More Christmas Choones

Unfortunately not the music video but a live recording of Tom Jones & Cerys Matthews - Baby it's cold outside:



Kylie - Santa Baby



A different version of above (simply for comparison perposes):



Bowie & Crosby in the Noel's Houseparty of Christmas songs:



Mud - Lonely this Christmas


Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Power of Love (why is this a Christmas song? Well I think it might only be because of the video)



Boney M - Mary's Boy Child / Oh My Lord



Merry Christmas Arblognotters!

Christmas tunes

Obviously we've already had the best tune on here: Fairytale of New York (1st December).

But here are some other "crackers" - sorry:

All I want for Christmas is you:



Last Christmas:


Happy Xmas (War is over):


Stop the Cavalry:


I wish it could be Christmas every day:

YouParkLikeAnAsshole.com

Sick of a car taking up two spaces on the street? How about a car too close to yours? What about the car at the mall parked diagonally? Now you can do something about it. Simply download a notice and place it on the car's windshield. The owner of the vehicle will be informed of their asshole staus as well as the proper tips to improve their poor parking techniques. It's time to put an end to asshole parking, or at least to make fun of it.

YouParkLikeAnAsshole.com

Musipedia - search by whistling (or humming)

Ever tried to remember a song but can't quite remember the words? Well Musipedia is search by humming or whistling.

Musipedia - search by whistling (or humming)

Save the change

I really like this idea... LloydsTSB are offering a card which automatically rounds up the cost of any debt card purchase and puts the extra into a nominated savings account.

Save the change

Back Dorm Boys get a contract

Remember those guys who lip synched the back street boys last year? Well they've signed a contract with a "talent" agency:

BBC video article: Back Dorm Boys get a contract

Who sent the first e-mail?

Who sent the first e-mail? - I'll give you a clue, it was the same guy who came up with the idea of e-mail, and also put the at sign in the e-mail address. He's never made any money from it though.

Get google to make your rounded corners for you

Get google to make your rounded corners for you A guy has found a nice hidden bit of google's site to which you can simply pass parameters and it will automagically create you corner images on the fly! Neat.

QI: Alan turns the tables for Christmas

Firebug for developers

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Flickr Xmas easter egg

Flickr's got an awesome Xmas "easter"-egg: if you add a photonote called "ho ho ho hat," Flickr draws a Santa-hat on your pic; make one called "ho ho ho beard" and you get a snowy white beard.

The 20 most overrated movies of all time

http://www.premiere.com/feature/3268/20-most-overrated.html

It happens to everyone who loves movies: You're in a conversation at a bar, or at a wedding, or online, and someone begins rhapsodizing about one of their favorite movies and you can't help but say, "Uh, that movie sucks. It's totally overrated." How two perfectly well-balanced individuals can have such drastically different views of the same film is one of the great wonders of being a film fanatic. It happens to us at Premiere all the time, enough so that sometimes we find ourselves questioning who we work with (boy, did it get ugly here when Love, Actually came out, and some of us are still snickering over our boss's love for Bowfinger, not to mention his affection for The Last Samurai). Well, we decided to let our staff go at each other regarding some of the more beloved movies of all time, and, sure enough, sobbing can still be heard coming from the bathroom stalls. Relationships have been strained. Egos bruised. Consider this a film lovers' quarrel, an admittedly rabid one.

Bill Hicks on Marketing

The -693926 Days of Christmas

The -693926 Days of Christmas from The Daily WTF

YouTube Quick Capture

YouTube Quick Capture allows you to record a YouTube video instantly. Please fill out the form and then start recording. Make sure your webcam is installed and working correctly.

Hyperland 1990

Hyperland - Douglas Adams' BBC 2 documentory about what the internet could be 40+ mins

TelePresence

The next generation of conference call?

Cisco TelePresence demo

More about the development team

Looks amazing and at $299,999 a, er, bargain :) But then if you're IBM then it's chickenfeed.

(Katie does the PR for Cisco UK/Europe and is going to a demo of this at Tower 42 today...)

Apple logo as a birthmark

Apple logo as a birthmark

Servers In The Movies

The Ten Servers that Changed the Fictional World.

There are two guidelines for this list. One, they must exist only in the world of movies or TV. Second, they need to fit the following definition: A server is a computer system that provides services or data to other computing systems—called clients—over a network or other communication device. Here we go...

Magellin the penguin

Every blogger should live by the rules of this particular blogger:



Who was going to buy a penguin so she decided to have a giant outdoor swimming pool installed in her living room... Just read it! (Site down due to digg effect so here's a mirror: Mirror

Ground Control to My Imam

How do you know which way Mecca is if you're in space?

SeeqPod

SeeqPod is a nice little page for finding downloadable MP3s from the web, with the added advantage of having a player on the page so you can preview the tracks (or, I guess, use it as an on-demand radio station :)

I feel I was mean to arblognot in my previous post...

...so take this link from me in recompense: http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html?zL78c*l+gLvxpzI+cU

Blogger in Beta now launched for team blogs

Get this blog converted Adrian! God this feels so old school now. I can't believe I can even remember how to add a post (etc, etc...)

Ironic Sans: Idea: A building shaped like Godzilla

Ironic Sans: Idea: A building shaped like Godzilla: "The people of Tokyo should construct a giant building shaped like Godzilla. Imagine what it would do to the city’s skyline, and to the tourism industry. People would come from all over to take pictures. His eyes could flash red so airplanes don’t hit him. There could be an observatory in his mouth so people could look out over Tokyo. One of his arms could house a bar, and the other arm a restaurant. They could serve drinks called Mothra Martinis and dishes like Grilled Gamera Steaks, with a side of Mashed Potatoes."

Swivel Aims To Become The Internet Archive For Data

Swivel Aims To Become The Internet Archive For Data: "Swivel Co-founders Dmitry Dimov and Brian Mulloy start off by describing their company as “YouTube for Data.” That’s a good start for someone trying to understand it, because the site allows users to upload data - any data - and display it to other users visually. The number of page views your website generates. Or a stock price over time. Weather data. Commodity prices. The number of Bald Eagles in Washington state. Whatever. Uploaded data can be rated, commented and bookmared by other users, helping to sort the interesting (and accurate) wheat from the chaff. And graphs of data can be embedded into websites. So it is in fact a bit like a YouTube for Data."

Tabbed browsing, for books

Tabbed browsing, for books

Forget Eye Witness News, now "You Witness News"

Flickr & Yahoo with a sort of citizen journalism section.

Yahoo! News - You Witness News

Forget Eye Witness News, now "You Witness News"

Flickr & Yahoo with a sort of citizen journalism section.

Yahoo! News - You Witness News

Weighing the Web

The internet weighs 2 ounces... apparently:

ADAMANT: Weighing the Web: "Forbes publisher and blogger Rich Karlgaard recently lamented his $1,200 monthly home utility bill. That's a lot of PG &E , but the yearly power bill for the global internet is just $3 per capita- a bargain even by third world standards. Yet looking at my ISP bill I’m not too happy - a dollar a day seems a trifle high when you reckon the weight of the penny’s worth of electricity my computation consumes. My daily fix of electrons in motion costs me about half a billion dollars a pound. Let me explain."

The Holy Grail

Monty Python's Holy Grail re-imagined as an epic:



(oh and because we all know we love it, the lego version of Camelot:



)

Scary Mary

Mary Poppins re-cut as horror:



(A la that Shining one)

Excel as a database

Neopoleon : Excel as a database: "As a developer, you've probably, at some unfortunate point in your life (possibly several points, actually), been handed an Excel file that has been crammed full of 'data' by someone in marketing and told to 'do something with it.' "

A very funny and true cartoon.

Apple’s iPhone Patent

Apple’s iPhone Patent

An iPod that makes calls or a phone that playes music..?

Forget ariel photography or birds eye view

why not have street level view:

http://preview.local.live.com/

This is very silly but very great (needs sound)

They Might Be Giants: Istanbul music video

Snap Previews

Snap

Nice little tool to add hover previews to your site links...

Luckily we saw this live...

but it is great. Torn as performed at the secret policemen's ball by David Armund:

First of December? Time for some music!

Lightbox JS v2.0

Lightbox JS v2.0: "Lightbox JS is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It's a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers."

Remember the idea of having a floating splash screen appear once a day on the intranet? Well this looks like the ticket! It dims the background and changes the size dynamically of the box that pops up (check image set for max features).

Chew by Numbers - Gum Art Kits

Chew by Numbers - Gum Art Kits: "These kits allow kids to create vibrant artwork by chewing tasty wads of gum and spreading the chewed gum onto the ChewByNumbers art board. Each kit teaches project planning skills and helps develop fine motor skills, concentration, and creativity. Meanwhile, kids enjoy every step of the artistic process. Art has never tasted this good. "

Calling all passive-aggressives

Calling all passive-aggressives | Ask MetaFilter: "Calling all passive-aggressives
What are some good examples of gifts that are anything but? I know the obvious classics--drums for a 2-year-old, liquor for an alcoholic--but am looking for ones that are more insidious."

Friends don't let friends produce Developer UI

The attack of the grey buttons (obviously the wrong grey - heh)

An article about what happens if you let developers design the user interface (except me natch ;): This Is What Happens When You Let Developers Create UI

Some choice screen shots:





and one from our very own intranet (I must admit that it's not one of mine, and if I ever had more lifetime magically given to me it would be first on my list to upgrade):

How many tyrannosaurs in a gallon of gasoline?

Google Answers: Carbon content of fossil fuels and dinosaurs: "How many tyrannosaurs in a gallon of gasoline? "

On a scale of 1 to Incredibly Cute

Baby Pandas will generally score quite high:

Web page text area resize

Resize any web page text area with a bookmarklet - Lifehacker

Any good for our CRM/intranet text boxes? Just a thought...

Bill Bailey discusses U2

(Wow 2 U2 refferences in a week)

Photo Contest - National Wildlife Magazine

Photo Contest - National Wildlife Magazine: "The winners of the magazine's 35th annual photography competition"

The best (or weirdest) covers

Ben Folds doing Dr. Dre's Bitches Aint Shit:



From here a pretty awesome list, if you check nothing more then listen to NINA GORDON doing NWA's "Straight Outta Compton", they're all here: The Torontoist Cover Song Catalogue

Fear of Girls

Oops I Did It. Again

Oops I Did It Again: The Original

Coo, you live and learn, eh?

What do you get when you combine U2 and Jesus? U2charist of course

Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation:

What do you get when you combine U2 and Jesus? U2charist of course.

"Looking for a way to engage your congregation in the MDG's and in new forms of worship? You've come to the right place. Perhaps you've heard about them on the news or by word of mouth. Perhaps, you are just now hearing about the U2charist. What is it?

A U2charist is an Episcopal Eucharist service that features the music of the rock band U2 and a message about God's call to rally around the Millennium Development Goals. The U2charist is a great opportunity to reach out to the people in your congregation and larger community, especially young people. This service the music and message of U2 about global reconciliation, justice for the poor and oppressed, and the importance of caring for your neighbor. Led by the global MDG ambassador, Bono, U2 is calling people worldwide to a deeper faith and engagement with God's mission. The U2charist seeks to be an extension of this ministry."

EDF are sending cute animals to turn your computer off

EDF ad prints Cute animals want to come and turn your computer off.

Very effective adverts even thought the science about computers might be a little off.

Windows Desktop

Did you know Microsoft had a rival to Google Desktop?
Windows Desktop Home Page: "Windows Desktop Search helps increase the productivity of information workers by enabling them to quickly and easily find what they are looking for. "

Striker II: USB Laser Guided Missile Launcher

Striker II: USB Laser Guided Missile Launcher - Gizmodo

"The $50 Striker II is the 'next generation' USB missile launcher, featuring a class 3 'laser guidance system' for better aiming. "

No. Really.

Lulu Titlescorer

Lulu Titlescorer: "Want to know if you've got a killer title for your novel? Now, for the first time in literary history, you can put your title to the scientific test and find out whether it has what it takes for bestseller success."

Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work

Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work

2000+ mashups

Tunes at Good Blimey!

Something for everyone, even with its own embedded player so you can preview before downloading. Skill.

I have in my hand...

...a piece of paper:



Store 256Gb on an A4 sheet

A Smarter Computer to Pick Stocks

A Smarter Computer to Pick Stocks - New York Times

Or, as Rupert would say, a bigger computer to pick etc etc

Anyway, interesting...

Random things found on google maps

A cool set of random things found on Google Maps (if you only look at one of them make it the last one):


Portal to the next world (in Holland)

Only in America, giant text saying that somebody loves you

This is clearly where MC Esher grew up

What is almost certainly not a B52 bomber

A real plane

A native American wearing an Ipod

The proof that some of the maps are scanned in by hand: A 50 foot giant bug

Invisible Japanese Refrigerator

Why hide all of that food away in your refrigerator? When you could have a transparent fridge instead?

Invisible Japanese Refrigerator

Fancy Pants

A nicely addictive platform game.

Fancy Pants

Just watch out for the angry penguin!

Art in a vending machine...

Hayvend: Art in a vending machine...

Dotted around London are vending machines in which you can buy some random art for £2.

Via Nick

Barcodes - but cool

A gallery of barcodes being 'designed' for a change.

Imagini™ Gift finder

Imagini™ Gift finder
"This interesting new web-app uses your visual preferences to determine what you want for Christmas. Incredibly cool. Customize your wish-list and send it to friends and family."

Indian student develops paper-based storage system

Indian student develops paper-based storage system: "A Kerala student claims to have invented an eco-friendly, paper-based storage system capable of compacting 90 to 450GB on a single disk, Arab News reports."

Contrary to popular opinion, it transpires that dolphins are rubbish!

Animal Reviews: "Look down a bit and you'll find our current list of reviews. We've decided to organise them alphabetically, which means that if you're dyslexic (or thick), you could potentially be here for days looking for otter or something. Underneath that, there's a space for your reviews, so get emailing."

Media Stuff

Here are two free web based music mixers:

JamGlue

Splice

JamGlue is supposedly simpler in interface terms, and it's faster to go end to end and get your MP3 at the end but Splice has more features, including proper beat-matching. JamGlue has a kind of social aspect to it to try and get people rating eachothers tunes.

Here are two free web based video mixers:

JumpCut Like JamGlue for video (owned by Yahoo!) has the social aspect

EyeSpot Seems like this is just video editing rather than remixing.


And finally, because clearly this is what we've been waiting for since the internet went broadband, and clearly these people have had the best new startup idea in years:

SingShot Online karaoke anyone. You sing, people rate you and meet you. They even have songs by the Beatles licensed. Clearly somebody had a strokey beard meeting and said. Why is MySpace successful? Because it has music and social stuff in it. And somebody piped up and mentioned that most of the music on MySpace is rubbish, and a dream was born.

Tiny Antigua grabs the US by its illegal, online dice

Tiny Antigua grabs the US by its illegal, online dice The Register

"The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was rammed through Congress by the Republican leadership in the final minutes before the election period recess. According to Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), no one on the Senate-House Conference Committee had even seen the final language of the bill. The Act is title VIII of a completely unrelated bill, the Safe Port Act, HR 4954, dealing with port security - Professor I Nelson Rose of Whittier Law School, Gambling and the Law: The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 Analyzed"

More on the creationism museum from the Guardian

Stephen Bates is given a sneak preview of the world's first Creationist museum: "The world's first Creationist museum - dedicated to the idea that the creation of the world, as told in Genesis, is factually correct - will soon open. Stephen Bates is given a sneak preview and asks: was there really a tyrannosaurus in the Bible? "

As the Times changes its font to Times Modern

Here's a gallery showing all of the mastheads since 1785
The Times mastheads

DOS Games Archive

DOS Games Archive

It very much does exactly what it says on the tin.

Which File Extension are you?

I got:

src="http://www.bbspot.com/Images/News_Features/2004/10/file_extensions/cgi.jpg" width="300" height="90" border="0" alt="You are .cgi Your life seems a bit too scripted, and sometimes you are exploited. Still a workhorse though.">
Which File Extension are You?

I cheated to try and make my answers better and I *still* got that! Cuh! :(

Which File Extension are you?

You must all post your results thank you. I got:



Which File Extension are You?

Adrian:


Which File Extension are You?

Where are you?

http://www.ip-adress.com/
IP-adress.com shows you fast your IP-address of your internet connection and locates your city or the city of your isp based on your ip. The geolocation is shown with google maps.

Blogger: Switch your FTP blog to the new Blogger

Blogger Buzz: Switch your FTP blog to the new Blogger

Although it seems you don't get to use all the funky web2.0 templates.....yet....

If I Did It

If I Did It
O. J. Simpson has written a book in which he explains that he couldn't have been the murderer because if he had been going to kill his wife he would have murdered her in a different way, which he goes on to discribe...

If I Did It

If I Did It
O. J. Simpson has written a book in which he explains that he couldn't have been the murderer because if he had been going to kill his wife he would have murdered her in a different way, which he goes on to discribe...

'A Horse Named Paul Revere,' a children's book by The Beastie Boys

'A Horse Named Paul Revere,' a children's book by The Beastie Boys

Most random Microsoft support page?

Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music

Musicovery : interactive webRadio

Very very cool:

Musicovery : interactive webRadio

Does a blog post count as "fair disclosure"?

A truely Arbuthnot relevant type of article:

Does a blog post count as "fair disclosure"?: "Christopher Cox, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, recently posted in the discussion thread attached to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blog. The posting was in response to a letter Schwartz had written (and made available on his blog) more than a month ago, asking if the SEC would be willing to update 'Regulation Fair Disclosure' to allow companies to first share corporate information over the Web. Cox's response: let's talk about it."

BlueScreen Screen Saver v3.2

BlueScreen Screen Saver v3.2: "One of the most feared colors in the NT world is blue. The infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) will pop up on an NT system whenever something has gone terribly wrong. Bluescreen is a screen saver that not only authentically mimics a BSOD, but will simulate startup screens seen during a system boot. "

Sacha Baron Cohen -- the Real Borat -- Finally Speaks

Rolling Stone : Sacha Baron Cohen -- the Real Borat -- Finally Speaks: His first full interview since 1998 out of character.

A very cool beat-box performer using video

Apparently he can't play drums or the piano, he just edited it all together.

Phil "Bonzo" Jupitus

It's a Bonzo life: On the road with Phill Jupitus
Join Phill Jupitus every day, for all the injuries and the Horlicks, on a reunion tour with the Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band, in the Times (if you don't look at the adverts you're actually costing Rupert money).

It's a Bonzo life: On the road with Phill Jupitus

Air guitar T-shirt rocks for real

Air guitar T-shirt rocks for real: "Australian scientists have created a T-shirt that allows air guitarists to play real music - without resorting to a real guitar. "

Hello World

INFILTEC: HUMOR: "Hello World" programs

One for you, Mr A...

White House caught re-writing history

Season Shot - Ammo with flavor.

Season Shot - Ammo with flavor.: "Season Shot is made of tightly packed seasoning bound by a fully biodegradable food product. The seasoning is actually injected into the bird on impact seasoning the meat from the inside out. When the bird is cooked the seasoning pellets melt into the meat spreading the flavor to the entire bird. Forget worrying about shot breaking your teeth and start wondering about which flavor shot to use!"

Dina font

Dina is a monospace bitmap font, primarily aimed at programmers. It is relatively
compact to allow a lot of code on screen, while (hopefully) clear enough to remain
readable even at high resolutions.

Dina

Mr Andronov? Notepad need never look the same again :)

Surprises Inside Microsoft Vista's EULA

Surprises Inside Microsoft Vista's EULA

(via Doug-Of-The-Server, haven't read it all yet but looks fun fun fun...)

A tour of Adobe’s Apollo project - Universal Desktop

A tour of Adobe’s Apollo project The Universal Desktop: "Late last week I had the chance to sit down with Kevin Lynch, the Chief Software Architect at Adobe and talk with him about Adobe's strategy over a number of products and about the direction of the Flash Platform. He also took time to talk about the Apollo project and demo some of the applications that people within the company are building. "

Whoopee

Whoopee

This is my close friend Antonia's blog. She has just had a baby, hence the latest post(s). The rest of it is hugely funny/rude/personal but a wonderful read. Enjoy...

MapKit

Editable Maps (which you can add pictures to automatically) on your own site.

MapKit

JAJAH - web-activated telephony

JAJAH - web-activated telephony

Haven't tried it....yet....

Mathmos: Thaw

Mathmos: Thaw Candlelight Holder

File this under cool but pointless...

Fast way to compare arial photography from the different sources

http://www.flashearth.com/

fast switch between google, yahoo, ask etc...

Whoops there goes the productivity...

A site detailing every flash game ever featured on digg. With a photo, a short description and a rating.

http://www.games1.org/

It even has frogger!

The Hexadecimal Colours Game

The Hexadecimal Colours Game

This is surely the official Arblognot challenge - please post scores in the comments section below :)

The Netflix prize

I really want to be working on the netflix prize but I can't because then I would have no time left in my life. The idea is to write a program that comes up with better movie recommendations for netflix users. So that people have something to work with they've released a lot of data. Some of the most interesting discussions on the forums are about the data. Like this one that is a spookily accurate way of mesuring not just which films have the best rating but which films are loved, hated and divisive. It's a well written clever discription and worth reading. And it all flows from a simple question why is Miss Congeniality the most rated film on Netflix?

Netflix Prize: Forum / Miss Congeniality

Line Rider

Quite an fun little game:

Line Rider - beta by *fsk on deviantART

Phosphor

This is amazing, like Doom/Quake but entirely online
(OK, you need a bit of Flash installed...)

Phosphor

Well I was impressed :) I am quite old you know...

The Evening Cinematic

Nick has started a brief blog:

The Evening Cinematic: "The Evening Cinematic
The Evening Standard is offering a free cinema ticket to every reader everyday this week to see a film everyday next week. This is the record of my attempt to buy every paper, see every film."

Why God doesn't exist by Richard Dawkins

A nice contentious post to get your blood singing

The story of the iPod

Ever wondered what the first song to be played on an iPod was? You can either read this article by Steven Levy which is interesting in other ways too, or I can tell you...

Wired 14.11: The Perfect Thing

Spiller - Grooveject (If this ain't love)

New Era of the Recipe Burglar

A thought provoking article about whether recipies should be under copyright.

New Era of the Recipe Burglar | Food & Wine: "Pete Wells explores the mysterious world of kitchen spies, copycat chefs and copyright lawyers who might, one day soon, change the way we eat. "

AutoStitch

AutoStitch: "Autostitch™ is the world's first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical)."

Microsoft Research Group Shot

You know the situation. You've got some great pictures of some friends at a party. But if only you could have Steve looking happy like he does in one picture moved into the picture where he looks rubbish but Jeff looks good. Or something. Basically you need Microsoft Research Group Shot.

You can choose the faces from any photos and combine them together and it does the magic for you.

Here it is Microsoft Research Group Shot: "Microsoft Research Group Shot"

And here's a great example of it which explains things much better: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardholden/189985904/

Google Maps Nighttime!

Google Maps Nighttime!: Although "The underlying 128 megapixel night imagery from NASA uses a map projection different from Google Maps'. The two are aligned near the NYC-Madrid-Tokyo axis only." It's still pretty cool.

atelier v.

atelier v.

Some 'reimagining' of everyday household objects (in German)

Some are better than others, but I liked the lampshade and the ice cream holder!

What's the difference between George Bush and Himself?

Check out this clip from the daily show. On the day they realised that no Democrat would ever be able to defeat him they decided to show that perhaps the best person to defeat him was himself. It turns out he ran for President on a very different platform than the way he ran to stay President. Flip-Flopper or what...

Songbird 0.2 Video describing what its about

Worth watching just for the mad guy doing the demo "sweet and Oi"




here's the songbird site:
http://www.songbirdnest.com/node/875

List of CSS Tools

List of CSS Tools: "A nice List of CSS Tools"

"World Cup air" vendor blows off steam in court

"World Cup air" vendor blows off steam in court: "A Chinese entrepreneur is suing a Beijing trade bureau for denying him a permit to sell bags of 'World Cup air' and for scotching his plans to bottle and sell '2008 Olympic air', a newspaper said on Thursday."

Ten Best Flickr Mashups

Ten Best Flickr Mashups

Although this article is quite old there are a whole load of fun apps to play with here that I'd never heard of. Eg. Draw something and it will find pictures that look like your doodle, spell words with flickr letters, a really neat navigation tool, a colour picker which also finds you pictures using that colour and some games.

The Filter

Welcome | The Filter: Sort of Pandora but only using your own music. Here's the blurb: "It's better than your shuffle button!
Instead of browsing at random through your music collection we’ve created a program that can build you excellent playlists to fit your mood. All you need to do is select a few songs from your iTunes library and then start The Filter."

Splice - Meet. Mix. Mashup.

Splice

"Record sounds, compose songs, listen to music, make friends and remixes... all through the browser window."

And to think I paid* for CooldEditPro. And Reason2.0

* ok, not in the real sense of money, but still...

A great 404 error?

uh oh

from lileks a very kitsch site.

Online world to get news bureau

Online world to get news bureau: "Reuters has opened a virtual news agency in the Second Life online world."

Guide to Springfield - The Simpsons

Guide to Springfield - The Simpsons a map of everything in Springfield

A strange little movie

This is a very strange animated movie, a little grotesque

A war between albulm covers

FireFox 2: for all your browsing needs

A new preview version of Firefox is out. It incorporates all of the features from the very popular (in our house) tab extension, such as a close button on each tab and session recovery. Cool.

Google pushes into Office space

Google pushes into Office space:

Search giant Google is relaunching its online spreadsheet and word processor software, in yet another challenge to archrival Microsoft.

Peter Sellers doing a surprisingly large number of british accents

That random/shuffle thing again

Oh no, not Steely Dan again

Steven Levy really liked Steely Dan, but so too, it seemed, did his iPod. Like a lot of people, he began to wonder about its shuffle - was the random function really random or a result of dirty tricks, blunders... or even telepathy?

Viva Border Volleyball!

LA Weekly - Viva Border Volleyball!

I liked this line:

"Hoff suddenly wonders if hitting the ball back and forth constitutes a violation of U.S. Customs law, since goods are technically being transported across an international border."

50 Writing Tools

A list of 50 writing tools that are short, informative, and mention James Bond!

List of films that most frequently use the word f...

List of films that most frequently use the word f*ck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well I thought it might be surprising :)

Developers resource list

Links to almost everything from polishing up on Ajax to colour pickers:
http://www.devlisting.com/

moo | we love to print

moo | we love to print

These look way cool and some/most/all of Katherine's pics would look amazing on them :)

Have a good weekend

Ade

Auction your stuff and donate to charity

A very cool idea from the people who brought you Change the World for a Fiver: Auction my stuff.

USBCELL: Batteries That Recharge Through USB

TrustedReviews - USBCELL: Batteries That Recharge Through USB

NOw that, I think, is a fantastic idea :)

plundr - Avast, ye scoundrel!

plundr: "Plundr is a location-based game of piracy and trading on the high seas. Start out as a bilge-spewing land-lubber in a leaky tub, search the ocean for unsuspecting ships to pillage, upgrade your ship, and amass a fortune in black market goods.
Plundr is designed to be played on laptop computers by players who are navigating through real-world space. The gameplay takes place on Islands where you can buy and sell goods, prey on Merchant Ships, and battle other nearby players. Each Island corresponds to a real-world location.
You will need the Loki location-sensing browser plugin to play this game.
Once you have installed Loki, click here to install the plundr channel. "

Print your postage online directly

Print your postage online directly: "The service is free (you just pay the normal postage price), easy to use and, because you can print your postage whenever you need it, you’ll never run out again."

My prediction? Adrian will buy one!

A great video promoting solar power

SquidSoap - Training Tomorrow's Great Hand Washers

SquidSoap - Training Tomorrow's Great Hand Washers:

Wouldn't it be great if someone could invent a simple, fun way to teach our children to wash their hands? The wait is over with SquidSoap.

Personalised google homepage adds tabs

Well it has: google

Sainsbury's in green package push

Sainsbury's in green package push:

Supermarket Sainsbury's is to sell more than 500 of its own-brand products in compostable packs instead of plastic as it seeks to cut packaging waste.

Amazon Unbox

Video downloads for sale from Amazon:

"There will be many downloads in your life. But only one first download from Amazon Unbox Video. So make it special. Light the candles. Pour a beverage and consider"

Amazon Unbox

Blogger in beta

I somehow managed to totally miss this:

Blogger Buzz: Blogger in beta: "Today we're launching a new version of Blogger in beta! You've been asking for ways to do more with your blog, and you can with this new release. With the beta you can:

Categorize your posts with labels
Control who can read your blog
Change the appearance and content of your blog with your mouse instead of HTML"

THEIR CIRCULAR LIFE

THEIR CIRCULAR LIFE

A way of seeing and hearing an entire day in an instant or you can focus on a particular moment. Quite interesting.

THEIR CIRCULAR LIFE

THEIR CIRCULAR LIFE

A way of seeing and hearing an entire day in an instant or you can focus on a particular moment. Quite interesting.

Stories from an ambulance

A blog by an Ambulance driver in East London. Now in book form. Random, interesting and funny.

Article about writing creating relationships with readers

from A List Apart

GeoTagging in Flickr

Looks like the US is better served than Europe at the moment but give them a chance!

Flickr New Geotagging

Pong. Gone wild.

h4sh.com

Looks cr@ppy. But just try it. Insanely addictive. Stoopid too.

http://www.ie7.com/

Here comes a problem. Microsoft are really going to love this:

http://www.ie7.com/ leads to a big sign saying: "Get Firefox"!

snakes in a cinema

now that's scary...

Live Rattlesnakes Released In 'Snakes On A Plane' Theater: "Two live diamondback rattlesnakes were released in an Arizona movie theater during a showing of the new film 'Snakes on a Plane,' according to Local 6 News."

IE7 v Firefox 2.0

bit-tech.net | Internet Explorer 7 v Firefox 2.0

A nation waits...

the politically incorrect alphabet

A is for, er...

Freyja has got have one on her wall, once we decide what "F" should be!

My Dream App

My Dream App:

Welcome to My Dream App. You're about to be involved in a revolution in the software industry: a no holds barred, totally transparent and ridiculously low barrier version of Macintosh shareware development. Ever wished you had the programming chops to create a killer app? For the first time, you're going to have a chance to make those dream apps come true.

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation: "The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation"

Overground / Underground Wombling free

or rather ever wondered where the underground really goes?

Well this google / underground map mashup will tell you: http://tubejp.co.uk/

Game over man

All of the games you remember, but slightly different:

http://eatpes.com/game_over.html

also check out Roof Sex (but as you might guess not safe for work - it's not as bad as you might think)

excel in-cell bar graphs

information aesthetics

These are cool and what a neat idea to use REPT...

the power of css

the best "power of css" site is probably css garden, but this guy has really harnessed css control for myspace, this myspace page really looks like no other I've ever seen:

www.myspace.com/shawnanigans

CensusScope -- Demographic Maps: An Aging Population

A site with interesting info graphics. Like this one which shows that all of the old people are huddling together in the middle of America for warmth (and in Florida)

CensusScope -- Demographic Maps: An Aging Population: "AN AGING POPULATION"

Noisy Children's Furniture

Children's Furniture with Music!

The toy chest would be very cool...

The Mechanical Turk

Nowadays computers are very very good at chess. But once upon a time this wasn't true. The first mechanised chess player was a thing called the "Mechanical Turk" that played chess against you by moving peices around with its hand etc. But it was actually a man inside not a machine.

Some things are really difficult for computers but easy for machines. And Amazon has decided to make a market in it.

http://www.mturk.com/

Small tasks and small rewards but you could do a few and make some money

Tony Wilson

Sometimes, it just seems that the original non-improved articles on wikipedia were better than the new ones:

Tony Wilson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Tony Wilson"

Sadly they've "improved" it now.

Tony Wilson

Sometimes, it just seems that the original non-improved articles on wikipedia were better than the new ones:

Tony Wilson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Tony Wilson"

Sadly they've "improved" it now.

This is amazing

this is from the first daily show after September 11th.

A very powerful and moving speech to camera.

I'd vote for Jon Stewart!

10 Ways to make yourself a YouTube Star

10 Ways to make yourself a YouTube Star: "What are the prime ingredients for YouTube success - what separates a viral hit from a barely-noticed miss? Poking around the top rated videos provides a few answers"

10 Ways to make yourself a YouTube Star

10 Ways to make yourself a YouTube Star: "What are the prime ingredients for YouTube success - what separates a viral hit from a barely-noticed miss? Poking around the top rated videos provides a few answers"

AQA the text question service

has some rather nice, but a bit weird artwork on their website. They claim that AQA means the end of the question mark and they provide this picture to prove just that:

Landmarks quiz

BBC NEWS | UK | Landmarks quiz

Quite a fun little quiz. They've taken famous locations and removed the famous landmarks and you have to guess where you are.

French Fries back on the menu

French fries are back on the menu in the US House of Representatives, three years after the name was ditched in favour of "freedom fries."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5240572.stm

Net neutrality

I'm going to write here the shortest primer of Net Nutrality ever:

Net Neutrality people think you should pay for an ammount of bandwidth and the more bandwith you buy the more you can use, but it doesn't matter what you use.

Anti-Net Nutrality people (generally telcos) think you should pay more to make a phone call over the internet or watch a movie than the rest of the stuff you do because they use more bandwidth everywhere in the network - and they want to be able to send you a bill at the end of the month rather than a flat rate that you pay now.

There has been a lot of mindless back and forth about this issue, but now after you have read this primer you are ready to appreciate the best e-mail ever written on the subject. It was sent to The Register and was written in Comic Sans font but read it and tell me the guy doesn't have the point pretty nailed down, taking as he does the view that you'll be buying from the telcos the right to get your video and telephone at a priority over the rest of the traffic.

Take it away Arah Leonard:

VoIP and Video over IP can go to hell.

Should the anti-neutrality side win, the World Wide Web will be slowed to a crawl and be much more likely to fall apart, even while the internet as a protocol survives. As the VoIP and IPTV flood the network with far more data than it was ever conceived of transporting these services will be boosted in priority while the actual World Wide Web gets downgraded into infamy.

And for what? Cheaper telephones and TV? Telephone services that don't use the internet already exist. They have their own lines. We don't need VoIP to run a telephone. It's only a new fad. Cable and satellite servies already exist. As do local channels on the regular airwaves. They also have their own data lines. We don't need IPTV to run a television. It's an even newer fad. But there's only one World Wide Web, and there is no other service that can provide for it. The internet is the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is the internet. So if we destroy the World Wide Web just to create cheaper alternatives to telephone and television, what have we actually accomplished?

Net neutrality - the great debacle | The Register

Stephen Johnson's blog

As in the writer of Emergence and Everything bad is good for you.

Museum brings creationism to life

Museum brings creationism to life - Science - MSNBC.com: "PETERSBURG, Ky. - Like most natural history museums, this one has exhibits showing dinosaurs roaming the earth. Except here, the giant reptiles share the forest with Adam and Eve."

This article could be accurately summed up as, "Idiots continue to be idiots and are now actively recruiting".

A big change coming? Didn't think pictures could do this...

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth: "'What if your photo collection was an entry point into the world, like a wormhole that you could jump through and explore… '

- Blaise Ag�era y Arcas, Live Labs

Watch the video to learn how this new technology will change the way you think of photographs forever. "

What's on the radio right now?

YES.com

How to DJ your first set without knowing how

aurgasm: How to DJ your first set without knowing how :: your favorite music you've never heard: "I was asked to DJ a one-hour set, though I had no previous DJ experience. I didn't know how to beatmatch, transition smoothly, use Ableton or Traktor, and neither do you. You just have to be comfortable with being a laptop DJ. "

The Top 50 Movie Endings of All Time

A list of the Top 50 Movie Endings of All Time. I think my favourite is no. 8.

Superman II gets a re-edit

Apparently, Richard Donner is going to re-edit Superman II. Does that mean we have to buy that DVD as well? ;)

Ten Thousand Statistically Grammar-Average Fake Band Names

Ten Thousand Statistically Grammar-Average Fake Band Names: "When working on the paper 'The Quest for Ground Truth in Musical Artist Similarity' (paper PDF link) we built MusicSeer to collect human evaluation of artist similarity. We expected a lot of responses but needed a way to ferret out 'bad' results-- robots, users just clicking randomly, and people that didn't know the bands presented. One idea was to pepper the list with 'red herrings' in the form of fake bandnames-- and if someone chose one, we'd ignore their responses later on. "

Chris Cornell records Bond theme

US rock star to record Bond theme: "Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell is to write and record the theme tune to the new James Bond film, Casino Royale. "

Do you remember the internet in 1996?

I do it looked a bit like this:

In 1996, the Internet Archive began archiving the web for a service called the Wayback Machine. They've now archived 55 billion web pages. That's enough web pages that if you were to print them all out using your roommate's printer while he was at class and tape them end-to-end, you could reach the moon and back 28 trillion times.

http://www.msu.edu/~karjalae/internet96.htm

Take everything in your house and turn it into dominos

Amazon rainforest 'could become a desert'

Amazon rainforest 'could become a desert': "The vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being turned into desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world's climate, alarming research suggests. And the process, which would be irreversible, could begin as early as next year. "

Joe's Goals

You know how you always want to go to the gym more (apparently) and eat less (allegedly). Why not use this neat little app to keep a tab on how well you're achieving your aims? http://www.joesgoals.com/

Luckily you get to choose your own goals and vices.

Getting Real: building web app book

Getting Real details the business, design, programming, and marketing principles of 37signals. The book is packed with keep-it-simple insights, contrarian points of view, and unconventional approaches to software design. This is not a technical book or a design tutorial, it's a book of ideas.

Getting Real: the book from 37 Signals

Polar bears in Berlin chill out

Polar bears in Berlin chill out

Sparklines

A sparkline is a small line graph designed to be used in-line within text to illustrate a time series; the concept was developed by data presentation guru Edward Tufte.

Here's a page with an example and a way to create them in photoshop: here

Worst song lyrics evah

We can do better can't we?

Here's a list which started this:

32 worst lyrics of all time

And here's some suggestions I have gleaned:

It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife
--Alanis Morissette

I wish that I could fly
Into the sky
So very high
Just like a dragonfly
I'd fly above the trees
Over the seas in all degrees
To anywhere I please
Oh I want to get away
I want to fly away
Yeah yeah yeah
--Lenny Kravitz?

Too hot to handle, too cold to hold.
They call the Ghostbusters and they're in control.
Had them throwing a party for a bunch of children.
When all the while, the slime was under the building.
So they packed up, regrouped, got a grip, camera quick.
Grabbed their proton packs on their backs and they split.
Found out about Vigo, the master of evil.
Try to battle my boys, that's not legal.

--Bobby Brown

We stayed in by the telly although the room was smelly?
--Squeeze

You said to trust you, you'd never hurt me
Now, I'm disgusted, since then adjusted
Certainly, you fooled me, ridiculed me
Left me hangin', now shit's boomerangin'
--Puff Daddy

Diviner than the dolphin, that there is none
'cause dolphins just-a like to have a lot of fun
No one tells 'em how their life is run
And no one points at them with a gun
They have a lot of love for every living creature
The smile of a dolphin is a built in feature
They be movin' in schools but everyone's the teacher
Someday mister dolphin, I know I'm go'n to meetcha
--Red Hot Chillie Peppers

I don't like cities, but I like New York.
Other places make me feel like a dork.
--Madonna

I'm afraid of the dark,
especially when I'm in a park,
I don't want to see a ghost,
it's the sight that I fear most.
--Des'ree

and my personal fav:

I'm as serious as cancer
When I tell you rhythm is a dancer
--Snap

and one from the charts right now:

Shakira, Shakira,
I never really knew that she could dance like this,
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
--Fugees feat. Shakira

Anything else?

Swipe-card plan to ration consumers' carbon use

Swipe-card plan to ration consumers' carbon use

A radical plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions by rationing the carbon use of individuals is being drawn up by government officials. The scheme could force consumers to carry a swipe card that records their personal carbon allocation, with points knocked off each time they buy petrol or tickets for a flight.

Click OK?

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1818631,00.html
Quite! Back to that TAB order in CRM :)

Microsoft shuts down Windows 98

Microsoft shuts down Windows 98

Microsoft is urging an estimated 70 million users of Windows 98 to upgrade as it ends support for the software.

Why Bose Sucks

Why Bose Sucks

Bose, like Bang & Olufsen and Nakamichi, sell lifestyle and designer products whose prices are very heavily saturated by image and appeal. They are by no means, no means at all performance products. They have no cost-effectiveness, no bang-for-the-buck value, and draw no respect from any true audio enthusiasts

The IT Screen Goddesses Calendar 2006-2007

Um... It's work safe, and very embarrassing.

The IT Screen Goddesses Calendar 2006-2007 is emerging soonÂ… stay tuned to this spot. The calendar features beautiful photos of real women working in the IT industry, in poses inspired by movie goddesses old and recent.

http://www.itgoddess.info/

Dice Wars

This would appear to be somewhat like Risk, but without all that unnecessary testosterone-fuelled army behaviour.

Dice Wars

Didn't have long to play it, so it might be cr@p :)

Interior design - for books

India, Ink. � Making Castoff: "Last week I attended a reunion of people who used to work at a certain nonprofit literary organization. Some are in publishing now, many are writers, and all are bookish people who buy and read books—past page 18—regularly. Yet I was asked several times, while catching up with folks, what it is that a book interior designer does. “So, like, you pick the fonts?”"

The Intergalactic Mashup King

The Intergalactic Mashup King:

In Werner Herzog’s films, the main characters tend to be ambitious explorers who find themselves crashing in spectacular failure. Aguirre, the Wrath of God follows a 16th-century conquistador who sets out to find El Dorado, only to end up on a raft, demented and alone, adrift on a stagnant river. In the documentary Grizzly Man, Timothy Treadwell becomes so adept at cohabiting with wild grizzly bears that he comes to believe he’s one of them – until he gets eaten.

Huggable Urns

Huggable Urns: "Huggable UrnsTM offers the most unique way to keep your loved one
close to your heart!"

John Powers

John Powers, artist

Some rather nice geometric art type stuff

evidence that typing is becoming a performance medium

Wired News: Real DJs Code Live:

A new brand of music maestro is turning programming into performance, eschewing turntables for a compiler and a mind for syntax structure. "Livecoding" practitioners improvise using Perl or homemade programming architectures to build compositions from the ground up, replacing instruments and samples with raw code authoring before a live audience.

Don't you want your own internet

27B Stroke 6: "The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill. The provisions didn't prohibit an ISP from handling VOIP faster than emails, but would have made it illegal to handle its own VOIP packets faster than a competitor's."

Do you want me to send you an internet:

The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill. The provisions didn't prohibit an ISP from handling VOIP faster than emails, but would have made it illegal to handle its own VOIP packets faster than a competitor's.

One of the senators explained that as he hadn't received an e-mail he'd been sent on Friday it was probably all the people using youtube's fault so they should be stopped. When he starts talking about tubes the whole thing gets a bit out of hand.

Shelley The Republican

Shelley The Republican � Google : The America-hating empire is taking over: "Friends,
I don’t have the great insight and knowledge Tristan has when it comes to that tech stuff, but I will attempt to write an article why I think it’s utterly wrong to use Google’s services."

A Search Engine That's Becoming an Inventor

A Search Engine That's Becoming an Inventor - New York Times:

When Google was a graduate-school project being run from a Silicon Valley garage, its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, built their own computers out of cheap parts meant for personal computers. They wanted to save money, and they felt that they could design a network of computers that would search the Web more efficiently than those available from traditional manufacturers.

Praying for people in not really working shocker!

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: No Prayer Prescription -- [ PSYCHOLOGY ] -- Send good vibrations, but keep it to yourself:

Seeking to assess the effect of third-party prayer on patient outcomes, investigators found no evidence for divine intervention. They did, however, detect a possible proof for the power of negative thinking.

Viral e-mail for fun and profit

eefoof.com - Make It. Post It. Profit.:

When you upload a piece of media for submission to eefoof, your first hit immediatly starts generating income. Each month, we measure the amount of individual page views for each item you submit, and then calculate the percentage of hits it accounted for its media type. We then use this number to figure out your share of the sites ad revenue. Once your account exceeds $25, we will send you a Paypal transfer to the email specified at account creation.

Nominet signs up to ICANN

Nominet signs up to ICANN:

"In a hugely significant move, .uk registry Nominet has signed up to internet overseeing organisation ICANN and put to bed an historic battle between the US not-for-profit company and managers of county-specific internet domains."

Not sure why exactly, but apparently it's very significant.

Dell laptop explodes

Dell laptop explodes at Japanese conference

(or is it a viral created by the sneaky types at Toshiba...)

Yes, it's a museum, but it's also like a big living room.

Yes, it's a museum, but it's also like a big living room. All those works of art are yours...

Tate Modern's website lets you make your own virtual collection of artwork:

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/yourcollection/

An interrupted article about constant interruptions at work

Leave me alone . . .

The average worker spends two hours a day answering phonecalls, emails and pointless questions about who ate the last Hobnob. We asked Tim Dowling to write about it - then kept interrupting him

Town chaos as cash thrown in air

Town chaos as cash thrown in air: "People in Aberystwyth had an unexpected windfall when a man showered what is thought to be thousands of pounds into the air at a pedestrian crossing. "

USB teddy bear holds data, scares children

A new breed of USB device

Does the World Cup have a lingua franca?

Does the World Cup have a lingua franca? By Daniel�Engber:

Frustrated Polish players complained on Wednesday that a blown call might cost them a chance to advance in the World Cup. On the same day, a Swiss referee made a questionable call that went against the team from Ukraine. What language do soccer players use when they bicker with the refs?

Music Videos From the 80s

Music Videos From the 80's

Some of them don't work but the ones that do are, er, memorable :)

Microsoft loses Excel patent appeal

Excel patent appeal - cough up $65m please, Mr Gates

Quick! Invent something that Microsoft can steal...

World Cup map

World Cup map:

Welcome to BBC Sport's interactive World Cup map, which brings together a broad range of our best content in one place.

I'm Feeling Spendy

I'm Feeling Spendy

Count up loose change found down back of sofa(F1?)
Enter amount in I'm Feeling Spendy box.
Ta-daa! Random item at Amazon for you to purchase.

(Have I posted this before? I am getting on a bit...)

daytrotter.com - a cool music website

http://daytrotter.com/

A cool music website which focuses on mainly indie bands, but also has session remixes and so on which seem to be good. Bands come in and record stuff and remix somebody elses stuff while they're there or something like that...

Most bizarre World Cup tie-in ever?

Virgin Mobile stuffs England fans with free kebabs

The company has apparently set up a "kebab emporium" in said field of dreams and all users have to do is text "kebab" to 26666 to "receive a mobile voucher entitling them to a free meal upon redemption of the voucher".

Animal testing discussed

From the Guardian: 'You won't find chimps having this debate'

After the demonstrations and court battles, isn't it time to talk calmly about animal testing? We ask two leading philosophers to debate the rights and wrongs

Discussion chaired by Julian Baggini

World Cup web meltdown

World Cup web meltdown

Although we won't be able to watch it anyway as the vans are after us:

Watching online could end up in court

Bah. Come on Paraguay!!

Laptops go large!

Try to control your lower jaws as you feast your eyes on this!

BBC closes out deal for showing UK TV over P2P

BBC closes out deal for showing UK TV over P2P:

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has renegotiated its terms with PACT, a UK trade organisation that represents the commercial interests of independent feature film, TV, and animation companies.

UK music fans can copy own tracks

UK music fans can copy own tracks:

UK music fans no longer face the threat of prosecution for copying their own CDs on to PCs or MP3 players, as long as the songs are only for personal use.

Google offers spreadsheet beta | The Register

Google offers spreadsheet beta The Register

No surprises there then...

A bad law to try and stop you from making a copy of anything

A bad law to try and stop you from making a copy of anything:

This will be a busy week in the House -- Congress goes into summer recess Friday, but not before considering the Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 (SIRA). Never heard of SIRA? That’s the way Big Copyright and their lackey’s want it, and it's bad news for you.

Punters decide they don't like Mondays

Online lottery company faces ruin

Shame. I thought it was a good idea, although:

"Mr Holley and two fellow directors have also received payouts worth more than the £520,000 donated to the 20 charities linked to Monday."

Not all that charitable of them!

Brothers spurn veg for 424 years

Brothers spurn veg for 424 years:

Children: next time parents order you to eat your broccoli so that you will have a long and healthy life, don't believe them.

I bet they eat potatoes though.

World Cup by broadband endangers networks

World Cup by broadband

Can't see Scott letting than one through :(

To the pub..................!!

Manilow to drive out 'hooligans'

Manilow to drive out 'hooligans':

A council in the Australian city of Sydney is taking radical measures against car-revving youths - the calming tones of singer Barry Manilow.

apparently: "Daggy music is one way to make the hoons leave an area, because they can't stand the music," ?!?!

Manilow to drive out 'hooligans'

Manilow to drive out 'hooligans':

A council in the Australian city of Sydney is taking radical measures against car-revving youths - the calming tones of singer Barry Manilow.

apparently: "Daggy music is one way to make the hoons leave an area, because they can't stand the music," ?!?!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft debuts security package

Microsoft debuts security package:

Users worried about staying safe online will soon be able to get software to protect their home PC direct from Microsoft.

Largest cities through history...

An interesting article about when cities became big and when. It has a list!

What does the internet do to a couple?

Lots of interesting questions about couples who spend a lot of time online "together". "A couple watching TV, curled up on a sofa together, may have felt 'together', a couple surfing on two wifi laptops are visiting different sites, having different experiences. They seem more apart than together. The internet age feels less communal than the TV age did."

What's in a name?

A quick study shows that stocks of simply named companies do better than those of more complexly named companies. Even companies with pronounceable ticker symbols did better than those with unpronounceable symbols. From: kottke.org

Levels of HTML knowledge

Find where you are on the Levels of HTML knowledge list. Worth reading the CSS list too. Levels of HTML knowledge

It spans all the way from people who know next to nothing about it to those who know it well enough to write the actual HTML specifications.

The end of an era for Times New Roman?

Biggest story evah? er sort of... Office 2007 defaults to a new font. Not Times!

The end of an era for Times New Roman?:

Earlier this year, Microsoft released betas of Office 2007, and the first thing reviewers noticed, besides the new interface, was that Times New Roman had been deposed as the default font with something called . . . Calibri?

Introducing...the iPod VR!

MAKE: Blog: Introducing...the iPod VR!:

This is a bit on the Snowcrash side of Maker projects, but I wanted to see if the new iPod video would foster a new market for VR / LCD goggles. I have two types, one is meant for viewing video full screen, with both eyes - the other is a one screen LCD. Each has their uses with the iPod video and I may actually start using these on some trips when I don't feel like holding the iPod video the entire time watching a video...So, here are the photos of the iPod video, homemade battery extender, travel case and LCD goggles....

Last Man Stands

http://www.lastmanstands.com/default.jsp

Last Man Stands is an innovative new game of cricket that involves 8 players. All 8 wickets are needed to bowl a team out. When the seventh wicket falls, the Last Man Stands on his own).

A frankly shocking website but an interesting idea. A sort of Powerleague for Cricket. Seem to have quite a few games in south london.

If you like information graphs...

Then you'll love this:

Timeline of Trends and Events (1750 to 2100)

Where 2.0: Pixie Hunt

This sounds really cool:

O'Reilly Radar > Where 2.0: Pixie Hunt:

Pixie Hunt is a location-based, mobile game that is coming out of Microsoft and we are proud to have it debut at and kick-off our Where 2.0 Conference this year. We are going to be supporting 10 teams in this hunt. Each team is armed with a phone (from Cingular), a GPS puck, and a Flickr account. In the game, teams compete with each other to take pictures of certain tasks ('take a photo of your team with a stranger in a scarf', 'take a picture of a corgie', etc). As a team completes a task and uploads their proof (a photo) to Flickr, the other teams are all shown your work and they see your score incremented. Jordan Schwartz explains the game in more detail:

Time travel maps

Another geek project by mysociety.org - Maps that show travelling times

Cork'd wine review and sharing

I like the sound of that...
Cork'd - The simple way to review and share wine

Or how about this the entry for Heartland, Director's Cut 2002

Amazing odyssey of airline passenger in French farce

Amazing odyssey of airline passenger in French farce:

An exhausted airline passenger was yesterday recovering from a nightmare journey from France that lasted more than 30 hours and took in two coaches, two aircraft and a taxi.

Google Co-op

Google Co-op

"Google Co-op is a platform which enables you to use your expertise to help other users find information. This is a work in progress. You can expect to see evolution in both the Co-op's structure and the platform's features. "

Girlfriend 6.0 vs. Wife 1.0

Geek humour
Girlfriend 6.0 vs. Wife 1.0: "Girlfriend 6.0 vs. Wife 1.0 a Comparative Trial"

Google Notebook

Google Notebook: "Clip and collect information as you browse the web."

Ticketmaster have decided to rip off everyone

Ticketmaster have decided that they've had enough of ebay selling their tickets at a profit and they're going to auction the tickets on their own site. No more touts?

Ticketmaster Auction Will Let Highest Bidder Set Concert Prices:

Three years after Ticketmaster introduced ticketFast, its online print-at-home ticketing service, consumers have so embraced it that the company now sells a half-million home-printed tickets for sporting and entertainment events each month in North America. Where ticketFast is available, 30 percent of tickets sold are now printed at home, said the company, which is by far the nation's largest ticket agency.

These idiots have produced adverts saying that global warming doesn't exist

Competitive Enterprise Institute:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has produced two 60-second television spots focusing on the alleged global warming crisis and the calls by some environmental groups and politicians for reduced energy use. The ads are airing in 14 U.S. cities from May 18 to May 28, 2006.

A trailer for the Shining - re-cut as a romantic comedy!

This is very funny:

Shining Edit - Google Video: "Shining "

Why We Published the AT&T Docs

Wired News: Why We Published the AT&T Docs:

"A file detailing aspects of AT&T's alleged participation in the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at AT&T's insistence, it remains under seal in court records."

And the document itself: http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/att_klein_wired.pdf

Free remote access program

A completely free remote access program that is secure and fast and FREE. It does actually work really well.

LogMeIn.com

Unrealised Moscow

Amazing drawings of buildings that were planned for Moscow but were never built.

Unrealised Moscow

Tackling the big one

Scott Adams has finally asked the big question on his blog. Expect everything over there to go crazy from here on in. Scott has asked why America continues to support Israel financially.

Read the post because it is fantastic in its construction. But the gist is this: America gives Israel 1-3 billion dollars in Aid. Why? Israel has a GDP of 145 billion dollars so that the 1 billion doesn't really make a big difference to Israel. But it really upsets everyone else. So wouldn't it be better to stop and give the money to countries where they don't have 145 billion dollars. Amonst other things he suggests Darfur.

Scott really hasn't dissapointed yet. The best blog on the internet: Foreign Aid

Ofcom rethinks ban on iPod gadget

Ofcom rethinks ban on iPod gadget

Ofcom has said it is working with other regulators to draft an EU-wide standard on the use of a gadget which plays the output of Apple's iPods on FM radios.

Microsoft scientists pushing keyboard into the past

Microsoft scientists pushing keyboard into the past:

That is if you have a copy of a prototype program from Microsoft Research currently named The Wild Thing. The application, for cell phones and handhelds, essentially lets consumers conduct queries with abbreviations and truncated spellings of words, said its developer Bo Thiesson.

Don't donate... Inovate...

Kiva lets you loan as little as $25 to a qualified low income entrepreneur in the developing world.

http://www.kiva.org/

Clerks 2 trailer

Picking up ten years after "Clerks" left off, "Clerks II" looks in on Dante and Randal's semi-new life (or lack thereof).

BBC R&D Mega-TiVo

O'Reilly Radar > BBC R&D Mega-TiVo

Apparently the BBC are developing a kind of web based TiVo which is much better than a regular TiVo.

Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing

Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing

Flickr has moved out of Beta... into Gamma!

How Much Is That Browser in the Windows OS?

Subtraction: How Much Is That Browser in the Windows OS?

Software has a cost, no matter what anyone tells you, no matter even if it ships without a price tag of any kind.

Eddie Izzard interview

In the Indie Read today though before you have to pay. Apparently, Mrs Badcrumble is fine :)

take that google critics

A large percentage of the things people search for inside google scanned books are inside books which publishers no longer publish. Not really cutting into publishers sales then is it? In fact Tim O'Reilly suggests that it might help publishers identify which books to bring back into print thus making them more money not less.

Long Tail evidence from Safari and Google Book Search:

Last fall, I came to the defense of Google against lawsuits by the Author's Guild and Association of American Publishers, arguing that Google Book Search would help readers to rediscover works that were no longer commercially available. I pointed out, in fact, that only about 4% of all titles ever published are still being commercially exploited. (Kevin Kelly wrote a long report on the current state of book scanning initiatives in yesterday's New York Times Magazine.)

Plan UK

Plan UK:

When you purchase a gift for friends and family, not only will you be giving a really special present, you will also be helping improve the lives of children and their families in some of the world's poorest countries.

A Star Is Made

A Star Is Made: The freakonomics guys talking about talent:

"If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three."

The digested read | Jade: My Autobiography by Jade Goody

The digested read | Jade: My Autobiography by Jade Goody:

A Mariah Carey concert. Better even than East 17. Mariah throws me a big ball thing. Everyone thought I was going to be Mariah Carey when I went on Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes, but my agent told me to do Lynn Anderson instead (whoever she is), and I even went up to Cat Deeley and said, 'Tonight Matthew, I'm ... ' How braindead is that? But I won anyway. So I can do something, and sod the lot of you.

We'd be lost without Motty's unique insights

We'd be lost without Motty's unique insights:

As is well documented on other pages of this section, West Ham and Liverpool helped revive some of the venerable traditions of the FA Cup final on Saturday, notably that of the participants actually giving a stuff who wins it. The BBC, meanwhile, did its own bit for tradition, augmenting the artsy fartsy build-up we have come to expect on big-match days with an appearance in the studio by the celebrated vaudevillian Sir James Tarbuck, whose last Cup final day guest spot was in 1977.

Google Trends

Google Trends: "See what the world is searching for."

BBC revamps website search system

BBC revamps website search system:

The BBC has changed the way that net users can search across its news and sport websites and its programme webpages.

Haven't I heard this somewhere before...?

Ruth and Michelle: The Apprentice

Interview with them about being the last two.

ASBO slapped on Oxford Street preacher

ASBO slapped on Oxford Street preacher

He did get a bit annoying. Although in the context of OXford Street on a Saturday in July, it's all relative.

DNS Report

DNS Report

Useful stuff, I had no idea what all of it meant but Doug (of the Server) found loads of errors in his config which were making domains (including mine) take ages to resolve. Super.

The 'free' fairy story

The 'free' fairy story | The Register

I don't think Demon has a rubbish 'fair use'policy does it?

Citadel.org - AJAX is clearly not a fad.

Citadel.org - AJAX is clearly not a fad.

Go, ASnet, go.........

Dimbleby attacks Nick Griffin from the BNP

here

Boris Johnson vs Germany

Anyone fancy a movie argument?

Bad movies - like viruses, and politicians - must mutate and change guises in order to survive. Once we knew them by their cornball dialogue, poverty-row budgets and amateur-night acting. Increasingly, it seems, they have become harder and harder to spot.

Writing in today's Guardian, Stewart Lee ponders the shifting nature of that elusive beast, the Truly Awful Movie.

Good films that are really bad