I’m a big fan of the novels of China Miéville particularly Perdido Street Station, a book so crammed with wonderful ideas you worry it might be burdened by the number but somehow it works perfectly.
There is an in depth recent interview with him here.
Tags: books
The one thing that the Wikipedia does better than any other side is to tackle current events. They are the authority to go to for those seeking information about the bomb attacks on the London transport system on Thursday 7th July.
I may not be a Londoner but I share the sentiment expressed in this letter to the terrorists.
I was going to write on Thursday that I believe that due to London having the greatest concentration of CCTV cameras of any city in the world that the bombers will have little hope of escaping capture. The Wall Street Journal has a good article about that very thing.
Tags: terrorism
I had quite a bizarre dream last night.
For some reason I had decided to meet my dad for lunch on the Isle of Wight (odd because it is over a hundred miles from where I live and even further for him). Anyway we meet up and go to have lunch together in an apartment building that I’ve never seen before which had huge glass windows.
I forget what happens next but we end up deciding to leave the island and have to wait at the dockside for the ferry to come back to pick us up. In real life I think the ferry is a huge thing which carries cars but in the dream it was tiny and could hold only about ten people in it. So we are waiting there and decide to spend some time at the fairground until the ferryboat returns.
Looking around the fair I spot a game where you have to throw balls to knock small wooden blocks off a shelf. Now the blocks were really small about the size of a matchbox and were quite a distance away so everyone that tried their arm was missing and not winning a prize.
So I decide to give it a go and manage to knock two blocks off the shelf the guy running the game then brings the blocks to me so I can read what prize I’ve won and inscribed on each block is a number which indicates the amount of money I’ve won.
Amazingly it appears I’ve won in total about £30 000 but the bloke doesn’t have that sort of money on him so he needs to leave and will come back later with my money. Sometime later he returns and he doesn’t have it, all he has is about £1500. He offers to make up the difference with a lot of other crap like some cuddly toys and some free turns on the different games at the fair. Now I’m really pissed off and the ferry has just arrived so seeing I’m never going to get the money I’m owed I just leave with my dad and the £1500.
Breaking news on multiple TV channels indicate there have been explosions in a number of different locations in the capital following news that the London underground system has ground to halt after an apparent electrical surge.
As you would expect there has been a lot of jumping the gun and suggestions of bombs and mentions of 9/11. It’s too early to say if the explosions are due to bombs or if they are in any connected to each other or to the London underground situation.
BBC News: Several injured in London blasts
With the G8 summit being held in Gleneagles it must come as no surprise that there may be terrorist activity being planned in the UK to coincide.
Tags: terrorism
Boing Boing: Euro Software Patents are DEAD! w00t!
You have won the fight to keep software patents — America’s disastrous, failed system for awarding exclusive rights to mathematical instructions — out of Europe. Despite the other side’s nonstop dirty tricks, subversion of democracy, and outright lies, the will of the people has been upheld in the Euro Parliament. The day was carried because of the tireless efforts of orgs like the FFII, FSF Europe, and EDRI — and because of your tireless support in writing and phoning to your elected reps. You should be very, very proud. Congrats to all the copyfighters who’ve busted their humps on this!
The European Parliament voted 648 to 14 to reject the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive.
The bill was reportedly rejected because, politicians said, it pleased no-one in its current form.
BBC News: Software patent bill thrown out
Tags: intellectual property
Ravenstoke, Alaska is a town where the men currently outnumber the women ten to one. In order to rectify the situation it adopts a bold new strategy to attract women to their town.
It works out rather well for them.
Tags: humour
Bizarre email I received today which was sent to the email address I use for correspondence on National Identity cards.
Perhaps you already know, we help companies “Go Public.” The President of our company is a securities and corporate lawyer.
Please visit our site to receive information regarding how any company can go public. We have several research reports available on this subject.
If you are aware of a company that may be suitable for this please let us know. We are happy for you to be amply rewarded for your help.
The Benefits of being a public company are many. It is a valuable and powerful tool in achieving your goals.
If you would like to learn more about “Going Public” please visit our site. You can also email us at [email protected] for the quickest response as opposed to pressing reply.
Sincerely,
Shaun Anthony
http://www.tcigp.com
It seems like Spam or perhaps a phishing attack but having visited their site it isn’t I think either of those. Quite odd indeed.
Tags: ID cards
One of the greatest reasons for my opposition to the National ID card, aside from the fact that I think it technically flawed and incapable of fulfilling any of it’s major objectives, is not the card but the National Identity Register.
The BBC News has the list of the 49 different pieces of data that will be stored. The most worrying being the final three.
Records of provision of information
* particulars of every occasion on which information contained in the individual’s entry has been provided to a person
* particulars of every person to whom such information has been provided on such an occasion
* other particulars, in relation to each such occasion, of the provision of the information.
That is for every time your identity is verified against the data in the register a record will be made of when and where and any other pertinent information of that process.
With the increasing likelihood of people being requested for proof of ID by many organisations and companies this record will soon become a trail of your life. Where and when you rent videos or borrow a book from a library, when you go to the doctor or dentist, when you leave the country to go on holiday.
Tags: ID cards
You gotta be fricking kidding me.
Yahoo News: America Names Ronald Reagan Their Greatest American
America has chosen Ronald Reagan as its greatest American. Throughout Discovery Channel’s GREATEST AMERICAN campaign, more than three million votes were cast via aol.com/greatestamerican, text and toll-free numbers to name the person who America thinks most influenced the way we think, work and live.
When voting closed at 9:10 (ET) during the series’ live finale, Ronald Reagan was named the winner with Abraham Lincoln running a close second.
His son, Ron Jr, hinted that his father’s recent death may have helped swing the vote, I think that’s probably correct. Whatever you personal views about Reagan he did have a considerable effect on the US and the world but was his contribution to America greater than that of Lincoln or Washington.
I think this BBC survey from a couple of years ago is much more to my taste.
Tags: politics