Archive for July, 2006
July 28th, 2006
To continue the talk of the
Global Frequency pilot, the following from the Blog of
Warren Ellis:
Since the news broke that Warner Bros will offer the unaired AQUAMAN pilot on iTunes, I’ve been pelted with emails asking if the same thing will happen with the unaired GLOBAL FREQUENCY pilot (based on my books).
The answer is: I have no idea, but I doubt it.
There was a move afoot at one point to try and get the show out direct-to-DVD, but the pilot leaking on to bit torrent so incensed some of the powers-that-be, according to my understanding, that that initiative was crushed dead.
I strongly doubt that this version of GLOBAL FREQUENCY would ever be made available for purchase. Which is a shame.
So there you have it. I didn’t think it would be released and the only people unhappy about it, apart from old Warren, are the ones that probably saw a “evaluation copy”.
July 27th, 2006
US rock star to record Bond theme
Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell is to write and record the theme tune to the new James Bond film, Casino Royale.
The theme for the 21st Bond film, in which Daniel Craig will debut as 007, is titled You Know My Name.
A film spokeswoman said Cornell’s music was “both soulful and tough” and “the perfect complement” to the film.
Casino Royale will receive its world premiere in London on 14 November. The film is released three days later in the UK and US.
US rocker Cornell was previously the singer with Seattle rock group Soundgarden.
tags:
bond,
audioslave,
soundgarden
July 20th, 2006
Finally, Something Dumber Than The US Visa Form: This is a
form you have to fill out in order to get a teaching gig in Ohio, USA.
Are you a member of an organization on the U.S. Department of State Terrorist Exclusion List?
Yes / No
Wow! If only someone had though of this technique earlier! Genius!
July 19th, 2006
BBC News Story
[Modern-day England has] a population of largely Germanic genetic origin, speaking a principally German language.
So it seems that by an apartheid system which valued the life of an Anglo-Saxon higher than that of a Briton, combined with the fact that the wealthier, healthier invaders had more children survive to adulthood, England became almost entirely Germanic in it’s genetic structure. Barring that brief intermingling with our French neighbours a thousand years ago.
So there you have it. Proof, at long last, that while a love of beer and sausage is genetically inherited, love of the Hoff is not. Barring exceptions of course.
I greet you all, fellow Germans!
tags:
geneaology,
history
July 19th, 2006
Senate says yes to stem cell research; Bush to veto
Wired News Story
The bill passed 63-37, four votes short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override Bush’s veto. The president left little doubt he would reject the bill despite late appeals on its behalf from fellow Republicans Nancy Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The sticking point in the bill is the use of embryonic stem cells as opposed to adult stem cells. The latter are less ethically ambiguous but the former so much more likely to garner useful science. Wired has an excellent stem cell
primer to buff up on the details.
I think it’s good that ethics are at the heart of modern scientific research, or at least that bit that’s in the public. There has been no similar debate or legislation of pharmaceutical nanotechnology, primarily because people don’t understand it, hence it’s not in the headlines. But you just can’t beat anything that might, in some tiny way, be in some way connected to babys to evoke a public reaction.
My own opinion? Well, it’s already illegal to create embryos for research purposes, which is a good thing. In other words the embryonic stem cells would be harvested from biological material that would otherwise be destroyed and hence would best be used for furthering science as long there is independent, objective ethical oversight.
tags:
stemcells,
science,
ethics
July 18th, 2006
Bryce has already blogged the party of the weekend quite extensively and there’s not much I can add to it, but I’ll make a few comments.
Firstly, Pirates 2 was good fun. The first half was very much “Look at the comedy pirate and his crazy antics!” while the second half was some more serious pirating and a real rollercoaster ride. In short, it was good and I’m looking forward to the concluding part. Disney must be laughing all the way to the bank.
In comparison, Superman Returns didn’t do very well at all. The US takings for last weekend for the big blue boyscout was a mere $11 million compared to a piratastic $62 million. Woops.
The party itself was a blast; I enjoyed it muchly. It was good to get som many together, including people who had come quite a way that I hadn’t seen in ages.
I skipped the quiz mainly so I could spend some time catching up with Stu & Sam, and then skipped most of the karaoke, mainly so I could skip the karaoke. I seem to recall being shanghaied into one song where a machine accused me of being tone deaf. Hmm… I didn’t know I was supposed to hit the notes! Otherwise I would have tried and ended up with a really low score!
Sunday was major mong day as I nursed my hangover. I think I earned it though!
Trains seem to be quite a mess this week. On Monday we had ticket inspectors and while there were no lousy excuses to be heard (Last time I heard “But I’ve taken this train for weeks and never bought a ticket before!”) but I did see a very respectable looking gentleman legging it from fare enforcement officers down a platform!
Penny’s trains are a mess this week, what with the Farnborough Airshow being on and then on Friday/Saturday we have the train
strike. I can just about get into London, but it’ll be impossible to get out. Two trains an hour from London on a Friday night? It’s not going to happen. I have no idea what I’ll do if I can’t work from home that day.
July 14th, 2006
It took five working days to clear down all the unreads in my
RSS Reader! I am now informed and up to date.
So tonight it’s time to go and see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Do we go to see the plot? The special effects? No. We don’t even go to see it for Keira. (Well…) We go to see Captain Jack Sparrow. Pirate, rogue, rum drinker and inspiration to us all. May he lead us astray, afloat and amused.
Oh, and as for this weekend, interlopers beware! We have a
guardian!
Now, I know what you’re thinking… This doesn’t seem to resemble the missing entries on Egypt at all, does it. Well, I do have an excuse, I just won’t bore you with it.
Now, just before my trip to Germany I went to the
O2 Wireless Festival (link to pictures) in Hyde Park with Tim and Alex and a good time indeed it was! I mainly went to see Massive Attack and DJ Shadow, in that order of preference, but these things never go how you’d expect. It turns out that even though I missed the last 10-15 minutes of the set, DJ Shadow really was the best show in town, even despite the comedy stereotypical rappers for part of the set. The pleasant surprise was by
Terry Callier which was very enjoyable indeed.
Gnarls Barkley was somewhat predictably fluffy, despite whacking up the bass and volume for the one track everyone actually knows. The Flaming Lips were fun with their bizarre stage set and their comedy cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. Damien Marley proved that he was jammin’, he was jammin’, he was jammin’ to his dad’s music mostly. I’m glad I got to see
Massive Attack, but a) I was too far away to really feel it and b) the field was full of people who got free tickets and thought they’d have a look-see at a band they’d heard of and then spent the time nattering to their mates. Such a shame for the headline act to be ruined so. Overall though I’m really glad I got to go and was thrilled to get to go with Tim and Alex, even though they mostly made me feel like a musical dunce once their awesome combined knowledge of all things musical was unleashed.
July 14th, 2006
July 10th, 2006
Picking up where I left off, later that day we went to climb the huge spire of the Cologne Cathedral, the Dom. What a very long way up! Sadly it was spoiled by the fact that there was schoolkid graffiti all the way up! Outrageous! You have to hope that there’s some explanation why it’s not been removed.
We ended the day with a protest steak at an Argentinean steak house. By this point we had overloaded on pork! There’s only so much dead pig a man can eat!
Next day was off to see my parents in the Netherlands, which was good. We did some cycling around and ended up getting somewhat burnt on a two hour cycle ride. Typical. Two weeks of wandering around in the summer heat and barely a tan, but two hours on the coast and WHAM! Sunburn.
After that it was back home via Belgium and it’s curious lack of petrol stations, but overall it was quite painless.
And there you have it.
Here are the stats:
Miles driven: 2000
Days travelled: 16
Borders crossed: 13
Countries seen: 6
ODP members encountered: 5
Speed cameras triggered: 2
Days of “I feel too rough to drink”: 1
Grand Dukes foiled: 1/2 (He hit us hard, but we survived and weren’t thrown in an oubliette. We’ll call it a draw)
Highest mountain ascended: Zugspitze
Biggest lake seen: Bodensee
Most responsible for nigh alcohol poisoning:
Hofbrauhaus in Munich and it’s evil 1 litre jugs of dark beer
Prettiest village: Ribeauville
Prettiest town: Tough, but I liked Heidelberg
Ugliest town: Brussels. It might have been Mannheim, but it was redeemed by the Rhein banks
Most potent memory: “Ghost”, the garlic sausage-eating, foul-smelling monstrosity.
tag:
roadtrip
July 6th, 2006
Germany is out of the World Cup and we’re nearly at the end of our stay here. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
On our way north we decided to visit the beautiful old universty town of
Heidelberg, including a trip up to the castle. A very nice town indeed. And such a contrast tour next stop, the concrete jungle of
Mannheim. It was not out of some sense of completion that we ventured here, but rather that we visiting some of Andy’s friends from
Dmoz, Irene and Daniel, who at the end of the day very kindly fed us whiskey and put us up on their floor as we had not managed to find a
Youth Hostel for the night.
The next day we had a good early start, following the Rhein north, with a stop-off in
Worms for the cathedral and an open air pool in the forest for a cool off as it was a 33°C day and we were roasting! We ended up staying at the excellent Youth hostel in the tiny Bad Marienberg (a nightmare to find) where they treated us excellently and we watched the expulsion of the German team from the World Cup.
Next morning we were up bright and early to go to
Cologne, renowned for it’s impressive cathedral. After some sightseeing we once again met up with one of Andy’s ODP friends, Chris, who started to to show us around her city, but we were rudely interrupted by the return performance of the infernal weather machine of the
Grand Duke of Luxembourg as the skies opened and immense amounts of water fell to the earth. So we interrupted the tour to go and have some Thai food in a restaurant.
Andy’s feeling a little tender today, due to the post-dinner cocktails which seemed to present themselves, but we should be okay to climb the spire of the cathedral today. And tomorrow… the Netherlands.
tag:
roadtrip
