I’ve been asked to speak at the April meeting of the North London branch of the British Computer Society (more details nearer the time) and they invited me along as a guest to the March meeting so I’d get a feel for how their meetings work. The meeting was at a Microsoft office in central… Continue reading Davorg in the Lion’s Den
TheOpenCD
I’ve just been sent[1] a free sample copy of TheOpenCD. This is an evangelism project which provides nicely packaged CDs containing open source applications for Windows users. The version I have contains OpenOffice.org, the Gimp, Mozilla and a host of other less well-known apps. It also contains tutorials and a few books about open source.… Continue reading TheOpenCD
The Miner’s Strike – 20 Years On
It’s twenty years since the start of the miner’s strike and the papers are full of retrospective pieces. One of the best is this piece by Seumas Milne from Saturday’s Guardian. The miner’s strike was one of the most devastating episodes from recent(ish) political history and it’s very worrying to see that even now (under… Continue reading The Miner’s Strike – 20 Years On
Football Spin
A number of British football players have been accused of sexual assault whilst in Spain. I’m sure that, by now, no-one is surprised by stories like this. But a report that I saw on the TV this morning contained a very strange quote from the club involved. A spokesperson was quoted as saying “we will… Continue reading Football Spin
Music Tagging Again
Here’s a perfect example of the madness I mentioned last week. I have a set of four compilation CDs which were released in 2001/2 called The Album. Yesterday I started ripping them. I use grip to rip CDs and grip gets CD and track data from FreeDB. FreeDB gets its data from submissions by users.… Continue reading Music Tagging Again
Fifty Quid Guy
Looks like I’m part of a named demographic. According to The Guardian I’m “50 quid guy”. On a hot day at County Hall in London, [David] Hepworth stood up and gave Britain’s record-company bosses a lecture about their own customers, concentrating on “the 50-quid guy”, a term he had picked up from friends in retail.… Continue reading Fifty Quid Guy
Oscar Overkill
The Return of the King was, of course, a very good film. But was it really that good? Be honest. Was it really the best film of last year in eleven separate categories? And can you even remember the song that it won an Oscar for? I know I can’t. It’s hard to see this… Continue reading Oscar Overkill
Music Tagging
The way that music files are tagged is all wrong. There must be a better solution. Like (I suppose) most people reading this I have a large (and growing) collection of music files that I’ve (legally, of course) ripped from my CDs. The ripping software that I use writes various information about the track into… Continue reading Music Tagging
The Manual
I’m not entirely sure what the connection is, but on Tom Robinson’s web site I’ve just found the complete text of the KLF’s The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way). I’m sure that the general principles they talk about still hold true, but it’s interesting how much the music industry has… Continue reading The Manual
Roy Lichtenstein
Yesterday I went to see the new Roy Lichtenstein exhibition (warning – Flash and sound) at the Hayward Gallery. As an avid comics fan, my earliest memories of “proper art” are of Lichtenstein works like Whaam! or Image Duplicator. This exhibition has lots of that stuff, but also a lot of newer[1] works that I… Continue reading Roy Lichtenstein