It seems that Google are flavour of the week: Google watch has published an article claiming “Google deserves your nomination for Big Brother of the Year”. Whilst I am a big supporter of privacy on the ‘net, and greatly dislike some of the dubious practices of some web sites, I think this is more than a little paranoid.
But, these guys fill a required niche, someone has to watch the big players lest they get carried away with their own power.
Link from slashdot
The Amber Spyglass
I finished The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman the other day. What a fantastic book. The story line left me breathless at times. The characters of Lyra and Will develop to an incredible depth. The things they go through had me on the edge of my seat. Some of the other main characters, Mrs Coulter, Lord Asriel, Mary Malone, and so on really contribute to the story. I was pleased to see Iorek Byrnison back and making such a significant contribution.
Whenever I talked to people about these three books as I was still reading the third, I described the second book, The Subtle Knife, as filler (despite my review). Compared to Northern Lights, and The Amber Spyglass, it seemed to be lacking in depth. Having completed the trilogy, I realise that the Subtle Knife laid a lot of groundwork, introducing characters, the knife, and laying the foundations for events on The Amber Spyglass. So although, it is the weakest of the three books, it is essential to the whole story.
All three books: recommended!
Happy Birthday Graham!
Happy Birthday Graham!
Lots of love
Mum, Mike and Jamie
xoxox
Online Reputations
slashdot had this article today. Discussing a feature on mindjack by Nicholas Carroll, entitled Spinning the Web – The Realities of Online Reputation Management. It’s a very interesting article discussing the birth of online reputations, from email and Usenet postings, to the birth of online shops and e-commerce. It talks about the essential difference between selling face to face (or over the telephone) and having to get your pitch across in words on the web. Worth a read.
One of the slashdotters, Ryo Chijiiwa, posted a link to his own story, Reputation Economy and the Internet, in which he discusses how reputation acts as a substitute for monetary worth, and also how the system compares to market economies. Again, well worth a read.
Fuji Finepix F601Z Test Images
I’ve put some test images taken with the new camera up in the gallery.
(click to go see)
Google Buys Blogger.com
Wow, Google bought Prya Labs the company behind Blogger last week. It seems to have been announced (leaked?) on siliconvalley.com by columnist Dan Gillmor. Evan Williams, co-founder of Pyra Labs confirmed it in his blog (of course).
Dan also posted his story the following day in the Mercury News. Slashdot also covered the story on Sunday, and the Guardian Unlimited has the story today.
Google also gets blog*spot. There is already some speculation as to what Google will do with the purchase, and whether it is a bad or a good thing. I think I can trust Google to ‘Do The Right Thing’ with this. I don’t think we will see a mass of ex blogger.com users migrating back any time soon, but hopefully some cash and technology input from the new owners will give the service the boost it needs.
Strangely I’ve seen no official press announcements at Google’s press Center nor blogger.com, and Dan’s column says that the deal took place on Thursday last week.
Update: 18/02/2003 12:45 The BBC has caught up with a nice piece by Giles Turnbull.
NTL Proxy Servers Down Again!
Bloomin’ NTL load-balancing Proxy server has gone down again! Sometime after 11:40 I’m guessing (from the fact that I got a comment on my blog from someone who I know is using the same proxy.
I can make things work if I directly proxy to one of the individual machines, but doing it transparently fails.
See an earlier story for links to a list of the individual machines.
After last weeks PR fiasco, you’d think they would buck up!
Update: For those looking for a proxy. I have set up an experimental proxy here
Junior Owl Experience
Jamie went on a ‘Junior Owl Experience’ today (Saturday) at Cheshire Waterlife. It was a birthday present from Paula, which we’ve only just managed to find the time to use. Jamie thoroughly enjoyed it. She really loves owls and was absolutely thrilled to hold several owls, and fly one too. I couldn’t go, but Jan took some pictures and Jamie told me all about it when she got back. You can see the pictures in the Gallery.
(click the picture to go there)
Tomorrow Jamie is going to help me put captions to the pictures.
