Posts

Landcycle: Unveiling My Property Development Toolkit

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Greetings property development enthusiasts! I'm thrilled to share a project that's close to my heart – Landcycle. It's been 3 years in the making: Blood, sweat and tears have all featured in it's production. As the primary developer and project manager behind this venture, let me walk you through the features that make it a game-changer in the realm of England and Wales property and land projects. Map-based plot exploration: Landcycle starts with a simple yet powerful interface that lets you visually explore land plots based on Land Registry titles. Imagine an interactive map offering insights into potential development sites and ownership details – all within a few clicks. Constraint layers at your fingertips: Understanding the specifics and constraints of a potential development site is paramount. Landcycle simplifies this by layering on information like flood plains, green belts, railways, roads, and more. It can be an amazing too for assessing a plot's viabilit

Introducing PDR: A Bold Proposal for Fairer Representation

I have come up with an improved method for electing MPs, and I'd like to share it with you. But before I do, let me provide some context. Currently, the UK utilises the outdated "first past the post" voting system, which needs to be reformed. In 2011, there was a referendum on adopting the Alternative Vote system, but the complexity of the proposal led to people choosing to stick with the status quo. It was a missed opportunity. Fast forward to 2019, and Boris Johnson's campaign, filled with misleading statements, resonated with certain voters, granting him a substantial 80-seat majority. Despite the majority of votes going to Remain-supporting parties, the constituency boundaries worked in favor of Boris and his team of right-wing politicians. So, what can be done to address this issue? I've explored various complex voting systems, but they tend to be convoluted and difficult to grasp. Hence, I propose a straightforward alternative: Proportional Division Represen

Randsomeware and blackmail crimes to be solved in the future like DNA genetic finger prints can help now?

Having recently become away of an egregious cyber crime incident where a criminal gang attempted to extort a large sum from an organisation via blackmail using a crypto wallet as the money drop; I was musing about the possibility that this crime might one day be solved, and the culprits apprehended in the same way that sex criminals have been apprehended many years after their crimes by DNA matches to evidence left at the scene. Over the past years there have been many successful prosecutions of criminals who committed crimes against innocent people, during the assault they have left bodily fluids or matter that at the time of the assault would have been unable to identify the assailant. The clothing of the victim had been stored however by the police, and as time and technology has moved on so have advanced in DNA matching. Subsequently the criminal, often many years later, has been apprehended as for some reason, often suspicion to do with another crime, they have given a DNA sa

Why does Premiere Pro "Sequence from clip" on MP4 and then "Match Sequence" result in a massive AVI file?

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Good Question! You would imagine that just "trimming" an MP4 file with same setting would be quick and painless, but when I tried it the resultant file was massive - like 10x the size of the original file. https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/match-sequence-settings-mp4-to-mpeg-is-this-normal/td-p/11042944 Turns out this is because the .mp4 compression means there aren't really full frames in the file just deltas. So when you select "Match Sequence Settings", it has to give you AVI format anyway. So this is what you HAVE to do.   Go ahead and create your HUGE AVI file.  Then use an app or an online service to compress it back down... I had a good result using  https://cloudconvert.com/avi-to-mp4 It shrunk the 76Mb AVI to less than half a Mb.  

Churchill's Reaction to Eisenhower's Speech at the English Speaking Union 1951

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I'm still reading Never Despair Winston S. Churchill  1945-1965 by Martin Gilbert.  It is a bible-sized book, albeit the print is slightly bigger, and it will take me a while yet. Recently I've come across an interesting chapter.   This section of interesting stuff starts on Page 619. Interesting to me, and those Brits and others on the EU side of the Brexit-argument, I've found more compelling evidence to answer the question:  " Would Winston Churchill have been in favour of Britain being in the EU?" .   Of course, I believe the answer (certainly after the War) was that he would have been in favour. Ike Eisenhower made a speech at the English Speaking Union Dinner on July 3, 1951.  Churchill was there.  Churchill didn't actually hear the speech well enough at the time, but read it's transcript the following day.  He was ecstatic when he did. Eisenhower and Churchill The relevant text, of the above mentioned book, is as follows;  " ...So pleased wa

Hotel Floor Plans, Room Numbers, Views & Interconnecting Doors

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My brain wave just now while sitting at the pool:  Hotel Floor Plans, Room Numbers, Views & Interconnecting Doors. Fact one Facebook is promoting it's "Groups" functionality heavily at the moment It's basically "special interest groups" that it does by matching your profile (it's an AI based match) with groups that are made by anyone - in an effort to get engagement.  Having a lot of success with this for B&B.co.uk and also using it as a User - I joined the Corfu group to get information about Ferry tickets. So Facebook doing the marketing basically for you if you have a Facebook Group, because it increases engagement with the site. Fact two We doing this big tour now; France, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece.  Then we will take a ferry back up the Adriatic, loop into Slovenia (see Bella & Kirst), and the back via James' villa in Antibes, and then back home.  One problem we have with the kids is I want to see the la

Schengen Stepping Stones

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There you have it:  Brexit has stopped "freedom of movement".  Yup - YOUR freedom of movement. Incredibly, incredulously, incompetently thousands of Brits who live in the EU actually voted FOR this: Anyway this article is not for you.  Please stop reading now. Barry and Diane :  Coming back to the UK to vote OUT, even though they live in Benidorm.  I wonder how they getting on? How to get around it?   The fact is you have 90 days in any 180 days in the Schengen zone.  That is from Portugal all the way to Finland.  This is a little confusing; some of us are used to "visa-run" from places like Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore or Hong Kong: you just leave for a day, and come back and get another 6 months or whatever.  This is NOT the case with Schengen.   You have a rolling 90 days in 180 .  Yup that right... no more go out in September, come back in April stuff for you. A better way to calculate might be "How many days have I spent in Schengen in the last 90?"