I didn’t have an exact picture in mind for this weeks PhotoFriday, “Costume,” but I did have an event: on the Norwegian Constitution Day there’s a huge parade in most major cities, including the biggest which is in Oslo.

So I fired up iPhoto to see which was the best image to use and… they weren’t there. So I spent much of this afternoon finding my negatives and scanning the whole, missing roll of film in. I’d forgotten why I’d moved to digital!

Did you see today’s press release from the Home Office about how great ID cards are? Despite any evidence that this actually happens, they keep asserting that people can’t wait to get their hands on them. Everyone is so keen that they’re going to start issuing them to volunteers before the 2012 official start.

It seems that they’re backing off a little on the anti-terrorist claims, but here is the new list of benefits.

• China ‘Strikes Hard’ in Tibet – Not good.
• Creativity and stretching the sweatshirt – “For me, creativity is the stuff you do at the edges. But the edges are different for everyone, and the edges change over time.”
• Red Dwarf voyages back to Earth – I’ve been watching the reruns and, well, the episodes I’ve seen so far just haven’t been as good as I remembered them to be. I’ll probably still watch the new ones of course…
• Banks now refusing to lend pens – Only funny because it’s true. Ish.

Petra and its Treasury are justly considered travel icons, which, I think, makes it a great candidate for this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, “Icon.” Shots like this are used almost everywhere Petra is mentioned (the other is the Treasury with a camel sat in front of it), which kind of makes it an iconic — in the sense of having a conventional formulaic style — photo, too.

• NetNewsWire and iPhone-Sized Data – “Lesson learned: It’s not enough for an iPhone app to sport an iPhone-optimized user interface. It needs iPhone-sized data, too.” I agree with this in principle but I’ve been thinking how I’d apply it to my iPhone application, Yummy, and coming up with a blank. How can you decide in advance which bookmarks you’ll want to see? Most recent? Those with a particular tag? I can’t think of an option other than ‘all.’
• The Inauguration of President Barack Obama – In case you’re not sick of the inauguration already, here are some great images of the day.
• Gordon Brown withdraws plan to keep details of MPs’ expenses secret – “The PM said proposals for reforms of MPs’ expenses would provide ‘more transparency’ than in most other parliaments around the world.” I’m not convinced that this is a standard we should aspire to. Let’s face it, our parliament is more open that North Korea and less tyrannical than Iran’s but really that’s not much of an achievement.

I’ve started to get “into” Twitter, the micro-blogging site, in the last month or so. One trend that I picked up on is that of “hashtags” where you put a hash (pound) symbol followed by a word somewhere in your message. This makes is searchable. The most recent that I’ve participated in is #firstmac, for which my contribution was:

A white iBook G3, paid extra to get the 600Mhz version with the faster bus speed and an impossible-to-use-it -all 384Mb of memory

• Withnail tourism – Must head up to the lakes, or at the very least dig out my DVD.
• Bush Street Renamed Obama Street in San Francisco – Welcome to the White House, President Obama!
• Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’ – On the eve of Obama’s inauguration it’s instructive to look back to Bush’s 2001 speech…

• 6 days to stop MPs concealing their expenses – I’m appalled that they’re trying to stop the public finding out how they’re spending our money! How about some accountability?
• Yummy 2.0 Quick Overview – New version of my iPhone delicious.com client. Lots of new features, including a web preview, integration with various Twitter clients, view by tag, improved search, streamlined bookmark editing… the list goes on!
• If you’ve nothing to hide… – Double standards from MPs. Who’d have thought?

A Tibetan monk spends a lot of his time meditating. Unfortunately I didn’t get a good picture of one so this weeks PhotoFriday, “Meditation,” is a picture of the many people who meditate, pray and prostrate outside the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “White.” I’m entry 266.

• China’s three-horse mobile bet: Repeating America’s mistakes – “We’ve seen from the last big experiment in multiple standards that competition doesn’t always lead to more choice and lower prices. That experiment was the US – the place that leads in technology, internet and computer design, yet trails in mobile phone technology.”
• ‘Visions link’ to coffee intake – My alma mater finds a connection between coffee and hallucinations. I was saying the same thing to a pink elephant only the other day…
• Pound shop forced to close – after 99p store opens across the road – In a recession every penny counts I suppose! Not in The Onion or Newsbiscuit as you might imagine… (Via @antairgames)