Mar 14 2008

Happy Pi Day

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 10:45 pm

? – that’s supposed to be the symbol for pi, in case it doesn’t display properly in your browser. If you are not interested in Maths or memory tricks, you probably remember it as 22/7, or maybe 3.14?
What is today’s date? 14th March, which when written in the American way, is 3.14, which is why today is Pi Day. I remember reading a long time ago that a US state (Indiana?) almost enacted a law defining pi as 3, because it would make calculations easier! You will also find rumours online that the law was proposed due to a quote from the bible that taken literally would have given pi a value of 3 (Kings 7.23).

Anyway, head on over to this article for some more info to wow your friends with :snigger:

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Mar 05 2008

Guns Are Bad

Category: Videos — ChrisM @ 2:37 pm

… They scare me. They hurt people. They are also good fun. hmmm, spot the conflict here?

Check out this post from 2006 for a video of me not killing anyone with a shotgun. Then watch the following video… I remember from previous research that even semi-automatic shotguns are illegal in some states in America, so I imagine this one will have even more of a problem!

The lack of recoil was particularly impressive – the petite woman firing the gun does not seem to suffer at all; not sure if it would have been a good idea if we’d had such hardware to hand on our trip to the salt water lake in 2006…

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Feb 20 2008

Impartial BBC? My Arse…

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 8:17 pm

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 Roll Eyes 4…

Then we have the following truly shocking choice of photos for an article on the impending extradition of Abu Hamza.
Abu Hamza BBC crap choice of photos
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.

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Feb 20 2008

Do As I Say…

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 8:03 pm

Not as I (and my governor brother, Daddy’s friends Supreme Court judges) did…

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 13 2008

Sparse Posting

Category: Amsterdam,Books,Eating Out,Friends,Personal,WordPress — ChrisM @ 9:44 am

Quick explanation for those of you who thought I had given up on posting here, or had no internet access – I am currently still deep in the process of setting up my other 18 sites. They were originally created as static (well almost, too long a story to recount here) pages, and whenever I needed to make amendments, it tended to take a long time. Deciding to swap hosts, I took the opportunity to also use WordPress as a CMS system for these sites. This has meant a fair amount of preparatory work; I am now manually importing each old article into individual blog posts, tidying up the strange snippets of code that snuck in here and there, and then finally tweaking the theme for each to get what I need. I’ve completed this process on about 1/3 of the sites, however in terms of work, I am only 1/5 done at max – some of the sites only have 50 or so articles to import, whilst the ones left are closer to 200 🙁
Anyway, once this process is complete, I’m hoping to start earning some money from them again (the reason they were originally created), and any future amendments will be a lot easier to carry out, be it on an individual page, or site-wide. Until then, this blog will continue to be updated less frequently. Sorry.
I still have a large back log of posts to write here, ranging from the ‘missing’ book reviews, last year’s Amsterdam trip reports, and a lot of Eating Out posts, since meeting Oz Dave, Chris2 and Eric.
Finally, although not as concrete as I originally hoped, a trip to Amsterdam and short time in Britain is still a possibility around my birthday (4/20 for any American schmokers reading this 🙂 20th April for anyone else). Since the ACD (Amsterdam Coffeeshop Directory) forums are still down, and Channels.nl is getting ever more full of trolls, I decided to source a new site for reliable information…
Virtual 'Dam website and forums - Everything Amsterdam, virtually
Virtual ‘Dam is looking good so far 🙂 (Nope, not another sponsored post, just happy to recommend the site to others interested in all things related to Amsterdam.)

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Jan 21 2008

Deadlock Solved

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 5:51 pm

Only in America… (at least I hope… ?)

Check out this article for details on how two ties in the Democrat election process were resolved. Although the use of playing cards to sort an even split in votes is interesting, I’m not sure it really depicts the utmost of respect for a democratic process… What do you think? In the end, the loser in cards (Mrs Clinton) did not suffer from this particular game of luck, I’m sure there must be better, more intelligent ways to sort future ties.

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Jan 18 2008

Aliyev Found Guilty, Even If Not Actually Present

Category: In The Media,Kazakhstan — ChrisM @ 3:34 am

Thanks to KZBlog for the heads up on this (check the post here) matter, as many will remember, Rakhat Aliyev fled to Austria to evade the Kazakh authorities, when he was finally accused of a range of crimes. See this search for previous posts that mention him, within this blog. The part about a separate military tribunal for the charges of planning a coup are new to me; though with America having previously proposed this sort of arrangement for terrorists, I suppose the Kazakh government judiciary has an answer ready for those that accuse it again of lack of transparency…
See the RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty article here.

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Dec 10 2007

GPS Alternative

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 2:27 am

As you may remember from my previous posts re. the HTC TyTn II, I already use a Global Positioning System device when I am in Britain. Although there are of course the usual horror stories of little old grannies mindlessly following instructions and driving their Nissan Sunny into a pond, or of being taken on 250 mile detours, I find the ability to chill out about exactly which junction I need to exit from on the motorway, or the location of speed cameras very useful. According to an article over at BBC News, Europe is planning the launch of a system to offer an alternative to America’s GPS. The table at the end of the article is the sort of thing I really like from the BBC – a neat summary of exactly what is on the table, and in this case at least, who each section will be aimed at.

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Dec 10 2007

If It Worked In The 80s…

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 12:33 am

I would have put this post in the ‘Aware Or Conspiracy Nut?’ category as well, but it is pretty obvious what Dubbya’s motivation was for the memory loss…
Anyway, head on over to the BBC’s article on President Bush’s revelation that he has ‘no memory of the CIA videos of their torturing interrogating suspected terrorists’. I really hope that the American public will have had their fill of ‘no clear recollection of those events’ type answers/excuses after the Iran/Contra scandal in the 80s. I doubt it will raise much attention though. Funny how an act of consensual oral sex can end up with a Democrat being impeached, and how blatant lies, bloodshed, bullshit and abuse of power and influence end up in no action being taken. Bunch of frigging wuck fits…

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Nov 28 2007

How To Win Friends And Influence People…

Category: Videos — ChrisM @ 8:51 pm

All American content, but still interesting to see just how unsporting sportsmen and women can be.

The video itself is quite large (around 12.5Mb), and although not of the highest quality, seems to use a lot of bandwidth, so if your internet connection is too slow to watch the clip smoothly, one tip I make use of is to simply lower the volume to nothing, let the whole clip play jerkily on another tab, then once it has completed, re-play the video, and watch the clip again then, once it has been cached.

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