I don’t know about you, but if I were to set up a Public Relations firm, I think that last thing I would call it is Mischief PR. It sounds such a hostage to fortune to me. Anyway, someone’s gone and done it, and guess what, they’re refusing to come clean on the data behind a story they’ve apparently concocted for one of their clients. Why am I not surprised?
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The Margarets
My interest is piqued by this review of Sheri Tepper’s The Margarets. And not just because I was totally surprised and astonished by the twist in Tepper’s The Family Tree that is referred to here. The Margarets sounds like a book to add to the wishlist.Leave a comment
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Woodpeckers
From where I sit behind the computer, I can look out onto our front garden. It is often visited by green or spotted woodpeckers. Yesterday, there was a thump on the window – a juvenile green woodpecker had flown into it. It staggered about for a moment or two, and then flew off before I could grab the camera. Here’s a couple of shots of other woodpeckers investigating the pear tree in the garden.
Update: that juvenile woodpecker was obviously destined to be unlucky. This morning I found it dead by the side of the road. I’m pretty sure it would be the same individual, and it had probably flown into the path of a passing car…Leave a comment
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Live Search Sucks
Why is Microsoft’s Live Search so bad at searching? It’s a question I often ask myself. Take today, for example, I wanted to check my blog for entries about the woodpeckers that visit our garden. You may have noticed that on my Live Spaces homepage, there’s a Live Search gadget that enables you to search my blog entries directly.
So I go ahead and type in "woodpecker" and click the "Search" button. Result? Zilch, nada, nothing, zero result. That’s odd, think I, because I know that I have a blog entry on the woodpeckers in the garden. So I go to Google’s blog search and do the same thing. Result? A hit on the correct page.As I say, why is Microsoft’s Live Search so bad? It’s embarrassing.Update: you may note that now the results are more or less correct. That’s because months have gone by and Live Search’s spider has finally got around to visiting the relevant web pages. Well, whoop-de-doo. It still doesn’t excuse the miserable performance of the service as a whole.Update II: I’ve now removed the gadget entirely since it recently stopped working at all, and always returned zero hits. The reason is that bloody Microsoft went and changed the search query syntax of its search engine, so any code out there that uses the old syntax is now well and truly screwed.Update III: …and has Microsoft removed the gadget from the Windows Live Gallery? Nope, of course not. It’s still there, and in a prominent position. People – don’t you care that you’re increasing the noise to signal ratio? Clearly not. There’s a lesson for us all here… humankind will be Easter Island writ large…2 responses to “Live Search Sucks”
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Livesearch is the plague of online retailers – Don’t fall for their bs – Microsoft just wants a piece of every pie, just like all evil money hording big businesses – Hey- pricks up in redmond, go sit on a tack ya bastards – I wish the search engines would stop screwing with online retail and let us make money, ebay and amazon are bad enough but now you guys want a percentage given to you for doing nothing but raising the price for the consumer and lower profits for retailersGoogle Yahoo and MSN can all die in a fire – I say we don’t pay anymore, directories SHOULD be freeSadly Advertising products in Search Engines is almost as bad as tossing your money in the trash
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"like all evil money hording [sic] big businesses" – sigh, that’s rather a simplistic view of the world I think. I have no problem with businesses trying to make money as long as they do it ethically, and what they produce serves their customers. Directories should be free? Nice idea, but in the real world TANSTAAFL…
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Re-visualising Da Vinci
And on a lighter note, rather than dwelling on waterboarding, here’s news of Peter Greenaway’s attempt to cast Da Vinci’s The Last Supper in a new light – literally. The video is quite intriguing, although I can’t say I was taken by the music. I note that "Some of Greenaway’s more controversial plans had to be shelved, such as to depict Christ’s genitalia and show the apostles’ cups overflowing with blood". Well, there’s a surprise, then.Leave a comment
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Waterboarding Hitchens
Earlier this year, Christopher Hitchens agreed to undergo waterboarding in order to answer for himself the question of whether the process constitutes torture or not. His answer, in this month’s Vanity Fair is non-equivocal: Believe me, it’s torture.Even more harrowing was watching the video of him getting waterboarded, despite the strains of Enigma playing in the background. What astounded me was seeing for myself how little time is required before the victim believes himself or herself to be simultaneously smothered and drowning. Tellingly, Hitchens says that since the experience, he’s had nightmares about it.Leave a comment
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Head-Wall-Head-Wall
It’s not often that I feel sympathy for Inayat Bunglawala, but I do in this exchange he has had with Harun Yahya. The latter is a typically depressing denialist of the fact of evolution. It’s enough to make the brain cells shrivel reading his utter bollocks.Leave a comment
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Rodeo Fun
And you thought Goat-dressing was bizarre? Meet Whiplash. I’m still trying to digest the semiotics.Leave a comment
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A Little Problem
So I read Anne Atkin’s apologia about Gafcon, and, I’m sorry, but I think it is perverse. Yes, I’m sure that she thinks she is right, but, sorry, I think she is deluded."I find this utterly thrilling stuff, which is why I was there. It has changed my life, shaped my choices, gloriously enriched my relationships, and most important of all, will get me through the biggest challenge I will ever face: my death and what lies beyond."Erm, reality to Anne, there ain’t nothing beyond your death. Do good in your life, it’s all you have – and on this evidence, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Your Gafcon crowd are simply causing misery. That I consider immoral.Leave a comment
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The Big Bang Machine
All you ever wanted to know about the Large Hadron Collider, courtesy of the Guardian. I’m looking forward to it being switched on.Leave a comment
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So Fucking What…
Sorry for the intemperate headline, but while thinking about Stephen Fry’s response to sensitive souls who take offense at every little thing, it seemed to me to be aposite for Stephen Lenski’s reponse to Andrew Schlafly’s particularly stupid queries over Lenski’s research. As Lenski says,In other words, it’s not that we claim to have glimpsed "a unicorn in the garden" – we have a whole population of them living in my lab!Ridicule is the best weapon against these IDiots, I’m sure.Update: Here’s the complete exchange between Schlafly and Lenski for your delectation.Leave a comment
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Too Late…
For my vicarious pleasure, I often peruse the Not Always Right web site, where the more depressing side of humanity is often on display during a customer/vendor transaction. While most of them make me despair for the future of humanity, some (thankfully) make me realise that we are all simply susceptible to human foibles. Long may it continue.Leave a comment
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Wind-powered Skyscrapers
Architect David Fisher has come up with the idea of skyscrapers where each floor can rotate independently, driven by wind turbines. Intriguing, although I assume that the kitchen and bathroom units will hug the central, static, core of the building. Otherwise, rotating plumbing could present some interesting engineering challenges.Leave a comment
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Nothing Can Go Wrong…
Geoff Manaugh, over at BLDGBLOG, has an intriguing entry on RoboVault, a robotic storage facility in Florida. It’s also worth visiting RoboVault’s actual web site, if only to hear the corny voiceover extolling the virtues of the facility. Mind you, if the web site is anything to go by, I don’t think I’d entrust anything of value to them. The web site is peppered full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar. Nothing can go wrong… go wrong…. go wrong…Leave a comment
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Creature Creator
I see that the launch date of Spore is at last getting within reach. The makers have just released the Creature Creator, which allows you to design your own animals for the Spore worlds. I’ve always wondered what it must feel like to play Mother Nature, here’s my chance to find out.Leave a comment
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Would You Like Mayo With That?
And just to illustrate how little UK society seems to have moved on since Section 28, here comes the news that a Heinz advert has been pulled because it features two men sharing a peck on the cheek. I don’t know who is the more stupid – the arses who complained or Heinz for having less spine than an E-coli bacterium.Update: it appears as though the American Family Association are the men behind the curtain. Personally, I wish that Toto would chew their bollocks off. They deserve nothing less. And, as has already been said by others: shame on Heinz.4 responses to “Would You Like Mayo With That?”
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I thought that was so charming, that ad! What resonated for me more than the kiss, was that most women will identify with the idea of wife/mother as a short order cook. I was the chief cook and bottle washer for my family, and that’s what I identified with in that ad. Shame on Heinz! I prefer HP sauce anyway.
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Who do I complain to that I find those 200 "offended" people themselves deeply offensive?
Shame on Heinz
Andy -
Andy, well quite. Though I think they have easily condemned themselves out of their own mouths without any help from ourselves. I rather think that Stephen Fry said it best (at the Hay Festival a couple of years back)…
"So you’re offended. So fucking what?The question seems flippant at first glance. Even rude. But it is a serious and profound question. Youre feelings are hurt. Youve chosen to take offence at somebody elses words. So fucking what?
Its an offensive world we live in. Deal with it like an adult. You have not been physically harmed. Why should your offence be more important than someone elses freedom to express themselves?
So. Fucking. What?
Before you picket a theatre, write to your local paper, fire your AK-47 in the air, or call for someones head on a plate, ask yourself this question. Can you give an honest and coherent answer, explaining why your personal hurt feelings take precedence over someone elses freedom?
Because you need to have an answer to this question. And it has to be a good one. Otherwise you will just be dismissed as an irrational, immature cry-baby with an inflated sense of the importance of your own sensibilities.
So.
Fucking.
What?"
And that, I think, is the correct response to the 200 arses. Fan their flatulence away with utter disdain and ridicule… -
Oh, and while there are delightful individuals such as RosPower around to disperse their homophobic bile around, then I for one am glad to be able to stand up and say: RosPower: so fucking what? He, she, or it clearly doesn’t have a clue over what it is talking about.
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Section 28
Johann Hari has a very good article on a piece of UK legislation that has now been consigned to the rubbish bin of history, but whose toxic impact is still felt within UK society. Go and read about it.Leave a comment
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The Asylum and its Administrators
It begins to seem as though the insane have indeed taken over the running of the asylum. Ophelia has the story. I find this ominous. The UN Human Rights Council seems to be concerned with nothing of the sort. Perhaps it should be renamed as the UN Religious Police Council for clarity. As Ophelia says, it would seem that it is now little more than an alliance of thugs.Leave a comment
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Hello Hal
Another quiz, which, with its nod to 2001, I simply had to do:One of the questions asks you to classify yourself into an age group. It came home to me that I can no longer think of myself as "middle-aged", but now should start thinking of myself as being in the "elderly" grouping. Bugger.(hat tip to Obscene Desserts for the link)Leave a comment
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
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