I found the most brilliant website recently. If used as intended it’s a step forward for democracy, making it easier for people to offer their opinion on subjects that matter to them directly to the Prime Minister. And if not, well, it’s entertaining reading.

I first came across some pretty distasteful stuff calling to ban the practising of the Muslim faith in the United Kingdom. Actually, much of the religious stuff was verging on the comedic. For example, Christian’s are being side-lined in British society. Unless you remember that senior members of the church can still be found in the House of Lords.

We went to see Pet Shop Boys play live at the Hammersmith Apollo on the 6th. It was a great gig, possibly the best of theirs that I’ve seen. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen them over the years and the first time I’ve not left at least a little disappointed.

But despite the ups and downs of their live shows, they have maintained their prime position in my music collection since at least Actually came out in 1987. That makes me feel old! Of course you can’t really rationalise something that tugs at raw emotion in the way that music often can[^1], but that has not stopped me trying to figure out why I keep listening to them[^2].

Microsoft have been getting lots of press recently because of their new Zune music player. One of its major features is its wireless interface that lets you share music; even most of the advertising talks about the social implications¹. But let’s have a quick look at that functionality in more detail.

If I decide that I want to expend an hour of battery life in order to see other Zunes in the area, what can I do? Most famously you can transfer songs. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, there are limits. When I receive a song, I can play it three times or hang onto it for three days² but after that all I get is an electronic post-it note reminding me about it. Clearly a lot of thought and a lot of engineering effort has gone into these limitations.

Last night we went to see the recording of a new BBC Radio 4 comedy programme called “His Master’s Voice.” It’s the first time that I’ve ever been to the Drill Hall (on Chennies Street in London) although I’ve heard many broadcasts of “Just A Minute” that were recorded there.

The programme itself is a political satire set in the offices of “The Blue Touch Paper,” the weekly magazine for the thinking Tory. I don’t want to give too much of the story away because I want you to tune in when it airs in July!

In this article in MacUser Howard Oakley notes that a number of schools have recently banned the use of wireless networks due to the unknown effects of the radio waves used. He then connects this with the declining number of people taking science subjects at those same schools and their ability to understand the likely risks of said networks.

It’s an interesting piece, but what I find interesting is that as the general populations understanding of how the world works dwindles, so our reliance on high technology increases¹.

I enjoyed writing my CRAP Alert post yesterday. Very cathartic. But there are some serious points in it and while I might be overstating the case when I spell them out here, I think it’s worth doing just to be clear.

The truth is I genuinely do support the right of people to publish this kind of information. I am against pretty much all forms of censorship and am very much in favour of giving people good information so that they can make an informed decision themselves.

Ever since I found it a few years ago I have been very impressed with the CAP Alert website. The “American Culture Ministry” owns it and their plan is to review films for objectionable content. In this context, “objectionable” means anything that does not fit in with their fairly strict interpretation of the Bible. They claim that their reviews are objective¹ as they use the WISDOM scale². I absolutely support the rights of groups such as this to take all the fun out of entertainment.

This is the second (and final) post about the Printing-1 photo book printing service. Last month I wrote about the ordering process, here I discuss the finished product and draw an overall conclusion comparing it with the books I saw last year¹.

The time-line looks something like this: the order went out on the evening of the 17th April; the dispatch notice email arrived on the 25th April; and the finished item arrived at lunchtime on the 30th April. This, by the way, is with express (DHL) delivery. It looks like it was printed in and dispatched from Germany. I still find it slightly surprising that, of the four services I have tried so far, only one has a full operation in the UK.

Last year I performed a photo-book group test, comparing the results from three different suppliers, Apple, MyPublisher and PhotoBox. The good news for consumers is that there are always new entrants to the market. This time a company called Printing-1¹ contacted me and asked for my opinion on their wares. That’s to say, while last years books were paid for out of my own pocket this one was not.

This test follows a similar pattern to last time. This post documents the software and the ordering process; the next will talk about the quality of the finished product. The initial order was placed on the evening of 17th April.