Archive for the UK category
October 31st, 2007
Ah, the joys of an Orange line commute. And just wait until the Tyson’s extension is connected!
Seriously, isn’t that a great picture? James Calder caught it at the DC Zombie Lurch this past weekend.
Other bits that don’t fit anywhere in particular:
- Flying While Brown: still not (yet) a crime, still not a hassle free activity.
- My interest in the technical aspects of operating systems disappeared long ago, but I found this review of the new OS X version (Leopard) so well written that I didn’t even skim over the bits about the kernel. Recommended if you’re considering upgrading (I think I’ll hold off for a while) or if you’d just like to see what a well written technical article for a popular audience looks like.
- I wish I were a size small.
October 12th, 2007
Prompted by the recent US airing of the most recent episode, I’ve started re-watching Michael Apted’s 7 Up series. It follows the lives of a dozen or so Brits from the age of 7 through 49. The first episode (7 Up) was filmed in 1964, and since then, Apted has attempted to include all of the original participants in an episode every seven years (e.g., Plus 7 (age 14), 21 Up (age 21), etc.) since then. It’s not only fascinating as a number of period pieces, it’s heartbreaking, as we watch the inevitable narrowing of life’s choices.
I imagine that the 49 Up episode will be available as a rerun on your local PBS station, but if it’s something that sounds interesting to you, you can find it at Amazon
(or, as always, on the Internets).
October 2nd, 2007
A friend sent me a link yesterday, noting the sale of the Lonely Planet company to the BBC. I don’t really have any impression of how the BBC has treated properties it acquires, so I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. 
The BBC says that the deal will “allow Lonely Planet users to access BBC content - such as Michael Palin’s New Europe.” Well, umm, okay - didn’t I have “access” to that before? In any event, my advice to the BBC is twofold - concentrate on improving LP’s online presence. The “Thorntree” - LP’s online forums - is one of the Internet’s great wasted opportunities. LP users are the type that love to share useful info, but the forums are so poorly designed that they are near unusable. The books, on the other hand, are perfect. Don’t touch the guidebooks. Not even a little.
July 10th, 2007
I had a practical interest in the international currency exchanges at an early age. When I was 10, my allowance came in US dollars, but the all the places I wanted to spend it at only accepted Deutsche Marks. I had discovered that my one US dollar would get me much more in my hometown village of Eichenzell than it would get me at the US dollar store at the base exchange at Downs Barracks in Fulda. That was the start of an understanding that would lead me to the thrills of the black market rates of the East German Marks when we went to Berlin, the generous exchange rate with Venezuelan Bolivars in the late 90s, and the joys of cheap Euro-denominated vacations in 2001.
But everything comes at a price, no? I had an inkling this was coming, as my last trip back to England was pretty expensive. But I wasn’t entirely prepared for this:
The euro rose to an all-time high against the yen and traded near a record versus the dollar on prospects the European Central Bank will signal plans to raise its benchmark interest rate at least once more this year.
[ . . . ]
The pound was near a 26-year high against the dollar on speculation the Bank of England will raise rates today.
[The Euro] was at $1.3614 against the dollar from $1.3613 yesterday and an all-time high $1.3681 reached on April 27.
[ . . . ]
The pound traded at $2.0152 after touching $2.0207 yesterday, the most since June 1981.
If you’re an American reading this, and don’t know why this matters to you, let me help - it means that it looks like you’re living on a soon to be third world currency.
June 12th, 2007
I, and many of my fellow countrymen, have been extraordinarily disappointed with Labour of late. Putting aside (work with me here) Blair’s unfathomable shadowing of Bush in Iraq, Labour’s domestic policy initiatives - National ID, expanded CCTV surveillance, anti-social behaviour laws, among others - have me running into the arms of another party. You know, if there *were* another party to run to. The Lib Dems? One trick ponys. The Tories? Ha.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Honestly, I’ve been fairly impressed (in a relative sense) with where David Cameron is trying to drag the Tories, but I just can’t imagine myself actually casting a ballot for his party. Why? Because this is what the Tories have always been, and may always be, to me:
Go on, click it for the high res version and all of its detailed glory. Wait. To be clear, it’s horribly racist and ignorant and only (really really) funny if you paid attention to the Tories in the 70s and 80s. When I hear “Tory”, two things come to mind: Enoch “Rivers of Blood” Powell and the sort of mindset that could create this map (sans humour). To be fair, I’ve not lived in Britain for forever and a day, and maybe the Tories are honestly and truly changing. But I doubt it, and David Cameron & Co. will have to work pretty hard to overcome this map.
(This post courtesy of my exploration of the many glorious maps highlighted by Waldo’s link to StrangeMaps.)
June 8th, 2007
Okay, let’s get this out of the way: ha ha!
I am anti-cat (unless, say, we’re talking about solid fuel replacements), but this is great. Follow the photo tour.
More lies about New Orleans? I’d really like it to turn out that this guy is overreacting, but I don’t think he is at all . . .
If you’re interested in amateur racing in the DC/Mid-Atlantic region, and you haven’t checked out GamJams.net yet, do it. Mike May keeps us up to date on which races are coming up, and what happened in the races that just finished. And yes, I’d say he has an excellent eye for header graphics . . .
The Economics of NYC Businesses. Whether it is to my detriment or credit, I’m not sure, but I’ve no particular interest in making money for the sake of making money. But I always find the bottom line economics of a given store or industry fascinating. It’s a well organized quick read - check it out.
I used to think it was a big deal when all the tanks used to come rolling down Gersfelderstraße in my old village. But I never saw anything like this.
May 21st, 2007
In case you haven’t heard, the Cutty Sark is no more. The New York Times is treating the emotional impact of the loss of the clipper ship as something of a curiosity, which I suppose is understandable for a paper with a readership that likely has little to no connection with the Cutty Sark. But in Britain - and for many of us around the world - the Cutty Sark was something important, tied up in history and shared memories.
My own connection with the Cutty Sark comes from a simple photograph. Taken by my father in the mid-60s, it was framed and hung in every house we ever lived in as a family. The towns and furniture changed a dozen or more times, but the picture was a constant. Seeing the Cutty Sark in person on my first trip to Greenwich (20-something years ago, now that I think about it) was as exciting as anything else I’d ever seen.
And now it’s gone.
Image from Graham Binns.
March 28th, 2007
So this is what a PM on his way out thinks he can get away with:
A new-style “11-plus” to assess the risk every child in Britain runs of turning to crime was among a battery of proposals unveiled in Tony Blair’s crime plan yesterday.
The children of prisoners, problem drug users and others at high risk of offending will also face being “actively managed” by social services and youth justice workers. New technologies are to be used to boost police detection rates while DNA samples are to be taken from any crime suspect who comes into contact with the police.
That’s probably not what the American Big Brother/Big Sister program had in mind when they pitched him. And lest you think he’s only coming for the kids, check this bit out:
The [package of proposals on security, crime and justice] is sprinkled with eye-catching initiatives such as MP3 music players that can be accessed only with the owner’s fingerprints, crowd scanners that detect bombs and efficiency league tables for courts.
Apparently all of Britain’s other problems are solved, if the government has the time and resources for all this. This is absolutely mad.
March 10th, 2007
I have absolutely no intention of ever getting a National ID card. The government doesn’t need my fingerprints, biometric details, addresses, driving licence details or my insurance numbers. As a result, it looks like the Home Secretary won’t renew my passport when it comes due in 2009. I trust the British government with my details even less than I trust the US government (and they’ve earned that distinction.)
I cannot believe that I’m saying this, but David Cameron’s Tories are increasingly looking like a reasonable response to the overreaches of Labour.
More (opposition) info about the national identity card scheme here.
March 9th, 2007
I’m always on the lookout for works that do a good job of explaining why Big Brother is a problem. A surveillance society doesn’t spring up overnight, but we’ve been moving by leaps and bounds, lately.
In the US and UK, the vast majority of the public seems to be utterly complacent about the ubiquitous gathering and storing of information about our private lives by people who have absolutely no accountability to them. I don’t think it’s necessarily because they don’t care, it’s because they don’t understand what it means. And it’s not always the easiest thing to distill in a few minutes. So I was happy to come across this video.
Updated to link the video. The wordpress visual editor strikes again . . .
