  My initial thoughts are that if they have something really interesting to say then I’ll follow them, but it’s going to have to be really, really interesting.  If I do follow them, I’ll be looking for someone to un-follow so I keep the numbers effective. 

It’s hard to un-follow people, as I may have a relationship with that person.  I feel bad when someone un-follows me (and always wonder why).  So, should we feel un-follow people?  And if we do, should we feel bad about it?  Should we feel bad when we’re un-followed?

Please leave a comment.  Please include your @username.  Please also say how you found out about this post.  Thanks.

That’s odd.  I just got an unsolicited SMS from “TfL 60835″ saying “To permanently stop receiving Travel Alerts please text ‘Unsubscribe’ to 60835 by 15/01/09″.

I don’t even live in London, and have never subscribed to anything at Transport for London (www.tfl.gov.uk).  They don’t have my permission to send me texts, and I suspect this a breach of the Data Protection Act, or maybe the the EU laws regarding elecronic communications (I can’t remember its name at the moment).  Could this me another case of the Government losing or misusing our information?

If you’ve also received such a text, please leave a comment, even if it’s just to say ‘me too’.  If you figure out why this is happening, please also leave a comment.  Thanks.

Just heard from Kaz that Round 3 will be at Rye House for outdoor karting on 28 January 2009.  He received a letter about it.  I haven’t heard anything.  I was on the reserves list, so I hope the lack of a letter is not a bad omen.

Will post more when I have more info.

Completely off-topic, but I’ve just read the leaflet that explains the changes to my MBNA credit card, and I noticed a worrying new condition which paves the way for them to increase interest just because there’s a recession. Quoting extracts:

Charges - We have introduced two new paragraphs - 11b and 11c - which explain how we may increase your interest rates.

11c - Examples of reasons why we might increase your interest rates could be one or more of the following:

• [fourth bullet point] changes in external factors, such as…. changes in general economic conditions

So, they can now increase interest rates due to the recession. 

The recession is largely due to the lack of availability of credit.  This means that people who were taking on more and more credit (and spending it) now can’t get more credit, so they have to reduce their spending, and that is one of the causes of the recession.

Because credit card companies (and other lenders) have less money to lend, it’s harder for card holders to switch credit cards and get new 0% deals.  So people are stuck with credit cards that are charging interest.  Now MBNA (and other card companies possibly) can increase their interest rates because of the recession, meaning their customers will have higher repayments, and even less money to spend elsewhere.

If you found this article interesting, please subscribe (for free) to this website using the link at the top-right of this page.

I just noticed that visitors to this website increased sharply over the last few weeks.  Looking into it further, it seems that 60% of the people who visited the site had searched for something about T-Mobile’s ‘Fair Use Policy’ (see earlier posts).

My guess is that most (if not all) of those people had had letters about so-called ‘excessive use’ of their T-Mobile broadband. 

T-Mobile still has “Browse as much as you want and never worry about cost with our unlimited price plans” on its website.  It is not unlimited!  There is a maximum speed, and if you download too much they slow the speed down so much that surfing is impracticable, and it’s slowed for the rest of the contract term.  How is that ‘unlimited’?

No other (major) mobile broadband provider caps the speed if you exceed the usage limit, but they do charge for any data you use in excess of the limit:

Vodafone Mobile Broadband charges £15 per GB if you exceed their limit.

3 Mobile Broadband charges £100 per GB thereafter if you exceed their limit.

O2 Mobile Broadband charges £200 per GB if you exceed their limit!  £200 per GB!!!!

If you feel that these caps and charges are unfair and/or extortionate, please leave a comment (even if it’s just “Me too”).

Still want to buy mobile broadband?  If so, check the ads to the right, and send a few pence my way (at no cost to you).  Thanks.

Well, I guess that ends any hope of a mobile telecoms company sponsoring my motor racing career.  Come to think of it, I’m looking for work at the moment too, so I guess these are four companies I won’t have to contact.

Argh!!!  I want to subscribe to all the Darwin programmes as podcasts, not just one of them.  Why do you insist on trying to force me to use the stupid iPlayer?  I don’t want to listen at my computer, I want to listen when it suits me, on whatever device I choose.

iPlayer looks nice, but it doesn’t function in a 2.0 way.  Maybe I’ll call you Broadcaster 1.1 (instead of 1.0) because you are trying, but iPlayer is just like a TV on a PC; it doesn’t give people the on-demand watch-anywhere experience that people now want.  We want to download when it’s convenient, and watch when it’s convenient; on our PCs or mobile devices (without using proprietry software), whether or not we have access to the internet at the time, on the train, in the car; whenever, wherever, however.  Only when we can do that will you be Broadcaster 2.0.  Come on!  It’s not the future, it’s now!