Did you see today’s press release from the Home Office about how great ID cards are? Despite any evidence that this actually happens, they keep asserting that people can’t wait to get their hands on them. Everyone is so keen that they’re going to start issuing them to volunteers before the 2012 official start.
It seems that they’re backing off a little on the anti-terrorist claims, but here is the new list of benefits.
I’ve started to get “into” Twitter, the micro-blogging site, in the last month or so. One trend that I picked up on is that of “hashtags” where you put a hash (pound) symbol followed by a word somewhere in your message. This makes is searchable. The most recent that I’ve participated in is #firstmac, for which my contribution was:
I recently went to a BCS talk entitled “Eight Significant Events in Computing.” In the question and answers session at the end, one attendee noted that most innovations were Western in general, from the USA in particular. There are a good number of exceptions but, okay. He continued: the result of a Capitalist system and not Communist or Fascist. Again, I’m not sure that this is entirely true.
But it was his final point that floored me: IT innovations were mostly Christian. A few confused looks made him clarify with the line, “There are no Buddhist Computer Systems.”
It’s that time of year where every magazine and website does a retrospective, regurgitating old material with no shame. I didn’t want to miss out this year. Digging into my Google Analytics logs I found the following…
Ten most read pages this year:
Somehow part two of my photobook group test slipped out of the top ten.
Wishing you and your family happiness and peace, turkey1 and chocolate this festive season, whatever your faith or lack thereof.
The above image, by the way, was taken in Reykjavik, Iceland a couple of days before Christmas 2006.
Or spicy pancake if that’s your preference. ↩︎
It all started ten thirteen years ago. In November 1998 I went with a friend to Amsterdam, and now every November since I have spent at least a few days out of the country.
For the record, those trips were:
It never started as a challenge and you can’t deliberately start a tradition, but I’m keen to keep this one going for as long as I can. Even if it is a little silly.
George W. Bush stars in the latest (and little publicised) in the gory Saw movie franchise. In it he discovers some interesting new “enhanced interrogation” techniques and finds that getting out, with no recourse to legal representation or trial, is, quite literally, torture.
Full news on her own website, but today B said her “Affirmation of allegiance” and gained British Nationality. She was a little unhappy about having to pledge allegiance to the Queen so I’ve made a minor edit to the original picture.
I commented that a lot of our government clearly have not had to make such a pledge themselves. If they too had to respect democracy and freedom I think we’d be hearing rather less about 42 days in gaol without trial and ID cards. (End of rant.)
Somehow the idea of replacing the head of Hellboy with that of the last Deputy Prime Minister and MP for Kingston upon Hull, John Prescott, amused me. Even the slogan kind of works.
I hesitate to say that it happens often, but people do sometimes talk about special abilities or super-powers, even if it’s phrased as a “party trick.” Today I realised that I have what might best be described as a special inability.
I took a quick wander into Wimbledon, the nearest town to where I live. It looked gloomy outside and the weather the previous day had been windy and a little chilly. I decided to wear a jumper and my jacket. It didn’t take me long to realise that I had misjudged the weather and that I was very warm.