<< previous | next >> | random
This is a list of amusing or interesting links which I've seen lately, but which are too insubstantial to post on my real web log.
Good rant.
Home Office now so full of wankers that even loyal Labour MPs are starting to notice.
Oh what a lovely war.
"When Database Queries Attack". Apparently, the recipient of the statements "says she is considering changing banks"—no shit!
Another nice example of motoring/civil-liberties convergence from the official journal of New Labour.
The Iranians can't make their centrifuge cascades work, allegedly. Or they want us to think that so that we don't bomb the crap out of them. Or the Americans want us to think that because they can't bomb the crap out of them until next year. I don't suppose it much matters which.
Sigh.
First of a fun series of posts on the HD-DVD/BluRay copy-protection mechanism.
"We can't get lost, my mother warns. But I sense, even without her saying it, that the world has suddenly become dangerous, foreign and evil, and that one must be on one's guard. I walk with my sister next to the horse-drawn wagon; it is a simple wooden cart lined with hay, and high up on the hay, on a linen sheet, lies my grandfather. He is paralysed and cannot move. When an air raid starts, the panicked crowd, until then patiently trudging along, dives for the shelter of the ditches, hides in the bushes, drops down in the potato fields. On the empty, deserted road only the wagon remains, and on it my grandfather. He sees the planes coming towards him, sees them abruptly descending, sees them taking aim at the abandoned wagon, sees the fire of the on-board guns, hears the roar of the machines over his head. When the planes vanish, we return to the wagon and mother wipes my grandfather's perspiring face. Sometimes there are air raids several times a day. After each one, sweat trickles down my grandfather's exhausted face."
Good "connector conspiracy" rant.
Bloody hell. I hadn't even heard of this!
This is a lovely observation.
See also Wikipedia. Sadly it is only easily visible from the southern hemisphere, so even hopeless astronomers like me have an excuse for not having noticed it....
Lots of detail on the ASAT thing (and timely too—should probably ArmsControlWonk to my RSS reader!).
After being shot by a hunter who thought it was dead and so put it away in the fridge to eat. Awwww!
Talk on Wednesday at the Computer Lab. I'm unlikely to make it to this but it looks interesting.
'During the apartheid era in South Africa many opponents of the National Party regime were "banned"—that is, restricted from being in (or away from) certain places, belonging to certain organizations, and doing certain things. Banning was used against many opposition political parties and groups. People who were banned included political prisoners who had served their sentences, trade union activists, and members of churches and NGOs, especially those whose activities brought them into contact with people belonging to differtent ethnic groups. Among those who were banned were many members of the Liberal Party of South Africa.'
Such bans would never happen here. We would call them "ASBOs".
RIP Act hilarity.
<< previous | next >> | random