The Null Device
2000/10/18
An extensively researched new biography paints Bertrand Russell in a very unflattering light indeed. (via Robot Wisdom)
In an attempt to be more marketable, the Encyclopædia Britannica website are running a guide to references made by a football commentator. This article has some interesting facts, such as that New York is nicknamed Gotham after an English village whose villagers feigned insanity to keep the king from building a hunting lodge there. (via Found)
I just got back a roll of film I had sent in for processing. I took it to
a Kodak agent yesterday, and selected the "PictureCD" option (for $10 extra).
Consequently, with my prints, I got back a CD-R containing scans
(at a generous 1536x1024) of the photographs. The CD packaging lists
Windows or MacOS as requirements for viewing it, though my Linux machine
sees it as an ISO-9660 image containing .jpg files, which is good enough.
The Kodak PictureCD service gets a thumbs-up from me; having a CD-ROM of
JPEGs is a lot more convenient than an envelope of bits of paper.
The mystery woman in the Reith phone card scandal has come forward proclaiming her innocence. Ingrid Odgers, now in London, saying that Reith's son insisted she use the card to keep bills down, and she didn't give details to her subsequent housemate.
The sensible (perhaps not ethical, though ethics has little place in practical politics) thing for the government to do would be to use their spin doctors to make sure that the charges stick to her, by digging up and releasing (or manufacturing, if need be) details of her drug addiction, sexual perversions, &c., to brand her as a No-Good Shit in the court of public opinion. (I think it was Robespierre who said "give me five minutes with the most honest man and I will find something to hang him", or something to that effect.) Not being powerful or protected (Reith can hardly allow his son to go to jail over this, can he? What would you do if it were your son?), Odgers is too useful a scapegoat to be allowed off the hook. Expect to see her extradited and tried for fraud in the near future, and her and as yet unnamed Mr. Y to receive lengthy jail sentences, while Reith Sr. steps down to the back bench, remaining in parliament.
At last, a flicker of sanity in the Middle East. Perhaps World War 3 can be put off for a bit longer.
I went to the Cure Dreamtour concert this evening. It was pretty good; I must confess that their new songs aren't really my cup of tea, though they played a number of older songs. The highlighs (IMHO) included Disintegration, Fascination Street, Just Like Heaven and the version of A Forest which brought the house down at the end of the set. Hearing the band with its new lineup, and with Robert's older, more weary-sounding voice, doing some of the old songs was an interesting experience. The lightshow was also very impressive.
(I was the one not wearing black.)