Some LIBOR news via a time machine. Broken links, legal mysteries, a bit of hacking & a result :-)

When I heard first the recent news about LIBOR manipulation I was reminded of an article I had read and posted on Spaces back in 2007. So, I thought I'd go look up the link and re-read it. Microsoft closed Spaces a while ago, but in their wisdom had migrated the accounts over to Wordpress.


Here's my original (migrated) Spaces post. If you click on the link you end up at the main Telegraph page, as the story does not still exist at the original URL.

I emailed the folks at the Telegraph and got this reply, "Thank you for contacting The Telegraph... the article dated 26th August 2007 has been removed for legal reasons". Well that only intrigued me more and so I wrote back asking what the legal reasons were. This was a dead end though as "we are unable to provide any further information regarding your enquiry" was the answer.

Luckily, I  remembered the Internet Archive Wayback Machine & had a try with the URL on there, but that didn't work at first, so I had to hack the URL a bit until, via trial & error, I found this. Unfortunately the second & third page are not accessible there, but now I knew the actual title I tried another search & found this in the Telegraph's own archives :-)


Reading the full article in retrospect is quite eerie, as it says "..the orders from the TOP are that even lending to other banks should be curtailed". Hmm, indeed...


PS if anyone can guess why it might have been removed "for legal reasons" I'd be glad to hear.

A Very Merry Midwinter (or Midsummer)! And a Happy (belated) New Year to you too :-)

 

The Earth's at maximum tilt (defining the middle of the season) on the 22nd Dec, this year, but closest to the Sun (sort of marking the actual new year) on the 5th of Jan (at 1am UTC in fact) - so a Happy (belated) New Year to you then too!

See here, here & here for background info.

NB in 2011 Midwinter occurs at 0530 on 22nd Dec - usually it falls on the 21st, but not always, hence the generalisation in the diagram above!

How to use a List to tame the new Facebook. And hide those right-hand ads...

1. Create a List - I called mine "All".

2. Add the friends & pages you want to it - I added all mine. You need to go through the alphabet in search box to add pages.

3. Voila! Use the list instead of News Feed to see Facebook as you are used to.

4. Mark the List as a "Favorite" so it appears at top left under News Feed.

5. If you add new friends or like new pages you'll need to add these to your List. Maybe do this once a week so you don't forget.

6. Make sure to check in the Manage List drop-down & select all the "updates to show" that you want.

Erm, that's it, except when you use the List, as an added bonus, you won't see adverts on the right or the new activity stream :-)

There may be a few advanced issues with this, eg Page admins can't do this in page view. If you find any other issues or tricks do let me know...

PS I can use my new List on my Android FB app too, and it remembers it as the default view!