Nine weeks ago, in sleepy Solihull, a small 18-month old dog got horny. As a result, last Saturday a lady friend of his gave birth to four puppies. Because of this, single-mother-dog’s owner could no longer get to London this Saturday, which meant she had some concert tickets she didn’t need, which she very kindly gave to me, and so…

Lil and I are going to Live8! Holy. Pants.

The actual concert too, not just the big screens. I’m excited! I wanted to go to the march in Edinburgh, but I figured that a 1.5hr drive down to London is far preferable to 12 hours in a coach in one day. Also, given the lineup at the concert, it’s rather a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! I have a hell of a lot to sort out before then, though, top of the list being an arrangement for the dogs. I’m also going to a “Summer Ball” on Sunday evening where I’ll probably have to dress smartly and try not to be too exhasted.

I was looking down the list of artists due to perform, and it’s quite something. Annie Lennox, Coldplay, Dido, Elton John, Keane, Madonna, Paul McCartney, REM, Robbie Williams, Scissor Sisters, Stereophonics, Snow Patrol, Sting, Travis, U2…Blimey. Apparently it’s the first time in ~ 35years that Hyde Park will be entirely closed to the general public.

I’ll be photoblogging and maybe podcasting from the concert, of course It should be quite a day!

• Google Earth - Product Comparison - The only real difference between the free and paid-for Google Earths is the resolution at which you can save pictures.
• BBC News | Piglet cartoon voice actor dies - The voices of Piglet and Tigger died within a day of each other
• Jon Udell: Dan Phiffer’s Wikipedia revision animator - Cool ‘video’ of a greasemonkey script that animates wikipedia changes
• flickr Badge Maker - These are cool! I want to get it laminated so I can flash it FBI-style.
• Yahoo! My Web 2.0 Quick Review - Yahoo My Web 2 vs del.icio.us.
• Add flickr images to Google Earth - This is just marvellous. Google Earth rocks as it is, but add a ‘network link’ into geobloggers and it’ll download thumbnails of the closest 50 images to your current location.
• Paper Enigma Machine - Make your own paper enigma machine. If only I had the time…Oh wait, I do! Via boingboing.
• How To Paint Your Shoes - I like it! Via lifehacker
• Rocketboom on Tom Cruise - Rocketboom tells it how it is. "Tom, America’s ok with being a nutjob, but do you have to drag Katie along too?"
• Tricks of the Trade: Singer - Handy

The Office Weblog pointed me towards t-shirthumor.com, and I just laughed out loud at a few of the designs. I like these particularly:

and, of course:

Genius I’ve gotta get myself some of those.

Google Earth is possibly the most impressive free application I’ve ever seen. Aside from the fascinating maps, the integrated local search and directions are great - all the info is overlayed onto the one map. There’s also an excellent flickr ‘network link‘ that links into geobloggers. Google have apparently pulled the download for a while, but you can get it over at majorgeeks.

Back when I first got my mobile phone contract, I paid an extra

• Psychiatrists hit back at Cruise - Sock it to ‘em.

Couple of interesting happenings today. Firstly there’s iTunes 4.9, which has built-in podcasting support. There’s also a software update for the iPod itself, adding a podcast menu that supports bookmarking (woohoo!) amongst other things. I’m just testing it out now. The other release today is the free Google Earth, which is installing as I type…It looks very cool indeed
Update: To manually add a podcast to iTunes without going via the directory, go to ‘Advanced’, then ‘Subscribe to podcast’ - you can then enter the feed.

• Cycling Game - Tricky game - impressive physics, though ,Via ensight.

That’s it! I’m all done. Thank goodness for that. 14 exams, 8 months of learning and now all I need do is wait for the results. I’m hoping for a B in Physics and a C in Maths, but either could well be lower than that. No point worrying about it though, there’s absolutely no difference I can make to the process now!

Physics 6 went ok, I think. Apart from “What information can you get from the spectrum of a star (1 point)?” that is. Given that 75% of cosmology is based on the spectrum of stars, I think one point isn’t really sufficient!

Right, time to get all the things done I’ve been ignoring for the past couple of months

Final exam this afternoon - Physics 6 at 1330. It’ll be such a relief to finish Just off on walkies, then lunch, then off to the school.

• How does your brain idle? | Ask MetaFilter - Some fascinating responses. The ’symmetry’ OCD-like issue that arises is interesting, I always used to do that, and still catch myself sometimes. Having imaginary arguments is also common, although I’m trying to stop that. Via mindhacks.
• CMSeye home - Webcams viewing the construction of CMS - CMS is a large (27km circumference) particle accelerator being built by CERN.
• English Test - Can’t really fault the answer given…
• Linux Newbie Guide by Stan, Peter and Marie Klimas - I’ve never got into Linux, but this looks like a good into if I ever do
• Monopoly Live - with GPS-fitted taxis! - Oh. Wow.
• Pitch Camp - Urban camping in Times Square - I like it! Great photos.
• What is the meaning of life? - Revealed
• We need to prove how clever we are… - Pretty true, actually.
• Hydro-foam - It’s a boat…no, it’s not. If you’re into remote-control devices, you really want to be seeing this video!
• Mind Hacks: Maths ability without language skills - A new study suggests that mathematical and language abilities are not linked. Interesting
• How to Convert VHS to DVD - I must get round to transferring my old cartoon VHSs one day. Via Make: Blog.

Richard Whiteley died That’s sad, he wasn’t that old. He was certainly a part of my youth - I learnt the alphabet from Countdown. Some would suggest I copied up his attempts to make very bad jokes from very little material, too I liked that despite being the kind of person people like to make fun of, he never tried to be anything other than himself. That takes some guts, I think.

From BBC News:

The force is strong among a group of West Yorkshire parishioners who held a special service on Sunday to celebrate the release of Star Wars Episode III.

…

“We wanted a special service to bring these themes together and celebrate the victory of good over evil,” said the Reverend Paul Walker.

As long as they watched the film
Also:

The service also included a hymn sung to the John Williams Star Wars theme.

Apparently it went:

dum DUM dum de de DUM DUM dum de de DUM DUM ooh god is great

Although I can’t seem to get the image of a cloned-stormtrooper mass choir out of my head. Can’t think why…

Gnomedex is an annual conference with the aim of enabling communication between the various parties involved in the newest and most exciting internet ’standards’. Or, if you prefer, it’s where people go to get the cool stuff done. This year saw major announcements regarding RSS implementation in Longhorn (the next version of Windows), as well as Audible cutting a deal to allow audio transcriptions of major newspapers, with automatic delivery via RSS.

What does this mean, really? It means that it comes to you. The latest news, your favourite radio shows, your girlfriend’s amazon wish list, your best friend’s most-played songs, the latest special offers at the supermarket, gamma-ray burst alerts - these will all be accessible to you in one place and, crucially, as simple as opening a website (actually most of this can be done already, but it’s the simplicity that’s the problem - I’ll get to that in a bit.) Not that you won’t go out looking for new entertainment - of course you will. But once you find something you enjoy, you need never forget about it, because you can ’subscribe’ and not have to worry about missing anything.

I think Gnomedex is about inspiring people to get moving. I just listened to Adam Curry’s keynote speech, which closed the conference, and it really was inspirational. I’d highly recommend you hear it if you’re in any way interested in the traditional media and the movement away from its ‘regulated gatekeepers’. Curry.com is apparently getting hammered and it’s down at the time of writing (he addresses this particular issue in the speech, actually: BitTorrent is the way to go), but I snagged the mp3 via the RSS feed, which is here. Update: direct link to the mp3.

Adam talks about how the media is becoming distributed. Professionals and amateurs now have access to exactly the same tools. If you want to record a hit record, you need a computer, a decent microphone and a software mixer. If you want to make a tv show, you need some lights, a mini-DV camera and a video-editing application. If you want to write a best-seller, you need an old computer, a copy of linux and openoffice.org (sure you can do it on paper, but it’ll need typing at some point!). The distribution mechanism is the internet, and that’s literally all you need. Adam came across a track by a band, played it on his podcast, and the band sold 200 albums in the next 24 hours. They had no record deal, so the profits went straight to them. Like Adam says - that’s rent money. And all without the help of the so-called ‘traditional media’.

All that’s needed for this to hit ‘the big time’ is ease of use. And podcasting isn’t there yet. Try explaining RSS subscriptions to somebody in less than a minute. We’re so used to the idea of the media as something that we’re privileged to have, that the idea of it actively coming to us is foreign and strange. It’s needs to be easier, though. Currently I find a podcast that sounds interesting, copy the RSS xml feed address and paste it into iPodder. That’s too much. It’s not that people are stupid, it’s that it’s too much of a fuss. It should be a matter of clicking the link on a website, and with that it’s all automatically set up and new episodes are ready to copy to the iPod next synchronization. And that’s actually all been figured out already, we just need the software implementations.

It’s exciting stuff. Once we have the bandwidth I think it’s inevitable that video will go the same way, and televisions will have to become internet clients. This presents huge challenges, not least in user-interface design, but the advantages far outweigh the problems. Imagine how kids growing up with an unregulated media will see the world. Perhaps they’ll realise that, as someone said recently, it’s not ‘us and them’, it just ‘a whole lot of us’. And when these kids start to run countries, imagine how things will change.

Yeah, it’s idealistic and far-reaching, but so what? When it’s already here, when all that it needs to become a reality is hard work from people who believe in the idea, why not try?

I was a little cross last night at the cynicism I’ve seen regarding Make Poverty History, and if you look through the gnomedex tag at Technorati there are a fair few posts in a similar vein. So here’s what I think: screw these people. It’s a cowardly, pathetic way to behave. There’s apparently a saying amongst lawyers that goes as follows: if you have the evidence on your side, pound the evidence; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither, pound the table. That’s what these people are doing - they’re pounding the table in desperate attention-seeking attempts to feel superior. If you have a valid argument, make it. If you don’t, go learn something and come up with one.

Cynicism has always been worthless, and it always will be.

I’m only 22, but with the various jobs I’ve had and the industries I’ve been involved in I would guess that any walk of life is full of naysayers. I’m not talking about well-placed caution or skepticism - the world would collapse if it weren’t for the latter - but hindering progress for no valid reason and refusing to listen to argument. Pop-psychologically speaking, I’d say that fear of risk, fear of change and fear of getting left behind are the main impetuses behind such an attitude, but that’s just a hunch - I have no real idea
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a double-edged sword that hinders as much as it helps, I think. The space shuttle runs on ancient 486 computers, because they’ve been extremely reliable. Fair enough, but this is space exploration. If there’s one thing that should be on the cutting edge, surely that’s it? Don’t tell me that the engineers wouldn’t upgrade the whole thing if they could. If it ain’t broke, smile and build.

Just to point out that Ed’s flickr-ing from holiday, which is rather cool I guess he’s in Shanghai at the moment.