Gav's Blog

Illegal filesharing crackdown launched by government

2009-08-24T09:59:00.000Z

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.'

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 copies

Sissinghurst Castle

2009-06-13T19:36:00.001Z

Just back from a lovely afternoon at sissinghurst castle in Kent

It was cold on the wobbly bridge

2009-01-21T21:30:00.001Z

Walking to Waterloo

Apparently this blog has a personality

2008-11-23T19:20:00.000Z

And it reveals this about me

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.

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.

Keyhole gardening

2008-06-23T11:56:00.001Z

Here's an interesting technique which is helping to feed African families - a keyhole garden

Cuteness personified

2008-02-16T11:18:00.001Z

Authors campaign to save Britain's only gay bookshop | News | Guardian Unlimited Books

2007-03-22T15:40:00.000Z

Many many years ago, Gay's the word 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

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.

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."

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?

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 book

Crowds roll up for a Banksy

2006-12-18T18:10:00.000Z

Good old Banksy, he's released 1,000 prints for sale at £100 raising money for cataract operations for children in Bangladesh.

According to Sightsavers 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 future

Keep your evil monopolistic nose out

2006-12-07T17:06:00.000Z

I hate Microsoft. I hate the way they squeeze their sticky little tendrils into any market they so that they can increase their monopoly

Now they're doing it to the one laptop per child project

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

Thankfully the Green party has brought this matter to the public eye

The UK's Green Party has accused Microsoft of "unacceptable bribery" in trying to run Windows on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.

"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.

"Microsoft wants to restrict the greatest profits in the knowledge economy to already established software corporations like itself.

"By installing its programs on these laptops Microsoft hopes to create market domination and vendor lock in. That is unacceptable bribery.

What a lovely family

2006-11-01T13:31:00.000Z

A 19 year old has been arrested for raping his mother to get back at his brother over a row - hmmmm how classy

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.
It was unusual retaliation on an unsuspecting victim.
Authorities say Helms' mother was apparently passed out drunk on the couch when the rape started.
'During the attack she did come to and recognize her attacker. (Reporter: As her son?) As her son,' said Smith.

Wow

2006-08-03T12:02:00.000Z

It 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??

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.

2006-08-03T10:52:00.000Z

What is America Like

Watch a video as a crazy American in a concrete armoured bulldozer destroys half a town before killing himself

How's this for a good idea

2006-07-31T11:51:00.000Z

It's good to see that people are really starting to think laterally about maintaining our levels of power usage but with renewable sources

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.
'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.

You know you're reading something bad ...

2006-07-27T15:22:00.000Z

When it contains quotes like:

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.

The effort that has gone into creating the global soya market has indeed
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.

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.

You have to ask yourself why!

2006-07-21T14:45:00.000Z

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!"

Poo Jellyfish, poo

2006-07-06T15:33:00.000Z

Scientist have noticed that a species of tiny jellyfish no larger than your thumb may be able to save the planet from global warming.

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.

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
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.

Let's just hope those little buggers multiply and scoff to their hearts content

Russian Researchers Develop Tomato Vaccine Against HIV and Hepatitis - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM

2006-07-05T15:29:00.000Z

soon 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

Rurik Salyaev at the Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry in Irkutsk, Russia, and his colleagues used the soil bacterium
Agrobacterium tumefaciens to shuttle a synthetic combination of HIV and HBV DNA fragments into
tomato plants. These include fragments of genes for various HIV proteins and the gene for an HBV protein called HBV surface antigen.

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

Ouch - bet that makes your eyes water

2006-06-30T12:17:00.000Z

Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass light bulb in his anus.
On Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad's misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.
'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.
'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.'
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.
'When I woke up I felt a pain in my lower abdomen, but later in hospital, they told me this,' Mohammad said.
'I don't know who did this to me. Police or other prisoners.'
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.

Hitler cats!

2006-06-28T13:36:00.000Z

Just in case my last post was too creepy (remind me, why can't I buy lampshades like that in habitat???

Here's something a bit more light hearted - a blog dedicated cats who look like Hitler

Just what you need

2006-06-27T15:18:00.000Z

Just 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.

What's wrong with the Ed Gein approach - make a nice lampshade out of them - or if you're especially adventurous a coat and hand bag

And you thought Bush was the only dumbass

2006-06-23T12:39:00.000Z

Lynn 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.

Well apparently not, it's a case of 'do as I say, nopt as I do'
YouTube - Stephen Colbert and Congressman: ""

Win the argument by not saying a word - Lifehacker

2006-06-23T12:32:00.000Z

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.

It doesn't matter what the issue was, you will have won the argument.

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 idiot

King Tut is all man!

2006-05-17T13:10:00.000Z

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 mummification

Eric Schlosser on the fast food industry

2006-04-24T15:22:00.000Z

From 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 junkies

Famous last words

2006-03-29T10:01:00.000Z

A list of the last sayings of famous dead people

Am I dying or is this my birthday?
When she woke briefly during her last illness and found all her family around her bedside.
~~ Lady Nancy Astor, d. 1964

What a fantastic woman

2006-03-24T16:05:00.001Z

It is nice to see that some sanity prevails in Dakota

When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother's life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.
Napoli suggested that if it was a case of 'simple rape,' there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli's description of rape as 'simple.' He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by 'simple rape.'
The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.
'To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,' she said to me last week. 'I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.'

What a fantastic woman

2006-03-24T16:05:00.000Z

It is nice to see that some sanity prevails in Dakota

When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother's life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.
Napoli suggested that if it was a case of 'simple rape,' there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli's description of rape as 'simple.' He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by 'simple rape.'
The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.
'To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,' she said to me last week. 'I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.'

Tomato juice keeps emphysema at bay in new model | Science Blog

2006-03-09T12:41:00.000Z

This sounds very interesting - perhaps everyone that's scared of passive smoking should get drining bloody marys

Now this is bound to cause offense

2006-02-22T13:12:00.000Z

Someone has made a page just like the hamster dance which was so popular a few years back except this time it's the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed which have caused so much offense dancing.

It never fails to surprise me how quickly people will say that people shouldn't be offended by things precisely because they don't share the same faith and cannot see why offense might be given. Unfortunately though these people most often have the thinnest skins when it comes to anyone insulting anything that they hold sacred.

More on the Thornbororugh henges

2006-02-22T12:54:00.000Z

One wonders whether Tarmac has thought through its attitude to their planned destruction of the landscape around the Thornborough Henges - can they not see they might be embarking on a massive PR own-goal??

Tarmac has said it plans to appeal the decision, claiming that much of the history conservationists have cited in Thornborough's protection amounts to nothing more than myth.
However, the problem for the company is that any appeal would mean a public inquiry - and it is in the public arena, rather than in the offices of developers and planners, that the case has been most persuasively put for preserving the henges.
Tarmac raised concerns over local unemployment if its application failed. But any loss in quarrying work will be regained through the guides, meals and beds that come with increased visitors, as nearby York and Harrogate know very well.

I hope their share price plummets through the floor for this - advice to anyone who owns shares in Tarmac - dump them and then tell them why

Thornborough henges are saved for the nation

2006-02-22T11:12:00.000Z

Tarmac was defeated in its bid to destroy the landscape around the Thornborough Henges, three large-scale earthworks which have survived since 5,000BCE in the Vale of York.

Of course, they played the usual corporate trick of saying jobs were threatened as well as the fate of the building industry

Tarmac's estates manager Bob Nicholson said the firm was deeply disappointed by a decision which could put 50 jobs at risk. He also warned of serious implications for the supply of sand and gravel to the construction industry and said the company would appeal against the decision. The quarrying did not threaten the actual henges which are scheduled national monuments.

Amazing - when he says the henges would not have been threatened, he failed to mention that many of the neaolithic burial sites would have been destroyed, along with the landscape which puts the monuments into context.

Evil evil corporate bastards

Archaeologists uncover first Valley of the Kings tomb since 1922 Tutankhamun find

2006-02-10T10:31:00.000Z

How exciting, archaeologist have just uncovered the first tomb in the valley of the kings since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun

wonder how many more there are still waiting to be discovered

The War of the Worlds - Book Cover Collection

2006-02-08T15:27:00.001Z

Look, lots of variations on a theme of HG Wells' War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds - Book Cover Collection

2006-02-08T15:27:00.000Z

Look, lots of variations on a theme of HG Wells' War of the Worlds

The Empire State Building

2006-02-08T15:15:00.000Z

Some fantastic photographs of the construction of the Empire State Building

Hadrian's Villa unveils new secrets

2006-02-08T09:41:00.000Z

Hadrian's Villa has unveiled its latest secret, a monumental staircase complete with huge columns and a giant sphinx .

Archaeologists said the stairway, found in an area known as the Gymnasium, was probably the original entrance to the sprawling complex .

A statue of an athlete and a huge theatrical mask, both in marble, were also found at the site

Foul, stinking evil man should keep his mouth shut and his nose out fo British broadcasting

2006-01-23T16:19:00.000Z

Evil media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch has once again stuck the knife into the BBC saying he doesn't think they should have a license fee increase

'Take News 24, it's fine but it's free. We struggled for years and made a small charge and we've also had to go free. In any other country, that is predatory competition.
But when asked whether he feared a fully-funded BBC was a threat to News Corporation he said: "No, but I don't know where it stops..,

But former BBC director general Greg Dyke told Five Live Mr Murdoch would never understand the concept of a state-funded broadcaster.

"Australians and Americans have difficulty understanding the BBC, that we should collect two and a half-billion pounds in a sort of poll tax to fund a broadcasting system," he said.

"They don't understand it and Murdoch will never get it in a million years. He'll never concede that actually what it's produced is a better broadcasting system here that you get in the United States or in Australia."

Actually, he pulled his punch, the truth is that murdoch hates anyone and anything that get in the way of his monopolistic money grabbing ventures.

So Rupert if you're so against the poor British public paying a tax to watch telly, why don't you give away sky for free instead of charging everyone who watches sky for the sports channels even if theydon't like sport

Blogthings - What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

2006-01-20T19:21:00.000Z

Your Birthdate: September 20

You are a virtual roller coaster of emotions, and most people enjoy the ride.
Your mood tends to set the tone of the room, and when you're happy, this is a good thing.
When you get in a dark mood, watch out - it's very hard to get you out of it.
It's sometimes hard for you to cheer up, and your gloom can be contagious.

Your strength: Your warm heart

Your weakness: Trouble controlling your emotions

Your power color: Black

Your power symbol: Musical note

Your power month: February

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

What would Freud say??

2005-12-16T15:25:00.000Z

Talk about 'all men want to marry their mother'

Skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach -- and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!

'I walked out on that dark beach thinking I was going to hook up with the girl of my dreams,' the rattled bachelor later admitted. 'And there she was, wearing white shorts and a pink tank top, just like she'd said she would.

'But when I got close, she turned around -- and we both got the shock of our lives. I mean, I didn't know what to say. All I could think was, 'Oh my God! it's Mama!' '

Mr and Mrs become Mrs and Mrs

2005-12-16T15:07:00.000Z

A couple who wed as man and wife in 1967 have remarried as a gay couple

A husband and wife have 'remarried' as a gay couple - 14 years after the groom had a sex swap operation.
Bernard and Joyce Rogers wed in 1967 but have lived "like sisters" since 1991, when Bernadette, as she's now known, underwent gender surgery.

The Sheet Music Archive

2005-12-12T12:20:00.000Z

Anyone a budding classical musician??

Well now you can downlad lots of free public domain scores - the only restriciton is that you can only download two per day so be careful what you choose

Look kids, this is what we had before we had iPods

2005-12-09T08:52:00.000Z

Do you remember the days of cassettes? the C60, C90, how they used to get tangled around the tape head or stretch so the sound went all funny - I do

Here's a page that has loads of images of old cassettes for a burst of nostalgia. Which reminds me, somewhere at home I have a great big bag of cassettes that haven't seen the light of day in years- I should find out what's on them

Oooo how vile!

2005-12-09T08:47:00.000Z

Look at how horrible this toilet is - surely that's designed to give a man a complex

The health benefits of olive oil

2005-09-20T08:26:00.000Z

It seems that olive oil works in a similar way to ibuprofen as an anti-inflammatory

Now scientists believe they have discovered exactly what it is that makes extra virgin olive oil so good for us.

A study suggests the oil can prevent inflammation in the same way as common headache pills. In doing so, it helps stave off long-term health problems such as cancer and heart disease.

The researchers, based at the University of Pennsylvania, found the main compound in the oil, oleocanthal, contained the same properties as the painkiller ibuprofen.

Ibuprofen has been linked to a lower risk of cancer and heart problems, as has aspirin, which belongs to the same class of antiinflammatory drugs, called COX inhibitors.

The study concluded that extra virgin olive oil - made from the first pressing of the olive - may offer similar long-term advantages.

The extra virgin oil costs around twice as much as the standard version. While the ordinary oil offers some health benefits, these are less pronounced. Now scientists believe they have discovered exactly what it is that makes extra virgin olive oil so good for us.

A study suggests the oil can prevent inflammation in the same way as common headache pills. In doing so, it helps stave off long-term health problems such as cancer and heart disease.

The researchers, based at the University of Pennsylvania, found the main compound in the oil, oleocanthal, contained the same properties as the painkiller ibuprofen.

Ibuprofen has been linked to a lower risk of cancer and heart problems, as has aspirin, which belongs to the same class of antiinflammatory drugs, called COX inhibitors.

The study concluded that extra virgin olive oil - made from the first pressing of the olive - may offer similar long-term advantages.

The extra virgin oil costs around twice as much as the standard version. While the ordinary oil offers some health benefits, these are less pronounced.

Iraq profiteering

2005-09-20T08:23:00.000Z

Interesting article looking at the wheels within wheels among the warmongerers and consortia profiting from the war in Iraq

The Bush family connection was obvious. The chairman of New Bridge was Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush’s chief of staff when he was governor of Texas and national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign. Directors Edward M. Rogers Jr and Lanny Griffith came from one of Washington’s best-connected Republican law firms. Both had been assistants to George Bush Sr in the White House.
A bizarre Bush-Thatcher-Bush-Blair continuum was completed when the company invited an unlikely Englishman to join its ranks. Sir Charles Powell was defence and foreign affairs consultant to Margaret Thatcher and John Major, expending much effort advising PMs that the government needed to invest more in military technology and arms sales. He went on to work for the chairmen of arms firms BAe Systems and Thales, advising them, evidently, that the government needed to invest more in military equipment and arms sales.
As luck would have it, Charles’ brother Jonathan, another Foreign Office diplo-wonk, who used to be Britain’s ambassador in Washington, is now Tony Blair’s chief of staff. He is also said to be the man responsible for single-handedly rubbishing Robin Cook’s ethical foreign policy on the basis that Britain needed to invest more in military equipment and arms sales. It must run in the family.

And then, as if that isn't enough, there's yet another connection to Bin Laden and Al Quaeda

What the press release doesn’t mention is that an al-Bunnia partner is also a founding partner in an organisation identified as helping to fund al-Qaeda. Documents from the Swiss Federal Commercial Registry show Sadoon al-Bunnia to be a founding partner in the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber (MIGA), one of 14 businesses controlled by Ahmed Idris Nasreddin and Youssef M. Nada.

In August 2002, US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill announced that businesses in the Nasreddin-Nada network “appeared to be providing a clandestine line of credit to a close associate of Usama bin Laden and as of late September 2001, Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaida organisation received financial assistance from Youssef M. Nada.”

You would think this record might blot the copybook of businessmen hoping to do deals with the US administration in Iraq, but no; US engineering super-giant, Bechtel has just signed them up to help rebuild the Al Mat bridge, bombed by a stray cruise missile during the war.

Astonishingly, the US government and their contractors seem blithely unconcerned about al-Bunnia’s al-Qaeda connection. According to the US Treasury, its undiplomatically-named Office of Foreign Assets Control keeps a list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, prohibiting trade with the listed persons or organisations. MIGA makes the list. Al-Bunnia does not.

When pushed, the US Treasury said that al-Bunnia’s “association with MIGA should raise some due diligence concerns, but it is not necessarily wrong for a US company to do business with him, and it is certainly not illegal.” Senseless and dangerous, perhaps. But not actually illegal.

And then it discusses Karen Kwiatkowski, a whistleblower who was embroiled in the sexing up of the intelligence.

Interesting and yet angry-making reading

Draw a pig

2005-09-20T08:22:00.000Z

Germans discover world's oldest dildo

2005-07-28T08:02:00.000Z

Archaeologists have found the remains of the world's oldest dildo

German scientists are tickled pink after unearthing one of the world's oldest sculpted phalluses - 20cm of polished siltstone lovingly created around 28,000 years ago.

The stone schlong was discovered in Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm, Swabia, by a Tübingen University team. Professor Nicholas Conard, from the university's snappily-named department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, explained the excitment to the BBC thus: "Female representations with highly accentuated sexual attributes are very well documented at many sites, but male representations are very, very rare."

Indeed, although other examples of male genitalia - from France and Morocco - predate the Ulm member, to have "any representation of male genitalia from this time period is highly unusual".

There may be a good reason for this - the German sausage bears the scars of having been used to knap flints, and was reassembled from 14 fragments. Despite this abuse, and in a delicious leap of imagination, Conard speculates that the life-size member may have been used as a prehistoric sex toy. As he suggestively notes: "It's highly polished."

Those interested in the sex lives of our distant ancestors will be able to cop an eyeful of the Hohle Fels phallus when it goes on show at a Blaubeuren prehistoric museum exhibition entitled "Ice Art - Clearly Male".

Worldwide Internet Art Project "The Sudden Morning"

2005-07-25T09:55:00.000Z

Everyone take a photograph at 8.15 on August 6 to mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima.

In these dark times, it is important that right-minded people express their desire for peace world-wide and commemorate on of the most horrific acts of war ever perpetrated.

The Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:15 am on August 6, 1945. Just 60 yeas after that what scenes are we going to see on 2005, on the very same day and on the very same time that the A-bomb was dropped?
We may see a family at the breakfast table, business people hurrying for work, a newborn baby, people preparing for a wedding or just a quiet harbor.
So many scenes will be laid before us.
This project will give us a chance to see the different views worldwide on the 8:15 am of August 6th this year through the net.
Looking at how people all over the world spend this ordinary morning, we will share some kind of feeling about that sudden morning in Hiroshima. We believe that this will help us genuinely think of what real peace or happiness is all about.
The project is supported by Hiroshima citizens mainly consist of IT engineers. We fully welcome your participation in this project.

Supple girl falls down

2005-07-21T11:32:00.000Z

slightly weird Flash animation in which a bikini-clad woman keeps falling down through space bouncing on spheres

Oh what a sick and twisted world we live in

2005-07-20T15:34:00.000Z

Police are investigating a Seattle farm where they believe bestiality has been carried out:

However, authorities didn't learn about the farm until a man drove up to Enumclaw Community Hospital on July 2 seeking medical assistance for a companion. Medics wheeled the man into an examination room before realizing he was dead. When hospital workers looked for the driver, he was gone.
Using the dead man's driver's license to track down relatives and acquaintances, authorities were led to the Enumclaw farm. Some earlier reports had said hospital-surveillance cameras were used to track down the driver.
The dead man was identified as a 45-year-old Seattle resident. According to the King County Medical Examiner's Office, he died of acute peritonitis due to perforation of the colon. The man's death is not being investigated because it did not result from a crime, Urquhart said.
The Seattle man's relatives said yesterday

Turns the stomach to think about it. But it could be worse they could live next door

Two neighbors, a married couple who declined to allow use of their names, said yesterday they had no idea what had been going on at the farm. They said they've known one of the men who live on the farm for years.

On Thursday, police showed the couple videotape seized from the farm showing men having sex with horses. The couple identified one of the horses as belonging to them, Sortland said. The couple also said it appeared at least part of the tape was filmed in their barn, which left them shocked and angry

OK boys, play together nicely or I'll take the computer away

2005-06-14T14:19:00.000Z

A Shanghai man has been sentenced to death after killing someone who stole a virtual sword in an online game.

The pair had argued over ownership of a virtual sword that Qiu and another player had won in the online game “Legend of Mir III.” Qiu loaned the item to Zhu, but Zhu then sold it for 7,200 renminbi (around US$870). When Qiu tried to involve the police in recovering the item or the money, he was told that such virtual items are not protected by Chinese property laws. After Zhu refused to return the item or pay compensation, Qiu went to his home and stabbed him in the heart, according to the report.

Freakboy alert

2005-06-13T11:38:00.000Z

Say hello to Mannequim man, the human mannequin.

Preferably with a slap and tell him to get a proper job

I hate those buggers that lurk around Covent Garden standing still all day in rubbish make-up and costumes.

Three years in mime school and that's all your capable of ....

Move along now, there's nothing to see

Ohmigod! Hell just froze over!

2005-06-13T08:13:00.000Z

How is this for massive news??

Pink Floyd are reforming to play Live8 in July.

Yes indeedy, Roger Waters will play once more with Dave Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright.

Roger Waters always said it would take something of the magnitude of Live Aid to get them back together because otherwise it could only be about making oodles of cash and would just be a huge sell-out of what he thinks it stands for

The Masque of the Red Death

2005-06-10T15:29:00.000Z

Years ago I wrote and performed a tour of Edgar Allen Poe's The masque of the Red Death, a short story in which a group of rich degenerates lock themselves away in a castle ignoring the dangers of plague, lost in a cloud of debauchery and irresponsibility.

My inspiration for doing the piece was that, even then in 1992, I felt a lot of gay men had grown complacent about the dangers of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. I felt that the rise in drug use that had been happening since the rise of Acid House, raves and other beat heavy dance music clubs had led to greater irresponsibility where safe sex was concerned.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude, and have lived life to the fullest fo the full. What I've never done is play russian roulette with my sexual health.

It comes as no surprise then to read that with the rise of Methamphetamine usage (crystal or tina to her friends) there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of people contracting HIV and other STDs

After years of living in constant fear of aids, many gay men have chosen to resume sexual practices that are almost guaranteed to make them sick. In New York City, the rate of syphilis has increased by more than four hundred per cent in the past five years. Gay men account for virtually the entire rise. Between 1998 and 2000, fifteen per cent of the syphilis cases in Chicago could be attributed to gay men. Since 2001, that number has grown to sixty per cent. Look at the statistics closely and you will almost certainly find the drug. In one recent study, twenty-five per cent of those men who reported methamphetamine use in the previous month were infected with H.I.V.

The healing hands of the truth

2005-06-10T11:56:00.000Z

Here's a story of how personal courage and resistance to corruption can pass under the radar even on a national television station.
Natalia Dmytruk, a sign-language interpreter in the Ukraine state-run television station, has won an award for the vital part she played in letting the population of the Ukraine know that the presidential elections had been rigged.
Dmytruk, 48, made sign language her vocation and today interprets for Ukraine's state-run television. Her face and hands appear in a little box at the bottom of the screen as she sends out the news on the mid-morning and early afternoon telecasts to the hearing-impaired.
During the tense days of Ukraine's presidential elections last year, Dmytruk staged a silent but bold protest, informing deaf Ukrainians that official results from the Nov. 21 runoff were fraudulent. Her act of courage further emboldened protests that grew until a new election was held and the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko , was declared the winner.
Dmytruk and three other Ukrainian women received the Fern Holland Award on Tuesday night at the Vital Voices Global Partnership's fifth annual ceremony honoring women from around the world who have made a difference.

Dmytruk's "courageous actions sparked the public outreach and ultimately new and fair elections on Dec. 26, 2004," said Melanne Verveer , chair of the board of Vital Voices.

Election monitors had reported widespread vote-rigging immediately after the runoff between Yushchenko and the Russian-backed prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych . With Yanukovych leading by a slim margin, the opposition urged Ukrainians to gather in Independence Square in front of the parliament building to protest the results.

Each time Dmytruk went to Independence Square with her 20-year-old son and teenage daughter and saw the thousands of protesters, she felt herself transformed .

"I was impressed by the expression on my children's faces. I was so fired up by other people I observed passionately voicing their discontent," she said in an interview this week. "It was that special spirit and energy of people coming together, uneasily at first, but looking in the same direction."

Dmytruk would then return to work and broadcast the state's version of events.

"I was observing it from both sides, and I had a very negative feeling," she said. "After every broadcast I had to render in sign language, I felt dirty. I wanted to wash my hands."

The opposition had no access to the state-run media, but Dmytruk was in a special position as a television interpreter to get their message out.

On Nov. 25, she walked into her studio for the 11 a.m. broadcast. "I was sure I would tell people the truth that day," she said. "I just felt this was the moment to do it."

Under her long silk sleeve, she had tied an orange ribbon to her wrist, the color of the opposition and a powerful symbol in what would become known as the Orange Revolution. She knew that when she raised her arm, the ribbon would show.

The newscaster was reading the officially scripted text about the results of the election, and Dmytruk was signing along. But then, "I was not listening anymore," she said.

In her own daring protest, she signed: "I am addressing everybody who is deaf in the Ukraine. Our president is Victor Yushchenko. Do not trust the results of the central election committee. They are all lies. . . . And I am very ashamed to translate such lies to you. Maybe you will see me again -- " she concluded, hinting at what fate might await her. She then continued signing the rest of officially scripted news.

Lifecycle of Bloggers

2005-06-09T12:41:00.000Z

Found this list of stages in the lifecycle of blogging and am trying to decide where I am in the list.

#1. Start reading blogs.
You start out as a lurker and by either having met a blogger or run accross an intriguing and challenging post from someone else’s blog, you start mulling about in your head for either a forum for response, challenge, or agreement. You *could* start by commenting on other folks blogs first, but you start having a gradually increased desire for a space of your own. Like when you’re living in your parent’s basement and the rest of your friends are making weekly trips to Home Depot and using words like “mulching”. You begin to wonder if you want to belong.

#2. You start a blog.
Maybe at first it’s on blogspot or livejournal. You start writing about cheese sandwhiches. You use your full name and the full names of your friends that are involved in your occasionally mischievous exploits. These things satisfy you. Hubris starts taking a more significant part of your site as you develop your tiny homestead online. The notion of fleshing out your online personality becomes important.

#3. You become a stats whore.
Daily stats/referrals and meme participation for webrings, quizlists, personality profiles, and the occasional sepia toned webcam photo to make you look all “emo” and “sultry” and “sensitive” or at least a little bit thinner. And definitley like a Kpop music video still image. You voraciouslly groom your links list as you build a posse. The wishlist makes it’s initial appearance and creepy strangers start sending you gifts when your birthday comes around. You consider this slightly weird, but hey, then again, you *did* get that Star Wars Box set that you always wanted. You *start* memes just for the additional traffic. Perhaps you even start a webgame of sorts.

#4. You become really personal on your site as the online and real-life worlds start confusing you.
As you recognize the possibility of being an opinion leader in your personal circle, people flame you. You occasionally flame back. You cry about comments that certain people make to provoke you. You bitch about these things as well. Then you take into consideration that comments were made by pimply 14 year olds who post jpegs of their warcraft characters online and realize that these lOZeRs aren’t worth your time. This gives you an sense of superiority. Haha! you say to yourself. I have a posse and a blog and you don’t. So fuck off, you lame twat. Hazzah!

#5. You faux “retire” from blogging.
Having temporarily exhausted the emotional reservoir from which your personal blog has released, you post about retiring. Or a vacation. Or a hiatus. Or a sabbattacal. You say this will be permanent. Or last a month.

#6. You cave back into blogging in less than 72 hours.
You candy pants blogging crack addict.

#7. You decide to “get serious” about blogging.
You seek out “The A-List” of bloggers and start reading more of them, and news about them, and news about blogging in general. You come to the conclusion that if you ever hope to join their rank, then you need to atleast register your own domain. Afterall, http://candypantsnewbiebloggeraboutcheesesandwhiches.blogspot.com will not get you linked by Kottke.

#8. You have a pseudo flirty im/blogging/flickr flirting relationship with another blogger whom you have never met.
This will likely end badly. Very badly.

#9. You decide that you must meet other bloggers.
SXSW seems like a good way to go about it. Or attendance at Fray Day. Or finding any excuse possible to move to San Francisco. At least a trip, after all. With a visit to SF, meeting other “celebrity” bloggers is just as tasty a tourist destination as going to Fisherman’s Wharf. Or more so. Definitley more so. Your blogroll grows threefold.

#10. You take a step back and metablog about blogging and what blogging has done about your blogging.
You become pedantically navelgazingly annoying. For some reason, your blogger readership eats this shit up. This does not convince you, however, that you want to do something silly like smoke weed with Marc Canter. Because even *you* know that’s a bad idea.

I do mine when skiving at work - I almost never get the time to blog at home. I'd like to be a stats whore but I don't think I get enough readers to make it worthwhile. I virtually ever talk about my life and it's more a case of I blog where I've been when I should really be working.

What's your worldview??

2005-06-09T11:25:00.000Z

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements

What's your personality defect???

2005-06-09T11:18:00.000Z

I'm a Starving Artist

You are 42% Rational, 42% Extroverted, 28% Brutal, and 57% Arrogant.
You are the Starving Artist! You are more intuitive than logical, and are primarily guided by your heart and emotions. You are also very introverted and gentle. Of course, this does not mean that you do not have an ego. In fact, you are surprisingly arrogant for someone so emotional and gentle. This is why you are best described as a starving artist. You are very introspective and quite sure of yourself, as any accomplished artist is, yet your views are impractical, guided by feelings, and overly gentle. You probably find math, logic, and similar intellectual pursuits offensive to your artistic sensibilities, and you prefer the open-endedness of artistry because then you know you can never truly have a wrong answer. So really you have no reason to be arrogant, you big doofus, because the skills you value (emotion, spirit, art, etc.) in yourself are valuable only on a subjective level, meaning your arrogance is purely masturbatory. In short, your personality is defective because you are arrogant, introverted, introspective, gentle, and thoroughly irrational...posessing most of the traits needed to be a starving--and useless--artist. So get out there, write a few short stories that are allegories for the spirit, and starve!

Your exact opposite is the Capitalist Pig.

Well they got the last bit right - how I hate capitalist pigs - they should be made into capitalist bacon sandwiches and fed to cannibals. Anyone know where i can find a tribe of hungry canibals who'd like to dine on capitalist swine??

How's this for tacky

2005-06-09T09:33:00.000Z

A dutch site that sells stuffed toys including fake stuffed animal heads - just vey very nasty and unpleasant

What to do in the hereafter

2005-06-03T12:34:00.000Z

I've always thought I'd liked to be buried in a sack sitting up with an apple tree planted over my head so that my decomposing body could be transformed into something that people could sit under and eat the fruit from the tree fertilised by my life.

Obviously, I'd prefer that this to happen after I die.

Today i read of Eternal reefs, who offer the chance to have one's asshes mixed into a concrete reef scaffolding to help create new habitats for coral and a plethora of other pland and wildlife.

Seems like quite a nice idea

Here's one for all the Star Wars fans

2005-06-02T16:55:00.000Z

How's about Star Wars origami??

Entrances to hell

2005-06-01T15:46:00.000Z

Now here's one I forgot all about till I was reminded of it on the Guardian's page. Basically it keeps track of mystrious entrances around the UK which could possibly be an entrance to Hell

This one's called Badadada tatatata

Death by PowerPoint

2005-05-20T14:33:00.000Z

Now this is what I call torture!!!!

I wonder whether American Intelligence have subjected Saddam to an attack of PowerPoint? If that don't get him talking, nothing will

And on the subject of murderous ex-dictators who deserve to burn in Hell for ever and at least a day, perhaps thewy could subject Pinochet to a never ending PowerPoint-based reminder of all the people he had murdered and all his abuses of power.

Who cares if you had a stroke, I hope you suffer

Yes, but is it art??

2005-05-17T16:29:00.000Z

Well it looks like bollocks, so it must be

Shy not go to SEattle and buy yourself a handknitted superhero costume

Password generator

2005-05-13T14:40:00.000Z

This is really useful, a tool for generating passwords to websites that are esy to recover too. You put in a master password and the website name and it scrambles a secure password. There's even a boomarklet version too.

There's even a Dashboard version available from O'Reilly's website.

Sorry windows people, this one's Mac only ha ha ha

Is Colin Baker bonkers

2005-05-12T16:43:00.000Z

One for the factcheckers at the belfast telegraph, I think

Baby-faced actor David Tennant will make a great 10th Dr Who, says stage and television star Colin Baker, who is about to appear in high drama at the Opera House in Belfast.
And Baker should know - he was the sixth Dr Who and he still attends Dr Who conventions all over the world ...
... I loved my time as Dr Who, with Louise Jameson as my partner Leela in the Tardis and the bonus now is the reunions in towns like Belfast,' adds Baker. 'I spend my day with people who think I am wonderful.'

Colin Baker had Nicola Bryant and Bonnie Langford as his companions during his time in Doctor Who. Did someone make up the quotes and then not check them

Watch out world, here's the first generation of Terminators

2005-05-12T12:31:00.000Z

US researchers have devised a simple robot that can make copies of itself from spare parts.
Writing in Nature, the robot's creators say their experiment shows the ability to reproduce is not unique to biology.
Their long-term plan is to design robots made from hundreds or thousands of identical basic modules.
These could repair themselves if parts fail, reconfigure themselves to better perform the task they have been set, or even to make extra helpers.

The thoughts of the last Dalek

2005-05-06T16:20:00.000Z

Awww almost makes you feel sorry for the evil tin-pot monsters

HAVE KILLED MORE HUMANS. LOST COUNT PART WAY THROUGH. WHAT'S THE POINT, AFTER ALL?

THESE FEELINGS ARE CONFUSING ME. THINGS USED TO BE SO SIMPLE.

I . . . I HAVE WRITTEN A POEM ABOUT HOW I FEEL. PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU LIKE IT, AND WHY:

AS MY PLUNGER DEALS DEATH
MY SOUL PLUNGES
INTO THE DEPTHS.

MY VOICE CRIES
IN THE WILDERNESS:
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
BUT WHY?
THERE IS NOTHING LEFT
TO EXTERMINATE
FOR.

Scott's place :: Vote Dalek

2005-05-06T16:09:00.000Z

How to fold a fitted sheet

2005-05-06T15:14:00.000Z

Now this really will come in useful

Being lazy I'm a fan of fitted sheets but boy do I hate folding the bastardos. I've never quite managed to work out a foolproof folding method. Well here's a page that tels you how to - absolutely marvellous

Now here's a thought

2005-05-06T14:35:00.000Z

If peanuts are legumes and very definitely not nuts, why are all the foodstuffs that are labelled with 'danger, may contain nuts' not labelled, 'danger, may contain legumes'?

Also, if someone is allergic to peanuts, which are legumes, why are they not allergic to peas and beans (or are they), and hence why do tins of Baked Beans come with health warnings?

If someone is allergic to peanuts (which, remember, aren't actually nuts, but grow in pods, just like peas) are they also allergic to nuts? If not, why am I constantly bombarded with warning notices telling me my food may contain traces of nuts when in fact it's legumes which are dangerous to some people?

If anybody can tell me, please leave a comment

Only in America

2005-05-05T16:21:00.000Z

SEATTLE - Police who went to the aid of a distraught man jumping off a bridge in Seattle ended up shooting him early Friday morning.

Designline - A Design Timeline

2005-05-05T16:00:00.000Z

Nice site that illustrates designing a blog from start to finish using CSS within an animated gif

Just what I need - as inspiration to set abolut tidying up my template

Macworld UK - Gartner urges Mac user vigilance

2005-05-04T12:27:00.000Z

Interestingly, since the release of Tiger, Apple has dropped all mention of Virex from the Dot Mac webpage. Now I've paid for that as part of my .Mac membership and I'm intrigued that Apple would so casually dispense with a piece of software which helps to keep one's computer safe

Garbage in, garbage out

2005-05-04T12:24:00.000Z

More than 120 children in Durham have taken part in a trial to see if taking a cocktail of natural oils could help performance in class.

Half used a combination of omega-3 fish oil and omega-6 evening primrose oil and half took an olive oil placebo

Results suggested that after three months, the group using the fatty acid made 'highly significant improvements' in 12 out of 13 behavioural scales, including three diagnostic ADHD features - inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. Short term memory also significantly improved.

It's hardly surprising, when you see the slop that children are fed nowaday (he said, sounding like an old bastard) - all the additives and sugars and lack of vitmains, minerals and essential oils can only be to the long-term detriment of studying

Tweaking Google

2005-05-04T09:52:00.000Z

There's an interesting article over at the Wall Street Journal looking into the various ways people are leveraging web technologies such as Googles new map facility.

Some good ones include Marcus Weskamp's graphical interface to Google News

Then there's an interface that ties house adverts on Craiglist to Google Maps - that's a really good one and it would be great to see that launch over here in the UK too.

This is my first pot from the Dashboard in Tiger

2005-04-30T01:49:00.000Z

Well I'm definately a confirmed geek and anorak now. Not only am I all excited at the prospect of the Dalek being in Doctor Who tomorrow, but I also trekked into the Apple Store on Regents street and got my copy of Mac OS X Tiger and have just about got my system running again

Has science gone too far??

2005-04-28T16:25:00.000Z

Well I've seen everything now, it seems there's a man who is actually pregnant - Lee Mingwei, has been implanted with a foetus and has set up a website to track the progres of the pregnancy.

Daleks

2005-04-28T11:16:00.000Z

The Public Whip - How They Voted 2005

2005-04-28T10:53:00.000Z

Yet another poll that tells me to vote Lib Dem, and shows how out of step with me Kate Hoey is

TheyWorkForYou.com: Is your MP working for you in the UK's Parliament?

2005-04-28T10:48:00.000Z

This is a great site for anyone who wants to check up on their MP and see how they performed in the last Parliament.

It's no secret, I want want Labour to be hammered this time. It's not just because of the the war in Iraq, though let's be honest, that's reason enough; it's not just because of that sneering liar Tony Blair; nope, it's more to do with the fact of having a cabal of tories running what was formerly a socialist party for the ordinary people.

I particularly would like to see regime change in my local constituency where I would like to see Kate Hoey replaced by Charles Anglin, the candidate for the Liberal Democrats.

Now this represents an enormous change of tack for me. I always said a vote for the Lib Dems was a wasted vote, but now they are the only party I can bring myself to vote for. There is absolutely nothing could induce me to vote Conservative, this country is still reeling from the damage they inflicted on it and Michael Howard is just Loathsome.

Anyway, back to Ms Hoey, who should be ousted by the good burghers of Vauxhall. Back in 1997, she made an impassioned plea for support at Duckie in Vauxhall stating very clearly that she supported gay rights and she was going to vote to end fox hunting. She has a poor record of voting ongay-related issues, frequently being absent during votes and she has been vociferously against the ban on fox hunting. Just two reasons why I want her out.

Watch out Tony, they're out to get you

2005-04-26T12:50:00.000Z

rt
Originally uploaded by iGav.

Exterminate that Blair

Nek Chand

2005-04-26T11:54:00.000Z

This one reminds me of the Coral castle in Florida. For the last 36 years Nek Chand, a transport official has been building an eccentric piece of folk art in the north Indian city of Chandigarh.

One day 36 years ago, Nek Chand, a humble transport official in the north Indian city of Chandigarh, began to clear a little patch of jungle to make himself a small garden area. He set stones around the little clearing and before long had sculpted a few figures recycled from materials he found at hand. Gradually Nek Chand's creation developed and grew; before long it covered several acres and comprised of hundreds of sculptures set in a series of interlinking courtyards.
After his normal working day Chand worked at night, in total secrecy for fear of being discovered by the authorities.When they did discover Chand's garden, local government officials were thrown into turmoil. The creation was completely illegal - a development in a forbidden area which by rights should be demolished. The outcome, however, was the enlightened decision to give Nek Chand a salary so that he could concentrate full-time on his work, plus a workforce of fifty labourers. Nek Chand's great work received immediate recognition and was inaugurated as The Rock Garden of Chandigarh.

Isn't it nice to hear ...

2005-04-26T11:47:00.000Z

Something positive about the environment for a change. National Geographic on the revival of life in the Thames which was declared biologically dead in the 1950s after centuries of dumping sewage and rubbish had led to it being uninhabitable.

Dolphins, Seals at Home in London's Reborn River: "More than 130 seals have been spotted in the Thames since last August, according to the Zoological Society of London. Bottlenose dolphins have been seen upstream of London Bridge. And last summer the first sea horse was recorded in the Thames estuary in 30 years ...

... The condition of the Thames—which rises and falls with the tides as far inland as London—was very different 150 years ago. 1858 saw the "Great Stink," when the stench of raw sewage got so bad Parliament, which meets in a riverside building, had to be dissolved.

In 1878 the pleasure steamship Princess Alice sunk in a river collision. Most of the 600 or so passengers who died did so because they were overpowered by a noxious cocktail of human and industrial filth before they could reach safety.

How's this for a great idea?

2005-04-26T11:40:00.000Z

A company in South Africa has developed a pump which uses the energy of children playing to pump water from a well and solve the chronic water shortages which plague rural African villages.

A pump is attached to a roundabout which pumps water from a well when the children play.

I love it when lateral thinking gets used to solve problems - just like the wind-up radio.

My brother lives not far from a wind farm, which is another great way to generate power without consuming fossil fuels.

What I don't understand though is why people don't use water wheels in rivers to generate power

You see, he does have the power of the dark side

2005-04-22T16:50:00.000Z

Achtung pigs! You will buy my books, schnell, schnell

It seems that Ratzi really does have the power of the dark side - he has seven of the top ten best selling books in Germany this week - even managing to knock the new Harry Potter book off the top spot - now that takes some serious mind tricks

The writings of Joseph Ratzinger, who has become Pope Benedict XVI, have knocked the next Harry Potter book off the top of a German book chart.
The German version of online retailer Amazon has the Pope's books occupying the top three spots in its chart, with four more of his titles in the Top 10.

Ancient necropolis found in Egypt

2005-04-22T16:19:00.000Z

Archaeologists say they have found the largest funerary complex yet dating from the earliest era of ancient Egypt, more than 5,000 years ago.
The necropolis was discovered by a joint US and Egyptian team in the Kom al-Ahmar region, around 600 km (370 miles) south of the capital, Cairo.
Inside the tombs, the archaeologists found a cow's head carved from flint and the remains of seven people.
They believe four of them were buried alive as human sacrifices.
The remains survived despite the fact that the tombs were plundered in ancient times.

Rhubarb Vodka

2005-04-22T16:17:00.000Z

I'm not the biggest fan of rhubarb, it has to be said, though I did make a gallon of viciously powerful rhubarb wine a few years back. This however sounds like it might be worth a look - Rhubarb vodka

So here comes the answer

2005-04-22T16:12:00.000Z

Ok, so perhaps his eminence the ex-cardinal Ratzi didn't have a wardrobe stocked with Pope-drag ready for his enthronment, instead they were on show in the window of Gammarelli, the ecclesiastical tailors. Now, since I doubt I can walk in off the street and get one of those perky little numbers, why do they display them in the window?

The three white cassocks on display in the window of Gammarelli Ecclesiastical Tailoring come in small, medium and large, because no one knows what size the next pope will be.
In the world of religious raiment, few distinctions are as great as counting the leader of the Roman Catholic Church as a client. So when 115 cardinals meet on Monday in the Sistine Chapel to begin a conclave that will select the next pope, the tailors of Gammarelli will be especially interested to see who will emerge wearing white.
Filippo Gammarelli, 63, whose family has been making papal clothes since 1798, including those for John Paul II, is hoping that the next pope, who will eventually step out onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica modeling a Gammarelli cassock for millions, will like the fit.
That has not always been the case.
For the plump John XXIII pins and tape had to be used for last-minute alterations, while in 1914 the diminutive Benedict XV swam in his white silk simar, the special cassock worn by popes only.

Spell with flickr

2005-04-22T15:32:00.000Z

This is so cool - hours of innocent fun

Did anyone notice??

2005-04-22T15:08:00.000Z

That last post fizzled out and went nowhere with a diversion about keyboards. The gist of it was supposed to be about the article saying that technology does greater damage to the IQ than smoking marijuana.

So I wonder if anyone's done a study to see the harm that is done to one's intellect from using Word and PowerPoint all day. They are guaranteed to make my brain melt with frustration at least 20 times a day.

One of the people I work with just discovered that you can drag bullet points in PowerPoint to promote or demote them and was thoroughly impressed.

Yes Microsoft, it's nice of your programmers to create neat little user-friendly gimmicks like that, how about fixing all the hideous bugs that litter you bloated software

So what does this mean for Blackberry users?

2005-04-22T14:34:00.000Z

Just recently I've noticed that there is a technological new kid on the block rivalling the iPod for ubiquity. Yes, as if there aren't enough white ear-bud wearers squashed together glassy eyed on the tube in the morning (Yes, I know, I'm one of those killer iPod Zombies, but mine's an original so I got there at least two years before the rest of you with your iPod Minis and Shuffles) there are now a plethora of Blackberry addicts out there, squinting at their emails at all times of the day and night, trying desperately to type out their replies on those tiny weeny keys that make the littel rubber pads on a Sinclair spectrum look like they were built for high speed

"Email users suffered a 10 per cent drop in IQ scores, more than twice the fall recorded by marijuana users, in a clinical trial of over a thousand participants. Doziness, lethargy and an inability to focus are classic characteristics of a spliffhead, but email users exhibited these particular symptoms to a 'startling' degree, according to Dr Glenn Wilson.
The deterioration in mental capacity was the direct result of the trialists' addiction to technology, researchers discovered.
Email addicts were bombarded by context switches and developed an inability to distinguish between trivial and significant messages. Incredibly, 20 per cent of trialists jeopardized their immediate social relations by rushing off to 'check their messages' in the middle of a conversation.

How to Survive a Zombie Attack

2005-04-22T11:13:00.000Z

I would show this to John, but he's pathologically scared of zombies - I know, it's irrational, but I only have to pull a blank face and he freaks.

But just in case you're ever caught in the middle of a zombie attack, there are plenty of helpful hints to help you survive

After your initial panic, it's important to remember that a significant component of your surivival is the demise of the ghouls trying to get your tasty brains. Despite some reports to the contrary, the only way to permanently un-animate a zombie is to destroy its brain. This isn't rocket science (although that would be a cool way to do it). A gunshot to the head is the most direct way to disable a zombie, but not the only way. Decapitation also works, although the head will probably still function so don't let it bite you. If you survive long enough, and society collapses along with any hope of rescue, you'll need to develop some means of skull penetration that doesn't involve guns - a professional bowhunting setup works if you can get it. You might be squeamish at first, taking out your neighbors; with time this will pass, you might even adopt a gleeful hangman's sense of humor in your executions.

That just reminded me

2005-04-22T10:54:00.000Z

Looking through the cover scans of Spiderfan I spotted this one, which reminded me that this was the very first Spiderman story I ever read. It was the one where Peter Parker tries to get rid of his spider powers so that he can settle down once and for all with Gwen Stacey (remember her, the girl the Green Goblin threw from the top of the Washington Bridge). Unfortunately there was a mix up and instead of losing his powers, PP became a human spider with six arms and had to turn to Curt Connors to cure him. The finale to the story has a battle between Spiderman, the Lizard and Morbius.

The only reason I mention this is that I think this storyline would be the best storyline for the next Spiderman movie and perhaps Morbius will be the character played by Thomas Haden Church.

Seperated at birth/undeath??

2005-04-22T10:44:00.000Z

People are always harping on about how Michael Jackson has had all that plastic surgery to look like Peter Pan. I think he has an altogether different fictional character in mind ...

Yes indeed, it's Morbius the living vampire

How exciting is this?

2005-04-22T08:55:00.000Z

There has a been a breakthrough in decoding the Oxyrhyncus fragments. The papyrus fragments were discovered in historic dumps outside the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus ("city of the sharp-nosed fish") in central Egypt at the end of the 19th century. Running to 400,000 fragments, stored in 800 boxes at Oxford's Sackler Library, it is the biggest hoard of classical manuscripts in the world. This hoard is owned by the Egypt Exploration Society who have funded this research

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

And I'm not the only one who think's there's something wrong with Ratzi

2005-04-21T16:02:00.000Z

Look, more people who think he's dodgy ...

He bears a striking resemblance to Nosferatu in this one

You see, I'm not the only one who hates Word

2005-04-21T15:56:00.000Z

So glad to see that the innumerable unfixed bugs in Word cause more people's brain to melt down than just

Dear Microsoft Word,

Here are a few tips for you.

1.) Don’t ask me if I want help when I’m writing a letter TO YOU at 2:48am.

2.) Don’t do that stupid auto-format shit you just did when I hit enter after I typed “am.” That always messes up my outlines because apparently we don’t have the same style. I go “I.” then “A.” then “1.” then “a.” OK? I don’t want to print my fucking outline at 5am after I’ve worked on it all night and suddenly notice that my shit is all fucked up and you literally WON’T let me fix it. I have to have to wrestle you like a psycho bitch to get you to let me type how I want to. I get A’s in school, ok? Teachers like my outlines the way I do them. I’m sorry.

3.) My teachers want one inch margins. I know, it sucks, but they think I’m a slacker when you slyly auto-fuck with my margins. YOU’RE the slacker, asshole!!!

4.) If I’m writing a ten page paper about, oh, say rhetorical discourse, and I’m on page nine and we’ve (you and I) have been working together for about five hours and I suddenly type “rheotoric,” can’t you REMEMBER that I have correctly typed “rhetoric” nine thousand times by this point and just fucking fix it for me? I have a laptop. Right clicks on those are annoying as shit.

5.) Your dictionary/thesaurus is missing SO MANY fuckin words! What’s up with that?

6.) When I hit “print preview” you really should let me actually EDIT there, too. Print preview means, ok, I’m gonna look it over one more time and see if it’s all good. When I notice something’s fucked up, I have to close print preview to go back and search for it to fix it. C’mon.

7.) When you say something is spelled wrong but really it’s just a word you haven’t learned yet, (it’s ok) and I fix it for you before I type anything else, you switch it back to being wrong! Fuck you is that annoying!

8.) Sometimes, I am just right with the grammar and you’re not.

9.) Is it going to hurt my eyes to see the whole damn menu if I click on File or Edit? What are you ashamed of?

10.) I’m sorry I have been such a rude bitch. We have had great times together, and overall you’re thesaurus has made me sound much smarter than I am in many, many papers. Also, I love it when you track my changes. That’s so sexy. And who can forgot Courier New, to turn a seven page paper into ten! Thank you!

Has anyone else spotted the resemblance???

2005-04-21T13:46:00.000Z

popish
Originally uploaded by iGav.

So when I said perhaps the new Pope already had the white clothes ready, maybe he was using power of the Dark side to guarantee the result of the election.

Remember the mix up between the black smoke and the white smoke? There's no smoke without fire.

Oh and by the way, just in case anyone flames me about it, according the this chap, I'm already going to hell, so I don't need anyone else telling me, OK

Can anyone tell me?

2005-04-21T13:34:00.000Z

w042038a
Originally uploaded by iGav.

Is it me or is the new Pope wearing the old one's clothes? Surely there hasn't been enough time to create an entire new wardrobe for him in this much time.

Or did he already have the wardrobe and was planning to get his hands on the job ...