Friday, June 29, 2007

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Facebook

http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

How many people ever lived...

Number of people who have ever been born: 106,456,367,669
World population in mid-2002: 6,215,000,000
Percent of those ever born who are living in 2002: 5.8

so much for the argument that 75 percent of the people who had ever been born are alive at the moment...

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Royalties

"Tomorrow is the so-called “Day of Silence.” Thousands of US webradio broadcasters will get together to turn their radio streams off for a day to protest the newly-introduced higher rates that SoundExchange intends to charge them."

from the comments

mullingitover
26 June, 22:32

Last.fm board meeting:

“Chairman: So, this new law is going to dramatically increase the price of running a radio station on the internet. Many small stations will suffocate and die with the increased costs of operation.

Board members, in unison: WICKED!

Chairman: Yeah, totally. We’re getting sweet deals with the labels, so this will barely touch us. We just have to share some marketing numbers with them and help with promtions. Maybe a little payola, just like the radio stations.

Board member: But what about this day of protest they’re talking about?

Chairman: Whatev. We’ll throw up a blog post about how we’re already paying the rates, and we’re putting up a massive struggle but we’re surviving. Make the whole thing look like a bunch of rubbish.

Board members: Hear hear!

Chairman: [cackles maniacally]”

More and more

Monday, June 25, 2007

Where is middle-earth...



"Created by Tolkien somewhere in the 1930s, the map shows the ‘mortal lands’ of Middle-earth, which according to Tolkien himself is part of our own Earth, but in a previous, mythical era. At the time of the events described in ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’, Middle-earth is moving towards the end of its Third Age, about 6.000 years ago.

Tolkien didn’t create Middle-earth ex nihilo: ancient Germanic myths divide the Universe in nine worlds, inhabited by elves, dwarves, giants, etc. The world of men is the one in the middle, called Midgard, Middenheim or Middle-earth. That term doesn’t thus describe the entirety of the world Tolkien thought up. The correct term for the total world is Arda – probably derived from German Erde (’Earth’) and only first mentioned posthumously in the Silmarillion (1977); and Eä (for the whole Universe)."

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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Plagiarism

Saw this over on Caribbean Free Radio - seems a Telegraph journalist got caught red handed plagerising (typos and all)...her excuse wasnt the smartest either...AND the telegraph editors seem uninterested by the whole thing...

Friday, June 22, 2007

surf



Cape Town, South Africa, June 19 2007: Grant Baker from South Africa surfs a wave at an offshore reef known as the 'Dungeon' off Cape Town. Local and international big wave surfers were practicing for the annual Big Wave Africa competition.
Photograph: Nic Bothma/EPA

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Hamilton wins!

"The son of a former British Rail worker, Hamilton is mixed-race - his father's family originates from the Caribbean island of Grenada - and he is the first driver of Afro-Caribbean origin to race in F1."



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Simon Barnes today...


"I have seen this serenity, this extraordinary sense of composure, very, very rarely. Perhaps in Tiger Woods, certainly in Roger Federer, when he is not playing Rafael Nadal on clay. I saw it in Brian Lara, in that extraordinary period of his life when he scored at least a single century every time he went out to bat. I have seen it in patches with Zinédine Zidane and Johan Cruyff."

A night with althusser

"But everyone in the audience knows how Althusser’s evening at home with his wife in November 1980 will end. How could they not? And even if you know the story, it is still horrifying to read Althusser’s own account of it. In a memoir that appeared posthumously, he recalls coming out of a groggy state the next morning, and finding himself massaging Hélène’s neck, just as he had countless times in the course of their long marriage.

“Suddenly, I was terror-struck,” he wrote. “Her eyes stared interminably, and I noticed the tip of her tongue was showing between her teeth and lips, strange and still.” He ran to the École, screaming, “I’ve strangled Hélène!”

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Monday, June 04, 2007

Militarism

Im always thinking that the reason the world is such a mess is not because of capitalism per se but rather that we spent so much out of every dollar on war when it should be invested in education, development, social justice and health.

The "National Priorities Project analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent" - they've got a website and you can put in any state. 40 cents in every dollar goes to the military


Friday, June 01, 2007

family


"Some 450 million years ago, sharks and humans shared a common ancestor, making sharks our distant cousins.

And according to recent research, this kinship is evident in our DNA, as at least one shark species possesses several genes that are nearly identical to those in humans."

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top ten liverpool goals 06/07

From BC Pires today via sheldon

“My pardner Gregors pointed out the West Indies strategy for dealing with Monty Panesar: Make sure the whole side is out before the ball is old enough to take spin. These aren't Tests; they are Trials & Tribulations. West Indies suffered their worst defeat ever - until the third Test starts next Thursday, that is. West Indies players clearly have no sense of history, even as they make it.”