Religious Hatred

The government intends to introduce a new category of offence based on 'religious hatred', similar to the existing 'racial hatred'. There are justified fears that the law cold be used by religious groups to suppress legitimate criticism. Now a violent mob have forced the closure of a play which is critical of Sikhism.

Is this an early indication of how the law will be used?


The original story
Cancellation of the play

Reading List : Pashazade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Not at all what I was expecting. Having read Lucifer's Dragon which was basically cyber-punk, I expected this to be similar, but it is more of an old-fashioned detective story (and there's nothing wrong with that) in a vaguely sf setting.

The setting is the near future of an alternative timeline in which the Ottoman and Austria-Hungarian empires have survived. The main story takes place in Alexandria (Al-Iskandria) in Egypt. The protagonist is a genetically/surgically/electronically enhanced petty criminal who has some standing in the community by virtue of being the son of the Emir of Tunis. He is invited to Egypt for an arranged marriage to thhe daughter of a nouveau-riche businessman, but a murder intervenes and he has to solve it.

The plot is fairly lightweight, but the atmosphere and setting are good and the writing runs along nicely.

7/10

Reading List : Skinner by Neal Asher

There are many good things about this book, but the thing that stands out is the eco-system. The food chain is dominated by a carnivorous 'leech' which injects a virus which makes its victims extremelly resilient. This ensures that the prey survives and regenerates and is available for further feeding.

Rating 8/10

Smith and Wesson bikes. What about Colt skateboards?

Today I saw two policemen on bikes pottering along Norwood High Street. That's unusual enough in itself, but the bikes had big Smith and Wesson stickers on them - bigger than the Police sticker.

It may be that Smith and Wesson supply the bikes as some kind of general law enforcement supply contract, but it seems very suspicious. Why is it necessary to splash the logo so large?

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

This news item is about how Wal-Mart is being sued because it sold an Evanescance record with the word "fuck" in it. I've lost count of the ways this annoys me.

Why sue? Go back to the shop and ask for your money back and an apology for god's sake..

Why ask for $74,000 damages? How do they work that out? How much damage can hearing the word fuck do?

Why is it Wal-Mart's responsibility? If you care that much what your children hear, make it your responsibility to check things out.

The laywer involved is quoted as saying "take this case national, even if that means going state by state." This isn't seeking recompense, this is a campaign.

Get your priorities right. Here are the lyrics of the song in question. As you can see, it talks about revenge, rape and murder. Does the lawsuit complain about that? No. It focuses on the word fuck.

Reading List:: How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World

How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions, by Francis Wheen.

Funny, but ultimately depressing look at how irrationality is increasing in all aspects of "modern" life.

The Only Game in Town

Its amazing what goes through your head when you wake up early. This morning :

Of all the games called football, there is only one worthy of the name. I am aware of the following "football" games.

1 Association Football
2 Rugby League
3 Rugby Union
4 American
5 Gaelic
6 Australian Rules

Of these, only two ( 1 and 5) actually use a ball (i.e. a round thing). The others seem to use some kind of melon. However, the main reason that there is only one game worthy of the name of football is that, apart from the first game, actually kicking the ball is a secondary part of all these games. Indeed, in American football kicking the ball is almost a sign of failure. Apart from the extra point after a touch down, the ball is only kicked (a punt or a field goal attempt) when a a charge fails to progress. In rugby, a match where all the points are scored by kicking is generally regarded as a poor game. Gaelic and Australian are more balanced, but kicking seems to be no more than half the game.

Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel voted for Bush.

We've all seen the maps of voting patterns in the recent presidential election showing the Red states and the Blue states, but there have been a number of more-fine grained analyses (e.g. at county level) which show that the break down was as much rural versus urban.

This confirms my mental picture of the typical Bush voter

The Red Menace affects us all

The BBC is reporting that the film of Phillip Pulman's His Dark Materials trilogy won't feature god because the production company, New Line, think it won't be commerically viable if it offends the religious right.

Considering that organised religion are the bad guys in the trilogy, the film could end up being a travesty.

The red states are reaching out to control us all.

Lies, Damned Lies and Independent Reports.

The Hutton and Butler reports have already shown what a farce the notion of an independent report is in the political world. The Register gives an example from the commercial world.

What they told us:
An independent study for the London Borough of Newham by CapGemini found that migrating from Microsoft to open-source software would cost more in the than sticking with Microsoft.

What they didn't tell us:
The study was funded by Microsoft
The study was only supposed to look at the benefits of upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows XP and was not intended to compare MS with open-source.
The only data about open-source costs was provided by Microsoft and not checked by the supposedly independent CapGemini.

The Register story has more juicy detail.

The Spaceheads

Saw The Spaceheads at the Old Hall festival.
Amazing. Drums and trumpet and some electronics producing a stunning
sound.

Wireless Networking HOWTO or How stupid are Apple?

How do you attach a computer to a wireless network?

Its really very simple, all you have to do is buy a wireless card, install it and you are away.

Unless the computer is a Macintosh.

In this case, you have to make sure that you bought the right computer in the first place because you can only get wireless network cards for computers which Apple deems to be "Airport ready" or "Airport extreme ready". Despite the fact that Power Macs have PCI slots and USB ports, Apple don't produce a PCI wireless card or a wireless USB adapter. An Airport card seems to have a PCMCIA interface and an Airport extreme card has a Mini-PCI interface.

Another in a long line of mistakes by Apple which help to explain why the struggle as a computer company.

Some things never change

From the BBC web site.

1936

2 November: Official inauguration of world's first regular high-definition television service from Alexandra Palace
9 December: First televised cookery demonstration

High Level Suicide

Headline in today's Sun "Skydiver in 9,000ft Suicide". Surely the actual suicide took place somewhat lower?