These kinds of things are always very dubious, but top 100 lists are always fun to discuss. Blogstorm have published a list of the top 100 British blogs. The list is calculated from some combination of Technorati and Alexa ratings.
Good to see a few friends and colleagues on there.
A predictable furore over at the BBC HYS about the future of the corporation. An astonishing number of people seem to like to use the BBC forums to tell everyone how much they hate the BBC.
Here's my personal favourite so far:
Changes should be made immediately by canceling contract for the likes of Jonathan (W)woss and the other guy, Russel Brand, neither of whom have no clue of the english language - that will save a few million for starters."Ray Wylde, Bournemouth
Did you get that? "Neither of whom have no clue of the english language".
You couldn't make it up.
I've banged on before about the need for web sites to store passwords encrypted. This is a good example of why it's necessary.
Fasthosts, "the UK's number 1 web host", has fired off emergency emails telling customers to change all their passwords after police were called in to investigate a major data breach.
Also note:
We've asked Fasthosts why the passwords were not encrypted in the first place. It said: "Historically, Internet companies have rarely encrypted passwords to aid customer service."
Hmm.... "aid customer service"? Not sure that rings true. Particularly when someone breaks into your systems and gains access to your customer database. If the passwords were encrypted then they would still be secret.
Of course, there are many other good reasons for not using Fasthosts.
If I had any sites hosted with them, I'd be moving them away very quickly right now.
Update: From the Register's discussion on this story:
Any developer worth his salt wouldn't make such a hash of this.
Nice bit of geek humour.
In December 2004 I bemoaned the fact that god was to be cut from the film versions of His Dark Materials. The first film will be released in a couple of months' time and I see (via MediaWatchWatch) that the cuts from The Golden Compass aren't deep enough the satisfy the Catholic League who have called for a boycott of the film. Apparently children who see the film could be encouraged to read the books and would therefore be introduced to the full force of Philip Pullman's dangerous atheism.
Perhaps we should have a campaign to donate copies of the books to local Catholic churches.
Update: More from the Observer and the National Secular Society (I didn't mention that I'd joined the NSS, did I?). I'm particularly appalled by the quotation from Nicole Kidman:
I was raised Catholic, the Catholic Church is part of my essence ... I wouldn't be able to do this film if I thought it were at all anti-Catholic.
I've written before about Conservapedia, the web site that is using the same software as Wikipedia to build an encyclopedia of the US christian right's view of the world.
Usually their nonsense is just amusing. But their article on Richard Dawkins has recently verged on libel. They seem determined to promote the opinion that Dawkins is not a professor. On the off-chance that sanity breaks out eventually and they article is cleaned up, here's an archive of what it currently says:
Richard Dawkins is the holder of a donated "post" at the Museum of Natural History, an institution owned by the University of Oxford. The "post" does not entail "substantial teaching."Currently Richard Dawkins claims on his resume the academic authority of a "professor" at the University of Oxford, but his "professorship" is actually described by Oxford as a "post" during which Dawkins enjoys the income pursuant to the donor's intent. Leading universities do not permit the "buying" of a professorship for someone. The post becomes a "professorship" when a subsequent beneficiary is promoted to the position based on a peer review election process.
The special terms of this gift allowed Richard Dawkins to bypass the peer review promotion process customarily required before receiving the title of "professor". In other words, the gift establishes an endowment for future professors, but is held initially as a "post" by Dawkins who was apparently never subjected to the full peer review election process specified in the endowment.
As of October 5, 2007, the Oxford University's Zoology Department lists the status of Richard Dawkins status as "other" rather than as "academic". Since March 30, 2005, Dawkins' online resume has stated his academic credential as "Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, University of Oxford," when in fact Dawkins' position is at the Museum of Natural History, an institution merely owned by the University of Oxford. The title "professor" is misleading, if not fraudulent, as the position donated for his benefit does not satisfy the Merriam-Webster definition of "professor": "a faculty member of the highest academic rank at an institution of higher education."
It's a shame that these enemies of reason feel they have to resort to such underhand tactics. They can't argue with Dawkins' points about religion so they resort to trying to undermine his academic standing.
It's worth reading the discussion page associated with the article. You'll see that there are quite a few people arguing on the side of reason, but that the loudest voice denying Dawkins' title is the owner of the site. And he is the final arbiter of what the page says.
Yesterday's Observer has a piece about Stewart Dimmock the lorry driver and school governor who campaigned against Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth being shown to British schoolchildren. Dimmock's campaign has largely been portrayed as a "David and Goliath" fight, with Dimmock as the underdog, fighting a school system that is trying to indoctrinate his children.
The truth is, it seems, a little different.
The Observer has established that Dimmock's case was supported by a powerful network of business interests with close links to the fuel and mining lobbies. He was also supported by a Conservative councillor in Hampshire, Derek Tipp.
Dimmock also has links with the New Party, a Tory spin-off that was formed when the Tories were floundering under the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith in 2002. The New Party has strong links to Scientific Alliance a group that "promotes biotechnology, genetically modified food, and climate change scepticism." The Scientific Alliance were advisers on Channel Four's largely discredited documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.
So it seems that Dimmock's campaign isn't one man against the system as he'd like you to believe but, rather, the last-gasp attempt by a group of people who want to stop the climate change message getting out.
Al Gore and the UN's IPCC have won the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm not entirely sure what climate change has to do with peace, but it's nice to see his work honoured.
What isn't so nice (but isn't at all unexpected) is the stupidity being demonstrated in the BBC Have Your Say on the subject. There is still a depressingly large number of people who deny climate change. People like Stewart Dimmock. Oh, actually, that reminds me. Once it gets going, the Daily Mail debate on this topic is going to hysterical (in both meanings of the word).
Update: Simon points out that climate change has the potential to cause huge amounts of conflict over the coming decades. So perhaps this is a pre-emptive Peace Prize.
For more details, here's the Nobel Foundation's press release.
Update: My current favourite from the BBC Have You Say nonsense-fest:
As long one hates liberals, one does not have to apply basic logic.G_Slick, North Carolina, United States
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