Slashdot beats it’s usual high of 1 decent article a day with two belters.
Insurgents hack US drones
Iraqi insurgents are intercepting communications from pilot-less drones as they are not encrypting it before sending it to base.
The second will be of interest to anyone who has visited the Secret Bunker in Fife. A report of a tour round a nuclear missile silo in the US. Really fascinating.
With the campaign to have a band of musicians who write songs, sing lives and can play musical instruments to No1 gains over half a million supporters Simon Cowell took time out of being a prat to comment on it.
The campaign is
stupidandcynical
From a talentless prick who has made millions from selling celebrity-hood to a bunch of talentless glorified karaoke singers.
More important than sticking a middle finger up to this oxygen thief though is the possibility of Rage Against the Machine doing more gigs or releasing more stuff. Yeah disappear just before eight years of Bush, great timing guys.
According to Stephen Hester when discussing bank charges:
Banks had to meet the costs of doing business.
From a bank who had billions chucked at it after failing at business and then billions more in secret so that it’s share price wouldn’t plummet more. They then started discussing how many staff to make redundant.
The bare faced cheek of the man.
The contents of the letter I just to my MP
It is an outrage that your government have sacked Professor David Nutt. Surely the purpose of advisers is to give an experts opinion not to rubber stamp policy decisions by government taken not because of scientific evidence but in line with the opinions of the readers of the vile Daily Mail.
Perhaps your government can find a drugs adviser from the scientific school of Trofim Lysenko? It is bad enough that the government ignores the evidence from scientific study into the uselessness of the “war on drugs” and the huge positive gains to be made by prescribing heroin to addicts but to now sack advisers for stating that the facts are contrary to government policy is inexcusable.
Considering McGovern spent months on the payroll vote and his likelihood of being re-elected is zilch I doubt I’ll get anything positive back from him (as per usual).
It appears the WordPress Status Updater now works correctly by pushing each post to Facebook once.
Woo.
Technorati claim code: WBJWEAQ95M8P
I couldn’t really figure up a good way to post about random stuff from the trip to London so will start off with the food.
On the Friday we arrived in the afternoon so we only really ate out for tea. With the hotel we were given a voucher for various Hotel owned outlets. We opted for Poppadom Express having had a great meal there the last time. The receptionist said there was no need to book a table although the voucher said you did. We popped in and were asked if we had booked, no and we explained. After a short while we got a table.
We ordered drinks and went up to the buffet for our starters. I noticed the selection was well down on last time. Our drinks arrrived, well most of them, the bottle of wine did not. When we eventually spotted a waitress we pointed it out and she got the original waiter. We said we had also ordered a bottle of wine but it hadn’t come. He started arguing that we hadn’t ordered it. Bit bizarre, whether we had already ordered it or were making a new order we were still getting a bottle which was more than a place at the buffet. I had a curry Karachi Chicken which was ok, and the hottest they had. Then I tried their Korma which was pretty crap. Was disappointed as it had been great the last time.
Breakfast was also a bit poor, the hotel appeared to have cut the offerings and it was always cold.
Saturday lunch time was at Covent Garden Piazza and I had a Lancaster Cheese Burger which was gorgeous. Teatime we tried to order pizza. Pizza orders go to same place as the Indian. We were told they just had a few people in so were too busy and hung up. I have phoned Dominos, Pizza Hut etc when busy and they have said It will be at least an hour is that ok?
but never said too busy and hung up. Pretty shit service from the same place two nights in a row. We opted to go to the hotel and I had a half decent chicken curry (their other option didn’t look that good). It was actually quite tasty.
Sunday we were down at Spitalfields so at lunch had food in a pup called White Hart where I tried a beef burger. It was fantastic, well above the usual pub standard. Place was pleasant, staff friendly. A pair sat at the table beside us and we got chatting for a bit. Anatolia from Russia, then Belgium, now London. They were looking for info on a Kevin Spacey play. Grabbed the Nokia 770 and they were really grateful.
For tea at night we went looking at some of the Italians etc near the hotel. Eventually setting for Cagneys (now gone) in a side street. I had a really nice Barbecue chicken.
At Kings Cross we had lunch at a really nice French cafe along the Strand. Gorgeous Escalope chicken. Will definitely go there again.
At Spitalfields market there was a stall with Chili sauce. I tasted it and then grabbed a jar, gorgeous stuff. Family recipe from Central America, chilli sauce made from Habaneros. It was quite amusing watching the mortals wince after tasting a bit. Would have got a bottle but I still have some from Mexico but wanted to support them anyway.
A friend got another call from a web design company today. This time they are claiming that that a government scheme is there to help companies with websites.
For £149 per year they can make a site with a shop. A quick scan of their site shows that that package is £199 per year. The £149 one is aimed at people with no website at all. On the phone the Web Consultant
(sales rep) also asked her what their website address was. Nice research there bub. A quick search for the number they were calling very quickly shows that.
A quick browse round their site was quite telling. News from 2007 (we are a popular company, see this non-existant report that you would have to pay for anyway), a blog (link dead) and vacancies. The vacancies at these places is always interesting, multiple telesales positions, 1 web developer position. The web developer ad language is amateurish at best, not what you would expect from a really big web design company which has been going for years.
A search on the company finds almost no mention of them anywhere, not helped by their name being made of two common words.
Last night I saw Invention of Lying, the new film by Ricky Gervais.
It was ok, a few laughs but nothing special. What is frustrating is it had so much potential. Anyway to start off, I had read the reviews that it was a world where everyone tells the truth. This is inaccurate. It is a world of David Brents where everyone blurts out what’s on their mind constantly with no tact nor regard for anyones feelings.
A world where everyone tells the truth is one where if asked if you like someone you say no
. In this world you walk up to them and call them an asshole. A slight difference. In the course of the film Rickys character learns how to tell a lie. This is a revelation, not only does no one know what this is there is not even a name for it. He uses it for the greater good, sees how it backfires etc etc. I will try not to spoil anything you can’t guess anyway.
One part which has American critics going ape is that he invents the idea of an afterlife – the worlds first liar creates religion. Some amusing parts of this plot.
I didn’t really connect these as they aren’t in the story. It lumbers from one idea to the next, never really finishing any train of thought off. This is quite symbplic of the worlds characters as they blurt out every thought and carry on with their lives.
I found the concept of the film fascinating, in the same way Sci-Fi takes our world, twists it and explores some idea to allow an abstract view into it this film took our world and said Look what it would look like if no one lied
. This philosophical idea is only ever used for cheap gags and there’s no real pay off apart from a better look at one character.
Unfortunately Gervais’s character comes off as a nice guy in a sea of assholes and by the end hasn’t grown at all, hes still the nice guy of the film.
If you liked David Brent in the Office, this is a film cast entirely of people playing him. If you didn’t you should avoid.
An article in the Guardian has the Vatican defending smears on them based on paedophile priest stories.
Firstly by claiming that other churches do it too (nice deflection)
Secondly by claiming that the majority of paedophile priests
were gay.
Supremely ironic given one of the vilest homophobic attacks is to claim that gay people are paedophiles. See this article for example.
but lastly with this belter.
only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.
So if you are in a room with 20 priests, one of them is a child molester, and according to the Vatican that’s no big deal.
One of the areas I wanted to write a few pieces about, but have neglected, was the strangeness of the English language.
Those that know me in person know I love puns and wordplay. I can generally be found giggling at something which amuses me which I then have to explain to others who hadn’t noticed it, or in some cases had but hadn’t been amused and then are annoyed at me explaining it to them. To quote Brian Keenan in Blind Flight
The Englishman is funny,’ he says, ‘He makes me laugh. The Irishman is witty, he makes me think.’
I’ll dump a few random pieces here so that if I don’t get back to the subject I have at least written something about it.
A lisp is a speech impediment which causes people to have trouble pronouncing the letter S. The word lisp has difficulty being pronounced without using said letter. Which cruel shit decided to name it so?
Seeing the wikipedia article on lisp reminded me of number 2 on the list: speech impediment
. See: lisp, how does someone with a stammer communicate they have a speech impediment with dignity? Again with the cruelty etc.
An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word. Doctor may be abbreviated to Dr. You can see the clever wee bit of HTML there? That allows you to expand the text using a variety of means to see the full version of the word. The HTML tag for abbreviations is abbreviated to <abbr> due to length.
There were others I had come across and neglected to put up. Do you have a favourite ironic word or phrase? Maybe you call an ambulance when you hear some illiterate prat exclaim my arm has just literally fallen off?
. Post yours in the comments.
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