The Obsblog on The best ten numbers between 1 and 10. But they've foolishly restricted themselves to integer numbers. No mention of e, or π, or φ, or even of ∑duh².

Manic on the UK's gratuitous volte-farce over Uzbekistan. These are pro-democracy protesters, so how come they don't get the encouragement the UK gave to Georgia or Ukraine?

From the Indytab's media diary:

HOW STARTLING to observe the British press - generally so impervious to the lure of the passing bandwagon - embracing that addictive Japanese numbers puzzle almost as one. The Daily Star is considering its own version of the game, but is having technical problems gearing it for the readership. A single grid, in which seven of the nine numbers are already filled in, is the preferred option, although a faction on the paper is pushing for eight. At The Sun, TV editor Victoria Newton is under pressure to change her name to Sue Doku, while Times guv'nor Robert Thomson is developing a twist on the original, in which readers fill in the numbers they think would correspond to the page accorded to various possible news stories seen as damaging to the Prime Minister. These numbers would run, we gather, from 63 to 124.

A quick message to UK Living - refuse those wretched ring-tone commercials, and I might not zap back to the BBC during your five-minute commercial breaks. Kapiche?

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posted 16 May 2005, 20.09 +0100

You would have been able to see some rather wonderful posts I wrote yesterday, were it not for a fairly obvious problem. The power went out last night, and it ate my posts with it. First time that's happened for a reason other than strong winds in the four years I've been here.

The actual start of the cut was interesting, in an "I have a chum who works in the power industry, and from what they've said, I can work out what might have happened here" way.

It all began at the stroke of 11, when I noticed that my little light had suddenly dimmed dramatically. Curious. It's a halogen light, it should either work or fail completely. Then I spotted that my internet connection had dropped. Within moments, pop, everything had turned off, not to come back for 45 minutes.

Sounds like someone hadn't figured that last night was going to be colder than usual, and they'd need to buy more electricity, and messed up somewhere along the line. Power cuts that start exactly on the hour don't strike me as being complete freaks of nature.

The chances of you getting that post on the Queen's speech? Almost nil. The one about how George Galloway beat the senate? Lost without trace, just like his measly opponents. The ones I can't remember? Dead in the water.

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posted 18 May 2005, 18.03 +0100

The UN has confirmed last year's Lancet survey showing about 100,000 extra deaths in Iraq under the occupation. Tim Lambert has more.

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posted 18 May 2005, 19.12 +0100

Martin Stabe links to some comments from people who have never seen forgeries exposed live on national television. (Well, CSPN3.) Even Mr Galloway's enemies were full of praise. Sisuy wrote:

His rabid soundbites will be manna for the gaping media maw in the coming news cycles. Presumably that's Galloway's strategy; we have a gut feeling the truth will out.

A more fair and balanced view comes from Islam Online.

UK viewers who want to see the whole 45-minute spectacle for themselves should, I suspect, watch BBC Parliament at noon on Sunday.

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posted 18 May 2005, 19.20 +0100

A thorougly bizarre adjournment debate in the Commons last night. 20,000 people in Southend have vanished, according to the national census. If you've seen these people, don't tell the ONS, for the local MPs have already done that task.

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posted 18 May 2005, 19.21 +0100

As regular readers will know, I've become increasingly suspicious of Google's plans to take over the interweb, one byte at a time.

Having the best search algorithm is an excellent goal, and their Page Rank helped to ensure that was the case. However, in the past couple of years, Google has fallen victim to people deliberately trying to fix things so that they appear ahead of the competition. Just try looking for a London hotel, and you'll get my drift. Google is no longer winning its core competency; I find Yahoo to be a superior search engine in all respects.

Without the search, what else does Google have? A Usenet archive, which used to be comprehensive, easy to search, and easy to use. Now, it's suffered a re-design that hides the important information, and displays only the fluff. Munging email addresses is poor, but just about understandable; putting all sorts of guff in the message ID shows a complete lack of knowledge about the basics of Usenet.

I had a brief correspondence with Google about bugs in their display, and they are still to be fixed. People still write assuming a fixed-width post, yet Google has decreed that all posts shall be in a proportional font. Google Groups is now a competitor to Usenet, and further blurs the line between web fora and NNTP. If it ever was the best Usenet archive, Google clearly no longer holds that award.

Then there's Adwords / Adsense, possibly the most obnoxious advertising yet known to man. It tailors the adverts it produces to the text on the page. Usually, it does an atrocious job. For instance, one of my chums was emailing with someone else who had missed the SURVIVOR final, was downloading the torrent, and carefully avoiding spoilers. The G-mail people helped out with the ads and linked to news stories about the winner. Adwords ruined the show for him. Adwords is probably still the best in this market, but then it's the only one in this market.

Then there's Google's take-over of Blogger, a decidedly second-rate blog service; Okrut, yet another social networking thingummy; and Answers, a thoroughly obscure service that's far less useful than the one that answers questions by SMS. Then there's Froogle, yet another shopping portal, and one that charges £15 for the Eurovision album. It's £9 from Smiths. And the Local directory, an inferior version of the Yellow Pages.

Oh yes, and there's Google-mail, wanted by privacy advocates in all civilised countries for its failure to respect any sensible standards of privacy. It's still inferior to a simple POP3 account.

In short, Google is no longer the market leader in anything worthwhile. It does not respond to user suggestions, fails to take account of privacy, and is part of the legal creep that the failed american colonies are trying to bring to the rest of the world.

I'm not standing for this any longer. Google has been served formal notice that it is no longer to visit, cache, or otherwise store any of my pages. I will not have my work being used by any company that subverts the values - of honesty, openness, fair play, and respect for other people - I hold dear.

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posted 19 May 2005, 19.10 +0100

Yesterday, the Environment Agency published a report claiming that, in ecological terms, there was little difference between disposable nappies and washable ones. Leo Hickman begs to differ.

What did the report have to say about the fact that disposable nappies are the largest single-item household contributor to landfill sites, taking up between 2% and 8% of a landfill's volume? What about the cost of this disposal - that for every pound we spend on disposable nappies, the taxpayer has to spend 10p disposing of them? Why are its findings based on an assumption that washable aficionados use 47 nappies, whereas we had easily got by on 20? Why does the report include the energy used to iron nappies? Who on earth irons their nappies? Why was it assumed that people environmentally conscious enough to be using washable nappies would automatically want to tumble dry them? Much greater emphasis is given to people who wash their nappies at 90C, instead of the 60C recommended by the washable nappy manufacturers. It all seems bizarrely weighted against the use of washables.

Could this be an insidious plot to assuage the guilt of people who do use disposables? Or could it simply be that the Environment Agency doesn't know its nappies from its elbow-pads? Either way, it's not on for government departments to go around spreading such unscientific guffery.

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posted 20 May 2005, 19.37 +0100

The Universal Daily Registertab reports that milk is back in vogue, thanks to porridge. Er, wha? You don't make porridge with milk, just oats, water, a dash of salt, and a little sugar. Maybe a little cream, but not milk.

I am surprised to learn that milk sales slumped from 20 milliard litres per year (1994) to 4.3 milliard (2003). No wonder dairy herds are in crisis.

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posted 20 May 2005, 19.38 +0100

... Deporting people acquited of a crime. Remember the "ricin plot" that sprang into life six weeks ago? Though acquited by a competent court of law, the government proposes deporting the men acquited of any crime back to Algeria. As sure as eggs is eggs, they'll be harrassed, tortured, and quite possibly killed. Not in my name, Tony.

... Scott Ritter comes down on the side of George Galloway. "He stared down the senate, and won."

... Domestically, declining a chance to remove corruption from the voting system. We all know that the current postal voting arrangements are a farce. Yesterday, the independent Electoral Commission called for individual voter registration, new offences to prevent vote-rigging, an end to all-postal votes, and increasing the turnaround time for postal votes. Six days is not sufficient, especially after the damage inflicted by this government on the previously-reliable Royal Mail. Yet the unelectable rump will ignore the safeguards that won't help them increase their dubious mandate.

... And deploying the completely unelectable Charlie Falconer to claim that the current voting system represents the British people "perfectly." For values of "perfect" that include a government backed by just two people in nine; and one that wasn't even the largest single party by vote in England. Mr Falconer hasn't won an election since leaving school. We deserve a better way.

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posted 21 May 2005, 11.19 +0100

In the week when Europe generally goes Eurovision crazy, it seems that normal taste rules have stopped applying. How else does one explain Sweden's biggest seller being Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil once again? Or Germany buying up loads of copies of Cowboy, a two-year old record by Popstars winners Chipz. Disposable pop at its most disposable.

The madness continues in the UK, where Oasis have the 1002nd best-selling single. Laa-Laa is a poor cover of Ashley Simpson's song of just a few months ago, albeit with slightly different words. The Black Eyed Pears' cover of an old Lisa Lisa tack lands in the top three, alongside a re-make of an old Yes track, and the Kaiser Chiefs pretending that they're cutting edge when we all know they're only popular because they're re-treading Britpop. Milo, the former member of the Tweenies, has his third big hit with In my arms, the third song this year to sample Waiting for a star to fall, but the first to mix it with Bette Davis eyes.

Here's the Twenty.

*20 NE Chipz - Cowboy
 19 re Sinsemilia - Tout le bonheur du monde
 18 16 Sarah Connor - From zero to hero
 17 15 Jean Dujardin - Le casse du brice
 16  8 Tears - Refugees
 15  5 Mario - Let me love you
 14 12 Snoop Dogg - Signs
*13 14 Daniel Powter - Bad day
 12 10 Goo Goo Dolls - Give a little bit
 11 11 Schnappi - Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil
 10  6 50 Cent - Candy shop
* 9 18 Rob Thomas - Lonely no more
  8  7 Garbage - Why do you love me?
* 7 NE Coldplay - Speed of sound
* 6  9 Gregory Lemarchal - Ecris l'histoire
* 5 NE Gorillas - Feelgood inc
  4  1 Ilona Mitrecey - Un monde parfait
  3  2 Moby - Lift me up
  2  3 Tony Christie - Is this the way to Amarillo?
* 1  4 Natalie Imbruglia - Shiver

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posted 22 May 2005, 19.16 +0100

A rather spring-like week, the slight nip left the air in mid-week, resulting in some slightly hot and sultry air on Thursday and Friday. That led to some thunderstorms over the week-end.

16 Mo cloud, some drizzle 10/13
17 Tu sunny spells         2/12
18 We sunny spells         4/14
19 Th sunny spells         8/19
20 Fr sunny spells        12/17
21 Sa sun, thunder showers 6/14
22 Su sun, thunder showers 7/15

Four degree heating days this week, winter's total is 677½.

Next week looks interesting; there's a complex area of low pressure developing over the Atlantic, and that'll bring some beefy rain to the south and west over the next couple of days. Behind those fronts lies the hot continental weather, and that'll probably be able to exert an influence over the south-east towards the week-end.

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posted 22 May 2005, 19.19 +0100

older writing... write to