Starved of the truth - George Monbiot article on the current Biotech debate, and asks: what is the real question....?

Biotech firms are out to corner the market, so they have to persuade us something else is at stake.
The question is as simple as this: do you want a few corporations to monopolise the global food supply?"

Slashdot | Protecting Our Parents' PCs?
nice article/thread on being "PC Support Man"

The Singhsons
This is a really nice (flash animation - needs sound) indian-remix of everyones favourite cartoon family... funny and reverential ! [thanks to GarryS for the link]

First e-ink e-book reader from PHILIPS
e-paper/e-ink has been talked of for a while now... however, with this becoming a reality(?) this year.. and the wider availability of wireless networkin.... the promise of "all the worlds books available all the time" draws nearer (if the stupid content/copyright would allow us to have access at a reasonable price)... can you say "convergence" ?

Gyoza.org - Gyoza - Japanese Dumplings One For Ray !

How News Travels on the Internet
this is one of those "Blog's will eat themselves" postings which has already become part of the thing it's describing. i think this is all very fascinating, watching the changes in publishing and news-consumption rules changing.... then observing 80% of london tube users reading the awful and free "Metro"... sigh....

Magnatune."We're a record label. But we're not evil."
Interesting approach to re-inventing the recording industry "the way it ought to be"... look at his "reasons why" page (under "information").

Personal Update I haven't managed to post much recently - due to travelling for work... plus Charlie has had Chicken Pox, which has somewhat distracted me from my usual distratcions - thankfully he's getting much better now.
Here's a bunch of things i caught up on over the weekend...

Spam is 10

5th March marks the tenth anniversary of what is generally considered the first spam message

More "New Journalism"
Dan Gillmor: Boost for Personal Journalism in New Gadget Blog

Downing Street Says...

"Every day the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman meets a small coterie of political journalists known as 'the lobby' for a topical chat, or 'briefing'. We've built an unofficial site that lets you read summaries of these briefings and add your own comments"

Far Side cartoons made real in Photoshop

world subways: "subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale"

Yahoo! News - Enthusiasts Call Web Feed Next Big Thing
Story about RSS Newsfeeds on Yahoo, a good introduction and update on the subject.

I've been using bloglines.com for a while now, and find it's a great way to track subjects I'm interested in...

Try It Out here on some of the feeds I follow.

[see earlier item]

Guardian Online Web watch
Some interesting things in this weeks edition, including "Six of the best: Hotspot finders", and "Un-googling".

What We Learned In The New Economy
Interesting and insightful article from Fast Company Magazine. I particularly like the part on "The Brand Called You"... makes a lot of sense:

Boom-Time Buzz: Free Agent Nation is a utopia. The Brand Called You makes you more marketable than ever.
Cold Reality: Free Agent Nation is a jungle. The Brand Called You is the only way to survive.

Simon Hoggart pokes fun at our honarble MP's register of members interests, lovely :-)

"Meanwhile, the new register of members' interests was published yesterday. It's always fascinating, and here are a few nuggets.
Most boring freebie: Richard Allan, visit to Ottawa to Centre for Collaborative Government, a Canadian thinktank.
Most meaningless job: 'Peter Mandelson, adviser to AM Conseil, an industrial consultancy on strategic development, including internal and external communication and change management issues.' Does one single word of that convey anything at all?
Most disappointing perk: Alistair Burt, 'upgrade to business class on flight from London to Paris'. Can anyone sink eight gin and tonics in a 35 minute flight?
Most obvious legal tax wheeze: Barbara Follett, 'communication consultant to Ken Follett, author'. ('Pick up the phone Ken, then you punch the numbers in that order ...')
Most politically incorrect trip: Edward Garnier, 'a day's shooting in Bedfordshire as guest of the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association'. Just make that 'shooting endangered species', and you have a full house."

The DrumSolo Collection
One for Ciaran...:DRUMMERWORLD: The DrumSolo Collection - from Steve Gadd to Dave Weckl

Barcode Yourself
You are a number, you are not a free man.

Independent journalists blog from Iraq and Iran
These are interesting blogs worth a look. Some good points on "embeded journalism" and the nature of reporting, as well as first hand accounts.

http://www.kevinsites.net/"Kevin Sites is a freelance solo journalist currently on assignment for NBC News in Iraq, but this site is a personal website not affiliated with or funded by NBC News"
http://www.stuhughes.co.uk/"DISCLAIMER: Stuart Hughes works for BBC News, but this is a personal website not affiliated with, endorsed by, or funded by the BBC. Archives of Stuart's work are available here, and at www.bbc.co.uk/news"

Curry KitKat anyone?

"As well as the cumin and masala flavour, NestlÈ is considering offering lemon cheesecake, liquorice, saffron and passion fruit."

Chicks dig computers
i) A Linux Distro for Barbie? Lovely !
ii) Female IT Experts
Suggested by jamesh. Enjoyed by guys in a post-feminist, ironic, laughing *with* the sisters kinda way.

That Petrol Emotion prove they CAN break into the Top 40 !
It seems the wonderful Mark and Lard have been running a survey to find the "WORST BAND NAMES EVER". As a personal friend to some of the stars of TPE, I'm impressed at their solid position of #35 in the ranking, proving once and for all that they can make the top 40 !
Thanks to RayG for the tip ;-)

Coole Games - Hit the pinguin (HOT!)
More penguin related mayhem - thanks to jamesh for the tip

[See earlier item]

World of Ends Concise and highly clueful essay on the internet... makes lots of points which seem so very obvious, especialy once they are articulated so clearly by somebody else ! Worth a read for anyone interested in the internet and the future of humanity.

What the Internet Is and
How to Stop Mistaking It
for Something Else.

Written by Doc Searls and David Weinberger - who were behind the highly influential (apparently) 1999 book/essay the cluetrain manifesto

Wikitravel
I ran accross this nice site just recently... may be a good introduction to "Wikis" for those who are uninitiated.

Wikitravel is a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide. So far we have 1147 destination guides and other articles written and edited by Wikitravellers from around the globe. Check out the Help page to see how you can edit any page right now.

Apple plays Big Brother
A nice (large, slow to download/play) remix advert pointing out the very strange and outrageous position of the Recording Industry establishment, plus Coke, plus Apple.

Our World Our Say
An interesting site/organisation agitating and petitioning for a proper ("full, independent and open") inquiry as to why Britain went to war with Iraq (er, I thought it was to protect access to Oil, which is running out, and seeing as iraq has the second largest oil reserves....)

Identity
Our World Our Say is a non-party political organisation with no specific religious affiliation.
Mission
Our World Our Say works to give people a voice when politicians circumvent them, particularly over world changing issues. Through re-connecting ordinary citizens with their elected representatives and giving them a voice, we aim to give people power over their own future and invigorate the democratic process.

Ziggy gave-Away Guitaaaaarrhhhaaaarrrsssss ! Bowie Donates 2 Guitars

"David Bowie has been supporting B.A.D.D. Bikers Against Drunk Drivers for over 18 years and has signed two donated Takamine 12-string acoustics. David also personalized them with lyrics to Ziggy Stardust and Rock 'N' Roll Suicide."

Copy-crippled CDs launch in UK
More on this ongoing saga of stupidity... remember, CDs that the record companies call "copy protected" are actually broken, and do not comply with technology standards... don't but copy protected CDs ! If you want to stop piracy, don't pirate your collection or download pirated music.... it's easy !

Crippled CDs that won't play on many CD drives, including car players, crept onto the UK market last month. Of course the CDs, which break the Red Book standard, don't allow you to copy the music. And on some car players they play nothing but silence.

Guardian comment piece Blair's claim is simply incredible.
A former senior intelligence officer challenges Lord Hutton's account.

truly, madly, geeky, you have to love this...Jeff Russell's STARSHIP DIMENSIONS

"this site is intended to allow science fiction fans to get an impression of the true scale of their favorite science fiction spacecraft by being able to campare ships accross genres, as well as being able to compare them with contemporary objects with which they are probably familiar. The scales are based on meter-to-pixel ratios so that they are accurate on any platform"

Tuning in to the surreal voice of God
Thanks to Ciaran for the tip...

"A look at the impact of Maradona’s involvement in a TV talk show."

Aussie Glossie
From Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin's TV web site...

Crikey! What did Steve just say? Learn some popular phrases from the land down under.

Re-established contact with Henning in Denmark today - hi Henning !

Cyberloo blast rocks Stoke-on-Trent
The Register reports on "Roof blown off killer roboconvenience" - hysterical punning report... also see links to his earlier reports, confirming his theory of these incidents being the beginning of "humanity's innevitable war with the machines". Lovely stuff.

Guardian Unlimited Football Columnist Richard Williams on why skilful footballers should be allowed to do their tricks:
Here, here - could not agree more ! - do read the whole piece, but here's a nice extract...:

"....in the first leg of a Carling Cup semi-final, Jay Jay Okocha lined up a free-kick outside the left-hand corner of Aston Villa's penalty area. In front of him stood two defenders, covering the near post. As he prepared to run up, at about 45 degrees to the left of the ball, there could have been only one thing in his mind: to curl it with his instep over the wall and towards the far post. Nothing else was possible.
Instead, despite approaching the ball at that wide angle, Bolton's Nigerian midfield genius contrived to strike it with the outside of his right boot, sending it around the left side of the defensive wall and just inside the near post. Goodness knows how he produced such scorching, snaking velocity at such an unexpected trajectory from such a disguised approach. A double-jointed ankle, perhaps. Or maybe just a double-jointed imagination."

Google Guide: Interactive Tutorial Making Search Even Easier

"Why Take The Google Guide Tutorial?
Google is so easy to use, why take this online tutorial? If you're like many people, you use only a fraction of Google's features and services. The more you know about how Google works, its features and capabilities, the better it can serve your needs."

New Film on Johan Cruyff in Barcelona... Reign in Spain

"When the Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff moved to Barcelona, the people thought he was an angel. Geoffrey Macnab reports on a remarkable film portrait of Catalonia "

Football Anorak - as they say themsleves... "Comprehensive UK Football statistics for gamblers and fans alike"

Guitars!
of interet to some of my guitar playing friends... these high tech art-meets-craft guitars www.teuffelguitars.com
Also, for guitar techies, former Bowie Axe-Man (as they say in rock journalism) Reeves Gabrels discusses technique and rigs and equipment and all that to quite astounding depth on his website Q&A Page
...and another of my fave guitarists goes into even more detail about such stuff on his website: 'splattercell.com'

badgerbadgerbadger
I think I'm late to this one, though I've yet to find anyone who already knows it ?
Hampster[sic] Dance for this century ?

The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia
Thanks to Jives for the tip...

If you like the Kevin Bacon game you'll love this game that links any actor/actress to any other!

[Also see earlier item on the Baconizer]

Magnificent Union of Digitally Downloading Artists
Launched by Brian Eno & Peter Gabriel, this very much reflects my point of view regarding distribution and consumption of digital music. It asks and answers the fundamental question... "Who needs the (old school big and greedy) record labels ?"
here are some links...
Wired News: Just Say 'No' to Record Labels
BBC NEWS Gabriel to launch musicians' union
MUDDA Website

The era of sentient footballs

A new technology from Europe: RFIDs inside footballs to gather data and -- most importantly -- confirm the ball's location on the field in real time. The article is auf Deutsch, but reader Christopher has provided an excellent English summary, quoted below.

IKEA WALKTHROUGH v2.3.1
I love this, definately worth a read...:

"IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings. In traversing IKEA, you will experience a meticulously detailed alternate reality filled with garish colors, clear-lacquered birch veneer, and a host of NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCs) with the glazed looks of the recently anesthetized."

Amazing London Street Art
Thanks to Mark for the tip.

pya!
Flash game - Thanks to JamesH for the tip.

time-warp Archive of Vintage Technology Through the Decades

The Guardian | Paul Flynn: Why I love going to the cinema alone

eXtreme Segway

lunchclock.com - Covertly Extend Your Lunch Hour!
I love this - very nice thought process involved here...

"Lunchclock uses a trivial and hence unpatented chrono-distortion algorithm to calculate how much to speed up or slow down the clock based on the details of your working day and your desired lunch period extension"

Proper use of the Photoshop trademark
Corporate Madness...

The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a common verb or as a noun. The Photoshop trademark should always be capitalized and should never be used in possessive form, or as a slang term. It should be used as an adjective to describe the product, and should never be used in abbreviated form. The following examples illustrate these rules:
Trademarks are not verbs.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.

So Melanie , what first attracted you to Billionaire software CEO Larry Ellison ?

Larry Ellison's most important merger / Oracle CEO ties knot with novelist at Woodside estate; Steve Jobs takes wedding photos"Billionaire software CEO Larry Ellison and romance novelist Melanie Craft sealed an eight-year courtship by marrying during the winter holidays, the couple told The Chronicle Tuesday.

The wedding was the first for Craft, 34, and the fourth for Ellison, 59, CEO of Oracle, the world's No. 2 software-maker.

The couple married on Dec. 18 at Ellison's 45-acre Japanese-style compound in Woodside. The ceremony was conducted beside a waterfall by Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, a close friend of the couple, and attended by Ellison's best friend, Apple computer co-founder Steve Jobs, and his wife, Laurene. Jobs did double duty as the wedding photographer."

Lazy Cycle Motorized Recliner

Scalextric races on to the Net:

Music site tries floating price tags
An interesting approach...

A little known online music store is experimenting with a new pricing system in which most songs start out costing a dime, and their prices fluctuate from there based on customer demand.

Tolkien Barbie and Ken

Flatulence Deodorizer

it is my birthday present, my precious: "Gollum has a new precious, my precious"

My other VAX is a VAXbar: "the VAXbar!"

Monochrom Brandmarker
Very intersting survey into the reality of brand recognition. I think the BP one is particularly interesting, as they have spent a lot of money on rebranding to their new "greener" image, and yet many people seem to still associate the older "classic BP Shield" logo.

Bowie not interested in "honours"
"Bowie said he was not interested in gongs. 'I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that,' he said.
'I seriously don't know what it's for. It's not what I spent my life working for."

Holiday Snowglobe

Who's in charge of the Internet?
Interesting essay on the control and management (or lack of) of the internet.

Very funny "alternative" London Tube Map tubemap.jpg. I love the stream of conciousness naming of the stations as you follow a tube line along.

Two nice MS Word parodies...
BBspot - Word 2004 to Pioneer AutoUnsummarize Feature

"Microsoft announced a revolutionary new feature will appear in Word 2004 called AutoUnsummarize. The technology works by taking short, concise sections of text and expanding them to any specified length."

Northern Word

"All the usual Word menu option are there, but in a language your Northern England employees can understand"

Thunderbirds are Go!
I loved thunderbirds as a wee lad, and I suppose I still do !
I noticed this Thunderbirds trailer is go! at BoingBoing (a blog worth regular visits). The trailer is pretty big, but the thunderbird craft (the stars of the show) look pretty authentic.
It prompted me to check here: comingsoon.net which has some stills and blurb, and then here: IMDb Forum: Thunderbirds which contains some worrying stories about a butchered screenplay... :-( lets just hopw they're wrong.

St Trevor of Brooking tells it like it really ought to be !
Trevor's opinion piece in the Guardian Our good health is refrershingly spot on.

"The relationship between sport and alcohol does not have to be a disaster for the nation's wellbeing"

The World's best looking bands
Another to add to the "Worster Album Covers Ever" collections.
[see See earlier item]

David Byrne turns PowerPoint into art.
Wired News: Turning Heads With PowerPoint

Mr. Picassohead Great Fun - have a go !

elgooG Funtastic mirroring technology... take a look - and try a search (watch out you hit the right button).

The CIA Assassination of John Lennon
Just because you're paranoid... single page comic strip on the death of Lennon.

George Monbiot on the oil crisis.
This article Bottom of the barrel addresses the most critical issue facing our "civilisation". I have been (semi) following this for a couple of years, since seeing a BBC Monry Program TV show, and then hearing a Radio 4 science show, which in both cases even the most rose-tinted optimistic predictions of oil reserves vs peak usage had seriously scary implications.
Read this article, and see if you can answer the question:

"The world is running out of oil - so why do politicians refuse to talk about it?"

Politicians: Professional Communicators who can't communicate...?
I expect everyone heard about the award to Donald Rumsfeld

United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has won Plain English Campaign's annual 'Foot in Mouth' award for the most baffling statement by a public figure.

His winning entry:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns"

However, as Simon Hoggart reports this week, we can be justly proud of our very own Mr John Prescott, who apparently said:

"I don't know, in conversations with the Tory administration may have meant no, if you look on the record they have no money to put into the housing, but I'm afraid that the kind of reforms, we brought, in fact if you look at resources I have been looking on the record of the spokesman for opposition, who in fact, the secretary of state, there are six secretaries of state so I can't keep up with them, anyway, the one who's the leader of the group of secretaries of state at the moment, and he has had I think in his case the housing investment over the five or six years halved during that period has doubled over the same period of my administration!"

JP Brown's Serious LEGO - CubeSolver

"This robot solves the 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube®.
I started to think about this problem in about August of 2000. In Jan 2001 fellow Mindstorms forums user 'agiecco' announced his intention to work on a robotic solution and, simultaneously, I saw that Rubik's Cubes were on sale at www.target.com. So I bought a couple of cubes and started getting down to business..."

Delayed GNER Wi-Fi train trial steams out

UK train company GNER yesterday began a free, 19-day Wi-Fi trial on board rail services out of London's Kings Cross to Scotland and the North of England."

[See earlier item]

Umberto Eco on The future of books

"Vegetal and mineral memory: The future of books
The city of Alexandria played host on 1 November to the renowned Italian novelist and scholar Umberto Eco, who gave a lecture in English, on varieties of literary and geographic memory, at the newly opened Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Al-Ahram Weekly publishes the complete text of the lecture"

OK, confession, I skimmed this as it's pretty long... however he makes some interesting points on the relationship between techonologies and "books", and where he see's things going...

Whistle blows at West Ham

"Plc under fire from disillusioned shareholders with a blueprint to protect the club from poachers"

This looks like a genuinely serious attempt wrestle control of West Ham from the current board. Interesting to see "fans" actually tackling the board via corporate means...
More coverage over at KUMB

Modeling the Internet.

"This project was created to make a visual representation of a space that is very much one-dimensional, a metaphysical universe".

This fantastic image (quite large) looks rather like a map of a galaxy to me...

thepictureofeverything.com Freaky !

Slashdot on Ways to Beat the Telecommuting Blues
Some interesting commentary on the pros and cons of telecommuting. I have worked from home for the last year or so, in my current job, and before that various other roles at Oracle enabled me to work from home.

The Guardian - Why I love Balamory
Funny piece on Balamory, the greatest kids show on TV !
I actually love this show... it shares many of the best characteristics from the seminal 60's trilogy (holy trinity ?) of Camberwick Green/Trumpton/Chigley, with characters identified by their own individual songs and occupations.
Charlie loves balamory (or "More More" as he calls it) too, which is good, as I sometimes let him watch it with me.

Where have all the cool people gone?
Guardian article on Shoreditch - an area I've come to know a little since joining object 1, who've been based there throughout the trendy years. Seems like once people as un-hip as me get to work there, it's all down hill...
[see See earlier item]

LURGI Strikes Britain.
We in our house were recently struck down by a horrible stomach-bug-virus-thing.... all OK now, however I had no time to post here for a while... so - big catchup with several items posted today [note that the dates are when the items were originally spotted by me, rather than when they were posted/published onto this blog].

What would the Victorians have made of the interweb?
THE VICTORIAN INTERNET is a wonderful (if slightly mixed quality) set of contributions from readers... well worth a look.

Comment on Online Music Biz.
I found I agreed with just about all of Michael Robertson's views on the current online "goldrush" for digital music.
DRM music goldrush is a race for losers: mp3.com founder talks to The Register"

Christmas toys for kids of all ages.
Anne Taintor Inc. - Cool Coasters, Magnets, Notebooks, Photo Albums and More!
iwantoneofthose.com gadgets & gizmos, gift ideas & games for a cool lifestyle from
boysstuff.co.uk Boys Stuff Big Boys Toys, Gifts For Birthday, New Gadgets, Weird Ideas, Men's Toys, Christmas Presents, Gifts For Men, Gifts For Women & Men's Toys

Bowie UK concert review by distractions friend Gavin
RELAXED BOWIE AT HIS BEST - By Gavin Martin - Mirror Music Critic
It seems I have missed both Bowie & Sylvian tours this year - shame on me (where ARE my priorities!?).

Doodle oodle noodleThe 3d Tube Map - Amazing !
[see See earlier item]

The truth about mobile phones and driving from The Register - interesting coment and some clarification on the law that comes into effect in December.

Football look-alikes.
A bunch of these were doing the rounds last week... I received the same email from 3 sources. Strange thing is, somebody had downloaded the pics from football365.com and then emailed them around in a Word doc..
Some links
Football365.com: "FOOTBALL LOOKALIKES"
Football look-alikes: Some the "original ones" from a couple of years ago...

Same old jibes, same fake statistics
I was discussing Simon Hoggart's political sketch columns with Ciaran & Ray recently... this is a good example of his work. I find his stuff amusing and well informed. This sort of coverage helps to provide perspective and make sense of our stupid political system and the strange people we elect/end-up-with. If you read these columns regularly (usually 3 or 4 a week when parliament is sitting) a nice picture emerges of the various ventral characters, you feel reasonably well informed, and don't have to plow through all the serious politcal coverage.

How To Make It Big in the New Music Biz - A Step by Step Guide
Looks like an interesting read for those in the music biz... free download of the first chapter available.

Worster Album Covers Ever II:
[see earlier Worst Album Covers Ever]

Berklee Shares: free music lessons, mp3, quicktime and pdf files download: "free music lessons that you can download, share and trade with your friends and fellow musicians."

Orwell Today: "Comparing the world George Orwell described in '1984' with the world we are living in today,"

Italy & Europe.
Very Funny. Italian short movie (shockwave, quite large, worth the wait) comparing and contrasting Italy with "Europe" (although in many cases I think you could substitute London for Italy)

num1000remix
Mad Japanese techo-animation thing... [quite large - requires Flash].

Bluejacking?
I noticed this new trend recently...

"using a phone with Bluetooth, you can create a phonebook contact and write a message, eg. 'Hello, you've been bluejacked', in the 'Name' field. Then you can search for other phones with Bluetooth and send that phonebook contact to them. On their phone, a message will popup saying ''Hello, you've been bluejacked' has just been received by Bluetooth' or something along those lines. For most 'victims' they will have no idea as to how the message appeared on their phone. So, personalised messages like 'I like your pink top' and the startled expressions that result is where the fun really starts."

UPDATE: Covered by The Reg today too: Bluetooth boom spawns 'bluejacking'