I read a report that back over in Swansea, they recently held a film premiere for “The Edge Of Love”. The movie was partially funded by the Welsh Assembly (via their Wales Creative IP Fund), who invested £700,000 in the Dylan Thomas biographical film. You can find a video interview with two of the stars (Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley) here.
Sadly, Wales is also in the headlines for topping the list of underage drinkers in the Western world, at least according to the WHO. Check the BBC article here. The sample size was 250,000 (I’m assuming that is in total, not just in Wales) 11,12 and 15 year olds. 15 year old girls in Wales were the most likely to have experimented with weed. As long term readers will know, I have no issue with schmoking personally, but the fact that so many young girls have tried it is a little surprising.
Jul 02 2008
Good And Bad News For Wales
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Jun 25 2008
.WhateverYouLike ?
According to a BBC report, ICANN is considering relaxing current restrictions on top level domain names (.com, .kz, .org etc.). Right now, apart from country’s own domains (.ru, .uk, .it et al), there are very few alternatives that companies can use. Some small countries have effectively rented out the right to use their extension (for example, I used to run a site using a .TK domain), and recently we had .info added (tip for new website owners, unless you REALLY can’t find the domain name you want without resorting to a .info, avoid them – they really don’t inspire confidence sadly), however the possible rule changes will allow for more TLDs to be created. Whether or not the much fabled .xxx will actually come into existence remains to be seen, however the path has now been cleared if the companies and organizations involved can come to an agreement.
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Jun 19 2008
Charlie Chav
The above is NOT the official 2012 London Olympics mascot. It is just suggestion #7 from BBC News site readers. The Burberry cap, graffiti can and untied shoe laces certainly invoke a stereotypical of young Britons, especially the type with a £250 Vauxhall Nova pumping out bass from their £1500 ICE (In Car Entertainment) system. (Any friends that draw parallels between this cartoon character, its implied anti-socialness and my own lack of knots in my trainers will be swiftly dealt with 😉 ).
I originally thought that Charlie spelt that way was a girl’s name, but apparently it is unisex. So, has anyone thought that they would actually like as a mascot? I’m just hoping it isn’t too clichéd, or obscure (lions and bulldogs spring to mind) …
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Jun 19 2008
Tweet Twoit? Twert Twit?
If you too find difficulty in remembering how to sing bird songs authentically, you are not alone! According to a BBC article, the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals over in Britain) has been playing bird songs to young birds that don’t have their parents around to learn from. Apparently this is most important for males – if they can’t sing properly, their territory may not be respected, and female birds won’t choose them for a partner. Does make me wonder how the chicks know which song they are supposed to learn, and whether any male birds get confused and answer the call of another male?
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Jun 11 2008
California Dreaming
With a refreshing change from the normal bias UK media displays, the BBC published an article (based on a Radio 4 transmission of a From Our Own Correspondent program), where an unnamed journalist did some research into the Medicinal Marijuana scene in California (specifically Los Angeles).
Although there were a few ignorant stray remarks (420 being a local slang term for weed itself, the irrelevant nationality of the doctor he saw, as a couple of examples), overall it was quite informative, and interesting to read about from the point of a view of an outsider, rather than the sort of info I’ve read in the past from more deeply interested people on forums. In the end, I hope a at least a few people who were previously on the fence will read the article, and realise that whilst California’s approach is open to some abuse, it certainly seems better all round that the alternative of draconian laws and wasting police time prosecuting people participating in a victimless ‘crime’.
For a bit of further reading, check out this piece, describing an amateur home grower in Britain, and how some police forces are using thermal imaging devices to try and spot where the plant is being cultivated indoors.
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Jun 10 2008
BBC Entertainment Working Again
After uploading an update for our Openbox X-800 satellite receiver, I have found the BBC Entertainment channel is once again working. Combined with the BBC Prime (which has been getting worse and worse recently for endlessly repeating the same decades old series), BBC Lifestyle and BBC Knowledge means we once again have a wide variety of UK based programs to watch. BBC CBeebies means if we have any Polish or English speaking children around, we have something other than American cartoons to offer them.
Although the channels appear to be broadcast for the Polish on the Hotbird satellites, the second audio channel is the original English soundtrack, so other than the adverts, there are no translation issues 🙂 I don’t know how long these channels will last, but it is good to see some new channels (other than the ubiquitous Italian TV shopping and Arabic adult phone lines) coming along still, especially after Multivision stopped broadcasting all their movie channels on Hotbird.
If you have an Openbox satellite receiver, in the x800 range, and have your dish pointed at the Hotbird satellites, you may want to download my file which has all the English (and non-English but still of interest) channels predefined in various ‘favourite’ groups. Click here to download the file. If you don’t already have the software, the Alsat Forum has it available in this POBEdit thread. (Also, I’ve gone through and made any channels that are strictly adult in nature locked, so should you have young children who have access to your remote control, you can set the Lock feature to ON and not worry about them seeing anything unsuitable.)
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May 28 2008
Wogan’s Annual Wobbler
Yes, he has a perfectly valid point about the Eurovision song contest results being all about the politics, and very little to do with the actual quality of the song and performance on the night. However, his threat to quit gets trotted out each year (check the BBC news archives, or do a little googling for confirmation).
Also, his quote that Eurovision is no longer a song contest makes it sound like he believes it has been until very recently. This is utter rubbish – the scores one country will give a neighbour or fellow political follower have been so predictable for years. Was the UK’s Andy Abraham’s performance a contest-winner? Probably not… Was it far better than some of the tat offered up by other nations? Definitely…
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May 27 2008
Not An Outer Limits Episode…
The Academy of Medical Sciences has issued a warning that the academic organizations may soon need to start considering the use of drug testing, to ensure that some pupils are not abusing prescription drugs in an attempt to improve their memory. Although ten or fifteen years ago this would have sounded more like an episode of some SciFi type program, the startling reality, according a report over at the BBC news site, is that such abuse of cognitive enhancers was already taking place. The idea of people using strong black coffee, Pro Plus or Red Bull to aid in last minute cramming is hardly new, but ritalin, modafinil and aricept are allegedly already being used by some. I particularly liked the spokesmen for companies involved in the legal production of these drugs, who stated “These drugs are prescription drugs and therefore you need to go to the doctor to get them. I don’t think the system is that open to abuse”. Because everyone knows that prescription drugs don’t get abused already??? Idiot.
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May 23 2008
Tables Turned
Long term readers/’real life’ friends will remember that Irina and I used to live in a cottage out in Bourton on the Water, a real picture postcard village in the Cotswolds. At the time, there was no chance of getting ADSL at all, which led to us having two phone lines. One was for normal voice calls, and the other was permanently (24/7) connected to Freeserve on one of their 0808 numbers. Whilst this was never faster than 51.2 Kbps, it still gave me the possibility to leave the PC downloading all day and night, and traffic shaping never seemed to hit their dial up services. Anyway, according to a BBC report, the ratio of broadband:non-broadband customers in the country has swung so far that city dwellers are now statistically less likely to have a broadband connection than their rural brethren!
The section that particularly caught my attention was:
There has been a major drive to bring broadband to every corner of Scotland, partly to sustain the economies of isolated communities where many residents can now work from home.
I really think this sort of thinking should be bought to the attention of decision makers in this country…
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May 23 2008
And Why Not?
The brilliant UK govt. has released information on plans to create a huge database of phone calls and e-mails based in Britain. Quite aside from the civil liberties/govt. intelligence agencies powers angles, the fact that there have been multiple incidents involving lack of data security within the last year have led to many people being very unhappy with the proposal. Check out the BBC’s article for a little background info. If approved, it would effectively extend the range of the much hated RIPA that has had many journalists and bloggers up in arms already. Combine that with the fact that I’m pretty sure the intelligence agencies already have the capabilities to do this, on an international scale with the Echelon scheme. I suppose it is possible that if such legislation were bought in, it would legalise such schemes that are already quietly in place, and would make any such evidence admissible in a British court of law.
PS To those of my friends that think I have paranoid tendencies, you could be right, but you need to be aware what is happening in your world. Close your eyes too long, and you lose the right to complain when things like this become public in years to come due to some shady circumstances etc.
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