The RSS in Government site does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin – info on how RSS is being used in government around the world. Depressingly little from the UK, of course…
Archive for 29 January 2004
I wonder if there’s some way of exporting my Endnote databases (or something similar) into a reading list that can get posted in a sidebar?
Wi-FI Networking News, purveyors of fine wifi-related news to geeks everywhere, brings news of moves afoot to install wifi in public libraries.
Damn fine idea, if you ask me – while PCs in libraries are a great idea that’s sated my craving for broadband in the past, there’s never enough of them. York’s City library is a case in point – I don’t think I’ve ever been in there and seen a PC free.
Even better would be if rural libraries could then be used as base stations for local community wifi networks – if they’re connected to the Net for UK Online access (or whatever it’s called these days) that implies that there’s a Kilostream or something similar running into the premises. Share that around the community, and bingo, you’ve got widespread broadband availability.
The trouble is that bureaucracy will get in the way – the last attempt to get a wider use for a library connection that I’m aware of failed because “public services couldn’t be seen to be subsidising services for private individuals”. They giveth with one hand, and taketh away with the other…
When I was 10, I would have given body parts (important body parts) to be a Lego Master Builder. I mean, how insanely cool a job could there be, than to build Lego models for a living.
Wired have been covering the competition to select a new Master Builder for the California Legoland at some length over the last few months, and on Friday the winners were announced. The article has also got a link to a picture that would have been my 10-year-old self’s idea of a dream fantasy come true – a wall of pick-n-mix dispensers stuffed full of Lego bricks of all sizes and shapes and colours.
I quite like the idea of Lego Mindstorms although I’ve never been able to bring myself to part with the frankly ludicrous amount of money that the things cost – we’re talking gadget-budget sized amounts here. But the rest of the Lego range seems to have gone badly downhill over recent years – instead of being a bunch of interchangeable bricks that needed imagination to bring to life, the kits now seem to be a movie-tiein-themed bunch of boxes full of parts with one specific function. It’s a scene from Harry Potter, which you can rebuild into… a scene from Harry Potter. A while back youngest offspring was given some Bionicles, and I just couldn’t see the point. If it wasn’t for the Lego logo on the jar that they came in, I’d have been hard-pressed to tell what they were – and he didn’t seem overly-impressed, either.
It’s not a toy that seems to have grabbed their attention at all, which is a crying shame – not least because it would give me the perfect excuse to spend hours playing with Lego again….
