Flickr version here.
Where the wind blows
Flickr version here.
Exclusive: holocaust and incest jokes not a good “fit” with the “Windows brand”.
Wonderful story in the Daily Telegraph.
The episode was to be called “Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show”.
A publicly released preview featured characters from Family Guy using Windows 7 and making computer related jokes.
However, the writers also included more typical Family Guy material which has been described as “riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest”. There was also a section in which the writers stepped in front of the camera to play Latino housekeepers.
After executives saw a run through of the show a Microsoft spokesman said: “We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humour of Family Guy.
“But after reviewing an early version of the variety show, it became clear that the content was not fit with the Windows brand.”
iPhone inexorably closing on BlackBerry
Google: the two-minute history
Become EU Prez, then go to gaol
Eh? George Monbiot’s supporting Blair’s candidacy for the EU Presidency? Well, here’s what he says:
Tony Blair’s bid to become president of the European Union has united the left in revulsion. His enemies argue that he divided Europe by launching an illegal war; he kept the UK out of the eurozone and the Schengen agreement; he is contemptuous of democracy (surely a qualification?); greases up to wealth and power and lets the poor go to hell; he is ruthless, mendacious, slippery and shameless. But never mind all that. I’m backing Blair….
Read on, my friends, read on. George has a Cunning Plan.
Cafe society
Flickr version here.
Professor Mackay’s Illuminations
The classic visual PowerPoint cliche to indicate inspiration is to draw a light bulb over someone’s head. Physicist David Mackay’s inspired idea was that the humble light bulb would provide a graphic way of communicating to non-physicists the scale of the energy gap now facing our society.
We asked David to be the external assessor for our new Open University course on Energy Measurements at Home partly on the basis of his terrific book Sustainable Energy — without the hot air. But we had no idea then that he would be appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It’s clear that he made the video before he knew it either. Wonder how his political masters are getting on with such a clear thinker — and speaker. I suspect they are finding it, well, slightly uncomfortable. Speaking truth to power is generally not appreciated, and I can’t see Professor Mackay trimming to the wind. Someone once accused him of being against wind turbines. He replied: “I’m not against anything. But I am for arithmetic.”
The utility of pure curiosity
Pondering the strange paradox that Cambridge is currently ranked second (after Harvard) in the world ranking of universities, despite the fact that its income is probably only a fifth of Harvard’s, I came on this terrific blog post by Mary Beard, who is Professor of Classics at Cambridge. Excerpt:
I still have a terrible sinking feeling about the new Research Excellence Framework, and its stress on the ‘impact’ of research. I took a good hard look at the recent consultation document produced by HEFCE … and at the “indicators” which might demonstrate “impact”. There are almost forty indicators, of which only four or five could possible ever apply to an arts and humanities subject. Most refer to income from industry, increased turnover for particular businesses, improved health outcome, better drugs (medicinal rather than recreational I imagine) and changes in public opinion (eg reductions in smoking). One of my colleagues ruefully observed that humanities research probably had a track record of encouraging smoking, at least among researchers… all that angst in the library.
Even the indicators which looked as if they might apply to us. Try “enriched appreciation of heritage or culture, for example as measured through surveys.” How on earth would a survey show the impact of, lets say, Wittgenstein? Even HEFCE seems to have given up at the end. Under the category “Other quality of life benefits” there were no indicators. Someone had just written “Please suggest what might be included”. A generous appeal to the academic community, or desperation?
[…]
British research punches far above its weight — unlike British sport (which is no more “useful”). If our middle distance runners did half as well as our universities (four out of the top six in the recent world ranking are British), there would be a national celebration and a triumphal procession in an open topped bus.
And look at the money the government is pouring into sport, on the correct principle … that you have to support generously a wide range of activities and people, in order to produce a very few medallists. Why dont they use that argument for academic research too?
The motorcade factor
This is arguably the silliest thing ever said by a British Foreign Secretary (well, except for all the guff they used to spout about Ireland in the old days):
“I think it would be very good for Britain as well as very good for Europe if Tony Blair was a candidate and was chosen.”
He added: “It’s about whether or not Europe wants a strong leader in that position. I think that hasn’t yet been resolved in the minds of a number of Europe’s leaders.
“My own view is that we need somebody who can do more than simply run through the agenda. We need someone who, when he or she lands in Beijing or Washington or Moscow, the traffic does need to stop and talks do need to begin at a very, very high level. I think Europe has suffered from the lack of that clarity.”
You’d never guess, would you, that young Miliband owes his political career, such as it is, entirely to Blair.