Google today launched Picasa’s long rumoured ‘web album’ feature. This allows direct creation of online albums from within the photo-management software. Although fairly simplistic currently, Google will undoubtedly add features as time goes by. It may well end up challenging Flickr, but Yahoo - who bought Flickr last year - don’t seem to care.

Having full control of the best and most popular photo-sharing website on the internet, what have Yahoo done? Built a competitor of their own, of course. You see, Yahoo have decided that Flickr is only for “professional and serious hobbyist photographers”, so are launching Yahoo Photos for “the mass market”. It’ll have the same tagging and organisation capabilities, but all photos will be private by default. There are claims that the two are aimed at different markets:

and that is the principal difference between those who will like Flickr (global exposure/RSS feeds) and those who will like Y! Photos (sharing with friends and family)

But it doesn’t make much sense to me. Why not just add some kind of password-protected album feature to Flickr, so that friends and family can view photos without creating an account? A separate system ignores the possibility that people might realise the advantages of sharing their photos, which is the concept that Flickr was built around. I don’t think the younger generation really care all that much about keeping everything private - MySpace users share everything, afaik, and MySpace is hardly doing badly. Plus, it’s not like Flickr doesn’t have privacy support already, if that’s really what people want.

Yahoo, please don’t kill Flickr. I like it. Please sell it to Google.

Schmap offer free, downloadable city guides. They include suggested tours, links to accommodation, shopping, attractions etc., all based around a google-maps like representation of the area. They accompany the text with photographs wherever possible, and a fair few seem to come from Flickr. A few of my shots have been included, and they’ve a neat system to request permission.

They send a polite message via FlickrMail that explains the idea behind Schmap guides and asks whether you’re happy for them to include specific photographs. You’re then sent to a page on the Schmap website at which you can grant permission for photographs on an individual basis, without having to register or otherwise give them all your details. If they decide to go ahead with your photo it’s credited to a username of your choosing, and the image links to its Flickr page. You’re then sent another message when the guide is published. The whole process seems to work well.

There’s one photo of mine in the Los Angeles guide and four in the Stratford-upon-Avon guide, plus another in the pipeline.

I think this is really cool, and it’s exactly why I publish everything I do under a creative commons license.

I was very glad for the break in the weather today. I don’t want to complain about the sunshine, but over the weekend my flat was a kiln. Although marginally cooler outside, opening all the windows did nothing at all; thermodynamics is therefore a pack of lies.

There’s a new beta of Google Earth out, with a revamped interface and support for textured 3D buildings with textures (via a new version of SketchUp). This builds upon GE’s massive imagery upgrade last week. The beta is a little slow for me, although obviously your mileage may vary.

24’s running times may, it seems, be partly determined by the font of the advert-break clock.

Skuds spotted a 10-foot unicycle chained to a lamp-post.

Has anybody else picked up the new Keane album? It seems very different from their first and not particularly my style, to be honest. I’m hoping it’ll grow on me - it only came out on Monday, after all.

Tom Morris has a good post that mentions the abysmal state of education when it comes to technology and IT. Why are spreadsheets and databases the most exciting things we learn about at school?

I don’t like the complete credulity in this article on John the Baptist’s hand:

Vladimir Mastukov, a pensioner who lost the use of his legs after a stroke five years ago, bent down to kiss a display case housing the hand. Moments later he cast aside his crutches and skipped out of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in central Moscow.

“Skipped”. Yeah, of course he did. Either there’s information missing, it was a con, or the whole thing is a lie. What the hell is the Telegraph doing publishing such crap? Have they been watching too much Fox News?

Speaking of Fox News, this clip of their presenter going ballistic at a rather despicable anti-gay zealot demonstrates…something.

Finally, the Astronomy Picture of the Day is a sun-halo. I saw one of these when I was in Australia, nine years ago now, and this is the first decent explanation I’ve read.

Having been placed on a top-10 list of Labour bloggers, I feel that I should blog something political. So, here’s some political commentary…by monkeys!

I’m so going to regret this in the morning.

(hidden from front page because they break the layout)

Continue reading ‘Monkeys Explain It All’

The BBC says there’s a Probe into ‘naked civil servants’. A probe.

Civil servants on Tyneside are under investigation amid allegations staff romped around naked in offices and had sex in toilets.

The Deputy PM’s office? No:

The RPA is part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Rural affairs.

The agency said it was investigating claims that staff leapt naked from filing cabinets, had sex in office toilets, held break-dancing competitions during working hours and fought in a reception area.

How exactly does one leap naked from a filing cabinet? Were they in the drawer, just waiting for somebody to open it?

Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Jim Paice, said: “This kind of behaviour is unacceptable in any office, but in a public service where they should have been processing long overdue payments for thousands of farmers it raises even more questions about managerial competence within the RPA.”

He added: “Oh dear, looks like a fax coming through.” He didn’t. I made that up.

What would happen if the Enterprise took on the massed ranks of the Empire? 7 mins:

Just great. Via Living the Scientific Life.

Continue reading ‘Enterprise vs. Death Star’

Made me laugh:

Via EchoMouse.

This has to be one of the best optical illusions I’ve seen. Even when you know what’s coming, it’s still a shock. Via BoingBoing.

Walking around during the football was undeniably quieter, but there were still a fair few people: mostly young women and older couples. I heard the occasional distant roar, and ‘yes!’s from people lying in the park with radios. There was this guy, too:

Sorry about the quality. It wasn’t that great anyway, but certainly better than YouTube’s compression would suggest.

My cunning plan regarding going to the supermarket was flawed: they had no staff.

The match has just finished, I think, and the church bells are ringing!

It’s very quiet out there. Hardly any cars, and only the occasional passer-by. I guess everybody’s inside for the football…I’m off for a walk, then the supermarket. I imagine the whole town will explode for goals etc., so I shouldn’t miss anything.

I played croquet last night. My grandparents used to have a set, but I probably haven’t had a go in over ten years. It was good fun! We played two rounds, which I lost and won by large margins, which economically suggests I’m about average. Nod explained the rules and demonstrated proper swingy-though-the-legs technique.

I was happy to discover large numbers of possible euphemisms resulting from croquet equipment, all of them firmly rooted in the giggles of 13-year-old schoolchildren. This made me happy.

Next time: horses.

Jon Stewart obliterating a politician opponent of same-sex marriage:

The bi-weekly Skeptics’ Circle is a collection of posts by and for “bloggers who apply critical thought to questionable stories”. The 36th Circle includes articles on homeopathy, Dan Akroyd, edible gold, and cabbage babies, as well as my life coaching post. Reading through them all takes hours, but it’s an enjoyable time

My favourite word today is ‘fruitless’. After all, what good is anything if you don’t end up with fruit?

I took the guitar effects pedal to my guitar lesson on Tuesday, and had rather a surprise. When plugged into my teacher’s system, it sounded good. He has a serious amplifier, high quality cables and far more expensive guitars, but I was still taken aback. My own system seems to get overwhelmed on many of the preset sounds, resulting in a whooshing noise that quickly overpowers any tune/chords. At least, that was what I thought.

I mentioned it to my teacher and he asked whether the amplifier has a ‘phaser’ effect. It does, I said, but it’s disabled. Upon closer examination, however, the knob controlling the phaser effect turned out to be ever-so-slightly turned. Disabling it entirely was a revelation. The whooshing is completely gone and suddenly things sound much, much better. The sound, whether pure or distorted, is far clearer. It’s like a whole new box.

Am bemused that it took me two weeks to find this out, but happy that it’s now working so well! If there’s anything my guitar teacher doesn’t know about guitars and related equipment, I have yet to discover it