Archive for September, 2007
New Address
If you are reading this you may have noticed the blog has got it’s own shiny new URL.
Yep from now on, http://www.pushingjelly.co.uk is the place to be.
I hope it will make it a bit easier to link and propgate the address. Hey we may even get a few more visitors (other than Ian and Matthew – hi guys).
For those of us that can’t be arsed to change their bookmarks, the old one will still divert you.
Fas-cis-m in the U.S.A.
The realisation that their country is in trouble may be finally becoming clear more of the inhabitants of the USA.
The Guardian had a story by American writer Naomi Wolf describing the steps to fascism the Bush administration seems to be taking. It is well worth a read.
Even throughout history the roadmap to control a populous has been known by leaders:
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy, all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same in every country.”Hermann Goering, Hitler’s Reich-Marshall at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII
There is another quote that is wrongly attributed to William Shakespeare on the net, but is poinient none the less:
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind …. and when the drums of war have reached fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.
Gallery of curiosities
I have just posted a few pictures here (about 700 in fact) that I found over the last year or so of web surfing.
Enjoy!
Becoming clearer
OK, so the blessed beeb have sold their soul to the Redmond devils for a pound of DRM flesh in the shape of something insultingly called iPlayer (hmm a bit like iPod – I see a lawsuit coming), of course much to the annoyance of anyone who doesn’t use XP as their primary computer operating platform (e.g. Mac, Vista and Linux users etc.).
Now the story is becoming clearer as the rumblings of a bigger distribution deal comes to light. It would seem that Aunty wants to use the XBox 360 as a delivery platform for BBC content. Engadget is reporting that Microsoft have admitted they are in discussions with The Corporation to use devices like the new 360 “Elite” model to run as an IP based streaming player. Sony entertainment are going to use the PS3 to do the same thing apparently.
Deals with the Devil and his minions through mythology have seldom gone well for the third parties. For the good of our favourite broadcast institution, lets hope that this contract was signed without the opening of an artery.
Final Insult
Living in a city there is always going to be space issues – its part of city life, this is also an issue for the dead apparently. The BBC tonight reported at the City of London cemetery, in the east of the city – incidently the place where most of my ancestors are interred, has decided that because there is a space issue they are going to start digging people up and re-burying them deeper so they can slot a couple of strangers into the plot.
They are writing to last know relatives to ask permission but those that have been in the ground for more that 75 years are to just be exhumed.
So much for rest in peace. Perhaps we should return to the days when we stored the bones of our dead in Ossuaries(a sort of mass bone room). The disposal of our dead has been troublesome for centuries.
Personally I like the Soylent Green idea – it alleviates the burial issue and could help the third world food crisis to boot.
Harrrr!
‘appy Talk like a Pirate day ya swabs!
Google, spy feeders.
Many a true word said in jest, so goes the famous quote. Never has this been truer than when said of the Fake Steve Jobs blog. Bizarre and often near to offensive, fake Steve frequently sails very close to the wind and to the truth.
In a recent post, FSJ talks about the Googleguys annoying Larry Ellison by getting permission to land their jet at a NASA air base.
Larry is so incensed apparently, he is about to spill the beans on Google’s involvement with the NSA and CIA.
I, with my conspiracy head on, have been saying this for years. I have always thought that Google was a US government department. What better way of spying on the internet using populous than watching what they search for.
Google is omniscient, most people use it, they are developing intrusive software like their mail and office applications where you store your information on their servers and their desktop search utility which scans the information you don’t give them to look after. It is so blatant, they don’t even hide the fact that they look at your documents, the added insult is that they then advertise at you based on the information they siphon off.
I for one don’t trust them and don’t use my “G” services account (G for Government?), but unfortunately they own the internet, our sites are dependent on them for any kind of hit success and we are directed there by our browsers by default.
As users of the information age, we are pwned by the US government.
Information is power. Power corrupts.
Time to fall off the map.
Crippled Rant
So the long awaitied iPod touch(ed) is here at last. As usual the devil is in the detail and it isn’t what Steve says but what he doesn’t that is usually the important thing.
It’s a cut down iPhone with limited software. Period. It doesn’t even have email for Shrek’s sake.
Is it just me or does the lack of many icons look odd on the device, like they forgot to add some stuff?
And what is the BS about Starbucks? is it REALLY going to take that long to roll it out to the stores? “ohh we’ll have three stores live by MARCH”, WTF?
Touch aside, the new Nano is cute, 160gb classic (there’s a curve ball) and price cut to the phone (I bet that pissed of a lot of people).
So the normal mix of pleasure and annoyance from an Apple announcement.
Watch the procedings here and breath. KT Tunstall is at the end, so there’s something to look forward to I guess.