"Bombers are all spongeing asylum seekers" - Daily Express

It's a headline that frankly beggars belief.
(Not the Patsy Kensit bit)

And it wasn't made up.

And, this post was lost as a draft for about 2 weeks, removing any point in actually publishing it.

My favourite bit is "and now all they want to do is repay us with death".

Go For Launch!

Just surreptitiously watching the build up to the shuttle launch from Florida… it's quite exciting.

Hope nothing goes wrong this time.
Fingers crossed.

Blogging, privacy and crossing the line

Just a few thoughts I've had over the last couple of days…

Blogs should definitely be about our opinions. Much as we (or at least I) maybe unable to form a cogent argument most of the time, the discursive element of blogs is one of the most interesting aspects of the medium. But frankly, I'm bored when I stumble upon a blog which is nothing more than a string of confessions and emotional outpourings. Now, I'm well aware how successful some blogs like this have been… I need only mention Belle du Jour (which I found really boring: I must be jaded or something). I suppose it is interesting to read about someone's experiences if they lead a life completely different to your own, but with the internet you just never know how true these 'confessions' really are.

It should go without saying that blogs shouldn't delve too far into personal or confidential issues, especially where other people are involved. I was shocked to read a journal recently where a former colleague was openly discussing future comings and goings within the project, before anything was confirmed, and without making any effort to disguise who she was talking about. Fair warning: you can get into a lot of trouble for that but besides, it's incredibly rude. We have always to remember that posting to a blog is a form of publishing: you are publishing every word to the entire world. It's unfair to publish details of confidential conversations on a blog unless you feel there's a genuine reason why people would benefit by reading it. Also, it's an infringement of the other party's privacy - something they may very well not like. In a nutshell: if you cannot resist the urge to publish some gossip from work on your journal, then at least make an effort to change names. It's not fair to publish confidential information about people, revealing their names, without any warning. Not that she's ever really worried about that, but there you go.

There is an old argument against what I've said that goes something like "If you don't want to read it, go somewhere else." but that's not good enough. If you don't want people to read it, don't publish it.

BB Craig is stupid

This year's Big Brother has been a real mixed bag. There have been a couple of good points (Makosi), a lot of boring stuff, and two or three really unpleasant housemates. Of these, Craig is undoubtedly the worst. Even sulky/arrogant Maxwell wasn't as bad as Craig. That's because - much as I didn't like him - Maxwell isn't completely stupid.

There's a brilliant sketch in Jam with a character who runs an employment agency which specialises in supplying stupid people for a variety of jobs which require 'special' skills.
"Arguing, for example. Stupid people are very good at arguing… because they don't realise when they're wrong." - The stupid person in the sketch manages to get her boss out of a £200 parking fine because she's so stupid that she irritates the parking attendant into telling her to "Go away".

BB Craig is one of these people. He is so phenomenally stupid that he is thinks it's ok to just repeat what his opponent has accused him of in an argument e.g Science says "Craig, you're not a man - I remember you when you came in the house" to which Craig responds "You're not a man"). He drives anyone with a sense of logic to utter distraction. Hence, poor Science has to leave after about five minutes of every argument they ever have.

Science, in fact, made a decent point when he referred to Craig's complete change since the first couple of weeks. Despite the fact he has put on weight, Craig has tried to become 'top man' in the house - and even went as far as claiming that he was more manly than Anthony (who, while not the most butch chap in the world, has a more manly attitude of not spouting crap in a put on accent all day and all night). Science said something along the lines of "Yeah, I've been the same since day one… you - a shaved head a nd a lot of foot massages, that's how you got to where you are now". And I haven't even mentioned his revolting display of 'emotion' when his two 'best friends' where evicted.

Never trust a man who tries to make it all about him.

Fortunately, what with Craig being so stupid, he hasn't realised that teaming up with self-hating Derek is like making a deathwish.

Our tent

Continuing the theme from my post about Benicassim, we tried our tent out yesterday, in preparation for the main event.

Gemma's dad, Jaume, took some photos of our progress. The images do not capture the sound of me saying "Look, Gemma, I've read the instructions, ok?" over and over again.

FiberFib 2005

In just three weeks, we will be pitching our tent at the Festival Internacionál de Benicassim (Fiberfib)… after about four years of talking about it!

The line up for the festival is pretty good, with some 'smaller' bands (I just can't help liking The Kills… I know they're a Royal Trux rip-off, but I like the sound of their music playing) as well as Oasis, who I've never seen and whose first two albums are proper classic, and Nick Cave who's a bad seed. I'm not that fussed about The Cure, but am willing to see them in the context of 'important band'. I do like Basement Jaxx, Yo la Tengo, The Raveonettes, !!!, Peaches and someone I know likes Dinosaur Jr. So it should be grand.

Also, there are loads of DJs playing, there'll be a shirtload of sunshine and grease, and more than a little of the Vino Tinto will flow. It also falls on my 25th birthday. So I'm allowed to get well wasted.

Sergey, the people's hero

<>

My new job's going quite well. There's a hell of a lot of work to do between now and September - another reason for my not blogging much recently.

I focus entirely on handheld computing which means that everyday i'm looking (albeit briefly) at dozens of pieces of shareware, freeware and demos for Palm PDAs, Pocket PCs and mobile phones.

The most popular applications are generally personal organisers and calendars, though games are pretty popular too. This is where Sergey comes in. Sergey Volchenkov writes games for Palm handheld computers. He distributes them for free. And they're better than any other games being developed on the platform. Now, if he gets too much publicity, maybe he'll be tempted to start profiting off his hard work… but I doubt it.

I just think that developers like Sergey, who put a lot of time into creating enjoyable applications for people and keep their homepage with the same hosting for more than one month, allowing leeches like me to come and link to him, deserve a bit more praise. I don't love him. But some people do.

< / geek post >

The 'backlash' is a racist reaction