Steve blogs about the Department for Education asking universities to pass on information about extremist students to Special Branch. Steve notes that this won’t work because most lecturers don’t bother to learn students’ names. I think it’ll work for the extremists – what better way to make people feel like outsiders than by saying they’re being monitored, informed-upon? I don’t recall the government asking this for Irish students in the 70’s and 80’s, nor for left-wing students in the 60’s. Maybe the government should just go the last step and rename the Home Office the “Ministry of Love“.
October 17th, 2006
Apparently, its not just me who noticed the ubiquitous smell of urine in Paris. On another note, I think its quite amazing that the French are banning smoking in bars and restaurants. I thought it was weird when it happened in Italy, too. Which country will be next? I think it would be unlikely to be Greece, but I would have said the same about France a few weeks ago…
October 15th, 2006
It has been widely reported (here, here and here) that Accenture is subcontracting the remaining blame for the failure-to-be that is the NHS’s “Connecting for Health” project to CSC. My employer has outsourced all of the company’s IT, from cabling infrastructure to web management, to CSC and I can’t say that CSC’s involvement with the NHS fills me with joy. I’ll just post my CSC experiences…
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October 1st, 2006
The new Burger King advert is quite funny:
Eat like a king. Not a clown.
While I like the sideswipe, I can’t help wondering which king they mean. Possibly Henry VIII – obese, syphilitic and wife-abusing?
October 1st, 2006
Why is my ADSL so flaky? Its really very, very annoying. Of course, the ADSL provider blames faults “on the customer premises” or BT. BT blames faults “on the customer premises” and the ADSL provider. So I guess it must be my fault, right?
I just wish there was some way of unambiguously identifying the fault. All I know at the moment is my ADSL modem doesn’t connect most of the time, bizarrely it seems to be fine once connected. So, it could be a software or hardware fault on the modem itself. Or in the wiring in my flat. Or in the wiring in the street. Or in the local exchange. How am I supposed to track this down without spending loads of money?
September 19th, 2006
This weekend I’m borrowing a MacBook from work (to do some work, obviously!) and I thought I’d write up some impressions here. For reference its a 13″ black one – I’d prefer the white, but they thought it would be more “business-like” to have it in black. They’re also going to install Boot Camp on it, but there’s no accounting for taste 
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September 16th, 2006
I spent the past few days in Paris, doing all the touristy stuff; looking at the Sacré CÅ“ur, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, etc… Paris is undoubtedly an historical and important city, but I don’t know if it should be called the most romantic city in the world.
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September 11th, 2006
There seems to be a lot of nonsense in the news recently. First off, there is the strange claim that magnets can create energy. Following close second, the claim that market forces are the best way to run a country is hidden within an article apparently about the lack / surplus of UK scientists.
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August 22nd, 2006
I finally bought the system I mentioned before, with dual DVB-T cards, installed Gentoo, configured it and sat back to watch some high-quality TV. But, of course, it wasn’t as simple as that.
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August 11th, 2006
I don’t have a TV at the moment and I’ve run out of books to read. So, I’ve been spending my time honing a quiet, cheap HTPC/PVR parts list. Just in case anyone is interested, I’m posting it here.
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June 24th, 2006
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