College makes Chinese compulsory

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Jan 162006
 

BBC NEWS England Southern Counties College makes Chinese compulsory: “An independent college is becoming the first in Britain to make Mandarin Chinese a compulsory subject.

The move at Brighton College, in East Sussex, was said to reflect China’s position as the fastest-growing economy in the world. “

An interesting move, and probably very well considered. I’m sure there will be people deploring the decline of traditional subjects in schools, but Mandarin has the most native speakers in the world. (English has the most speakers, but most of them are not native). China’s economy is growing at an amazing rate as the economic landscape changes and will certainly become more nd more of a political heavyweight as time goes on.

However, most people won’t actually use it for much more than insulting their friends and ordering food as few schoolkids retain their school language unless they end up using it regularly.

 Posted by sandeberg at 13:20  Tagged with:

Getting back on the horse

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Jan 162006
 

Not a real horse of course, but a metaphorical one. So, if you’re going to be pedantic about it, this Sunday i was getting back on the wall. The climbing wall at that is.

Penny was booked into the taster session, her Christmas present, and enjoyed it enough to book herself into the beginners class next weekend.

Me, I took the refresher course to make sure I remember how to tie off, belay safely etc. It was great fun! I can’t wait to go back again! Sure, I’m no way in the same shape as I was back in uni, and I do have about three stone more weight to drag up the (artificial) rock face, but that made no difference at all. I knew I should have got back into it earlier! Hopefully I’ll mamage to get out and climb at least once per week, even if it means getting there straight from work, climbing and then going straight home to bed.


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 Posted by sandeberg at 10:52

Another week over, let the weekend commence!

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Jan 132006
 
I know, I’m wishing away the day, but it’s been quite a tedious work week, and the early morning have been less fun than ever. (Admittedly they weren’t exactly a barrel of laughs to begin with, but there’s always a worse option. I recommend diving for cover any time someone says “Well, at least it can’t get any worse”!) Now it’s just a question of how quickly I can sneak off!
Plans for the weekend? Saturday involves a lie in (hurrah!), a haircut and a whole lot of nothing. We may lounge around and watch Lost and some, as yet unwatched, movies like Existenz or Spirited Away. Hell, we might even go crazy and watch them both!
Sunday is a little more packed. We’re going to the cinema to watch ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ now that Penny has finished the book. The rest of the day will be spent at Guildford’s indoor climbing wall Craggy Island where Penny will be sampling a taster session and I will be taking a refresher course. While Guildford may no longer be our moving destination, Craggy Island is still the best climbing facility in the area for quite some distance.
I must admit that I’m quite excited about the fact that it’s now only 2 weeks until my birthday. Huzzah! I’m getting as excited as a small child at Christmas! Okay, okay, I’m getting as excited as me at Christmas!
My mum is bugging me, asking me what I want for my birthday. Apparently I’m to think of something poignant, sentimental, non-generic and very personal to me that I’ll treasure and remember as being gifted to me on my 30th. Isn’t that cheating? A lot? It’s hard enough thinking of presents for other people, why do I have to think of presents for myself? I’m sure that’s against the rules somewhere! And if it isn’t against the rules, it ought to be!
Anyway, enough of this. It’s time to start plotting my escape. Have a good weekend!
 Posted by sandeberg at 14:43  Tagged with:

New Scientist Breaking News – Invention: Spy-diver killer

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Jan 112006
 

New Scientist Breaking News – Invention: Spy-diver killer: “If you are scuba diving, be sure not to swim anywhere near any ship or installation that has been protected by the Raytheon Corporation’s new ‘swimmer denial’ system. Otherwise you will very quickly feel extremely sick and probably drown.


Raytheon’s underwater sensors detect any unwelcome presence and trigger an underwater sound system that emits extremely powerful pulses of low frequency audio. The pulse rate and audio frequency are chosen to make human organs resonate like organ pipes, causing swimmers to vomit into their masks or suffer internal ruptures.”

Eww! That’s just messy! I hope they send out warning buoys or something!

 Posted by sandeberg at 15:32  Tagged with:

BBC: How I was trapped by porn at CES

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Jan 102006
 

BBC NEWS | Technology | How I was trapped by porn at CES

One of the worlds largest shows for techies right across the road and on the same date as the worlds largest porn expo? In Las Vegas?

I’m sure it’s all just a terrible coincidence…

 Posted by sandeberg at 15:05  Tagged with:

Bush makes anonymous flaming a crime

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Jan 102006
 

: “President Bush has made it a crime to post annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.


The law is buried in the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.
Under the wording you are allowed to flame someone if you use your real name. But there are also a few problems with the wording.


The law makes it illegal for anyone who: ‘utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet… without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person.’ So getting a good conviction is dependant on people agreeing on what is the meaning of the word annoying.


The law is designed to prevent cyberstalking, but having a look on Usenet, I think this one is going to make for some very interesting court cases, if it is possible to enforce.”

Hurrah! Time to look forward to thousands of spurious court cases and more message boards and chat rooms closing down in fear of legal reprisals! After all, some cases have shown that unless a host, site or even sometimes ISP, can properly protect all users from illegal activity, they may in fact be complicit.

And due to the fact that the net is international and your servers might end up being in the US, you can’t just ignore this legislation just because you’re not American.

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 Posted by sandeberg at 11:18  Tagged with: ,

Media – Last week, Christmas and last year

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Jan 092006
 
The last week
Music
This last week I’ve been listening to the a lot. I know I’m a good few months behind the times, but not listening to the radio a lot meant that I didn’t really hear their best known track “Bet you look good on the dancefloor” until New Years Day in Andy’s car, where Radio 1 was playing the most successful tracks of 2005. It’s a cracking track.
TV
Okay, I’ve not really been watching it on TV, but the principle is there. I’ve been enjoying Lost immensely. I caught the first 3 episodes when it first came on telly, but then missed the next three, at which point I gave up. You’ve really got to watch all the episodes concurrently. However over the last week I’ve been watching the episodes I’ve acquired. I’m up to episode 17 (Hurley’s past and the mysterious numbers) and can’t wait to watch more. Then I get to watch them all again because Penny wants to see them now.
Books
Penny’s been reading Memoirs of a Geisha recently because she wants to watch the movie next weekend. She’s been enjoying the book a lot and is hoping the film will do it justice. Me, I’ve been reading rubbish in the form of a couple of re-released novels. Good fun, historical pulp fiction that’s entertaining and occasionally educational. The ones written in the seventies are the best though, the style goes downhill after that.
Graphics
Sadly nothing, though I’m looking forward to the next when it comes out this week.
Christmas
Movies
A bumper crop this Christmas just past. I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire again, because my dad is a huge fan of Harry Potter films. In terms of DVDs, as previously stated I got Existenz, Memento and Appleseed from. I watched Memento with my parents, but it really wasn’t to their taste, unsurprisingly. I love it though and I’ve still to watch the other two movies, both of which I’ve yet to watch.
Graphics
was my graphic novel gift from Penny. The first collaboration between Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman, and what a treat it is.
Last Year
Last year was a good year for music and films. Here are some of my highlights.
Movies
My favourite cinema movie of the year had to be Sin City. Honourable mentions should go to Batman Begins and Harry Potter.
My favourite independent movie of the year, regardless of format, had to be , which I was fortunate enough to see at the London Film Festival.
Music
What a year in music! There was music in the charts that was actually worth listening to! What’s that about?
Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, Killers, Razorlight… All good bands. Album of the year has to go to Green Day with American Idiot though.
Authors
I can’t really decide on which were my favourite books of last year, but I thought I’d mention that I was very pleased to have met both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and got them both to sign my stuff.
 Posted by sandeberg at 11:59  Tagged with: , , ,

Christmas Update

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Jan 092006
 
Well, it’s been some time since my last blog post. Resting for Christmas and all that. And so I shall now give you the summary of transpired events.
Russel’s 30th Birthday
I know I already covered this months ago, but I found a picture on my phone of Russ’ birthday cake, complete with picture of a juvenile Russ in his lurid school uniform, on my phone and uploaded it to Flickr.
Christmas
Christmas was good. As usual I spent it with my parents in the Netherlands, although this time taking the very reasonably priced train all the way there. Less changes, less time and less money. Why fly?
Christmas at my parents’ is definetly a feast season, the pinnacle of which is the Christmas Day meal itself, with the traditional goose, red cabbage and dumplings. Mmmm….
My mum takes Christmas very seriously indeed and reverts to a five year-old. A five year-old with free reign to decorate the house. Don’t misunderstand though, it’s utterly brilliant and it’s impossible not to be infected with the seasonal mood. Evidence can be seen here.
Presents were good. Everything from books to a lava lamp to my much-desired coffee bean grinder from my parents. From Penny I enjoyed recieving the Violent Cases graphic novel, and the movies Existenz, Memeto and Appleseed.
New Year
New Year meant the second trip up to York within a month. This time though there was no drinking in the care, but there was a Penny. It was a great event though, starting with some excellent food at the Dormouse and then copious wine and conversation. And the alledgedly-secret Santa which resulted in me gaining A T-shirt emblazoned with “Arrrrr!” from said christmas mystery person and a bad film from Santa-Hoff.
It was good that Penny was able to come to the New Years Eve celebration. We hadn’t spent Christmas together and also Penny hadn’t seen everyone for months.
Last Week
Last week I had to spend the Bank Holiday Monday in the Fleet office. Not too much of an issue except that with everyone there seemingly ill with some virus or another, and the air-con cranked right up I ended coming down with something. So, it meant that I was not in work all the rest of last week. That also means thattoday is my first day back in the office.
More posts to come soon!
 Posted by sandeberg at 9:08  Tagged with: , ,
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