Mar 12 2008
Before I forget, I came across the following pictures over at the BBC News website. Thought you might like to see them?
So, no great surprise that none of my friends got round to reading the previous posts yet, but I see most of them on messenger, so I’ll assume no one’s house or car got trashed by falling trees etc.
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Mar 10 2008
How are people? For those readers not in the UK, the south of the country is currently being hit by quite a bad serious of storms. Click on over here for a BBC report on it so far.
So, if you have a moment (and electricity and a working phone line 🙂 ), leave a comment, let us know if your area was affected by the 80mph+ winds or the rain and resulting flood waters.
As you can see from that last photo Cheltenham’s famous race course was hit by the winds, with some of the temporary structures in place for the National Hunt damaged. Swansea was also effected, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and phone around friends and family…
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Mar 07 2008
I bookmarked this article a while back, but forgot to write a post for it, apologies. Anyway, check the image below and then read on…
Tam Hanna does not like the fact that this year’s CeBit tradeshow (covered briefly on BBC World’s Click program) apparently discriminated journalists whose output was electronic, rather than the traditional ink and paper of newspapers & magazines. On first reading, I can see her point – why should a group of writers be seen as separate, perhaps even second class, simply because they publish online? Upon reading the comments there, however, I think a little more logic leaked into my thought process. If Tam had written about recent (sorry, but quoting events from 2000 seems a tad OTT) actual discrimination beyond the two words on the pass, I’d have been more disturbed. As it stands, it just seems like she was looking for link-bait?
Mission accomplished 🙂 CeBit discrimination.
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Feb 23 2008
No longer really virtual at least… Before assuming I have had one too many vodkas (nope, tonight’s total = 0 !), head on over the BBC’s article here. Whilst it was an interesting read, when Mr Kurzweil made reference to being able to plot the future by looking at progress over the last 50 years, I can’t help remembering Moore’s law, which held that processing power would double every two years. However, over the last decade or so, industry has struggled to keep up with this ideal. I also remember scientists confidently predicting we would all have Jetson-like hover cars, and have residential homes on the moon by 2001… However long it may take, and assuming society does not create a backlash against technology literally becoming part of, or integral to our bodies, I think Mr Kurzweil’s predictions may come to pass eventually.
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Feb 20 2008
Sometimes the articles found on the BBC News website shock me. Often with the facts they impart, and the horrors that are occurring everyday in this strange world.
Other times, it is simply the apparent lack of journalistic ability. Often you read an article, and you’d swear all the ‘journalist’ had done was read a press release from a company, and dress it up a little. Lack of investigation before publishing has led to some dubious articles. This is one such example; they appear to have swallowed up Nokia’s guff whole, and gone on to relay the claim that Nokia has launched the first pedestrian navigation system. Never mind that such setups were entirely viable for years now; if a PR person states something, it must be true, right 
…
Then we have the following truly shocking choice of photos for an article on the impending extradition of Abu Hamza.
This even outdoes the American magazines that were caught publishing a ‘blackened’ photo of OJ Simpson a few years back.
Lets be honest, with his eye, hook, attire and usual choice of thuggish company, you don’t have to try hard to create pre-conceptions with a photo of him, before reading an article. Did the BBC really need to use a photo with him lit like that? I’m hoping the original photo looks like that, and it wasn’t a Photoshop session that made him look like that. Anyway, head on over here for more details on the extradition process the nuttah cleric is facing.
Comments Off on Impartial BBC? My Arse…
Feb 20 2008
Not as I (and my governor brother,
Head on over to Bush calls for fair Zimbabwe poll for a good laugh. Kettle. Pot. Black. (Please modify to your tastes.)
OK, so perhaps comparing Bushes previous highly dubious election ‘win’ to the diabolical regime in Zimbabwe is taking it a little too far, but seriously, did none of his advisers think people would draw parallels betwixt them?
To be fair, G Dubbya Bush came out comparatively well in his ‘frank’ interview with the BBC’s Matt Frei (see here for the transcript. You do have to read it out loud to understand some of his sentences, but I expect we all fall prey to that occasionally. I know a couple of Americans who’ve told me that whilst George Jr. is certainly no great orator, he does actually come off pretty badly when foreign/American liberal media portray him as a half wit. Even if he was well rehearsed for the interview, he went up in my esteem slightly. Very important to him, I’m sure 😉
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Feb 20 2008
I’ve just finished reading a BBC article on the plight of Tajiks (Tajikistan is south of Kazakhstan, not quite bordering it) who are really suffering right now. They have apparently had a severe winter so far, and with the rivers frozen, obviously their HEP plants are unable to work and produce much needed electricity. Not much to add to this personally, I just wanted to highlight the news, and provide a link to the report.
[edit]
Forgot to link to this article as well, sorry.
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Jan 16 2008
After last year’s infamous flooding in England, it looks as though some areas are in for more of the same, though most experts are predicting that river levels will not rise as high, meaning even though some properties will be effected, the scale and devastation will not be as large. Check out the BBC article for further information. To all our friends and family in Gloucestershire and Wales, I hope your houses escape the waters, and at the very least you get a day or two off work, with flooded roads or something. Just so long as your cars don’t get flooded again
Anyway, if things get bad again, I’ll try and source some more live webcams and recent photos, as last year’s problems seemed to attract a lot of visitors to this blog…
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Dec 22 2007
Scratch the original plans, here are the links I mentioned, not enough time left after having got everything ready for our trip to actually create proper posts. Now the DVD burner is fubared, and I wanted to burn another 3 discs of MP3s for driving to. Hey ho.
Kyrgyzstan elections not fair either – see this article and this one for more details. For those not familiar with the country, no that isn’t where we live (we’re in KAZAKHstan), however international monitors similarly do not think that the elections were free, fair and transparent there either…
Discounting apparently rife in stores – BBC article – Actually I’d call it pretty piss poor ‘professional’ journalism. They trot out the same rubbish each year, closely followed by an article in January saying how shoppers actually spent a lot more than expected. I especially loved the headline – attention grabbing, discounts sound significant, then followed in the main body of the text that this year’s reductions average at 36% off, not 35% ! Yep, 1% difference…
Wives Tales or Valid Medical Info? – Article here. If you don’t drink 8 glasses of water per day, you will use less than 10% of your brain, meaning you won’t be able to read in the dark, turkey will make you drowsy and your hair will continue to grow after death, no matter whether you shaved it or not. Or something like that 🙂 I have heard before that the ban on mobile phone usage within hospitals is rubbish, espcially when you consider the power of the transmitters they need to use for their own internal walkie-talkies etc.
Eco-friendly consoles requested – BBC article – I know that some PC component manufacturers are already trying, but apparently the big three gaming giants (Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft) are being pressured to lower the amount of toxic chemicals used to produce their consoles, amongst other things.
Take care when you google – info here – My thanks to Irina for noticing this report, and also on the shoddy workmanship of the journalist once again. The article reads in parts as though they did no investigation, and simply read from Google’s press release, with contradictions in places. Anyway, bad people had been setting up sites to try and hack unprotected PCs, and were trying to drive traffic by optimizing for popular keywords.
Dynamic advert placement within PDF files – article – the title says it all here…
Info on Amazon’s ‘Kindle” – here and here – Amazon’s e-book reader, an attempt by another company to crack the market. Once again, the aims have been praised, the actual product is not so popular in some circles.
Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers – check here – A long time favourite author of mine, Mr Pratchett has revealed he has the condition, though is doing OK so far. Whilst I selfishly hope he will be able to continue to write such well crafter novels, I do hope that if/when the time comes that the balance between personal well being and writing output tips the wrong way, his fans will let him retire with grace.
One for Alex – here – Poorly kangaroo goes for a swim, and gets snapped up by a shark! (As you may have guessed, based in Australia)
W00t – BBC article – Like ‘all your base are belong to us ‘ from a few years back, but certainly a lot snappier, w00t appears to have started its life in the gaming world, and is used as an exclamation, normally positive.
Not an article, but Wikileaks may interest you. Has a small section for Kazakhstan. Not going to discuss that sort of thing right now, no time.
Excuse me whilst I don’t cry – boo-hoo – with any luck the BNP will eventually go the same way as the old National Front did. I just hope any splinter groups don’t survive, and aren’t too radical whilst they are around. Don’t have much time for racist, lying, Lowest Common Denominator politics and politicians, as you may have guessed.
Misbehaving pupils shocked into towing the line – article here – I can never imagine Mr Owen having given this sort of punishment in his lessons…
Right thats it, I’m off to bed, and won’t be posting for a couple of days probably. Hope all who read this do so in good health…
Comments Off on Arrrrgh, No Time…
Dec 21 2007
Once again I find myself about to leave Kazakhstan, with quite a few news stories bookmarked, without a post yet made. So the next few posts will all be sourced from BBC news articles which I found interesting. I will also try and post about last week’s meal that David invited me to, the night clubs, and our meal last night, here at our flat.
Comments Off on Time For Another Round Up…
