The Web 2.0 profession

Just what do you think the Web 2.0 profession is? Webmaster? Software engineer? Coder? Programmer?

Well, in my not so humble opinion, it’s none of the above, but I think that this profession is going to see a massive amount of growth in many diverse sectors over the next few decades, not just with regard to the world wide web, and it is a profession that some may find surprising.

I was going to waffle on about this for ages, but I won’t, unless someone is mad enough to encourage me, that is.

So, what is this profession? I’m sure sure are itching, well curious, to know.

Read more

I’m a Virtual MEP

A week or so ago I got an email through this blog from a certain Jonty who, I think, goes to Shrewsbury school.  Shrewsbury school, if you did not know, and those outside of the UK probably will not know, is one of England’s oldest public schools. 

I should perhaps explain that ‘public’ schools in the UK are not exactly public, in that you have to pay to go to them.

Anyway, Jonty asked me for my views on climate change for a talk they were holding.  Apparently everyone in the talk is an MEP, and, for some reason unclear, Jonty is going to be me.

I guess that sort of makes me a virtual MEP.  But not only, a virtual MEP who has something to say on climate change! 

I’m not too sure how or why my name came up, maybe it was as a result of a rather dark short story I wrote a while back which is a little ominously titled ‘End‘. 

Whatever the reason, I was happy to give an opinion, which as my regular readers may know is not a great problem for me.  And, being asked like this was something I found quite flattering.  Sort of micro-fame, I suppose.

After a few nanoseconds of micro-fame, I shall go back to being little old me.  Nice while it lasted though!

Just another manic Monday

Today was a little hectic. We had to get up early and head off to a hospital on one side of town so our son could have some blood samples taken. The doctors want to know why his level of anti-corpuscles is falling slightly and this means they want to carry out series of tests at one hospital followed by another test at another. A consequence of this wish was that yours truly had to fly across Milan to the San Raffaele hospital complex with a small phial of my son’s blood.

I only just managed to get to the San Raffaele in time – the section which I needed to take the sample to closes at 11 o clock in the morning. Still, mission accomplished. What I don’t really understand is why the hospitals could not have had the sample transferred internally – but then this is Italy, and one has to expect these little things.

The lowish level of anti-corpuscles floating around in my son’s body does not come as a great shock to me – after all, he has been on antibiotics for around three years and although I’m not sure whether this would have had an effect, I would not be overly surprised to find out that it had. Italian doctors, however, maintain that there is no correlation between extended use of antibiotics and reduced levels of anti-corpuscles.

A family friend, who just happens to be a retired doctor, was a little surprised to hear that my son had been kept on antibiotics for so long, and in his opinion, it is probable that the antibiotics are no longer performing any useful purpose. I don’t really know – I’m not a doctor, and in Italy antibiotics seems seem to be used almost as widely as aspirin. Italians demand the things after only a few days of what might be bronchitis or what is more likely to have been not much more than a bad cold.

I think it would be fair to say that the Italian medical profession has a different attitude towards the use of antibiotics, especially when compared to the accepted use of the things in the UK, for example.