www.paulnixon.org

LyricWiki.org

Lyrics go open source.

Nice.

Reality Gaming

Hmmm. Don't know enough about it to comment in the positive or the negative.

Conceptually, it sounds fascinating though. Could this be the ultimate gaming experience? Possibly

Firefox Memory Leak

Tips on getting Firefox to behave.

And this amusing quote..

"There are other features Firefox is more in need of. Heck, I'd just like a Bookmarks manager that doesn't make drag-and-drop moves of bookmarks, bookmark folders and separators nearly a spectator sport. "

New Labour...

A new low in British politics.

We were promised 'whiter than white'. We surely have had the most corrupt and deceptive and incompetent government of all time.

Just a few highlights for me. Faith based schools, Bernie Ecclestones 1m, F1s unconnected exemption from the tobacco ban, Geoff Hoon, 45 minute claims, Allistair Cambell, choice in schools, closing hospitals, Ruth Kelly, cash for peerages, schools for peerages, Caplin, prayers with Bush, the Iraq war, the Hutton Report, the windfall tax, Charles Clarke, dodgy housing deals, Jack Straw, 'trust me Tony', David Blunkett, weapons of mass destruction, the 'anomaly' of guantanamo bay, cosying up with Rupert Murdoch, David Kelly's suicide, plausible deniability, Brown's raid on our pensions, 100,000+ dead in Iraq, dodgy Iraq reports based on under-graduate projects, EU budget surrender, focus groups, Keith Vaz, welsh elections, it's campaign against Ken Livingstone, people on the sex register allowed to work in schools, pensioners detained under our fantastic new terrorist laws, erosion of civil liberties, extraordinary rendition, Hewitt saying the NHS has had it's 'best year ever' shortly after 7,000 job cuts are announced, Tessa Jowells mortgage, Stephen Byers. And so on. And on. And John Prescott. Even John Prescott.

And, most sickenly, this quote from Tony Blair

"It means being open. It means telling it like it is. Let's be honest. Straight. Those most in need of hope deserve the truth."

I, for one, hope that Labour get one hell of a kicking today.

Boris Johnson the hard tackler

Boris comes on for england and perhaps doesn't realise he's not playing rugby?

Result

Well. I'm not sure about you, but I'm a pretty straight sort of guy.

And I, and many others, sent a clear message to Tony Blair yesterday.

PS After seeing Question Time last night, is it too late to add Margaret Beckett to my list below? Smug and superior whilst not essentially all that cogent, and with an appearance that would be more appropriate for the leader of darleks than on the front bench of our government.

Labour Reshuffle

A pathetic attempt to "regain the initiative" by New Labour.

Geoff Hoon is now Minister for Europe. Surely this buff-hoon has only kept his job by lying very very low for the last couple of years lest we remember his performace during the Iraq debacle.

Good old Frank Dobson sums it up nicely..

".. a reshuffle would be like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic".

Things.. can only get better

Well, at least something's going right for New Labour.

More job cuts have been announced at 4 hospitals in Manchester.

Just ask Pat Hewitt; this is clearly more evidence of the best ever year for the NHS.

Three cheers...

Colourblindness

How things look to colourblind people.

Gallows Humour

This charmer has been selling gallows and selling them to African countries.

Pretty out of order I guess.

But the interesting thing for me is that they have a starting price of £12k. That seems a bit steep for 3 bits of wood and some rope.

Can't they improvise with a branch on a tree of a convenient height?

Weight Watchers Recipes

These recipes made me laugh enough to make me want to share them around. So here they are. Just click through gem after gem...

Launchy

Launchy.

Cute name. Very brave not to call it Launchr I think.

Anyway, it looks like a handy little utility. I'm going to give it a go.

Brummies

Brummies lead the world in the use of the search term 'porn', according to google trends. Followed by Manchester, then all of the Australian cities.

I'm not sure this is good or bad news. However, it's the brutish lack of specificity of the search term 'porn' that I find most surprising.

Cabbie Superstar

Superb.

The BBC mistook a cabbie for an expert on MP3 downloads.

I think he did a pretty good job considering.

Great Ebay as

to quote the seller "As you can see, this car has had nothing but the upmost care taken with it. I'm not putting a reserve on the car, but the person who buys it (cause you will) will have to collect and get it fixed yourself. It has nearly a year's MOT, and is taxed till July or August time. In the time I've had it, there has only been one ginger in it, and no confirmed gays. It has a brand new exhaust. The interior is a queer buff colour and the boot - for some reason - has been covered with maroon carpet fittings. The winning bidder will also receive a deflated football, an empty milk carton, a finished bottle of engine oil and three out of date bottles of the world's cheapest fizzy drink (I think they may be called panda pop...), as these items are fixtures of the carpetted boot."

Play your mp3's from any PC

Play your mp3s from any PC in the world!

Stunning software, really easy to use as well.

Top 10 Premiership Goals

some crackers here

How much longer can this be allowed to happen?

OK. So Iraq would never have been anyone’s habitat of choice under Saddam’s regime. Apart from the man himself I guess.

However, I was shocked to hear this morning that 3,500 people PER MONTH are being tortured, raped, brutally butchered, bummed and just generally killed.

Just to put that in perspective, 2,752 people died in the World Trade Center attacks. That is a mere 79% of a month’s worth of death in Iraq. This figure excludes those still being persecuted and executed in Afghanistan after our boys “did the job” there.

In an entire 50 years of violence in Northern Ireland and related bombings in the UK, 3,500 people died. The same number of people as are losing their lives in Iraq in a month.

And in the bombings in London, 52 people lost their lives. This was of course, awfully upsetting and horrible but imagine if that much fuss were made in Iraq each time that number of people died. That would be once every 4 hours and 4 minutes!

Minutes silence? They wouldn’t have time would they?

Next to Blair and Bush, Saddam is almost a saint isn’t he?

When is something going to be done to stop this from happening? Can you imagine a man and his 6 children being dragged from their car and executed in this country and it just being passed off as another news story? No. Yet we hear news like this every day. And what do we do? What can we do?

Answers on a postcard. Quite happy to lead an uprising :o)

Ban Diving Launched

No one likes a diver in football, so go to my website and sign the petition. Spread the word to any of your mates who like football.

Horoscope Magazine

I saw someone reading this publication on my troubled train journey home tonight; it did little to lighten my mood.

A whole magazine, for horoscopes. Ruddy horoscopes.

I'm with Dawkins on this - it's not harmless fun.

What's next anyway? 'The Moon is made of Cheese' monthly. That would be as credible.

Fast Food Nation

Yay.

Fast food nation, enjoyable book, is going to be made into a film.

Here's the trailer.

Brilliant...

Brilliant picture 'drilling down' type thing.

Ellen MacArthur

... take not.

Look. Nobody wants to take anything away from her seafaring achievements.

However, this woman has just circumnavigated around the world. Not balling. No fuss. No cosying up with B&Q. And she went the wrong way!.

Visual Task Tips

Another shell enhancement. Stolen from the Vista feature set.

Dalmation riding a bike

Not fake as far as I can work out

'Alternative' Therapy

A bit of a crackdown on 'alternative' therapies hopefully.

Not that I'm opposed to the basic tenets of alternative medicine; that there might well be a better, safer alternative to those offered by the big pharmaceutical companies.

However. When there is no evidence that they work, that is quite a different matter. Homeopathy is a classic example. Apart from being, frankly, a bizarre notion, 'over a dozen systematic reviews have failed to produce convincing evidence of effectiveness'.

And that's an 'alternative' medicine that has actually been involved in a trial or two.

As Richard Dawkins is fond of saying; there is no medicine and alternative medicine; just medicine that works. If alternative medicines work, why are there practitioners so reluctant to try and prove it?

Ideal Gift

A $200 rubik's cube.

Nikepod

Apple and Nike reckon they’re on to a nice little number with this idea.

The two companies are collaborating to release a system that links Nike running shoes to yer nano, which would feedback critical information about how far you’ve run, calories consumed etc.

My immediate thought was, “do Nike not realise that most of what they sell ends up standing round in shopping centres for most the day and rarely moves faster than the pace of a teenage swagger”. Unless said wearer is running from Bluewater security guards, in which case the number of calories you’d burnt on your “run” would probably be the last thing on your mind.

Anyway, when I was learning to run, the book I read made it quite clear that it is not safe to listen to music on your earphones whilst running for obvious reasons, namely that a car could be mounting the pavement behind you and you’d never know about it. Or you could be mounted from behind. Though you certainly would know about that.

And for the second time in two days, I read an article which uses the word “could” rather too much.

“Users could then either view information on the iPod's screen or have it delivered audibly through their headphones.

Once the run was finished, the data could be uploaded to an online diary at www.nikeplus.com”

Loosely interpreted, what that means is that it will do none of those things and it will be poxy and disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love technological innovation. I can’t get enough of it. This though - it’s cynical marketing and I don’t like it.

Sacha Baron Cohen as you've never seen him before

Well I never!

Love the socks and shoes, very tastful.

Radio 6

Top comedy.

We mostly listen to Radio 6 in the office these days.

Steve Lamacq does the afternoon slot, and is remarkable only for his soporific delivery and sleepy indifference to his guests.

Anyway, on Wednesday, he did a terrible phone-in slot; food your parents made you eat. With a little prompting from me, Dave sent an email with our own little made-up story.

You can hear it here

Which came first the egg or the chicken?

Supposedly the answer to the age old question of which came first. Not so convincing unfortunately, but getting there...

Jose Moanino

Har har har.

The link is to ban diving. Just wanted to show you the image really.

Binball Wizard

If it's Friday it must be timewasting time

My letter got published

Just to counter that a little. My letter got published on PF1.

Not tough on crime..

Oh dear.

'New' Labours inexorable slide continues.

Crime conviction rates

Serious Wounding : 9.7%

Robberies : 8.9%

Rape : 5.5%

Since New Labour have been mismanaging our country, the number of serious woundings has gone up by 50% whilst the conviction rate has practically halved.

Rapes have doubled under New Labour. And, again, the conviction rate has practically halved.

Tremendous. Is it not time for labour to call it a day? How much worse do things need to get?

The crime figures are pretty grim reading. There are a lot of disgusting people in this country.

Foxylicious

If you don't use del.icio.us to maintain your favourites you probably should.

If you do, you should download this extension that will synchronise your del.icio.us links with your bookmarks in Firefox.

Boner.

Jenson Button

Erm.

I'm sorry, I really don't know where to start.

The worst bar in the world

Just look at the clientele in the pictures, and then wonder why these pictures are on a site that is meant to be advertising the bar