One last round-up of US election stuff and I promise we’ll be back to our scheduled programming. Firstly a site where intelligent Americans apologise to the rest of the world. In today’s Guardian Simon Schama writes about the divisions in the USA and names the two nations Worldly America and Godly America. Worldly America, which… Continue reading Election Aftermath
Author: Dave Cross
Why They Did It
The BBC have put up a “have your say” page asking Americans why they voted for Bush. The answers make for some very depressing reading. There are an incredible number of people who mention the fact that Bush is a christian in their responses. I’m constantly astonished by the number of Americans who see this… Continue reading Why They Did It
Four More Years
The news sites are just starting to run stories saying that John Kerry has conceded defeat in the presidential election. If I’ve learned anything from the last 12 hours, it’s that the large number of intelligent and decent Americans that I know only represent half of a bitterly divided country. There are just as many… Continue reading Four More Years
Dadblog
For a few months now I’ve been getting a lot of pleasure out of reading Dadblog. Today Lloyd excels himself by coming out in support of John Kerry (not that that was much of a surprise to anyone) in an entry that includes this: But if you believe the government of the most powerful political… Continue reading Dadblog
GMT and NaNoWriMo
It used to be simple to put the clocks back at the end of October. I’d just go round the house putting everything back by an hour. Now it’s more confusing. We have a number of clocks that deal with the time change themselves. So I have to work out which ones need changing. It’s… Continue reading GMT and NaNoWriMo
Tabloid Times
According to a story in today’s Guardian, The Times is planning to go tabloid-only within two weeks. A later story (warning: Media Guardian site requires registration) claims that it will be happening from Monday and there are a large number of advertising spots booked for this weekend which will inform readers. No-one else seems to… Continue reading Tabloid Times
Was Darwin Wrong?
No, of course he wasn’t. But the cover of the new National Geographic cruelly gives a second or two of hope to the religious fundamentalists. Actually it seems to be an article about how most people don’t understand the concept of a scientific theory. Nice piece about it here (which I was directed to by… Continue reading Was Darwin Wrong?
Stealing Bandwidth is Bad
Like many of us, my friend Dave has a number of photos on his web site. Recently he started to see a large number of requests for this photo. On further investigation he discovered that this forum was using it as a background image. Without asking permission and without taking the obvious step of taking… Continue reading Stealing Bandwidth is Bad
Radio Times
The Radio Times web site got a bit of a makeover a couple of days ago. It looks a lot nicer now and feels a bit faster. What it needs now is some nice RSS feeds. “What’s on now” or “On Channel 4 tonight” – things like that. And. of course, a web services API… Continue reading Radio Times
Open Source in Government
Michael Cross (no relation) reports on the announcement of a shift in the UK government’s attitudes to Open Source software. The Treasury’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC), set up to get better value from government procurements, will today announce that open source is a “viable desktop alternative for the majority of users” and that it… Continue reading Open Source in Government