• After 1,100 miles and 52 days, Eddie Izzard has finishing line in sight – Awesome achievement. And I don’t mean “awesome” as in an “awesome hot dog.”
• John Marcotte, Author of the 2010 California Protection of Marriage Act – Marcotte is trying to get divorce banned. “People who supported Prop 8 weren’t trying to take rights away from gays, they just wanted to protect traditional marriage. That’s why I’m confident that they will support this initiative, even though this time it will be their rights that are diminished. To not support it would be hypocritical. "
• PM apology after Turing petition – About time too!

“Seaside” is quite a convenient theme for me as just last weekend I was in Brighton!

(I didn’t post an entry to last weeks challenge so there’s no need to feel guilty for not voting for me!)

I was going to say that it was second time lucky with the weather but really that’s the difference between going to Brighton in April and going in August. Certainly, there was no-one grilling sausages on the beach last year.

In the late afternoon we walked all the way to the Marina and back, which meant shooting straight into the sun to get an image of the iconic pier.

• Mind the staff – A photo of a member of staff at every London Underground station. Neat idea.
• The Pain of Being a Redhead – Green is not the only colour that it’s not easy being…
• Government rubbishes ID card hack report – “This story is rubbish.” A not very reassuring response to yesterdays story that it was possible to both clone and change the details on the new ID cards.

• UK ID Card Technology Cloned… – “… in 12 minutes.” Wonder when the government will get the message that ID cards are a bad idea. Oh, and there’s no such thing as unforgeable.
• The hidden truth behind drug company profits – “The idea of ring-fencing life-saving medical knowledge so a few people can profit from it is one of the great grotesqueries of our age. We have to tear down this sick system – so the sick can live.” Big companies and the patent system effectively kill the poorest and most vulnerable people.
• Bodega – Interesting idea: an app store for the Mac. Not run by Apple and hence no crazy review process!

In stark contrast to pretty much everything else, Time Lords in the US are clearly smaller than their British equivalent.

This weeks challenge, Debris, was quite a hard one and I’m not entirely happy with my entry. It’s debris produced by some household refurbishment, taken on my iPhone and tweaked in PhotoShop.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Noisy.” I’m entry number 142.

• Apple drawing 3.0 line in the sand for iPhone developers – This can only mean that the release is getting pretty close. And, significantly, that the APIs are stabilising — I had to rewrite almost everything I did with the first beta when the latest version of the developer kit came out.
• DNA Database Doublecross – “Yet again this government shows its deep contempt for international courts, and demonstrates its profoundly cynical belief that the innocent simply haven’t been proved guilty yet.”
• Jacqui Smith enlists high street help for ID cards scheme – Doesn’t using high street shops to make ID cards make it substantially less secure? Wasn’t the whole point that ID cards were an unbreakable scheme? This just gets worse and worse.

• Birds show off their dance moves – Funny video, fascinating science, bad music…
• Intelligent Design Sort – It would seem that intelligent design has “uses” outside explaining the diversity of nature. It works for Computer Science too. Who’d have thought it?
• Scrap ID cards now, say Cabinet rebels – Maybe there is some benefit in the dire state of the economy…

• Three Cheers for Afghan Women – it’s a little depressing to think that, as the article notes, this is actually progress.
• Audio slideshow: Sir Clement Freud – I only really know Clement Freud for his contribution to Just A Minute. I remember that I wasn’t sure what to make of him when I first heard his lists and slow, deliberate delivery, but that changed pretty quickly. It won’t be the same without him.
• Laptop Hunters: Homeless Frank – If you’ve not seen Microsoft’s new adverts this probably won’t make much sense. If you have, you’ll realise that Frank’s analysis of the PCs is more nuanced that the supposedly “real” people in the original videos.