tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55187682024-02-08T10:11:28.889+00:00Gav's BlogWanderings on the World Wide WebGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.comBlogger569125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-84192028197952035662009-08-24T09:59:00.000+00:002009-08-24T09:59:14.123+00:00Illegal filesharing crackdown launched by government<blockquote>with the choice of accepting this and innovating or, King Canute-style, staying the tide of change, they're choosing the latter option and looking to parliament for help with some sandbags.'</blockquote><br /><br />couldn't say it better myself - internet distribution of content is a reality and the main reason people pirate is that copyright holders charge way too much for content. The way forward is to charge so little that people don't think of looking for freebie alternatives to overpriced digital copiesGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-69349974569871535552009-06-13T19:36:00.001+00:002009-06-13T19:36:53.018+00:00Sissinghurst CastleJust back from a lovely afternoon at sissinghurst castle in KentGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-40621876541555898382009-01-21T21:30:00.001+00:002009-01-21T21:30:26.304+00:00It was cold on the wobbly bridge<a href="http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/59ed6c9/16777226"><img src="http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/59ed6c9/16777226_blog" /></a><br/>Walking to Waterloo <p align="right" ><a href="http://www.shozu.com/portal/?utm_source=upload&utm_medium=graphic&utm_campaign=upload_graphic/" target="_blank" ><img src="http://www.shozu.com/resources/messages/logo_blog.gif" alt="Posted by ShoZu" border="0" /></a></p>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-24151652536165333332008-11-23T19:20:00.000+00:002008-11-23T19:20:03.500+00:00Apparently this blog has a personalityAnd it reveals this about me<br /><br /><blockquote>The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. <br /><br />The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.</blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-79062098712140375652008-06-23T11:56:00.001+00:002008-06-23T11:59:42.921+00:00Keyhole gardeningHere's an interesting technique which is helping to feed African families - a keyhole gardenGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-71904855855292956032008-02-16T11:18:00.001+00:002008-02-16T11:18:28.285+00:00Cuteness personified
<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0rJ_I-UdCVc&rel=1&border=0"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0rJ_I-UdCVc&rel=1&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></object><br>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-77018191626180497102007-03-22T15:40:00.000+00:002007-03-22T15:41:00.993+00:00Authors campaign to save Britain's only gay bookshop | News | Guardian Unlimited BooksMany many years ago, <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=gay%27s+the+word&sll=51.525273,-0.125248&sspn=0.004085,0.011276&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=51.52578,-0.125248&spn=0.00817,0.015514&om=1&iwloc=A">Gay's the word</a> was just about the only shop in London that stocked any kind of gay title. Nowadays, with the Pink Pound an essential target market for the like of Waterstones and Borders, traditional old-style bookshops are at risk<br /><br /> <blockquote>Gay's The Word, which has been selling books in Bloomsbury, central London, since 1979, is hoping to secure its future by raising £20,000 to pay the rent, building a strong internet presence and beefing up community activities.<br /><br />American novelist Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story, said: "It's a shop that keeps gay titles on the shelves for years in a way no regular bookshop, even one with a gay section, would ever do. The staff know the books and can give advice. It would be very sad to see it go."<br /></blockquote><br />Tusked away in a quiet corner fo Bloomsbury, it's easy to forget that it was once an essential location for the gay men and women of London. It would be a terrible shame for it to go out of business, though if noone uses it then what is the point of it?<br /><br />If everyone went to the shop and bought a book, they'd surely be able to continue in business, so that's what I'm going to do - visit the shop and buy a bookGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1166465440673307452006-12-18T18:10:00.000+00:002006-12-18T18:10:40.770+00:00Crowds roll up for a BanksyGood old Banksy, he's released 1,000 prints for sale at £100 raising money for cataract operations for children in Bangladesh.<br /><br />According to <a href="www.sightsavers.org">Sightsavers</a> it costs on average £17 to perform cataract surgery on an adult and £27 on a child. It will give extra resonance to looking at the print in futureGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1165511163221470042006-12-07T17:06:00.000+00:002006-12-07T17:06:03.333+00:00Keep your evil monopolistic nose outI hate Microsoft. I hate the way they squeeze their sticky little tendrils into any market they so that they can increase their monopoly<br /><br />Now they're doing it to the one laptop per child project<br /><br />This was meant to be an open source project that would avoid anybody's licenses and would stymie Microsoft getting a toehold in emerging markets so they can squeeze them dry in the future<br /><br />Thankfully the <a href="http://www.infomaticsonline.co.uk/vnunet/news/2170267/update-green-party-labels">Green party </a>has brought this matter to the public eye<br /><br /><blockquote><br />The UK's Green Party has accused Microsoft of "unacceptable bribery" in trying to run Windows on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. <br /><br />"Open source tools are a way to let the global south develop their own knowledge economies," Siân Berry, principal speaker for the Green Party, told vnunet.com in an email.<br /><br />"Microsoft wants to restrict the greatest profits in the knowledge economy to already established software corporations like itself.<br /><br />"By installing its programs on these laptops Microsoft hopes to create market domination and vendor lock in. That is unacceptable bribery.<br /></blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1162387900699496142006-11-01T13:31:00.000+00:002006-11-01T13:31:40.780+00:00What a lovely familyA 19 year old has been arrested for raping his mother to get back at his brother over a row - hmmmm how classy<br /><br /><blockquote>what we understand the rape stemmed from an argument between him and his brother. And apparently they were arguing over a girlfriend. And the rape was some sort of retaliation towards his brother,' said Sgt. Jamie Smith of the Albertville Police Department. <br />It was unusual retaliation on an unsuspecting victim. <br />Authorities say Helms' mother was apparently passed out drunk on the couch when the rape started. <br />'During the attack she did come to and recognize her attacker. (Reporter: As her son?) As her son,' said Smith. </blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1154606561282018552006-08-03T12:02:00.000+00:002006-08-03T12:02:41.356+00:00WowIt looks like there may be another undiscovered tomb in the Valley of the Kings and speculation is mounting that it might contain one of the missing royal mummies from the Amarna Perios - Akhenaten or Nefertiti - how amazing woulod that be??<br /><blockquote>From its location this tomb could prove to be a find of the greatest possible significance. By inference from the neighbouring tombs KV62 (Tutankhamun) and KV63 I believe it is likely to represent yet another burial of immediate post-Amarna date - not impossibly home to one or more of the missing Amarna dead about whom I first speculated in 1997 and to whose actual existence KV63 now points. Situated in a part of the Valley which was out of bounds to earlier excavators, moreover, the new find is almost certain to be undisturbed.</blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1154602326893981832006-08-03T10:52:00.000+00:002006-08-03T10:52:07.130+00:00<b>What is America Like</b><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/gwFkJMiN1Ak"></param><embed src="http://youtube.com/v/gwFkJMiN1Ak" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br>Watch a video as a crazy American in a concrete armoured bulldozer destroys half a town before killing himselfGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1154346696562199322006-07-31T11:51:00.000+00:002006-07-31T11:51:36.616+00:00How's this for a good ideaIt's good to see that people are really starting to think laterally about maintaining our levels of power usage but with renewable sources<br /><blockquote>British engineers are converting street vibrations into electricity and predict a working prototype by Christmas capable of powering facility lights in the busiest areas of a city.<br />'We can harvest between 5 to 7 watts of energy per footstep that is currently being wasted into the ground,' says Claire Price, director of The Facility Architects, the British firm heading up the Pacesetters Project. 'And a passing train can generate very useful energy to run signaling or to power lights.</blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1154013722249306722006-07-27T15:22:00.000+00:002006-07-27T15:22:02.313+00:00You know you're reading something bad ...When it contains quotes like:<br /><blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><p>More than 60% of all processed food in Britain today contains soya in some form, according to food industry estimates. It is in breakfast cereals, cereal bars and biscuits, cheeses, cakes, dairy desserts, gravies, noodles, pastries, soups, sausage casings, sauces and sandwich spreads. Soya, crushed, separated and refined into its different parts, can appear on food labels as soya flour, hydrolysed vegetable protein, soy protein isolate, protein concentrate, textured vegetable protein, vegetable oil (simple, fully, or partially hydrogenated), plant sterols, or the emulsifier lecithin. Its many guises hint at its value to manufacturers. </p><p><br />The effort that has gone into creating the global soya market has indeed<br />been enormous. Today it is dominated by a handful of American trading companies. Three of them - Bunge, ADM and Cargill - control 80% of the European soya bean crushing industry. These three, together with allied companies, are also estimated to control up to 80% of European animal feed manufacturing. They dominate the US soya market, and also account for 60% of Brazil's soya exports.<br /> </p></blockquote><br /><br />You can just hear the ravening grind of cash machine driven ravening corporations as the dream up more despicable ways to fill our diet with processed food that in the long-term is against our health.Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1153493131947412792006-07-21T14:45:00.000+00:002006-07-21T14:45:32.016+00:00You have to ask yourself why!Why on earth would you want to have a bicycle that you need to row?? - in the words of Eric Cartman "it just does not make sense!"Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1152200014304116712006-07-06T15:33:00.000+00:002006-07-06T15:33:34.363+00:00Poo Jellyfish, pooScientist have noticed that a species of tiny jellyfish no larger than your thumb may be able to save the planet from global warming.<br /><br />They feast on phytoplankton, which are booming in our oceans due to the increase in the temperature. The phytoplankton use the Co2 to photosynthesise, taking it out of the atmosphere and then, once eaten, the CO2 gets deposited on the ocean floor in the jellyfish's poo.<br /><blockquote>Woods Hole biologists Laurence Madin and Patricia Kremer of the University of Connecticut and colleagues found that one swarm of these tiny jellyfish covered almost 40,000 square miles of the sea surface and consumed almost 74% percent of<br />phytoplankton every day, removing it from the ocean and preventing it from evaporating back into the atmosphere. Instead, it was contained in their fecal pellets, which sank down into deep water at the rate of up to 4,000 tons of carbon a day.</blockquote>Let's just hope those little buggers multiply and scoff to their hearts contentGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1152113382422022532006-07-05T15:29:00.000+00:002006-07-05T15:29:42.476+00:00Russian Researchers Develop Tomato Vaccine Against HIV and Hepatitis - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COMsoon people could be gaining the benefits of promising experiments of growing HIV vaccines in tomatoes. This offers the hope of cheap, sustainable vaccines for the poorest of countries<br /><br /><blockquote>Rurik Salyaev at the Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry in Irkutsk, Russia, and his colleagues used the soil bacterium<br />Agrobacterium tumefaciens to shuttle a synthetic combination of HIV and HBV DNA fragments into<br />tomato plants. These include fragments of genes for various HIV proteins and the gene for an HBV protein called HBV surface antigen.<br /><br />The tomato plants then manufacture the proteins and, like the oral polio vaccine, when the tomatoes are eaten, these proteins prompt the body to create antibodies against the viruses<br /></blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1151669849660896732006-06-30T12:17:00.000+00:002006-06-30T12:24:24.790+00:00Ouch - bet that makes your eyes water<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7620/197/1600/3936367927.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7620/197/320/3936367927.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><blockquote>Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass light bulb in his anus.<br />On Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad's misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.<br />'Thanks Allah, now I feel comfort. Today, I had my breakfast. I was just drinking water, nothing else,' Mohammad, a grey-beared man in his mid-40s, told Reuters from a hospital bed in the southern central city of Multan.<br />'We had to take it out intact,' said Dr. Farrukh Aftab at Nishtar Hospital. 'Had it been broken inside, it would be a very very complicated situation.'<br />Mohammad, who is serving a four-year sentence for making liquor, prohibited for Muslims, said he was shocked when he was first told the cause of his discomfort. He swears he didn't know the bulb was there.<br />'When I woke up I felt a pain in my lower abdomen, but later in hospital, they told me this,' Mohammad said.<br />'I don't know who did this to me. Police or other prisoners.'<br />The doctor treating Mohammad said he'd never encountered anything like it before, and doubted the felon's story that someone had drugged him and inserted the bulb while he was comatose. </blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1151501777980520992006-06-28T13:36:00.000+00:002006-06-28T13:36:18.070+00:00Hitler cats!Just in case my last post was too creepy (remind me, why can't I buy lampshades like that in habitat???<br /><br />Here's something a bit more light hearted - a blog dedicated cats who look like Hitler<br /><br /><img src="http://static.flickr.com/73/171930094_f33a2de0c1.jpg?v=0">Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1151421514009780522006-06-27T15:18:00.000+00:002006-06-27T15:18:34.073+00:00Just what you needJust think, you die, you're cremated (well not me, cos i don't like the thought of it) and then you grieving loved ones pack your ashes into a teddy bear shaped urn so they can hug you when your gone.<br /><br />What's wrong with the <a href="http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/gein/bill_1.html">Ed Gein</a> approach - make a nice lampshade out of them - or if you're especially adventurous a coat and hand bag<br /><img src="http://www.ed-gein.de/gein/athome4.jpg">Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1151066341294771552006-06-23T12:39:00.000+00:002006-06-23T12:39:01.296+00:00And you thought Bush was the only dumbassLynn Westmoreland is a Congressman from Georgia who co-sponsored a bill to require the display of the Ten Commandments in the House of Representatives and the Senate. You'd think that if anyone should be able to recite them all it should be him.<br /><br />Well apparently not, it's a case of 'do as I say, nopt as I do'<br /><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=veIU0Jwu54w">YouTube - Stephen Colbert and Congressman</a>: "<object width='425' height='350'><param name='movie' value='http://www.youtube.com/v/veIU0Jwu54w'></param><embed src='http://www.youtube.com/v/veIU0Jwu54w' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='425' height='350'></embed></object>"Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1151065941584789642006-06-23T12:32:00.000+00:002006-06-23T12:32:21.636+00:00Win the argument by not saying a word - Lifehacker<blockquote>If someone starts yelling to get their point across, don't respond -- just let them go on and on. Remain so silent that they eventually start wondering if you are even listening.<br /><br />It doesn't matter what the issue was, you will have won the argument.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />Isn't that the truth - it happened to me quite recently while cycling to work - some agressive idiot in a car threatened to run me over because he felt I had obstructed him from running a red light - He screamed and screamed, effing and blinding about how he was gonna kill me (not a very nice experience at 8 in the morning). But he was left looking like an idiot because I completely blanked him and opther passers by told him to shut up and stop acting like an idiotGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1147871401626944762006-05-17T13:10:00.000+00:002006-05-17T13:10:04.176+00:00King Tut is all man!You have to wonder at the prurience of journalists that report thngs like this - apparently Tutankamun's penis has been found, attached to his body, presumably where it's been for the last several thousand years or so. Presumably it shrank during the dessication process that is part of mummificationGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1145892122814909322006-04-24T15:22:00.000+00:002006-04-24T15:22:05.136+00:00Eric Schlosser on the fast food industryFrom the Guardian - no surprise the depths the food industry will sink to to grab children as early as possible to turn them into obese junk food junkiesGavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5518768.post-1143626499196245422006-03-29T10:01:00.000+00:002006-03-29T10:01:39.276+00:00Famous last wordsA list of the last sayings of famous dead people<br /><br /><blockquote>Am I dying or is this my birthday?<br />When she woke briefly during her last illness and found all her family around her bedside.<br />~~ Lady Nancy Astor, d. 1964</blockquote>Gavhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12267028409516301267noreply@blogger.com0