http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net If blogs could talk, this one would say "crustacean". Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:33:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Spotted these in the supermarket. Oh dear, oh dear oh dear. Black pudding fingers in batter. Deep-fried meatballs. And I love the patriotic branding, too. From mid-September, I will be the Free Software Foundation Europe's intern in Zürich :) I graduated n shit. Revisit The Show with Ze Frank. Yes, I know it ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/07/28/errata-ad-nauseum/ I came in to work happy this morning. Firstly, because it's a beautiful day. And secondly because of this. http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/07/25/swingometer/ What a lovely euphemism. See how you'd stack up as a 1930s husband or wife.   62As a 1930s husband, I amSuperiorTake the test!   Golly gosh! http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/07/20/1930s/ Top Gear, series 11, episode 3. Time difference from broadcast to posting on iPlayer: 1 hour Time difference from broadcast to availability (in presumably higher quality) via BitTorrent: 2 hours Impressive no? Especially as the BitTorrent release groups have to re-encode the stuff before posting it. http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/07/06/an-observation/ I don't pretend to know anything about football, but the criticism of Austria and Switzerland's preparations for Euro 2008 looks to be misguided, if Zürich is a representative example. I've been there since yesterday - for reasons which I won't mention in case I jinx something - and the whole place ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/06/07/fan-zones/ I've decided to start using Pownce for posting links and little tidbits that aren't worthy of a blog article. I'll also be using it for status updates. If you haven't used Pownce before - it's a microblogging tool, like Twitter, but it has quite a few nice features that Twitter doesn't ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/05/30/pownce/ So an MA student at Nottingham University doing research into political Islam downloads a 1,500 page 'terrorism manual' from a U.S. government website, and asks his friend who works as a PA at the University to print it for him (he doesn't have enough print credits himself). The University then informs ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/05/27/rough-justice/ The UK seems to be becoming allergic to protest. The extent to which freedom of expression is being curtailed is becoming quite scary.   A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology. The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police when ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/05/21/wtf/ "Overthrowing Government on a Budget" "Rembrandt, Pr0n and Robot Monkeys: Lessons From the Present About Flesh and Technology" "Tracking Arms Dealers with Python and Bits of String" From the Open Tech 2008 line-up. http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/05/15/best-conference-session-titles-ever/ Significant changes are underway in British politics, and Scotland has a crucial role. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Scottish politics is changing, and that it is having important implications for the assumptions that UK politics is based on. The incumbent UK Prime Minister is Scottish and in a spot ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/05/13/the-unravelling-of-labour-britain/ Interesting times ahead in civil liberties in the post-Lisbon treaty era? An interesting analysis from the Centre for European Reform: The new politics of EU internal security: This is area of international co-operation that has long been the exclusive domain of national governments. For over 20 years, interior ministries – meeting ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/05/11/european-parliament-to-assert-lisbon-powers-in-civil-liberties-and-internal-security/ Especially when it involves pissing off Cliff Richard. http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/05/06/alls-fair-in-love-and-war/ DMCA takedown notices, be gone! The Internet's favourite young Prince fan can now be seen dancing his little heart out thanks to the EFF (who, having sued Universal over the takedown request, are currently pursuing the argument in court that the video constitutes fair use of the Prince song). It still ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/04/29/357/ 1. There was a ned on the bus today with extraordinarily varied (and sometimes quite good) taste in music. Normally there's someone at the back playing Happy Hardcore or something really loud on their mobile. This particular gentleman started off with something like that, and then embarked on a musical odyssey ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/04/21/dear-green-place/ I can only describe this video as follows: Terry Gilliam directs anime on a SNES, with a soundtrack by Dreamtheater and Children of Bodom, and animation by Shigeru Miyamoto, while the whole crew smoke a whole lotta crack. In Space. Unfortunately, I'm now permanently emotionally scarred. No matter. Make sure you download the ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/03/30/kings-of-power-4-billion/ Some sensible rulings from the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Consitutional Court - gotta love those compound words) on data privacy and state surveillance: Germany's highest court apparently had memories of Nazi and Stasi abuses in mind when it ruled on a series of surveillance and data privacy cases this year. In the ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/03/20/gehen-wir-nach-deutschland/ Hair has neither the intellect nor the cognitive capacity to umpire sport - not even one as pedestrian as cricket. And how did they restore it??? Spotted on BBC News online. http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/03/19/web-zen-grecian-2000/ I just realised the extent to which UK mobile networks bugger about with your internet connection on your phone. I had noticed aggressive image compression on certain sites - the Youtube logo looks pretty terrible, for example - but I had assumed that it was done at the website and appplied ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/03/15/mobile-browsing-shenanigans/ Since I posted my initial story on Pete Wishart MP's sound recording copyright term extension Bill, quite a few things happened in my life (like moving house, and being devoid of internet access) which meant that I haven't had a chance to post an update on the situation until now. The ... http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/03/15/sound-recordings-copyright-term-extension-bill-update/ I just realised I write notes for Politics classes like I write code... Should I be concerned?? http://www.earthmostlyharmless.net/2008/03/03/hierarchichichichical/