What's the most important thing about taking vitamin supplements? This is a question asked through Google search. I'll provide a three word answer: don't take them. If you eat properly by which I mean eat the right foods and ingredients in the correct quantities and if you are generally healthy, all the vitamins you require are in the food. An excess of vitamins can harm health in fact. Just don't bother. Just live well and sensibly ;)

Donald Trump is pleased about Brexit. It supports his campaign. It has been argued that the underlying causes of Donald Trump's success and Brexit are similar or the same. People have become disenchanted with politicians. Ordinary people have become tired of seeing the establishment elite flying high above the difficulties of the world endured by the masses. People who supported Brexit did so for a number of reasons but one of them was that they became tired of arrogant Eurocrats dictating terms and not listening. They wanted control back in their lives. They wanted somebody to fight for them and listen to them and a person who was not a typical politician. A major reason for Brexit was uncontrolled immigration. Controlled immigration can be very good for the economy but uncontrolled immigration undermines the culture of a nation and its historical ambience. It changes the way of life of ordinary people without their consent. People who support Donald Trump do so because he i...

How do we stop terrorism from Muslim extremists? I feel compelled to write about this for the obvious reason that almost weekly we are reading about terrorist attacks in Europe. People are becoming really concerned. Ordinary people on the streets of any European country are quite possibly worried when they go outside. They may be looking for unusual behaviour. They may be nervous. Some may not care at all but in general the mood is one of apprehension amongst millions of people. And that apprehension is justified. The point is this, we cannot go on as we are. The West, it is argued, has played a large part in creating this terrorism. It is said we are reaping what we have sowed. We have to look forward. We have to do something differently. I do not believe that we can simply fight our way out of this war. It is a war. A different kind of war. It could be argued that it is the third world war. Conventional wars you can fight to victory. This is not a conventional war. We are fight...

Google run the internet. Everything they do is based on profit. I accept that and it is laudable because Google is a company, a business. The trouble is they should be a public body because they find websites on their search engine. Many websites depend on them for success. Should a business be in such a position? Shouldn't search engines be public bodies? If you essentially run the internet because you happen to be the biggest commercial enterprise on the internet, it begs the question whether you should run the internet. Because they are a commercial enterprise they want fresh websites to come through. Why do they want fresh websites? Because humankind, who are the users, seeks fresh stimulus all the time. Humankind is bored and it demands entertainment. The internet is about information and entertainment. So Google downgrades long established sites unless they churn out fresh stuff at the rate of knots. The only sites that survive are those that constantly refresh themse...

 Flickr has taken a lot of heat this past week, and I will be less polite than Michael, my co-blogger. He asks if "Flickr Messed Up?" Michael attributes this to flickr trying to compete with Pinterest, here. Michael may well be correct. But, I have another view or two, having followed this for the past week. That said, we may both be correct in some measure First, some background. Users who woke up to discover the "new and improved" site wondered if it had been beta tested. Apparently it had, in a manner of speaking, starting two weeks previously. Users had been chosen at random to participate in a "bucket test", and as far as I can tell, agreed. Wow, they apparently did not know what they were in for, and were seriously unhappy. Virtually every complaint I've read from those who woke up to the "new and improved" site was mentioned by those involved in the "bucket test". You can read all comments here and here. C...

Sorry for the language (now deleted on reflection ;)) but Flickr's response to Pinterest displacing it as the number one photo website was to change the site and as far as I am concerned it is a failure. Flickr did not have to make radical changes to the presentation of their site. It was very efficient the way it was. Now it is more difficult to navigate and more importantly in runs more slowly because the thumbnails are much larger. It runs too slowly and feels cramped. It took me about 10 minutes of fiddling around to work out how to delete an image. I wanted to change the header but had to upload an image to my photostream and use that and then delete the image from my photostream. It worked but...what a palaver. Perhaps there is an easier way but it wasn't obvious. Then when I right click on an image the menu comes up and disappears. This must be a coding problem. My computer is top of the range and everything is up to date. OK. Flickr, please don't panic and...

Pinterest is a modern image based phenomenon that is founded upon copyright violations while Flickr is proper and decent and far better. Therefore Google should place Flickr above Pinterest. This is yet to happen but it will eventually as people come to learn that Pinterest is deeply flawed. If I am being brutally honest, I feel that Google has failed in its search facility in respect of Pinterest as Google is indirectly supporting copyright violations while failing to properly support a website that is more respectful of intellectual property rights: Flickr. Pinterest allows people to upload any picture - literally anything from any website irrespective of whether it is copyright protected or a creative commons image allowing unlimited publication or whether it is in the public domain. The problem is people don't understand the difference and Pinterest knows that. Flickr is far more controlled and employs extensive protection for images while at the same time allow...