October 2003 Archives

here's a bit of history that has been brought up to the 21st century...Chaucers' Canterbury Tales is now available online at the british library..but
what is so great about that..there are hundreds of books available in
eText...well this is the first edition..each page scanned and
digitised...and its free!
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well its been a while since the last update (busy@work)..but here we go
again...this time an issue that was raised by one of friends over
breakfast...it was alleged (by my friend) that the Queen was
contemplating legal action over the possilble (or is that probable?)
subscription to an EU constitution that would "...have primacy over the
law of the member states..."
hmm great so if we do sign up we end up as subject to the the whims of
Europe (that's big E)
well the most info I could get was this article of
the Telegraph web site (registration may be required)
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in a weird, totally unrelated (well its an ad) item...the vampire out
of the CapitalOne advert looks quite like Melanie C...its the
hair!....you can probably tell that its a slow day...
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vegging out in front of the tv this saturday evening...and lo we have
the return of the Ferro Rocher "Ambassador" advert...and its now a
female ambassador (not a problem)...my problem with the advert is that
has lost all of its sense of sophistication...we have a voice over
which adds nothing to the visuals, the "over heard" comments have been
given a sort of "echoey" effect that sounds annoying...i definately
prefered the simple "silent" version....aargh even tv adverts is going
down hill!
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the idea of america having all the power in space is starting to
unnerve me a little, especially when there are ideas like imaging the entire planet all of the time...i
see the need for the information during a war and in trying to prevent
confrontations erupting but i feel uncomfortable with the US having
complete control over the whole thing...I like my country's right to
govern itself and to be left the hell alone (see you
pro-Europeans...grrrr...we'll join when we're good and ready...not when
you want us!)itself...sometimes think that the US sees itself as big brother to
the whole world and isn't very good at it....and also in the latest
news from the White House...El Presidento has decreed that the leaks coming out of the White House must stop...this
news was leaked within minutes by a "Senior White House
Representitive"...he he he
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software alert of the day...since moving to MYIE2...with its gestures
I've gotten really used to them that I've been trying to use them in
other programs...where of course it doesn't work...until now! stroke-it adds all of these sorts of things into it wahey..and its free for individuals & not for profit use!
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just found this link to the Jewish Internet Association and had a look at the weblogs as well as Melanie Phillip's Weblog
and am shocked at some of the rhetoric that is coming out of their
mouths...right ok i can understand (well I can't but i don't have a
better word for it) that they feel a need to protect themselves...but
do they really think that

... In the past the only way such murderous, bastard
regimes have ended was through massive destruction of their people and
lands. The U.S. and its allies bombed Germany and Japan into rubble,
killing millions of "innocent" people in the process. It was considered
just retribution for the concentration camps, the Rape of Nanking,
endless other atrocities, and in general the militarization and
aggression of their socities. Upon the rubble, new peaceful societies
were built under the rules of the victors.

is justified...Germany I'd like to point out did attempt to wipe out
the Jewish people...still the fact that anyone would consider that as a
step forward in the development of the human race is strange (well to
me)...yes I think we did have to stand up to the whole thing, but we're
not talking anything on that scale here are we? afaik were the Israelis
not wanting a land for themselves back at the end of the war...and so
the PTB (Powers That Be) gave them one...taking it away from
others...who now want back they see as being theirs already (not saying
that is or it isn't theirs)...i was talking to some one the other day
and they felt that the most sensible(well there are a couple of issues)
would be to sink the entire area and force all sides to become
outcasts...now may be not a totally practical suggestion but I can
understand the rational behind it...remove the main bone of
contention...i think that a little patience and compassion on both sides,
a less (read non) violent form protest from the Palestinians, a
non-knee jerk "lets kill someone" reaction to everything from the
Israelies and for America to get out of the friggin way and stop
shielding Israel[*] from everyone else. (this i can appreciate when it
was a new country, and just trying to find its way...but its doing
alright now...let it stand up and play with the other kids)....
and before anyone decides to tear me to shreds...i really don't care
one way or another...I'd like it to be sorted out and as a outsider all
I can see is a lot of unreasonable squabbling going on...ok with
guns...but even AK47s vs. Apache's just isn't fair...
[*] oh in case you're american and hadn't realised...that is one of the
reasons that lots of people in the world dislike your country...sorry
if i'm sounding patronising to all of you who do know that..but there
are still lots of you that don't
Didn't mean to rant but...
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anyway following on from RIAA to sue keyboard manufacturers here's a site thats all about Urban Legends and debunking them...i only put it here due to this item off MetaFilter
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everyone take a moment to reflect on the passing of LtCmdr Patrick Dalzel-Job who has passed away, and was said to be the inspiriation behind Ian Flemings James Bond
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was going through an old edition of Need To Know and this page about the proposed EU Software Patent Directivecaught
my eye...if you ever want to see a really stupid position torn to
shreds in a very meticulous manner, its definately worth reading some
of the articles...also worth reading is Ms Arlene McCarthy's The Myths - The Truths
fact sheet that is so holy they're trying to get it a Sainthood...i'm
almost ashamed that Ms McCarthy is British...we really shouldn't show
off that level of stupidness to the world...
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in the interests of the drinking public out there, and in the best
tradition of the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project...some nutter has taken the Simpsons too
far and experimented with Skittles in Beer...apparently Lowenbrau had
the best result...but from experience (one very cheap case of it later)
Lowenbrau is fairly awful to start with...so anything in it could only
improve it!
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the DG [Director General] of the BBC made a speech
a while back during the Edinburgh Film Festival saying that the Beeb
would be making its archives available to the general public (for free
I believe!)...well here's something else that they're up to, with an
archive of Scottish media
(tv,film and radio)...apparently the archive has 3,000 hours of footage
(about 1,300 miles worth of film!)
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was actually reading an article about feet & foot fetish (don't ask
why..it was in a feed and looked interesting) when i cam across this link
which has a list of various items that have been retrieved from peoples
asses...top found items are Glass/ceramic glass jars(32) followed by
Sexual Device/Vibrator(23), although that number may be larger...the
one that impressed me was the toolbox that they removed from a
convict!...site is complete with a couple of photos
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everyone is wanting us to get closer (or further) to Europe...so here's
a guide to getting physically closer to out European counterparts...roll on Hogmanay!
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at last almost justification
of starting at 11am and working till 3am! scientists appear to have
discovered a genetic link to peoples preference of early mornings or
late nights...they do make it clear that isn't soley down to genetics
but a complex interaction with lots of other factors..
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its officially confirmed off Red Vs Blue that there will be a DVD, come mid-november! details available on the site & the dvd will be available at their store
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the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time...I
know there's lots of these lists been kicking about recently, but as a
bit (well a lot) of a bookworm, this one appeals to me! I've read 19
out of 100
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question...what does "plotzed"
mean?
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just goes to show that some people really are stupid...following the
dropping of SunnComm's suite against Halderman for bypassing their copy
protection system, we have this very well written piece on Kur5hin
in which we can see that RIAA (those well know champions of freedom and
music for all at a reasonable price) are filing a suit for the
inclusion the "Shift" key on keyboards...the article has enough truth
in it to be real...for my 10c, i'd like to believe that RIAA is this
dumb...
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and the propaganda front from
GulfWarII(in cinemas near you soon...in TECHNICOLOUR) has been
rumbled...as letters celebrating the US's successes in Iraq,"allegedly"
from soldiers serving the war, are published across the states...the
only problem is...they're all the same letter....at least someone in
the US military knows how to use some of Words more advanced features
(mail merge)...hmm also (as I peruse the article)

"One Thousand of my fellow soldiers parachuted from ten jumbo jets"

so that's 1000 in to 10 which is 100 soldiers in a jumbo jet???I'm
right in thinking that a jumbo (if there were actually used...but then
we're talking small words being used for small minds) each soldier
either takes up the same space as 4pointSomething tourists, or weighs
the equivalent(plus bagage).
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with Arnold safely tucked in as Governor Elect for California, with his
100day play as bedtime reading here's a few suggestions from
Dan Gillmor about what he should be doing next...although I think
"Calling his pal in the White House" might not be such a good idea...he
might the wrong idea and decide that California needs democratising!
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article on the BBC about information pollution which makes sense...

"Information pollution is information overload taken to the extreme,"

...which ties up to an article I read a couple of months ago about the tyranny of email..
[Update]the link is apparently dead...it just keeps 404ing but I'll
leave it there in case it ever happens to come up...if any one as a
copy of the art, please stick it up somewhere![/Update]
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i like this!
he he he....well must be offski..a fun evening set building...so if
anyone is in the glasgow, merchant city area next week come drop in a
nd see "Awake & Sing", an STG production..on til the 26th(i think)
from next wednesday(i think!)...hey I just build the sets!
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Jacobs said in an interview late last night that a successful lawsuit would do little to reverse the damage done by the paper Halderman published Monday about his research, and any suit would likely hurt the research community by making computer scientists think twice about researching copy-protection technology. "I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research," Jacobs said

how sweet...still at least he has seen it as a undesirable reaction...good on you!

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he's still going...don't
you just hate it when you're missing a card from a full deck! that said
the states don't seem to have a full deck anywhere (bin Laden &
hussein!)
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another update on the saga of the student who "broke" a copy protected cd by holding down shift...it has made it to the BBC website so it must be true!
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here's a link that
i've seen a couple of times (and even visited) but never really took
in..but now that i have its quite interesting...especially the nonverbal dictionary which defines what not verbal/body language cues actually mean...
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decided definately do not have the right temperament for FPS games..especially ones where big player eating worms popup from under you! [Jedi Academy..flash needed] (oh and you'd think that "www.jediacademy.com" would be the web site!) that said I've just dropped out of eve-online..well
will have by 11nov..didn't catch it in time to stop me getting billed
for one month...still was enjoying that more, although now there are
people back in town...i've broken out in a social life again!!!so
haven't really had the time to play...which is a bit of a shame...so
apologies to Shaelin & the rest & thanks for the
investment..but probably won't be there for a good while!
oh any one who was down in Manchester @ the OCS gig..hope you all had fun...gits :-D

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ok this is a little sick that I'm finding this story
amusing...and i'm sypathetic to the people that this has happened
to...but for sheer slapstick comic value its worth it...anyway knew
there was a good reason to stop getting Nokia phones..
[Listening to Virgin Radio Online]
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meant to post this link up a while back...if you've not seen Red Vs. Blue,
go take a look...very good fun! episode 7 had me in
stitches...v.embarassed at work!...anyway this one is the Weapons Of
Mass Destruction...
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more news on the "high tech" copy protection system
introduced by SunnComm...it seems a little bit of a catch 22 situation
for SunnComm...if they prove that that Halderman (the PhD guy who
published the details) did break their encryption, then their software
is crap...if they can't prove that he did break it then they can't do
him under the DCMA! anyway just further illustrates the ?mis-use? of
the DCAM by companies adverse to any critical information about their
systems...maybe its just me but if i write something that gets
broken...i'd kinda like to know how it was broken!
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hmm....although the day is going a hell of a lot quicker...some of the
stuff coming up (and out of peoples mouths) is complete bollocks
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I like this...just goes to show that some things never changeShift key breaks latest CD anti-rip tech - grad student[The Register]...hey I could have done that...and i don't even have a PHd!
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had read of this..but Salam was chatting to some people online for Radio 4(ahh don't you just love the BBC)..check out the transcript
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oh yeah...just
to remind everyone that we've still got problems in Afghanistan...not
that we'd forgotten about them when we moved to oil rich middle
east...afterall now that we'd found our excuse...
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iergh..another bomb in Baghdad...this is just getting
annoying...especially as its not even the coalition forces that are
being bombed but other Iraqis...gonna have to go see what Salam Pax has to say bout things...
on the home front...the England football team are up in arms...well except for Michael Owen, who's buggered himself...
back in the states, had a read of Arnie's 100day
plan to get California back on its feet...first up is repealing the Car
Tax law...i'm not going to even bother trying to make it sound like i
understand what its about (well other than cars and tax)

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Have gone and "macified" my PC...and browser...mac OSX just looks much nicer than XP (well 2003)

[update]
Didn't really notice it before, but has Gestures (a la Creatures)...waggle the mouse to make a window disappear, go forward/back etc...cool!
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Arnie's Victory Speech[Real
Audio]...and various other bits and pieces on the election...
following a conversation with Leax last night...it'll be interesting to
see what actually happens with him at the helm...but its funny how
politics just seems corrupt in your own country but interesting in a
different one...hmm sound bite: "for the people to win, politics must
lose"...oooh now he's reaching out...to everybody... didn't that get
him into trouble during the campaign?
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lots of new things today...Degree Confluence Project..
this a project to take a photo of the place where a line of latitude
intersects a line of longitude...only 3 left in the UK though..up near Shetland
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check this system out...vOICe...its
a system for blind people to see using their ears...interesting and
worth playing with..oh and its free!..there's also a version for your
mobile phone(if you have a nokia)
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well Arnie won the California Recall Vote
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hmm I am now annoyed that I can't get the Windows Media Player blogging
plugin to work at work..the down side of having a 2003 server as a
workstation...so if any one happens to read this and knows how to hack
it so that it'll work I'd like to know...as you can probably see I've
been playing with some programs ( you can tell it was a slow day at
work) so added a coffee counter to the site...
finished reading "Salam Pax: the Baghdad Blog"...definately a good read (and useful if you didn't catch the start of it!)...will have to decide on the next one...choice of "Things Snowball" -Rich Hall, "De Niro: A Biography"-John Baxter or "Murray Walker: Unless I'm Very Much..." -Murray Walker...decisions,decisions.

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ITS FRIGGIN FREEZIN' HERE...you'd have thought that working in
(basically) a box, with no windows, full of computers it'd be quite
warm..but no...its baltic
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Hmmph..well I've managed to avoid doing it until now...but I think I'm
going to have to learn C++...oh well.
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Fun night...Short Arse was up from Leeds so went out drinking..bit of a
reunion...not as drunk as we could have been...never made it for the
curry we'd planned...oh well
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Shocking Find for Scooby Doo Fans[Real
Audio link]...This ain't anything to do with Scooby Doo...well
much...but this is taking things far too far...think the abortionists
are entitled to their views..but don't try to trick people into trying
to believe your beliefs...
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Sooo cannot be bothered with the whole thing today...whole load of new
students in and a pile of stuff to do and just can't get head round it
all....ieeuurrgh
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Oh yeah Israel bombed Syria...using the basis of terrorism as an
excuse...excuse me but isn't everyone pissed off at the US (and the UK)
for doing the same thing (basically) with Iraq...and we (the UK) have
condemned the action! is that not just a little bit hypocritical? not
that I condone what the Israelis did (or are doing to the Palestinians)
but for f***s sake stop being pricks! tit for tat is not going to get
you anywhere...we've had to deal with NI for 30odd years..ok that said
we still went and bombed a country in to democracy(???)
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Webcam is up and running again (finally managed to steal it back from
the rest of work)...
Just got through the weekend...(i'm pissed off but not sure why
exactly)...and into the new week... Started on the back log of entries
from Dear Raed which is now available in print...yes I know I'm coming to the whole thing rather late..but anyway
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