Yeah, I know it's early in the morning, but I can't sleep...

Bear with me on this one will you, it'll stray dangerously close to Transhuman thought with a few twists.

Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that lives in the soil and is ingested by humans most commonly in the form or raw or undercooked meat (22% of the population of the UK have the infection while in France it is 84%). When rats are infected with this parasite they lose their fear of cats and other new things and this is termed a reduction of Neophobia (fear of new things).
When humans are infected they undergo personality changes (including a reduction of willingness to accept group standards) and are 2.65 times more likely to have road traffic accidents.
Couple this with the theory that Neophobes die sooner than those who seek out new things (in a safe environment), and you can build an interesting little chain...
The theory is this, that a Toxoplasma gondii infected person starts seeking out new experiences while shunning the "accepted norms" of society, and will live longer due to a reduction of stress. This might explain the stereotype of the wide-eyed lone genius who lives into old age. Perhaps the first (proto)humans to exploit fire were infected with this parasite, causing them to investigate and experiment rather than run in fear?
Maybe we owe our first faltering steps on the path of humanity to a little parasite that our ancient ancestors ingested...

Either way it has got to beat Kuru.

Apparently Alistair Darling is "very serious" about satellite tracking of cars in the U.K in order to charge us for the use of the roads. It's not as if we don't pay enough road tax, or enough tax on our petrol (to put this in perspective Americans pay 27 pence per litre, France pays 56 pence per litre while the U.K pays 81 pence per litre, of which 61.5 pence is Tax)
So now the plan is to fit every car with a satellite tracking system so that you can be charged an amount depending on which road you drive on (1.6p/mile for country roads, 16p/mile in towns). Neglecting the need for everyone to have such a system fitted to their car (and in Newham alone 3,802 in the year 2002/03 were found without road tax) but anyone with even the slightest fear of "big brother" would be worried that the government could track where you drove so accurately.
The plan is for this system to be in place by 2013 although there are plans that lorries will be monitored by the scheme by 2006, I suppose our only chance is that the government make a huge pigs ear out of it by using the lowest bidders (something they tend to go for when privatising other public companies)

Reasearch carried out by the London Ambulance Service for the new "No Send" policy has shown that 59% of Londoners think that they will get seen quicker in A+E if they arrive in an ambulance. This...Is...Not...True...
In fact if you come to A+E after calling an ambulance for something minor, the nursing staff will be more inclined to send you out to the waiting room and forget about you.
Also Londoners call for three times the number of ambulances for "flu" than any other English city. Half the time the patient has got a cold and not the flu at all, and just needs to work it out of their system. Even if they did have the 'flu, there is little the hospital could do for them anyway.
Coupled with high population densities, lack of staff, "sleeping policemen" everywhere and heavy traffic and is it any wonder we are having trouble hitting the eight minute deadline we have to make 75% of calls in?

It beggars belief but Kazaa is threatening to sue ISPs who host Kazaa Lite. Don't Sharman Networks (the company that owns Kazaa) see the hypocrisy in threatening someone with the DMCA for copyright infringement?
Americans are funny.

Previously (on WIHH, my old Blog) I'd posted about how dire the health of Newham was. So it comes as no surprise that the chances of getting MRSA are "high" in Newham General Hospital. In fact they are 13th from the bottom of over 100 hospitals in the UK.

I got a comment from Joey deVilla, famous Blogger of The Adventures Of Accordian Guy In The 21st Century. Reading his Blog was what got me into Blogging in the first place. Coupled of course with a desire to emulate his lifestyle of beautiful women, constant partying and bad dates.

Apparently The Darkness has a tribute band called "The Larkness, fronted by a look-alike. I'm undecided if this is a sign of the end of the world. Surely Pop Idols release of a Lennon track was the first seal of the apocalypse opening.

This article suggests that the NHS might defect to SUN Linux away from Microsoft. If they do, will it mean all those hard working MSCE Engineers would then be out of a job?
The problem with this idea is that (no matter how much you dislike Microsoft) most people happy to use a computer have learnt from using their computer at home, which would usually mean Windows. Will these non-IT people (nurses, admin staff, doctors, etc) have the confidence to use applications that are not familiar, and if not, how much will retraining cost?

Of the many good things about working for the London Ambulance Service (along with the chance to meet new and interesting drunks) is that you find out all the juicy gossip before it hits the papers. Want to know what the police were doing down Stratford High Street at 3am Thursday morning? Curious about the traffic accident that made you late for work? What about the recent spate of heroin deaths? Something I can now tell you about, the critically ill one is dead (the hospital turned off his life support) and there have been at least another two deaths (one of which I dealt with). I wonder if it will make anyone give up heroin? Knowing the "average" user I seriously doubt it.

Welcome to the new home for my blog, with a brand new name and a new host. Because Blogware is more complex than Blogger, it might take me a little while to work out how to use it effectively. For a start off I don't yet know how to edit the plain HTML of the page so I can get my GeoURL stuff working, but others have managed it so I'm sure I can...
...eventually.

I promised two weeks of Blogging and I managed it. I've found it an interesting exercise, and not the waste of time that I thought it might be, for one thing I've realised that I seriously need to move from Blogger for a number of reasons. The first is that the main page doesn't always load fully, cutting off my posts. Also there is a lack of RSS, which I would have been willing to pay for, but they managed to lose it in the Blogger-Blogger Pro mix and match, and finally I'd really like emailing posts to the page...
Any suggestions as to where I might want to take my business?