Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘media’ Category

I'm lazy and thus quoting my mate Andrew:

"If you want to save BBC 6 Music, BBC websites, Asian Network, Blast, Switch etc. then you need to contact the BBC Trust. It's they who make the decision, not the Culture Secretary (Tory or Labour) or anyone else. You can give them your views here."

What's really cool is that once you've filled in the questionnaire, the site gives you a PDF of your own responses. For those interested, I've attached mine to this post.

(The questions in the PDF are abridged, so the "what do you think of those proposals?" ones won't make that much sense if you haven't seen what the proposals are. They're shown in full on the consultation site, so go along and have a look if you're curious.)

• BBC responses, 3 March

Electroshock collars banned in Wales. Ha! In your FACE, Cesar Milan!

Sheepies in the snow

Taking home leftovers from work parties can be bad for you, Ancient Egyptians find.

Stemming blood flow to the arm protects heart during attack. Not sure if I'd dare do this as part of my first aiding…

Naughty tigie behaviour. Remind anyone else of The Life of Pi?

'Most unfortunate names' revealed. How I adore puns.

Personally, I've come across the name Pritti Mistry – which is quite sweet, actually – and know of a Jane Eyre in my family history. Of late, I have persuaded a Ms Robson of my acquaintance to call her first son Jerome. (Luckily, I'm sure she'll forget long before she should have this opportunity.)

And as a Baskerville, don't think I have considered adopting a Howard or Howell. Not that a wolfhound would understand the intricacies of wordplay, so it wouldn't be cruel.

Is Switzerland a hotbed of "Zionism and foreign aggression", then?

Children 'over-exposed to sexual imagery'. I saw Dr. Papadopoulos interviewed on breakfast news this morning. Amazingly, it was a good interview (though dumbed-down, as usual). I can't see that clip online; here's another video report on early exposure to sexualised imagery.

Giant George the Great Dane enters the record books.

Presumably they've had him measured now because 4 years is pretty long-lived for a Great Dane. Poor beasts.

edit: Brother's been on Oprah.

Hiding FAIL: German man betrayed to police by his own dog.

Springy spaniel jumps off cliff to see if she bounces.

Aerial view of County Tyrone (Ireland).

Gentlemen: bring me Superman and I'll give you One Meeelyun Dollars!

All right you guys.

Ninja Assassin is the BEST FILM EVER.

We were laughing so hard throughout. It's wonderful, really, all cheesy plot and plentiful OTT violence and gore.

And of course it reminded me strongly of Weft's upbringing, except more girl ninjas* and less knitting.

*a definite improvement.

OK… so…

First people were in the news mentioning how they had suicidal urges because Bluecahontas — sorry, Avatar — isn't real.

*writes up a prescription for some red pills* All right, carry on.

But now, via an otherkin-with-senses-of-humour thing I read, I give you the Na'vi Anti-Defamation League.

This is a travesty.

How dare the dandelion-herding, psychic-pony-riding Violet Beauregarde brigade rob us of our pretend racism?!?

Time to take to the streets and take back our right to disrespect people who don't exist! When will this end? Next they'll be saying people who don't believe in invisible magic things aren't fully human!

Oh dear. Did some of you just stop laughing?

So anyway.

I think combining the shininess of Avatar with the dark, cynical thoughtfulness of District 9 (and some doggies) would have produced about the best film I can imagine. District 9 was fantastic in its own right, but there's no denying the visual loveliness of Avatar. Films don't actually have to come with a brown-grey filter to make an impactful point. Honest. There's nothing wrong with a bit of beauty for its own sake.

Incidentally, Avatar was lacking in one important regard. Nobody said "They're attacking Home Tree! Quick, I need root access!" (Indeed, one loses count of the tree/computer puns they fail to make after being informed that the entire biosphere is essentially a distributed natural intelligence.)

I just composed an email to Alistair Darling asking him to go ahead and implement a windfall tax on bankers' bonuses.

I include my email below in case it inspires my other UK friends to do likewise. Feel free to use it as a template, but do personalise it and include your name so the Community Chestellor knows it's from a real person.

Dear Alistair Darling,

Please do announce a windfall tax on bankers' bonuses this week.

We were given no choice when our money was used to rescue the banks whose irresponsible trading caused the current financial crisis.

Last week the High Court gave them carte blanche to continue imposing ludicrous charges on the people who bailed them out.

Now the same greedy, irresponsible institutions are trying to put pressure on the government when it threatens to curtail the money they skim off the top.

I will be right behind the government if it shows the courage to say "enough is enough". Our money rescued the banks from collapse. Do not make us watch it go into the pockets of bankers before they scurry away from their sinking ships.

Yours sincerely,

I like this 38 Degrees site. They email me a little often for my liking, but they do make activism easy.

(Usual disclaimer applies: this post is my opinion, not that of my employer. My employer loves everyone, even bankers. I do not.)

Found a cool new real-time blog, like the Dracula one but non-fiction.

Lolz, we're gonna pwn the Antarctic!

Dog 'saves' sleep condition woman

Ooh, here's one for the wishlist next to Cold Reading by Ian Rowland…

And now, Windows tips via someone on Yammer.

Clicking Start > Run (or pressing Windows key + R if, like me, you are a keyboard man) and typing the abbreviation "clipbrd" will bring up the clipboard viewer.

Clicking Start > Run and typing "flipbrd" will bring up a picture of Bill Gates giving you the finger.

Pet labrador which 'knew train timetable' dies (shut up, it is not a slow news day!1!)

Read the original story too, linked in the sidebar. That signalman is after my own heart.

Police making arrests 'just to gather DNA samples'

Colours, sounds and moving objects

HIV infections and deaths fall as drugs have impact

The worldwide stats are really interesting.

Grandmother monkeys care for baby

I bet this guy is the new football sex symbol. Ladies?

NOM!

This article also wins for coining a slightly more disturbing variant of "it's not rocket science":

"We're not building an atomic bomb," he points out. "You just have to use the right quantities, and the right ingredients."

On trams too, please!

(If someone were to give me a Wave Bubble for Christmas, chances are high that I'd wuv them forever for months.)

Mussolini's 'brain and blood for sale on internet' – presumably to frustrated commuters for vodou purposes

Astronaut on space shuttle Atlantis becomes a father – more impressive if it was "becomes a mother"…

Galileo gives Church the finger from a Florence museum. Wait, did I read that right?

Iraqi children attend a pretend maths class

On the Origin of Faeces

(Hel yes I went there.)

Captions <3

And finally, fabbydabbydoo pictures of nature pwnage.

Senator Nick Xenophon moar like XENUphon amirite?

If you don't eat your mutt you can't have any puddy! How can you have any puddy if you won't eat your mutt?!

(Picture = cutest brindle mastiff EVAR TODAY.)

Dog survives 65ft plunge into sea, looks nervously at RNLI rescuers licking their lips.

Swan

Penguin

Bat

Shackleton's whisky to be dug up

Bitter divorcees 'using children'

It's arseholes like this who should be stopped from marrying, not them scary scary gays.

Megaloceros giganteus (giant deer) starved to death during ice age. Clearly they didn't think of storing their booze in a nearby glacier.

"That means that mainland giant deer had some sort of refugia from the Ice Age before they met their ultimate extinction; they were able to move to a better environment and survive later," says Ms Chritz. BBC

And that, my UK friends, is why moose go to Iceland.

The Cat Piano, an animated noir beat poem.

This was really designed. Like KJ Parker with her special longbow, I don't want to know if it was ever built.

Rare Barbastelle bat found on the Isle of Wight

White hind caught on camera in Scotland; Queens Susan, Lucy, Kings Peter, Edmund, seen rushing to site

This article can't make up its mind whether the hind (which is a female deer) should be referred to as "it" or "she". Come on, folks, language guidelines should state that if an animal's sex is known, he or she should be referred to appropriately. Possibly non-sexually-dimorphic arthropods and small fish could be exempt, but it's stupid to refer to a queen bee or ant drone as "it".

Dog lost in Afghan battle returns. Again with the "its"! What is this rudeness? To a war veteran, no less! (Oh, sorry, Sabi, I meant to say war experienced person.)

28,000 people in the UK have black and white television sets.

You mean BCC, sigh…

Nu Labour in a nutshell:

"It is with considerable disappointment, therefore, that the government has agreed not to remove the 'freedom of expression' section."

The superstitions around opening an umbrella indoors apparently date back to the Ancient Egyptians.

Nurse shark? This one's a midwife.

Smart wife launches her own entrapment operation to catch her paedophile husband in the act. Also, they live in Pantygog.

Chile says "thanks but no thanks" to statue of authoritarian paedophile-abetting misogynist with creepy Virgin Mary fixation. Sadly not on those grounds, just because of an underground car park.

This one's fascinating: Traditional African rulers should apologise for the role they played in the slave trade, a Nigerian rights group has said.

'I agreed to become a suicide bomber' – after days of beatings and being shouted at, poor kid. I admire him.

Greek Church throws a hissy fit about a ban on "the compulsory display of crucifixes" in classrooms.

Darwin foiled by ambulance service

Lion is taken on midnight safari. Disapproves of stop signs but enjoyed drive-thru.

Beautiful.

My job has improved my knowledge of pop culture SO much, seriously.

[Mel] Gibson… is he the Scientologist or the anti-Semite? Directed Lord of the Rings or Lord of the Flies or something too, didn't he?
Herm, today

I wouldn't have known that much before.

Forest pursues 'dark sky' status. Galloway is in the south of Scotland. This would be the first certified 'dark sky' place outside the USA (which you'd think would have a natural advantage in the sheer amount of less-populated space over there).

Dolphin football off north coast

Massive killer whale pod sighted

"I'm utterly lost for words" – well shut up, then; your yapping isn't adding to the moment here!

Royal award for fold-up bike man

Swedes divided over bunny biofuel

Slightly misleading picture of a pet bunny. We're talking about dead wild rabbits. Given a bunch of dead rabbits after a cull that would have happened regardless, you can incinerate them, toss them into a mass grave or try to put them to some kind of use. Left up to me, well, somebody's doggies would have some very nice gourmet cooked meals.

Dogs who attacked child will be destroyed

I wonder how many of the roughly 50% of UK inhabitants who oppose the death penalty for humans (I know, frighteningly low number) would also oppose it for dogs.

Delay formal lessons 'to age six'

I dunno. If we can trust parents to teach and engage their kids in the meantime, that'd be good. And then there's the question of if parents can afford to stay at home and teach their kids (and in an ideal world the answer to this should be absolutely yes). Not necessarily formal lesson-style learning, but socialisation, zoo, finger-painting, all the stuff a kid needs to experience.

My concern (as usual) is about gifted kids especially, and stunted potential all around. I needed to start reading at age two, and if I hadn't had a minion on hand to teach me, it would've been rubbish.

"Everybody is used to science fiction featuring science that seems, well, not very scientific."

Er, if we're being pedantic, I beg to dub that 'science fantasy' or soft SF, not cool hard sci-fi. But continue.

Welcome to the world of sci-fi science