More crap ideas

Now I’m getting really pissed off. A few months ago I submitted a response via STAND to the government’s consultation exercise on “entitlement” cards. I said they were a bad idea and I wanted none of it - although I probably made it a bit more eloquent than that.

Now I’m not the most involved person in the political process - in fact despite my best intentions I could probably be described as apathetic. Sure, I get wound up enough to shout at politicians when they’re being Paxmanned on Newsnight, but seldom do I get wound up enough about something to start writing to my MP, even assuming he’d take a blind bit of notice (I assume that as he’s a junior minister at the Home Office, his decisions are made for him by the Whips Office and I’m as likely to change his mind by farting a protest song outside the Palace of Westminster as I am by writing.)

However, despite the fact that I’ve a million and one other things to do while Mr Blunkett whittles our freedoms and civil liberties away bit by bit, I clicked across to the STAND website and struck my blow for democracy. And then I sat back, a warm self-righteous glow inside, believing that I’d done something that might - just - influence the due process a little.

It would appear that I was wrong. Mine and the other 5,028 responses received through STAND has been lumped into one - and respondents are two-to-one in favour. I find that figure deeply suspicious - given how apathetic as a nation we’ve become, I’m struggling to envisage a situation where the Great British Public are so enthused by the whole idea that we suddenly rush to the post boxes in support. Precious few of us have rushed to the post box in protest - so how many of those 2-to-1 in favour are those who stand to gain by this - Capita, EDS, Siemens, you get the picture? And rather than be one of the 5,029 of us who did feel strongly enough about this to do something about it, I now find myself as 1/5,029th of a single opinion.

It’s bad enough that it takes organisations like STAND to put this sort of exercise into effect in the first place. The apathetic and half-arsed approach of Government to the possibilities that are opened by egovernment is bad enough - for god’s sake, it’s 2003 and there are still MPs who don’t have email - but this just shows a level of contempt for alternative opinions that seems to be a consistent theme of the way this government works. Like I say, I’m pissed off.

Scary green lizards (not)

The cat that slept on my laptop keyboard for most of the last three years having been temporarily fostered out to my brother, this is the nearest equivilent to a furry animal that a city-centre apartment will sustain.

As small plastic dinosaurs go, he’s actually quite cute in a rather camp sort of way - he was found outside on a wall with his left leg about a hundred yards away, so he was a bit faded and rather waterlogged. The leg got back stuck on again, but he doesn’t roar when you press his button anymore - although to look at him it’s more likely you’d get an “ooooooh, get her”. I’m reliably informed by my resident seven-year old dinosaur expert that he’s not a very good model because he’s only got two claws on his front feet and three toes on his hind legs. Apparently spinysauruses and bloodygreatbigteethosaurs have more than two front claws. And not being seven, how would I know any different?

The diagram that he’s standing on is a mindmap for the upcoming marketing strategy exam, which is why I haven’t got much any revision done this evening…

Touch typing

Those who are owned by cats will realise that this is not a posed picture. HP laptops running as hot as they do, it’s probably the notebook of choice for your average somnolent feline. Although I think his choice of resting place had as much to do with it being inconvenient for me having to work around him than it was about being warm.

Please, for the love of God, NO!

Lord of the Rings musical set for stage

I particularly like the quotes from the producer - “This will be like nothing the West End has ever seen before. To do justice to the Lord of the Rings you have to pull out all the stops.”

The idea has me pulling out my eardrums with a pair of molegrips, personally.

Ideas pr0n

This is fantastic - it’s a Compendium of idea generation methods. For a gadgety-methods junkie such as myself, there’s hours of amusement here…

Hills on the desktop

Browsing around my hard disk after I’d reinstalled XP and the various other bits and bobs that colonise my folders, I came across this picture. I can’t remember when it was taken, or even if I took it, but it reminded me so strongly of home that it caught my breath for a minute or two.

I’m homesick now.

The next best thing to being there is a desktop image - so now my icons are hovering over Great Gable, which makes me feel much better.

Mount Everest

This site is a collection of amazing 360-degree QTVR panoramas, and this is the most stunning of the lot - a 360-degree view from the top of Mount Everest. The view from a browser is incredible, so to experience it in the flesh must be one of the experiences of a lifetime.

What gives this picture some personal significance is a familial connection with someone who’s seen this first-hand. A fascinating person and a jolly good fellow to boot - the last time I met him was hours after the birth of his first grandchild, so he was in an understandably good mood. And by the time he (and we) had downed several of my grandfather-in-law’s infamous measures of Scotch, the mood was even more celebratory.

And courtesy of the intrepid mountaineer (or his web design firm, at least), here’s a 360-degree view of the village where I spent a number of my formative years - the house to the left of the lamppost is where I lived for about five years…

Gargoyles

One of the joys of living somewhere like Leeds is that a significant chunk of it was built at the height of the British Empire by bewhiskered Victorian aldermen who were having no truck with concepts like non-permanence or understated. Their buildings were stone-built, designed to last, and were usually done on a scale suitable for the State Capitols of a multinational superpower. And understated didn’t usually feature when t’committee considered the interior decor, either - most of the public space in Leeds is liberally plastered with gargoyles, terracotta mouldings and tiled walls that never fail to remind me of the toilets at my first secondary school.

There’s nowhere in Leeds where this is done to enthusiastic excess in quite the same way as the Central Lending Library. 120 years of council beauracracy has done its best to hide it by nailing the odd security system and fire exit sign to the walls, but in the main it’s the same Gothic madness as was dreamed up by the architect, who was quite clearly out of his mind on wool fumes when he sat down to decide what the walls were going to be covered with. It’s a combination of delicately-sculpted plasterwork tracing the outlines of doorways and roofribs, stained glass, moulded terracotta the colour of hobnob biscuits and ceramic floortiles that have withstood six generations of Leeds footfalls and would have done sterling service protecting the space shuttle, if only Nasa had known about them.

The inspired madness didn’t stop with the architect, however - two years ago in a glorious fit of artistic overindulgence, the City topped it all off by commissioning two stainless steel gargoyles - six feet tall apiece - that are chained to the railings of the first-floor landing balcony. And quite stunning they look, too.

Stunning skyline

One of the advantages of having a river view is that you get views like this…

Taken at about 8:45pm, with the Royal Armouries in the middle and the Aire Valley in the distance.

Yahoo launches first antispam day

I’d actually be more
impressed if I wasn’t quite so convinced that Yahoo and the likes are the
cause of half the spam going around.    Within two days
of signing up a previously-unused email address to a Yahoo group the spam was
coming through…

Is it a safe bet that if people simply didn’t reply to so much junk mail
the net would be a better place?

Here’s an excellent href="http://www.templetons.com/brad/spam/spam25.html">piece on not
beating up on ISPs to block spam. In short, don’t do it.

Web surfers are urged to dump junk mail as Yahoo kicks off the
first global antispam day, its effort to raise the profile of the worldwide
spam problem.

[ href="http://www.news.com/">CNET News.com]

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