It’s strange what one finds on the Web. There’s a site called Stuff White People Like, which is so languidly smart that the author’s tongue occasionally protrudes through his ear. But apparently his performance has landed a dead-trees book deal. He describes himself thus: “I ride a bicycle in Los Angeles and keep one of the best NCAA blogs on the internet.” So now we know.
Er, what is the NCAA when it’s at home?
Or just demob happy? How else can one interpret this BBC report?
Microsoft boss Bill Gates has dropped a hint about the next version of Windows.
He said Windows 7 could be released “sometime in the next year or so” during a Q&A session at a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank.
After the event a Microsoft spokeswoman said the new version was scheduled for 2010 – three years after the January 2007 release of Vista for consumers….
Make that 2015 just to be sure.
From the IMF paper.
Hmmm… Quite of few of my fellow-countrymen are heading into ‘negative equity’ territory, I fear.
… is imitation.
This lovely image by Mike Stimpson is a clever act of homage to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s famous image “Behind the Gare St Lazare”.
Thanks to Brian for the link.
I’m attending a conference on social networking jointly organised by the Oxford Internet Institute and OFCOM. It’s being held in OFCOM’s splendid Thameside offices, which has a wireless network for guests. But guess what? It’s only accessible by people using Internet Explorer. So it’s closed to — for example — Firefox users.
What, you ask, does OFCOM stand for? Answer: it’s the ‘Office of Communications’.
Thank goodness for 3G modems.
Update: There’s someone here from Microsoft Research and he can’t get in — even with IE!
Quentin sent a mysterious Tweet yesterday. Now all is explained…
Take today, for example. I drove out to a nearby village, had a pleasant lunch with my wife and mother-in-law, and then, a little later in the afternoon, a lion peed on me.
This is not something that I would normally expect on a quiet Sunday afternoon, but life would probably be very dull if it didn’t happen from time to time.
He was, I admit, the other side of a fence. We looked each other in the eye, we both purred some suitable greetings, and we seemed to be getting on rather well. But then, as he turned to go, he lifted his tail, and his range and aim were good. I turned fast, but not quite fast enough to stop a little from going down my neck.
I shall continue to assert that he intended this as a mark of great friendship and respect…
Hmmm….
From The Register. The couple’s name is too good to be true, is it not? But the date on the piece is not April 1. Anyway, here goes:
A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania couple has sued Google for invasion of privacy, accusing the world’s largest search engine of photographing their swimming pool and posting it to the web.
Aaron and Christine Boring claim that in offering 360-degree panoramic pics of their private residence via Google Street View, the web giant has “caused them mental suffering and diminished the value of their property.”
According to their suit – turned up by The Smoking Gun – the Borings purchased their Pittsburgh home in 2006 for “a considerable sum of money,” and “a major component of their purchase decision was a desire for privacy”. So they were annoyed when pan-and-zoom-able pics of the home, including its swimming pool, turned up on Street View.
These pics were acquired, the suit says, when a Google vehicle appeared on their private road without a privacy waiver or other authorization. Claiming this private road is marked with a “Private Road” sign, the suit calls Google’s behavior “an intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion of…seclusion.” The Borings’ lawyer calls it “outlandish.”
The disintegration of the Brown government is almost painful to watch. here’s the latest example of the replacement of policy by well-intentioned but fatuous gestures:
LONDON (AP) — The British government wants to ban convicted pedophiles from using social networking Web sites such as Facebook, the Home Office said Friday.
The plan involves forcing sex offenders to give any e-mail address they use to police, who will then ask the Web sites to block their access, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said.
Smith said the proposal is aimed at sending out the message that the Internet is ”not a no-go area when it comes to law enforcement.”
”We are changing the law … so that we have got better control over the way in which child sex offenders are able to use the Internet,” Smith said on GMTV.
The government wants to prevent pedophiles from using social networking Web sites to groom children to be sexual abuse victims, according to the Home Office.
Under the proposed legislation, it would be a crime punishable by up to five years in prison for a convicted child sex offender to use an e-mail address that has not been registered with police, a Home Office spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
However, the report goes on to say that “the government acknowledges it has yet to work out the details of how the plan would work.”
Yep. That’s the Broonies for you.
This morning’s Observer column…
To date, three UK ISPs have signed up for the Phorm system: BT, Virgin Media – and TalkTalk. This suggests that Dunstone’s rage against the BPI may have impaired his capacity for joined-up thinking. On the one hand, he declines to monitor his customers’ behaviour at the behest of the music industry; on the other, he seems content to monitor their behaviour in order to take a cut from advertising whose targeting has been improved by such monitoring. It won’t wash, Charlie. Make a clean break and see how it improves your argument.
Update: Rory-Cellan Jones emails to say that Dunstone told him that Talk Talk will make the Phorm snooping something that users have to opt in to. If that’s true then it means the Phorm system is dead — it’s unlikely that BT and Virgin will not also make it opt-in for fear of losing customers to Talk Talk.
