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September 29, 2005
the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies is the US
I have to say that the conclusions of this study came as no surprise to me.
and I've always been deeply peeved by religious types claiming the monopoly on issues of morality.
[via bunch of pants.]
by groc at 09:35 PM | Comments (1)
September 28, 2005
Reversing Thatcherism, slowly, slowly bit by bit
Amongst quite a few other things, you do realise all the current hoo-haa over school dinners and how crap they quickly became can be laid directly at Thatcher's feet don't you?
Banning junk food from schools.
Banning junk food from schools 'too expensive'.
The same could be said of out-sourcing hospital cleaning and the consequential rise and rise and rise of anti-biotic resistant super bugs.
There are other examples - I'll add more as I think of them.
Outsourcing, and to the cheapest companies has been one of the biggest, stupidest mistakes of the late Eighties and early Nineties. Thank you Thatcherism, you've been a peach.
Gah!
by groc at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
Nano-nano
Oh, and a video iPod might appear at somepoint in the future heh? Wow.
I mean Apple are so just innovative aren't they? *cough*latecomers*cough*
by groc at 12:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2005
innocence in the age of terrrorism
“I’m innocent - I’ve got nothing to fear.”
Yeah, well, NEWSFLASH your innocence isn’t worth a jot -as these two articles will testify.
Nun Terrorized by Terror Watch
Suspicious behaviour on the tube
by groc at 11:53 PM | Comments (1)
September 24, 2005
me loves the FischerSpooner
Interviews about every track of 'Odyssey'.
by groc at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005
watch Dr Who on your mobile
Um. Sort of. But only if you have a particular make of mobile phone and you're very rich and -well, to be frank, stupid enough to pay so much for it. Will there be a way for you to put your own content onto blank cards to play on it? Because until there is, I can't see this taking off.
(Then again, as it's all bound to fail, then not so long down the line these things will probably end up in a bargain bin for next to nothing. Mmmmm.)
Another thing I don't understand is people paying so much money for stupid ringtones and naff wallpapers... What the hell is wrong with (some) people? They're like sheep begging to be fleeced...
by groc at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005
by dint of my usual insomnia
I accidentally caught sight of the most amazing, funny, hilarious and educational show I'd ever seen. It even had brilliant costumes, songs and dance numbers.
It was Dr Tatiana's sex advice to all creation on channel 4.
Here's another link from Dr Tanita's offical site.
It was originally a book.
by groc at 05:08 AM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2005
I predict...
(after reading this article) that in a few years time hundreds if not thousands of people will start having class action suites against Apple for their iPod - (and all the other companies that make portable music players too) for making them deaf in later life. You do know that the ear bud style of headphone is the worst design for causing this sort of problem don't you?
by groc at 08:38 PM | Comments (0)
how smart is a smart card?
US Smart card avocates want to put everyone onto the one single card. Great idea that, so when you lose the one card you won't be able to prove who you are, you won't have access to your own money, any services you might need, and you won't be able to drive, or leave the country - and if someone's stolen it...
I don't think these advocates are very smart at all.
by groc at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2005
oooh nooooo
Mainstream sci-fi's TVs first openly bi-sexual male not coming back until series three. Gah. Oh well - at least there will be a series three. Yay.
by groc at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2005
Miscellaneous stuff
Al-Cajun? Army Times calls NOLA Katrina victims "the insurgency".
Newsy stuff:
Six NO2ID peaceful protestors arrested for "conspiracy" before they even get near the EU Summit.
I wonder how long it'll be before we have 'thought-crime' here in the UK?
by groc at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2005
people are important
Would the American Govt. have to cut Medi-care to the most vuneralable and poorest section of it's own society if the Republicans there could actually run their own economy -even half way properly?
How big is the American deficit again? Wasn't it running as a surplus when Clinton was in power?
Seriously, the Right wing of any country only ever know how to feather their own nests* and line their own pockets -at the expense of everyone else. Really by rights they should never ever be allowed to run State affairs - it's only because they tell the slickest lies that anyone ever votes for them.
*Most people fail to understand that this is not the same thing as being good at business. We should know that from our country where an appalling number of company bosses have awarded themselves obscenely huge pay rises while running their company into the ground. This is a standard right-wing practise.
by groc at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2005
oh look a new gay blog (groans)
Apparently there's to be a new gay lifestyle blog.
(But don't bother looking just yet - it's a day late going online.)
"The coverage will include fashion, style, grooming, home decor, nightlife, dining, travel, fitness. I'll also look at politics, sex and online dating."
Well that sounds like a lot of shallow pathetic consumerist nonsense to me.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Can you tell I stopped looking at places like gay.com years and years ago?
by groc at 01:24 PM | Comments (2)
September 03, 2005
A yank's experiance of BT-hell.
The Horror of British Telecom: Paradise Regained.
Seriously, why do BT have to make themselves so shit? It's as if they go deliberately go out of their way to be as useless and as obnoxious and greedy as they possibly can. There also seems to be a relation to how the increasingly more glossy and intrusive their advertising gets to the how the quality of the service gets crappier and ever more annoying.
by groc at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)
inadequate
The other night I was watching the news about the New Orleans disaster and was just horrified by how desperate things where there - particularly how long it was taking for the rescue services to get in there and do their job. I started out writing what going to be a blog entry or essay or something, but then I ended up knocking out a quick graphic in photoshop. It took all of 25 minutes. I ended up slapping it up on flickr - thinking I'd be lucky if only my uual audience of 35 to 50 people bothered to look at it.
It's had 1442 hits now.
Scary.
The Flickr community is responding to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with the Katrina Relief Auction Group raising funds for American Red Cross Emergency Relief.
In related news flickr hits the BBC news website again. This is about the Yahoo buy up.
I can just feel this being the beginning of the end. There's no way that Yahoo are going to be able to resist tinkering with their new purchase and in the end they're bound to break it sooner or later.
by groc at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2005
coincidentally...
The Wakamaru Robot
vs
Zu-Zana (or it Trine E)
by groc at 06:44 PM | Comments (0)