Monthly Archive for May, 2007
The prospective widening of Australia’s censorship laws to crackdown on material that advocates terrorism has alarmed civil society groups.
“The proposed changes raise fundamental problems by infringing on the right to free speech,” says Stephen Blanks, secretary of the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL).
A close friend ofmy parents is quoted in the article too!
Alex Byrne, president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), argues that the changes amount to a censoring of ideas. “They’re censoring political views which they believe may incite terrorism. In doing that they’re censoring views that they see as inimical to good order. That is political censorship,” he says.Byrne says that the current classification code is adequate and has produced good results. “Expanding the ambit, to what are in fact political issues, fundamentally changes the (classification code) regime and it’s a very dangerous step for us to take,” he argues.
At work at Hursley there is an annual event organised called Hursley Techincal Exchange (HTX). It aims to inform the lab about some of the new technology being developed both inside IBM and in the rest of the world. I went to one talk today which was mostly about the Cell Processor and other “next gen” (well, current gen now) consoles. It gave some background on the hardware architecture of the top 3 consoles, but specifically looked at the PS3. At the end was a video from a demo of a new game being developed for the PS3, called Little Big Planet
The video below gives an idea what the game can do, but the basic idea is that all the objects and levels are easily user created. It is quite a demo of what the Cell processor can do as a complex physics engine
It also reminded me about Spore, which is also based around the idea of user created content. Not the levels, but the creatures within the game are all either randomly generated by the computer or pulled down via the internet from another players computer, giving some truly interesting characters. The big idea in Spore is that however your creature is designed it will develop a unique way of walking, using tools, eating etc. The videos give a better idea (The long demo will take a while to watch, but is definitely worth it!)
If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?
If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?
Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?
Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?
Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
Why isn’t the number 11 pronounced onety one?
“I am” is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that “I do” is the longest sentence?
If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?
What hair colour do they put on the driver’s licenses of bald men?
I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?
Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don’t they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?
You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
No one ever says, “It’s only a game” when their team is winning.
Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.
If 4 out of 5 people suffer from diarrhoea. Does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?
On my way home from work on Friday I ran over a snake turning a corner on my motorbike. I heard the thing go crunch, and thought I had killed it. When I pulled up on to the pavement and had a look, the poor thing was still alive. Quite startled by a few passing cars it started slithering back off the road to the grass, but I went to get a look at it.
It was a pale green colour, getting lighter towards the belly, and had several rows of brown/black spots or diamons running down its length, close enough together to look almost like stripes. It was hardly more than 2cm diameter, but was almost a meter long. I am still having trouble identifying it though. According to wikipedia, there are only 3 types of snake in the UK. Other sites seem to confirm this, but none say how many intriduced species there may be.
I doubt it was a Grass Snake, as the pattern is completely wrong and I did not notice any bands behind the head. There is no chance it was an adder as it is very different, so that really only leaves the Smooth Snake. The description of the pattern matches what I saw, but the colour of the snake is not correct. It is a shame I did not grab my phone and try to get a photo of it - I was half tempted to try and pick it up to get a closer look at the head (which might help identification) but even with leather motorbike gloves on was not so sure about that idea…
