Put yer teeth back in, yeah?

Do me a favour, take a look at your computer base unit. Chances are, unless it’s older than six or seven years and you’re in your late twenties, early thirties, neither you or it will recognise this:

That, for the uninitiated, is a 3.5″ floppy disc. It’s also the latest storage unit to succumb to the ever-advancing march of time and technology. For over twenty years, they reigned supreme and were as ubiquitous as the CD-ROM became (and now the memory stick).
Recently, however, Sony finally decided it wasn’t cost effective to continue production and called time on it all.

Unfortunately, if yer anything like me, you will probably have a stack of the wee beggars hanging around at the back of a drawer somewhere. In these days of recycling and reduced carbon footprints, we don’t want to just sling them in the bin, but what can we do with them?
If yer feeling creative, here’s one suggestion:

If on the other hand, creating a sculpture like that looks a bit too much like hard work, the BBC compiled a list of 40 other options… Click here to find out more.
Thanks to… Riscy, I think it was. (It’s been a while, lurking in my bookmarks)

Sorry about the silly title, but ‘Not quite as big as the big bang’ didn’t really cut it.

Unless you’ve been buried in a really, really good book for the last couple of weeks, you can’t have failed to notice there’s been a bit of a to-do with the smoky output of a North Atlantic island going through growing pains. However, the fact is that Eyjafjallajoekull (as the volcano is known locally) isn’t really that powerful. Most of the trouble has been due to ash clouds and airborne pyroclastic particles – grit-sized bits of volcanic debris to you and me. The rest of it has just been having the misfortune to be downwind of it all.

No, there have been far more powerful explosions throughout our planet’s lifetime. Those of us of a certain age may remember Mount St Helens erupting back in 1980; I certainly do. Looking back on a video clip of it now, it’s hellishly impressive and considerably more violent than the Icelandic volcano (if not as destructive with secondary effects).

Except… it still hasn’t been the biggest bang on the planet. In fact, it doesn’t even make the top ten. That may not surprise you. What will probably shock you, though, is that a man-made explosion does make the list…

Go visit the New Scientist page to find out just what did make the hit list.

I’m probably going to get into all kinds of copyright trouble fer this one, but I’m hoping that if Word magazine does somehow see it, they’ll take it as I intend it to be – a tribute to a point well made.

The thing is, radio, once upon a time, used to be about money, and some record company getting their latest records on the air by any means, fair or foul. Then, Alan Freed became the scapegoat for the whole shebang and payola was banned. Yeah, right. Does anyone really believe payola doesn’t exist these days? Just listen to any commercial radio station these days and you’ll hear the same crap over and over and over again. Just to really rub it in, you can even play a radio version of buzzword bingo by keeping an ear out for certain tracks; “Ok, that’s Sugababes’ ‘About You Now’ – hmm… must be nearly three o’clock.”
Seriously, it’s that predictable.

The main problem is that larger corporations have swallowed smaller stations and companies whole – not because they think they would be a decent acquisition to their portfolio – no, they just buy them out to eliminate the competition. I have a few contacts in a couple of stations and none of them have a good word to say about the likes of Heart FM and other such money monsters. One even went so far as to say “Heart – the company that killed local radio.”

Perhaps the most appalling aspect of the current radio situation is not to do with the DJs themselves. Rather, it’s the fact that they are being sidelined by advanced technology. Entire shows can be programmed in advance. Music is culled from a database (not a large one, I would say…), and pretty much all the DJ needs to do is arrange the sequencing, slip in the required ads and whack in a spoken link or two.
If a show is due to go out in the middle of the night, this means you can still get a good night’s sleep.

Is it me, or is that wrong?

Actually, I was wrong. The most appalling part of radio programming these days is the playlist. These days, it’s not even laid out and hand-picked by a human; no, instead, there are complex computer programmes that take into account various factors and then throw up a list of likely tunes that the station/company controllers announce are viable to play. And don’t you dare stray from this format.

So, then, where is the DJ in all of this? He’s nothing but a cog in the machine, reduced to a factory line worker, stamping out parts for the next big machine.

I don’t know about John Peel, but I’m fucking depressed.

By the way, there’s an online copy of this month’s Word up for people to read. I have no idea how international it is, but if you can’t read the article starting on page 74, then PLEASE let me know and I’ll scan and post it somewhere you can read it.

Over here in Britain, there exists a newspaper known as The Daily Mail. Americans and other such aliens may not know the name, but I can guarantee ye know the creature. It’s the most reactionary, trash-talking rag to infest our shores. Granted, other papers come up with daft stuff, but either with lesser frequency or with tongues firmly in cheeks. The Daily Mail, however, seems to positively revel in the phrase, “Ban this ….” (fill in the gap for current target).

If yer still not quite sure what I’m talking about, take a look at this video from Dan & Dan:

If ye want to know how truly accurate this video is, take a look at the Youtube comments. Far too many people took far too long to realise that the headlines had been faked…
As an added win, Dad & Dan posted this little comment to go with the clip:

We’re aware this video won’t mean an awful lot if you’ve never heard of The Daily Mail, but on the plus side, you’ve never heard of The Daily Mail.

Go and have a look at more satirical greatness on their site, dananddan.com. You can even download the song fer free!
Thanks to Julie fer finding this one – even if it was on the Bucks Fizz fan site…

First up, cheers to Jay fer bringing this to the fore.
Next, ye may want to read a related article Chris wrote some time back… (Beware Movie Pirates)

Now; as you know, people who make, sell or buy products that are clearly not of kosher origin are unpatriotic heathens with no respect for property and must be pursued and punished with the full force of the law. Or, to put it another way, knock-off goods and illegal downloads cost untold millions to the economies of various countries.

There’s just one little detail though: that word, “untold”. Up until now, the US government has been able to provide suspiciously accurate figures on just how much such piracy is costing. However, a new report by the internal watchdog (Government Accountability Office or GAO) has finally skewered these skewed ‘reports’ once and for all. And it’s not finished yet, either.
Here’s just one example: The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) set up their own little research into how damaging illegal movie downloads were to the industry. Actual figures aside, the GAO have now revealed that the MPAA report overstated the piracy by three times the real quantity.

I’m not going to paraphrase the whole thing – especially since there’s such a good article on it over at ars technica.

There’s plenty of us out in the real world that like to partake of Terry Pratchett’s written works, so I thought I’d share a couple of items that may be of interest to you – and to those who may be interested in the items involved. First, a pic of me with the man himself:

Firstly, Terry took part in a -well, let’s call it a promotional exercise by the National Portrait Gallery. The idea was to write a short story about the subject of a painting where the sitter’s name has long since been forgotten. Mr P. submitted a piece called “The Tale of Joshua Easement”. As you can guess, it’s not entirely serious…
Go visit The Times Online to read the story (especially since it’s not likely to appear in a book). Alternatively, you can visit the National Portrait Gallery page to find out how ye could go and see the whole ‘Imagined Lives’ display.
Secondly, our man gives us an update on the next/final Tiffany Aching Novel and the forthcoming feature-length production of ‘Going Postal’. However, that is secondary to the meat of his communique: In it, Pterry talks more about his Alzheimers and the issue of death with dignity – made all the more poignant by a personal tragedy.
Read the whole thing over at PJSM Prints.

Feel sorry for the people living in southern parts of Taiwan, because they know exactly what it’s like to be dumped on from a great height.
Apparently, airline companies were getting huge amounts of complaints from people, due to an incredible spread of yellow, flaky particles coating everything from cars to washing on the lines.
Why airline companies? Because people must have been flushing the toilets during a flight and they were the less-than-gracious recipients of the … ah… waste.

Except they were wrong. The toilets on planes are not emptied out mid-air, but rather when the aircraft have landed.
So, what was it? Have a look at a close-up and see what you think…

Give up? Ok, I’ll tell ye.
It’s crap, alright; Bee crap, to be precise.

Apparently, it’s not harmful to humans, but it’s a bugger to wash off, according to Kaohsiung city’s environmental protection bureau.
(original article)