No Shit Sherlock

Wow! Did you know that teen exposure to pornography is common?

 

About four in every 10 U.S. youngsters age 10 to 17 report they've seen pornography while on the Internet, two-thirds of them saying it was uninvited, according to a study published on Monday.

Many of the encounters with online pornography, both sought-out and accidental, were related to use of file-sharing programs to download images, the report from the University of New Hampshire in Durham said.

"Although there is evidence that most youth are not particularly upset when they encounter unwanted pornography on the Internet (it) could have a greater impact on some youth than voluntary encounters with pornography," the study said.

"Some youth may be psychologically and developmentally unprepared for unwanted exposure, and online images may be more graphic and extreme than pornography available from other sources," it added.

The report, published in the February issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was based on a telephone survey made of a representative sample of 1,500 U.S. youngsters from March to June, 2005

What next: water believed to be wet?

Internicine Industry

The computer industry cross licences patents to so many people again and again that these sorts of things are almost inevitable. Someone gets in  a huff and then they're banned from selling something:

 

It looks like Novell could be banned from selling Linux:

The Free Software Foundation is reviewing Novell Inc.'s (NOVL.O: Quote, Profile , Research) right to sell new versions of Linux operating system software after the open-source community criticized Novell for teaming up with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile , Research)

"The community of people wants to do anything they can to interfere with this deal and all deals like it. They have every reason to be deeply concerned that this is the beginning of a significant patent aggression by Microsoft," Eben Moglen, the Foundation's general counsel, said on Friday.

The foundation controls intellectual property rights to key parts of the open-source Linux operating system.

The thing is, Microsoft is vastly more important to Novell than Linux is. And even if they were banned from selling it, it's not all that tough to strike a deal with a small company that would supply it to Novell's customers.

Simple enough problem to solve though, just tie up with someone who is allowed to sell it.

More Harry Potter:

So, does Harry Potter die in the last book of the series?

 

Harry Potter's days may be numbered.
J.K. Rowling, author of the popular fantasy series about the boy wizard and his battle with the evil Lord Voldemort, announced Thursday that the final book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," will be released on July 21.
And Rowling has a more ominous warning: two main characters will die before the series ends.
But James Krasner, a professor of British literature at the University of New Hampshire, believes Harry will ultimately live to tell another tale.
Why?
Because "good has to win."
"Certain art forms are meant to fulfill expectations, to give gratification," Krasner said. "If you read a romance novel and the lovers don't get together in the end, you're not interested."
Krasner said Rowling's threat to kill off at least two main characters in the final book is a way of "taking control" of her creations. It's not uncommon for authors whose characters have become wildly popular to engage in a tug-of-war with readers over who the characters belong to, he said.

Relying upon the theory of how stories are "supposed" to work seems a little weak to me.

OJ and the Money

This is begining to look vindictive now rather than justice:

 

Attorneys for the father of murder victim Ron Goldman subpoenaed several Hollywood industry groups on Monday, seeking money O.J. Simpson was paid for TV appearances and work in such movies as "Naked Gun 33 and 1/3" and "The Towering Inferno."

Lawyers for Fred Goldman believe that Simpson has diverted the residual payments to avoid a $33.5 million judgment won in 1997 by the families of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

"We're going to burrow to the center of the earth to find Simpson's assets," Goldman lawyer David Cook said. "These subpoenas today seek to uncover and unearth Simpson's catalog or portfolio of movie residuals."

The former football star turned actor and TV pitchman was acquitted of the June 12, 1994, murders but a civil court jury found him liable for their deaths and ordered him to pay the $33.5 million in damages.

Simpson has paid little of that judgment but in recent months lawyers for Goldman have aggressively pursued his film and TV earnings as well as a reported $1 million advance he was paid for an aborted book about the murders, "If I Did It."

The subpoenas demand records kept by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the Producers Guild of America and the American Federation of Television Radio Artists (AFTRA), which Goldman's lawyers believe will show how much Simpson has been paid and where the money has gone.

I was always highly dubious about that civil case anyway.

Molly Ivins

Much as I disagreed with her politics, even her worldview, have to be sad at the passing of Molly Ivins. She could certainly turn a mean phrase (even if some of them were borrowed, like very other writer does):

 

Among the people who mourn the death of best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, George Bush, whom Ivins referred to as “Shrub,” expressed his admiration towards her as well as his sadness for the loss, in a statement released after her death Wednesday evening.

"Molly Ivins was a Texas original. She was loved by her readers and by her many friends, particularly in Central Texas.

"I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words, and her ability to turn a phrase. She fought her illness with that same passion. Her quick wit and commitment to her beliefs will be missed. Laura and I send our condolences to Molly Ivins' family and friends," Bush said.

Molly Ivins, 62, who made her living by poking fun at politicians, whether they were in her home state of Texas or the White House, passed away on Wednesday at her Austin home while in hospice care, after a long battle with breast cancer. Ivins revealed she was being treated for the disease the third time in early 2006.

Vale.

Marianne Faithful

Isn't this something of a turn up for the books? What next? In the sequel she takes care of Wayne Rooney?

 

Singer and actress Marianne Faithfull plays a grandmother in dire straights who becomes a sex worker in London's seedy Soho, in a touching yet hilarious movie that has lit up a hitherto subdued Berlin film festival.

"Irina Palm" follows Maggie, played by Faithfull, from the side of her sick grandson's hospital bed to a sex shop where, desperate to pay for the boy's medical treatment abroad, she accepts a job where her smooth-skinned hands are a key asset.

Taught by a younger woman, she learns to service clients who stand on the other side of a wall with a hole in it where they can be heard but not seen.

So legendary is her technique that queues of customers begin to form, a rival club seeks to poach her.

Much of the comedy derives from the horror etched on Faithfull's face as she goes to work, and the reaction of her straight-laced circle of friends when they discover what Maggie has been up to during the day.

Actually, scratch that sequel, don't even want to think about it.

Tara Connor and Cocaine

Really, what is the world coming to ?

 

Kentucky's own Miss USA, Tara Conner from Russell Springs, told Today Show host Matt Lauer in a live interview Thursday that "distorted thinking" made her deny that she was an alcoholic.

"It wasn't actually me thinking," she said.

Conner said she was 19 or 20 when she tried cocaine for the first time.

She alluded to abuse in her past but provided no specifics despite persistent questioning from Lauer. She also denied having a sexual addiction.

Conner, who nearly lost her crown after reports of late-night partying in New York City, was granted a second chance in December. At a press conference, she was contrite but denied that she was an alcoholic.

Sorry, but if beauty queens can't drink champagne, snort coke and sleep around a bit, really, what is the point of them?

Sharon Stone: The End of a Career?

You know how all the MAWs start out doing art house films? A very few of them go on to become stars of course: but what happens when a star starts doing the art house films?

 

Sharon Stone says she found her role as a depressed and taciturn woman in her latest film strangely uplifting, as it challenged what she called "Prozac society".

"When a Man Falls in the Forest" is in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where it was screened on Monday, and brings the Hollywood star together with art house director Ryan Eslinger making only his second movie.

The surreal low-budget picture about three dysfunctional characters has little plot but raises fundamental questions about existence, relationships and guilt.

Worse, when they start doing bad art house movies? The end of a career?

Renee Zellweger

Has obviously got bored talking abouther weight:

 

Ask actress Renee Zellweger about her weight and she yawns.

"Boring," she says, when asked to talk about her body.

Zellweger, a Texan renown for piling on the pounds to take the lead role in "Bridget Jones's Diary" and sequel "The Edge of Reason," is playing another British woman in "Miss Potter," based on the life of children's writer Beatrix Potter.

Oscar-winner Zellweger, 37, recently told Reuters why she likes to play Brits -- and what she thinks about the column inches the media devotes to her body:

Q: You surprised critics with your accent and performance playing London singleton Bridget Jones and now you are playing Beatrix Potter. Why are people so fascinated by how well you adopt an English accent?

A: "I don't understand it, it is just work. It is part of the process. You concentrate in a different way, I have learned, because I kept trying to do that in this last piece that I did where I play a contemporary character and I would catch myself listening to how I was forming words. Anyway, I work with Barbara Berkery (dialogue coach) and she teaches me what to do and she stands by me and she corrects me."

Can't say I'm all that surprised.She can in fact act as well as eat and diet.

CBB's Shilpa

To absolutely no one's surprise, Shilpa Shetty is set to make a fortune out of winning CBB:

 

Shilpa Shetty, who was virtually unknown in Britain until a month ago, has suddenly become a phenomenon in this country.
The Big Brother winner is set to make millions of pounds from the show, and if her aides are to be believed the stunning star - who kept her dignity intact even while she suffered racist bullying at the hands of some of her fellow contestants, is in line to rake in an astonishing 10 million pounds.
The controversy that triggered protests in India and sparked a race relations debate in the UK - has propelled 31-year-old Shetty onto the world stage, and her business managers are said to be busy working tirelessly to turn this profile into profit.
Shetty's aides in Britain and India have already been inundated with six figure offers for book deals, TV work, film parts, endorsements and a chance to co-host the UK version of a reality cricket show based on the 'Indian Idol,' and rumours are also high that the actress is to be offered a lead role in a new BBC comedy, set in an Indian call centre.

350 big ones just for going on the show in the first place, wasn't it?

ColdPlay

I rather like this misanthropic look at Coldplay. Of course, I should, I wrote part of it.

The singer, pianist and frontman is Chris Martin, married to Gwyneth Paltrow and father of the absurdly named Apple. What a name to give a child, eh?
The band has a new album out, X&Y, which is a reasonably pathetic title. What, you mean that they are the first people in all history to think that both male and female have a part to play in life? Have they never heard of Yin and Yang? How on earth do they think they got here themselves if there was not some form of co-operation between the two sexes?
Obviously macrobiotic diets cause a loss of intelligence.
The official Coldplay site is here, a fan site is here.
There is also a subset of the MTV site dedicated to Coldplay and something from Rolling Stone here.
Quite the best description of the band is here, at the Telegraph.
As a measure of the menace that Coldplay represents to the listening public consider a poignant letter published in The Daily Telegraph last week: "They ruined what my wife and I had hoped would be a convivial evening at a riverside pub," fumed Graham Vine, of Close Borden, Hampshire. "On arriving we wondered why so many customers were sitting outside on such a chilly, breezy evening. It didn't take long to find out why. Whoever had charge of the pub's sound system inflicted upon us one dismal dirge after another from the Coldplay album, one of the most depressing I have heard."

They've not got any better, have they?

Tomi Rae

Is she James Brown's widowor nott? Who knows?

 

Tomi Rae Hynie is takin' it to the man. Or to the man's estate, at least. 

James Brown's longtime partner sued Thursday for half of the late singer's estate, maintaining that she was married to Brown at the time of his death and that she's entitled to a portion of his assets despite the fact that the Godfather of Soul didn't provide for her in his will. 

"I have a long hard battle to fight for my husband's rights, for my rights and for my son's rights that have been completely violated during this time," Hynie told the Associated Press. "I am his wife. It's my home." 

Brown's attorneys have maintained that his marriage to Hynie—they swapped vows in 2001—was never legal because she was married to someone else at the time, a union that was eventually annulled. Hynie and Brown never made things official after the annulment, however, the lawyers say.

The thing is though, this fight over the money. It would be vastly cheaper to cut a deal than to have the lawyers swallowing the whole estate.

Making Up Names

Can be a problem if you don't go through the routine of checking who else already uses that name:

 

A London-based record producer launched his bid on Thursday to force U.S. rapper and hip-hop music producer Sean "Diddy" Combs to change his alias or stop using the hugely popular MySpace and YouTube Internet sites.

Richard "Diddy" Dearlove says that Combs has breached an earlier undertaking not to use the name "Diddy" in Britain, because people there can see Combs' pages on the international MySpace and YouTube sites were he appears as "Diddy."

"We want him either to use a neutral name like P. Diddy or to shut them down," said Iain Purvis, Dearlove's lawyer at the High Court in London where the case is being heard.

Both Internet sites have become key marketing platforms for international artists, and Combs' site on www.myspace.com showed that his profile had been visited nearly 10 million times.

Tsk, should have checked, should have checked.

Paula Abdul

I've never really understood her success: voice like someone on helium and OK, she ould dance, but then so can most cheerleaders.

 

In the annals of mean things the “American Idol” judges have done over the years, two incidents from this year’s Los Angeles auditions are sure to make the highlights. Simon, Randy, Paula and guest judge Olivia Newton-John first made a decision that earned the wrath of frustrated parents everywhere, and then the judges tried to break up a happy couple for no good reason. It’s like they’re aggressively trying to be the anti-role models.

Los Angeles is filled with young people dreaming of a career in show business, in the process crushing mom and dad’s dreams of a child with a college education, a steady paycheck and something resembling a future. Alaina Alexander was one of those hopefuls, but said she had come to the conclusion at age 24 that being a struggling performer in Los Angeles is not very much fun. She planned to quit and go back to school.

Then “Idol” came around, and she decided to give the dream one more shot.  She made the most of the last chance, and got Simon’s vote right away, but Randy hesitated because of the pitch problems and Paula was noncommittal. Alexander reacted simply: “I’m close to quitting, so it’s up to you guys to let me know what my destiny is.”

Still that's not going to help what's left of it, is it?

Kate n' Pete

Via this blog I see that not everyone thinks they're the most star struck of couples:

 

Kate Moss and Pete Doherty have a fairytale romance going, or at least they would if there was a fairytale called The Dirty-Looking Bell-End, The Skinny Princess And The Pile Of Drugs Bigger Than A Double Decker Bus - which we're not entirely sure that there is.

Anyway, the news here is that Kate Moss has probably dumped Pete Doherty over his continued drug problem after pictures of him apparently shooting up cocaine were published in several newspapers. Now, the world's most famous supermodel splitting up with her long-term partner over something as illegal and dangerous as a drug addiction would undoubtedly be huge news, if not for the fact that Kate Moss and Pete Doherty appear to be contractually obliged to break up with one another at least once every 15 milliseconds.

The saga of Kate Moss and Pete Doherty is so long and knotty that we can barely bring ourselves to think about it, let alone write about it. But today is different because a) it was either this or an article about Janet Street-Porter pretending to be a nurse and b) Kate Moss and Pete Doherty have totally split up forever, and it's all because - shock horror - Pete Doherty took some drugs.

Rock star takes drugs. Not really a headline any more, is it?

Anna Nicole Smith

Just in case you haven't had enough information about Anna Nicole Smith here's a handy cut out n' keep listing of the main facts:

 

* Smith had been ordered to have her five-month-old baby undergo a paternity test as part of a lawsuit by an ex-boyfriend, his attorney said. Larry Birkhead sued Smith in October, demanding she have the paternity test because he believed he was the father of the baby girl she gave birth to in the Bahamas on September 7.

* Smith's 20-year-old son, Daniel, died in the Bahamas three days after the birth of her daughter. A pathologist hired by the model said he apparently died from a drug overdose.

* Smith was Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1993. In 1994, she married 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall after meeting him at a strip club.

* Marshall's death 14 months later set off a legal battle over his estate between Smith and her husband's son, E. Pierce Marshall, who died in June.

* In May, Anna Nicole won a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the suit giving her another chance to collect millions of dollars.

* She starred in a short-lived cable television reality series, "The Anna Nicole Show," from 2002 to 2004.

Art Buchwald

I know Art Buchwald's dead but at least, via this blog, there's a few of his good lines:

 

* "A bad liver is to a Frenchman what a nervous breakdown is to an American. Everyone has had one and everyone wants to talk about it."

* "If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it."

* "It was a dangerous profession I had chosen ... because no one likes a funny kid. In fact, adults are scared silly of them and tend to warn children who act out that they are going to wind up in prison or worse. It is only when you grow up that they pay you vast sums of money to make them laugh."

* "I just don't want to die the same day Castro dies."

I actually learnt all I know (which isn't a lot) about Watergate from reading his comic essays on hte subject.

The Next (and last) Harry Potter

Not too much of a surprise that even though it won't be out for months yet this Harry Potter book is at the top of the sales listings already:

 

Amazon.com Inc. said on Friday first-day advance orders for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and last installment of J.K. Rowling's successful book series, were 547 percent higher than for its predecessor.

Thursday's pre-orders for "Deathly Hallows" exceeded the first two weeks of pre-orders for its predecessor, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," Seattle-based Amazon said. "Half-Blood Prince," released in July 2005, generated more than 1.5 million pre-orders on Amazon, the online retailer said.

I think she will be the first person to make a $ billion from her writing.

Joss Stone Album

I'm not sure I get this news:

 

When she made her debut several years back at only 15, Brit belter Joss Stone was an instant wow, a young girl mining soul's past with a voice beyond her years.

Now 19, with a stunning new album, "Introducing Joss Stone," due in March, she's proving to be the true heiress to Aretha Franklin as this generation's queen of soul. Her sold-out show Wednesday at the Sunset Strip House of Blues not only drummed up interest in the upcoming release, it announced that she most definitely has arrived as a superstar.

After an intro instrumental from her soul revue-style band, led by producer Raphael Saadiq, that included horns and backing singers, a new Stone took the stage. This wasn't the blond girl next door of past years; she sported a whole new look of long, permed magenta hair and wore a tight gold and silver minidress. She was instantly captivating

Hasn't this been out in hte UK for a couple of years already? Why's the US so far behind?

Night at the Museum

I don't think this is going to work out, honestly, I don't:

 

Some of Britain's biggest cinema chains have pulled hit comedy "Night at the Museum" from their screens in protest against Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox's plans to rush out the DVD version.

The move is the latest in a tussle between film theatres and studios over the shrinking time gap between the cinema and DVD release, which theatres fear will discourage the public from paying at the box office.

According to specialist film publications, the UK decision follows a similar standoff last week in Germany, where leading cinema chains forced Fox into concessions over the DVD release of "Eragon" by pulling other movies made by the studio, including "Museum," whose box office receipts plummeted as a result.

"As of today (Friday) we are no longer going to be showing the film on our screens," said a spokeswoman for Odeon, Britain's largest cinema chain with more than 840 screens.

Simoultaneous release is going to happen anyway. The only way the cinemas can make it work is if they make it more attractive to see it on hte big screen than not.

Bring Back Annie Hall

Via this blog I see no reason to change my opinion that the last decent movie Dianne Keaton did was Annie Hall.

 

Like the architectural-wonder cakes Diane Keaton's character constructs in "Because I Said So," the film is a stylishly gooey piece of work that demands to be oohed and aahed over.

With its magazine-spread interiors and pretty dresses, this romantic comedy about a meddling mom and her unlucky-in-love youngest daughter might get what it wants. Using a recipe overloaded with adorable, too reliant on slapstick and spiced up with "modern" ideas about sex, the movie is as predictable as a crowd-pleaser can get. But crowds are likely to be pleased nonetheless, especially women who connect with its pat observations about the mother-daughter bond.

It's dispiriting to see a great actress like Keaton buying into this nonsense with such gusto. Still, as Daphne, the control-freak cake entrepreneur nearing her 60th birthday, she's the closest thing to a three-dimensional person in the film. Mandy Moore is an appealing performer, but ultimately she can't turn Milly, the object of Daphne's pathological concern, into more than a collection of comely pouts and tantrums.

Nah, maybe she should start bonking Woody Allen again, see if she can get her muse back.

Ooops! Borat and Rupert.

Via this blog I see that Rupert Murdoch got a little ahead of himself:

 

Before Borat fans start giving each other high fives, 20th Century Fox wants to make clear that the boorish Kazakh journalist is not headed back to the big screen just yet.

Hours after News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch told reporters on Thursday that British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen had signed a deal to make a sequel to his hit movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," a studio spokesman said the idea was merely under consideration.

"We're eager to work with Sacha again, and we've had casual discussions about a sequel, which we'd love to do, but at this point, it remains too preliminary to discuss," said Chris Petrikin, a spokesman for News Corp.-owned 20th Century Fox.

"Borat," a faux documentary starring Cohen as a cluelessly offensive Central Asian journalist on a road trip across America, was a surprise box-office sensation last year, grossing $248 million worldwide.

It earned an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay, and Cohen a Golden Globe for his performance as the wild-eyed Kazakh TV personality in a rumpled suit spouting catch phrases like "high five" and "sexy time!"

Box-office success and awards to match virtually guarantee a sequel in Hollywood, and earlier on Thursday, Murdoch said the comedian had already signed a deal to make a "Borat 2."

 

You would think Rupert would know by now: make sure the contract's signed first.

Second Life and Lesbians

I'm not really sure that I've understood what Second Life is about, nor why it's so popular. But if it's become so enough that Microsoft has started advertising in a lesbian bar there, perhaps I should?

 

Microsoft hand-picked 10 Sadville destinations to show off Vista via a virtual press conference that included visits from top executives Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. The venues range from marketing firm displays to steamy man-tamer bars inhabited by avatars with moral and cartoonal flexibility.

Kitten Lulu, an esteemed Register reader and Second Life inhabitant, summed up the locations for us.

• Strawberry Estate, not sure what it is. There isn’t much there apart from an atomium-like structure
• Parioli, a PG Italian sim by Virtual Italian Parks
• Sanctuary Rock, dance and music club dedicated to good rock music
• Elements @ Goddess Of Love 3, one of the leading SecondLife dance and night clubs
• Crayonville Island, a marketing company’s sim
• Isle of Lesbos, the name says it all: an entire sim dedicated to (virtual or real) women who love women (i.e. Second Life’s lesbians)
• Mermaids Gentlemans Club
• ShowGirls Gentlemen’s Club
• Liquid Dreams, in their own words: “The Premier Adult Experience - The newest Adult Club in Industry Offering Escorts, Dancers, Sex Roms, Skyboxes and More!”
• Irie Vibes Club, reggae roots dance hall

LuLu's take on the tawdry collection? "I guess they want to convey the idea that Windows Vista is sexy . . . but not free."

Hhhm...sexy but not free? Perhaps they should be advertising in brothels then?

Big Macs and iPods

We're all familiar with the use of the Big Mac as a method of measuring purchasing power parity so now someone's started one based on iPods.

 

Having already stormed world fashion, Apple's hip iPod music player is finally making its presence felt in global currency markets.

One of Australia's biggest banks, the Commonwealth Bank (CBA.AX: Quote, Profile , Research), has used the latest version of Apple's (APPL.O: Quote, Profile , Research) music player -- the slimline Nano -- to compare global currencies and purchasing power in 26 countries.

Along the lines of the Big Mac index launched 20 years ago by The Economist magazine, the survey prices the 2GB Nano in U.S. dollars and found Brazilians pay the most for an iPod, shelling out $327.71, well above second-placed India at $222.27.

Canada was the cheapest place to buy a Nano at $144.20, while Australia ranked 19th at $172.36, cheaper than Germany ($192.46), France ($205.80), South Korea ($176.17) and China where the machine is manufactured. The U.S. was fourth cheapest at $149.

"Interestingly, especially with freight costs close to zero, China is middle ranked in terms of global prices at US$179.84," Craig James, the Chief Equities Economist at Commonwealth Bank, told Reuters.

Purchasing power parity surveys compare the prices of goods in different countries and at their simplest level can help show whether one currency is undervalued against another.

Unfortunately, all this one tells us is the PPP of the retail sectors in each country, much less useful.

Spam and the SuperBowl

My, my, it seems that nothing is sacred. Spammers will even try to interrupt that orgy of bad gamesmanship that is the Superbowl:

Hackers targeted Superbowl-related websites last week in attempt to direct American football fans to sites hosting malware.

Sites related to the Miami venue of the NFL Championship game - www.dolphinsstadium.com and www.miamidolphins.com - were among a number of sites hacked into and modified to insert reference to a hostile script running on Chinese site www.dv521.com. The NFL's Superbowl.com website was not affected by the attack.

I doubt that anything they managed to do was as awful as actually having to sit through that five hours it takes to play 60 minutes of the game.

EU Domains

Some like 'em, some don't: the EU domains that is:

 

A large majority of British businesses with a .eu domain name believe it to be an effective business tool in a recent survey, while a separate survey found that half of UK businesses do not even know what the .eu domain stands for.

The surveys were both carried out by domain registration and hosting company 1&1 Internet, and found that business sentiment for .eu addresses across Europe was surprisingly positive.

...

The research, though, suggests that the businesses which have adopted European addresses have found it a useful experience. It found that 68 per cent of UK businesses which use a .eu domain thought it was effective, while half of users said that the domain enhanced their business's image. Around 43 per cent said it increased accessibility to vital European markets.

French companies were the most enthusiastic about the addresses, with 88 per cent of them willing to recommend using an address, 75 per cent believing them to be effective and 72 per cent saying that it enhanced their image.

I have to admit I really don't see how a .eu increases your access to european markets. Does a .com increase it to the US?

More Windows Vista

Why on earth would Microsoft spend $500 million on launching Vista?

 

Microsoft's $500m Windows Vista launch on Monday was the culmination of months of heavy sell intended to persuade the company, as much as everyone else, that not only is the operating systems is essential to users' computing needs, but also that it will translate into sales gold.

If bullishness were revenue, Microsoft is well on its way to a bumper fiscal 2007 and 2008. Windows Vista is supposed to out-ship Microsoft's last client - Windows XP. And Windows Vista will break all records bar Windows 95, by hitting 200 million PCs a mere 24 months after this month's launch, according to Microsoft.

It'll be on every new PC in the world anyway and none of the old ones will be able to run it anyway. Why waste the money? 

No, No, You Have to be a Famous Pecker

It's no good just being a pecker full stop, you have to be famous as well:

 

Only famous people who trade on their name have any chance of winning control of internet addresses containing their name, according to a decision by the World Intellectual Property Center (WIPO).

Publishing executive David Pecker lost the right to gain control of davidpecker.com in a case judged by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. It found that Pecker failed to demonstrate that he had rights to the name davidpecker.com other than "broad assertions".

...

In order to gain control of a domain a person or company has to prove three things. They have to show that the domain is the same or confusingly similar to a trade mark or service mark in which the person has rights; that the other party has no legitimate interests or rights in the domain, and that it was registered or is being used 'in bad faith'.

In order to gain control of a domain you must fulfil all three conditions, so if the Panel finds one step which you fail it rarely considers the other two.

The Panel found that Pecker could not show that he had a trade mark or service mark right in the name David Pecker, so could not gain control of the domain. Other Panels had found in the cases of famous people that being famous, and therefore trading under your name, did sometimes qualify for that step.

So Woody Harrelson might have a case but not Dave Woodie the garbage man.

Markets and Bureaucracies

Another lovely little tale from this blog to add to the ongoing debate about markets and bureaucracies.

 

As doubts grow over the approval of San Francisco's proposed deal to build a citywide wireless network with EarthLink, critics of the effort are putting forth alternatives. Like the current plan, negotiated behind closed doors between Mayor Gavin Newsom and the ISP, none of them are anywhere near perfect.

The current plan, which faces an uncertain fate in the Board of Supervisors, would allow EarthLink to own the WiFi network and, though an arrangement with Google, offer a paltry 300 kbps for free and a moderately more tolerable 1Mbps for $22 per month.

We seem to see this again and again, don't we? That of course the planners, those not motivated by profit, driven only by their care and concern for the user: of course they build a better system faster than those bastards just looking to make money.

Amazing how it never turns out that way, isn't it?

About Apple

A great little list at this blog: the five worst things about Apple.

 

1. The 'reality distortion field'

The infamous 'reality distortion field' refers to Steve Jobs' ability to work onlookers into a frenzy of excitement over the most ordinary of products. Jobs' usual line, that no one does it better than Apple, is all-pervasive in its marketing.

2. The iPod

The best selling MP3 player has taken on iconic status ever since it was first launched in 2001 and today dominates the market, easily seeing off the latest challenge from the Microsoft Zune with a record-breaking quarter of sales.

But the device has long been dogged by accusations of dodgy battery life, defective mechanics, easily scratched or cracked screens and a general lack of longevity. Most of the silicon.com editorial team have got through at least one iPod each.

3. Style over substance

The translucent Bondi Blue iMac initiated Apple's much-trumpeted departure from the Beige Brigade and a return to good times for the struggling company. The criticisms of style over substance and form over function have followed the company ever since.

Go there to see the rest.

The 9 Billion Spams

Didn't Arthur C Clarke have a story, the 9 billion names of God? That's the only reason I can think of why this number resonates:

 

A Dutch spammer who used compromised PCs to spamvertise web sites has been fined €75,000 ($97,000) by Opta, the Netherlands telecoms regulator

The man - named only as Mr X - used 600-700 compromised PCs to send about nine billion spam messages promoting penis pills, pornographic websites and other assorted tat. X's 14-month junk mail campaign reportedly earned him an estimated € 40,000 before he was collared in November 2005.

However, he didn't stop because he got caught, no, markets took care of him before the law:

Opta said Microsoft has assisted in its investigation. In mitigation, X argued that he had stopped spamming by the time he was arrested - not because he realised his activities were wrong, but because he "simply wasn't earning enough money".

Isn't that a nice liitle proof again of the contention that markets curb behaviour rather better than the law or regulation?

Interactive Mirrors?

Now this doesn't look like a good idea for shopophobic men like me:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, does this outfit make me look good, bad, fat or tall?

A New York-based designer has come up with a mirror equipped with infrared technology that sends a live video feed to any cell phone, e-mail account or personal digital assistant device selected by a shopper.

Christopher Enright, chief technology officer for digital design company IconNicholson, said putting these mirrors outside store fitting rooms meant women could go shopping with their friends -- remotely.

"She could be in Paris, your mom, watching you try on your wedding dress (while you are in New York)," Enright told Reuters Tuesday as he unveiled the interactive mirror at a retail trade show.

Using the interactive mirror, a shopper's friends can then text message back with comments about the outfit.

After all these years I've been practising how not to get taken on shopping trips, now they can simply phone me and ask if their bum looks big in this?

 

Gaah!

Microsoft Vista

The things you can find out by rootling around on the web:

Buried deep in the bumf for Microsoft's new Vista release is a line that says it handles sound very differently. This kind of jolly PR spin is enough to chill the blood of those who rely on Windows running their audio production software reliably.

Whenever a new version of Windows hits the street it tends to roil up the murky waters of the music and audio production world. Prospects of having to get new device drivers and new versions of otherwise perfectly reliable software is just a hassle most of us could do without. There has been some panic that it might be the case with Vista as well, but at first glance it doesn't appear to portend any major problems for music and audio software users.

...

The crack about the way Vista handles sound is not complete moonshine, though. This refers to a new way of handling audio called "Media Foundation", which is clearly aimed at Media Centre type systems. This looks like it adds a lot of fancy audio processing stuff into the operating system. As most dedicated music production software avoids the operating system's built-in audio facilities, the impact of going "Vista" should be minimal for anyone working seriously with music.

I especially liked the view that Vista was simply a version of XP that worked. Very droll.

Business Necessities

I'm always surprised by the number of people I meet who want my business (no, that's not the surprising bit, people in business are supposed to want my business) who then struggle to tell me who they are and how to reach them.

It just seems very odd in this day and age of being so hugely connected that people so often fail to tell us how we can indeed connect. For example, my local electrician sent me his quote by email. Great, I also paid him by Paypal. But at that first meeting, when I said, OK, where do I get hold of you he tried to "beam" his cell phone number to me...that doesn't work as I use an old cell phone, one that we can't do that to. So we ended up writing his email down on a scrap of paper from the bar (yes, still a good place to have business meetings).

What is it with people? Haven't they heard of the old but hugely successful technology of business cards? I'm sure it's at least a century old, this idea that you put your name, profession, phone numbers and, in more modern times, email, onto a card and give it to people. Such a simple solution to this common problem.

As for real estate business cards: we've just bought this house I'm typing this up in and when I was hunting around the market it was almost impossible to get the local realtors to le me know how to contact them. The one single person who did in fact get our business was the only one who did have a real estate business card...but even then it was out of date and he had to hand write his new numbers onto it.

I'm told from my man who knows about such things that you can also get magnetic business cards these days. Sounds like an excellent method of advertising actually, they'll end up being used as refrigerator magnets, something that will be viewed again and again as those milk and cookies orders get processed.

I do realise that here I'm living in a bit of a backwater, but please, business cards really aren't that much to ask for are they? Forward to a century ago sort of thing?

Couldn't you Pull Over Love?

Difficult to believe, I know, but here it is, reported as news:

Israeli police investigating why a car was blocking traffic in the fast lane of a major highway Sunday found a couple inside having sex.

A police spokesman said the female driver and her male passenger gave in to their passions without pulling over to the side of the road, causing congestion and leaving other motorists having to swerve to dodge their stationary vehicle.

A patrolman gave the woman a ticket for holding up traffic.

It's not that tough to pull over to the hard shoulder is it?

Modern Wonders of the World

Want to take part in a global vote to decide upon the wonders of the world?

What are the greatest architectural achievements in history? Rome's Colosseum? The Great Wall of China? The Pyramids of Giza?

That's what millions of people are asking themselves as they vote in the largest global poll ever conducted, an attempt to recast ancient history by ranking the top architectural marvels as the "new" seven wonders of the world.

Besides the vast scale of the poll -- itself a wonder -- the new list may reveal what the wired voters in today's global village view differently from the ancient Greeks, who laid out the original seven wonders more than two thousand years ago.

Well, it was a Greek actually, but still.

The other four leading candidates for the new list are the Incan mountaintop city Machu Picchu in Peru, the rose-red desert city of Petra in Jordan, Easter Island's mysterious statues and India's Taj Mahal.

Further down the 21-entry shortlist -- which in turn was whittled down from 77 by a panel of architectural experts -- are the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, the Statue of Liberty in New York, Britain's Stonehenge and Moscow's Kremlin.

Ah, you don't actually get to pick, you have to choose from a pre-determined list. Pity.

Vote here.

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Nasdaq Up 3,000 points?

Ooops, someone pressed the wrong buttons:

Technology bulls may have thought the heady days of the Internet era were back in swing on Tuesday after the Nasdaq composite index surged more than 3,000 points, but the spike was due to a glitch.

The index rose in the morning as high as 5,482.62, well above its recorded March 2000 life-time high of 5,132.52.

"It blew me away," said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Advisors Inc., in Plymouth, Massachusetts. "I think someone pressed the wrong digit."

Indeed, a spokesman for the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. (NDAQ.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said erroneous trades involving shares of Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OPTR.O: Quote, Profile, Research) had caused the index to spike higher.

Now, the thing is, you can have options on Nasdaq: I wonder if anyone managed to sell their call options while all of that was going on?

 

Technorati tags: Nasdaq

Mother's Day's Acomin'

So, have you got yourself organised for Mother's Day yet? After all, she did spend all those years wiping you, chucking food down your gannet like neck and so on, surely a bouquet of Mother's Day flowers isn't too much for her to expect?

That's where Dot Flowers comes in, click through the link to see more about what they have to offer. Firstly, they can organise flowers from their own farms delivered direct. Or, if you're like me, and you forget the day despite this reminder, they can organise same day delivery from your local flower shop.

And what about those who don't want to give flowers? Well, they also offer gift baskets and gourmet foods. It's all terribly simple to use and order and the website's very clean. With their committment to customer service you'll be sure to get what you want delivered on time.

Worth checking out as the one thing you don't want to forget is that little thank you to the mother who brought you into the world. 

That Double Baptism Danger

I'm not sure that this is necessarily something to particularly worry about but it is amusing all the same:

Pope Benedict was baptized at birth and will most likely be baptized again one year after his death, not by his Roman Catholic Church but by a Mormon he never met.

The Mormons, a U.S.-based denomination officially named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), encourage members to baptize the dead by proxy in the belief they are helping the deceased attain full access to heaven.

Church members are told to focus on their ancestors, a rite understandable in a relatively new denomination founded in 1830. But so many now perform the rituals for celebrities, heroes and perfect strangers that the practice has spun out of control.

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Zedong, King Herod, Al Capone and Mickey Mouse have all appeared for a short time in the International Genealogical Index for proxy baptisms, said Helen Radkey, a researcher specialized in the IGI.

"It seems that any kind of name at all may be submitted," said Radkey from Salt Lake City, where the Church is based. The IGI also accepts names for rites that "seal" spouses in eternal marriage or parents and children in eternal families.

This has outraged Jews and baffled Christians who see it as usurping the memory of their departed relatives. The Church says it cannot stem the tide of dead baptized in its own temples.

The thing is, if the Mormons are right, then they're doing everyone a favour. If they're wrong, as Christians and Jews (and all other faiths, of course) insist, then it doesn't matter a damn. So why get upset by it?

Are We Rich Or What?

The ingenuity of humans continues to astonish: OK, so this device might help to boil the planet but it does show quite how stinking rich we are as a society:

Most parents worried about their baby getting too hot in a pram will adjust blankets or head for shade, but one dad wanted a more high tech solution for his young daughter -- a portable air conditioner.

"At first I was trying to cool her off with a hand-held fan. Then I thought of a much simpler idea -- a little air conditioner," Israeli Ofir Ben Aharon told Reuters.

The device, which weighs less than 2 kg (4.4 lb) looks like a motorized fan attached to the end of about a half-meter long pipe that can be fitted under a typical pram.

An air vent connected to the other side of the pipe is fitted with a puppet so it can be propped inside, looking like just another of baby's stuffed toys.

Isn't that great? The air-conditioned parm? Me, I'm waiting for the air-conditioned bicycle next.

Increasing Traffic

The most important thing about your activities on the web, the ne plus ultra that will define your success or not, is how well you manage to attract traffic to your site. Having the grooviest website doesn't, in and of itself, do this, nor does having the greatest content nor the finest products.

You see, there are hundreds of millions of others our there and so most people look for things through the search engines. This means that your site has to be highly ranked, arrive on the first page of results when people search for their favourite term.

There's a good article here on how to increase link popularity and it also explains why this is essential to get those better search engine results. Click through to find out more but in essence it is very simple. You've got a problem, and the solution is to get other people to link to your site, This makes the search engines think it is more important and thus you rise up the search results.

Ah, but how do you get people to link to you? Well, the answer to that is Blogitive. As I say, click through to find out more.

Interesting Problem

Leave aside the mix up (this does happen, even in our own dear NHS, although thankfully rarely) and ponder on larger question.

A Malaysian Muslim man switched at birth in a hospital mix-up wants to change his name after being reunited with his ethnic-Chinese biological family and become a Buddhist.

In multiracial Malaysia, ethnic Malays, who are mostly Muslim, form a majority of the population of roughly 26 million, while ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians account for about 25 percent and 8 percent respectively.

Sales executive Zulhaidi Omar, 29, was raised in an ethnic Malay family, and discovered his true origins only after a Chinese woman at a supermarket where he worked noticed his features were similar to those of her father, newspapers said.

"The girl who was always looking at me was actually my elder sister who suspected that I was her brother because of my striking resemblance to our father," the Star newspaper quoted Zulhaidi as telling reporters.

You see, having professed faith in Islam, is he now converts, he will be an apostate. And we're aware of what happens to apostates aren't we?

Now Zulhaidi wants to renounce Islam and take a Chinese name.

Whether Muslims can convert to another faith is a tricky legal question in Malaysia, where Islam is the official religion, although freedom of worship is a constitutional right.

Ethnic Malays are deemed to be Muslim from birth, but the country's highest civil court has yet to rule on whether they have the right to convert to another religion.

It's not so much the law he has to worry about, it's some more radical interpreter of the religious laws: apostates are often condemned to death.

Nude Training

I'm really not sure about this, not sure about it at all:

For those who want to be really buff, a Dutch gym is introducing training sessions for nudists.

The Sunday morning sessions were added by popular demand and "anyone who shows up just to ogle will be thrown out," said gym manager Patrick de Man in the town of Heteren.

"This is a special session for naturists and we will be very strict in enforcing this," he said.

The "nudifit" sessions, which will begin on March 4, have attracted a strong response -- both negative and positive, he said.

Just not sure that people doing star jumps and squats are actually going to be all that attractive really, without clothing to cover some of hte less attractive variations of the human physique.

Staff, who will remain clothed during the sessions, will pay special attention to hygiene, ensuring clients cover machinery and bikes with towels or disposable covers, he added.

Good point really, clothing isn't just to keep gazes out but to keep other things in as well.

 

Technorati tags: nudism, nude gym

Online Savings

We all know how to make savings at the bricks and mortar stores: just keep an eye on the newspapers and then clip the coupons as they appear. However, there's still a lot of people who don't quite realise that there's a similar system for the online stores.

For example, if you were to visit Ebates you would find money off offers and coupons for Target stores and products. If you're going to be shopping online anyway, why not make use of such services and save money?

That's not all Ebates offers, either. The way such online coupons work is that every time one is used then the site that provided it gets a commission or cashback. Excellent, capitalism in action, you the consumer get something, the store's happy and the middleman gets a cut. But if you sign up with Ebates then they share those commissions and cashbacks with you: that's right, you as the buyer get a cut of the money as well as all the savings you are making by using the coupons and getting those great deals.

That's a pretty good deal, isn't it? Check it out.

Cell Phone Junkies

There's being addicted and then there's being addicted.

They've gone without food or clothing just to make that call: a university survey has found that some Australians are cellphone junkies.

The survey of 2,500 cellphone users by Queensland University of Technology consumer behavior expert Diana James -- a self-described former addict -- showed users judge themselves and others by the type phone they use.

Some of those surveyed were going without food, clothes and university text books and spending the majority of their income to pay phone bills, she said.

"For me I had to stop using it completely before I could use it again responsibly," James said.

Still, at least there's no mention of anyone getting dangerously addicted: no mention of students going without beer, which would be a sign of a truly enormous problem.

A Helping Hand

If you're infatuated with a stripper, one who already has almost everything, what do you give her as a token of your affection?

That's right, a helping hand.

A doctor pleaded guilty on Thursday to stealing a severed hand, which he gave to a stripper who displayed it in her New Jersey apartment.

Ahmed Rashed faces five years probation for stealing the hand in 2002 from a cadaver at a New Jersey medical school, an assistant prosecutor for Middlesex County said on Thursday.

Rashed practices medicine at a hospital in Los Angeles and stole the hand while studying in New Jersey, the prosecutor said.

The woman kept the hand in a jar of formaldehyde in her apartment where it was discovered by police during an unrelated investigation.

At least it wasn't a body part more normally associated with stippers, for that we can be grateful.

Herpes from Wrestling?

One does wonder somewhat at what these young men have been doing out on the wrestling mats:

An outbreak of a contagious rash called herpes gladiatorum among Minnesota high school wrestlers led the state to suspend matches and halt contact practices, authorities said on Wednesday.

The eight-day suspension affecting 7,500 wrestlers on 262 teams was the first time a U.S. state's entire high school program in a sport has been shut down, authorities said.

The Minnesota State High School League acted after 24 wrestlers from 10 schools contracted the rash, which was first noticed and spread at a tournament in December.

I know there's something vaguely homoerotic about pubescent boiys grappling with each other but do they really take it that far, that they share STDs, in Minnesota?

Magazine Subscriptions

We all know that it's cheaper to subscribe to a magazine than it is to buy each copy individually at the store. But what a lot of people don't know about magazine subscriptions is that there are many more than just the one price for you to sign up.

The one offered by the magazine itself is usually the highest. There's a whole system out there dedicated to providing much lower cost subscriptions to get people to sign up for the first year. In fact, the magazine itself usually loses money on those first year of the sign up. That's a great deal for you, the reader, of course.

It's worth clicking through that link to go to Mags Direct where you'll be able to see the very best offers on over 1,300 magazines. They've also got a 100% money back guarantee, no sales tax and as well as all that and their extensive selection, if you buy a subscription as a gift they'll even send a greetings card with it. 

Eggsvertising

I'm not quite sure how well this will work:

Which came first -- the chicken or the ad?

In a month-long campaign that began in Japan on Thursday, 1.8-cm (0.8-inch) advertising stickers touting chicken ramen instant noodles will be stuck on the shells of ordinary eggs, sold in packs of 10.

"The chance of people taking the ads directly into their hands is very high this way," said Takako Maruyama, a spokeswoman at public relations firm Sunny Side Up Inc.

Plans are to sell some 300,000 packs by the end of the month at certain branches of retailer Daiei Inc.

Ohm sure, people wi~ll see and read the ads. But everyone who has ever actually eaten "chicken" noodles will know there's no chicken in it. Isn't advertising them on an egg simply rubbing salt into the wound?

Models Too Thin

It would appear that just about everyone thinks that models are too thin these days.

Female fashion models and many celebrities are "too thin," say four in every five consumers from around the world, a new survey showed on Thursday.

A week before the start of the annual fashion season, trend tracker The Nielsen Company revealed what 25,000 people in 45 countries said about the body size of women strutting the world's catwalks and red carpets.

"An overwhelming 81 percent of online consumers agree that female fashion models and celebrities are too thin," ACNielsen Europe's President Patrick Dodd said in a news release.

It would be interesting to break that down by sex and reason. I'd guess that the men thought they were too thin because men famously actually like women to look like women, have a few curves. From the women the argument might be a little different: There's certainly some women out there who would scream at such thin models "How dare you be that thin!"

Vacations, Vacations

As we shiver and freeze in the depths of the Northern Hemisphere winter of course our thoughts are turning to where we might go to warm up our bones. It doesn't seem to matter how high you turn the heating up, it's sunshine that's needed to actually feel warm again.

Which is why it's worth having a look at Vacations.net who feature all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean, places like Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

They'ev even got a special section devoted to Costa Rica all inclusive vacations. The site has thorough information on all the resorts, offers amazing discounts of up to 50% off the headline rates and the website itself is a joy to navigate.

I like their tagline too. As I sit here and freeze it sounds terribly attractive: " Vacations.net, where paradise is only a click away."

Explaining Low Pay for the Valuable

In a blindingly obvious piece of market research Reuters reports that most people are not in their dream jobs.

More than four out of five U.S. workers do not have their dream jobs, which most people describe as work that is fun, according to a survey released on Thursday.

Salary was one of the least important requirements of a dream job, cited by just 12 percent of respondents in the survey by CareerBuilder.com, an online job site, and The Walt Disney Co, which is holding a contest in which winners can get a chance to work at a Disney theme park job for a day.

Having fun at a dream job was cited by 39 percent, with 17 percent saying making a difference in society was most important, the survey showed.

OK, so many would like a dream job, cash isn't the determinant of a dream job, so which jobs have the highest numbers of people in them that think they are dream jobs? 

Among professions, police and firefighters were most likely to say they have their dream jobs, at 35 percent, followed by 32 percent of teachers, 28 percent of real estate professionals and 25 percent of engineers.  

Also

Fields with the least number of workers with dream jobs were accommodations and food services at 9 percent, manufacturing at 9 percent and retail at 10 percent.

The dream jobs are more dangerous, often require a great deal more training and so on but do not, necessarily, pay vastly better than the ones people don't like.

Because, of course, they are dream jobs: if people like what they're doing so much there is less need to bribe them with cash to do the job.

Motorcycles

Struggling with moving into the new place I'm wondering whether I might buy can am atvs? We've got great weather down here, we get more hours of sunshine per year than anywhere else outside a complete desert and we're almost always warm.

Bike riding should be a joy here then. There's a couple of reasons why not of course, the local standard of driving being one and the standard of the local roads being another. But a trike or a quad would take care of both of those problems.

This is something I'm going to have to think over a little more. I'd really like to do something like that, call it my mid-life crisis if you wish. Then again, not sure if I'd actually get permission from my wife. That might be the largest problem really.

Gold Coins

It's a standard part of investment advice that you want to spread your risks: diversification in the jargon. You want to have some of your savings in cash, some in something very near to cash like certificates of deposit. You also want to have some bonds and some equities. A decent portfolio would also include exposure to commodities, which is why it's worth looking into the ways you can buy gold coins.

One simple way is to work with Monex. They're pretty much the experts in hte field and can provide, for example, the American Eagle. This is a gold coin with a face value of $50 (although it is legal tender it's not sensible to use it to buy things: the metal value is far higher) and the advantage of the coin over ingot is that there's a well developed market for them. You can also get 1/10 th of an ounce coins from them.

Those who invested in such coins a few years ago have more than doubled their money showing the value of having a diversified portfolio.

Honouring Prostitutes

I'm not quite sure what to say here. There's a difference between my view on prostitution (consenting adults may buy and sell as they wish) and actually going this far:

Amsterdam's red-light district will soon get a new attraction: a statue to honor prostitutes around the world.

The statue, designed by artist Els Rijerse, will likely be unveiled at the end of March, Dutch news agency ANP reported.

"In many countries, prostitutes struggle and people have no respect for them whatsoever. The statue is meant to give all those men and women strength," Mariska Majoor, a former prostitute who commissioned the statue, told ANP.

ANP said the statue, made of bronze, shows a woman who confidently looks out into the world.

Accept, yes, honour? Might not want to quite take that extra step.-

Zune Launching in Europe?

Microsoft has announced that it might launch the Zune MP3 player in Europe this year:

Microsoft corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile , Research) is happy with the early sales of its Zune music player in the United States and it could launch the service in Europe before the end of 2007, its marketing director said on Saturday.

Jason Reindorp told Reuters that Microsoft was realistic about the challenge it faced in trying to crack into the digital music player market, dominated by Apple Computer (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile , Research) Inc.'s iPod.

"You couldn't get a more entrenched competitor," he said at the annual music industry Midem Net conference in France. "But we feel really good about the first steps that we've taken."

Reindorp said Microsoft was not yet ready to officially announce when it would launch the service in Europe but it could possibly be out before the end of the year.

Before you get too excited, there's something really rather wrong with the product. One of the features is that you can beam a song to someone else. However, many songs do not allow this feature: but you don't know which ones don't until you try to do so.

Really, not very good there, is it? 

Automotive Insurance

The US automotive insurance market is, contrary to what many believe, one of the most highly regulated around. Almost all of the States have their own insurance regulator and all are continually intervening in the market to insist upon the type of coverage allowed, the priocing, the no claims bonuses and even how it is priced geographically.

This has the sad side effect of limiting the ability of companies to compete upon price: it is also true that many companies have pulled out entirely from some of the most over-regulated States, to the detriment of the consumers.

What this means is that there's an awful lot of non-price competition (a more wasteful and less efficient kind of competition, of course). Geico, for example, produces a series of guides to things like teenage driving. It's great information, very useful, packed full of good advice.

It's just that if there weren't the restrictions on competition by price consumers might be even better off.

Bush's New Health Plan

Oh dear, looks like he's making precisely and exactly the wrong decision:

President George W. Bush on Saturday proposed tax breaks to make health insurance more affordable to the nearly 47 million Americans who lack it and suggested removing some tax benefits for the most expensive employer-provided health care plans.

Health care is emerging in opinion polls as a top concern among many Americans as private health insurance costs soar, putting a burden on workers and companies.

The president, looking to gain momentum for his domestic agenda that is at risk of becoming overshadowed by the Iraq war, will include the health proposal in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Typically, if you offer a tax subsidy you'll increase demand for that thing. This is known to make such things more expensive. Better would have been to abolish the tax subsidy on employer paid health insurance. When people pay the full cost of something then we get the socially optimal amount of it.

18 Lane Highways

Reuters opens this piece on an 18 lane highway in Texas with this question, what does this say about Texans' view of the environment:

As President Bush readies a new plan on global warming, environmentalists say an 18-lane highway going up in Houston speaks volumes about how people in his home state of Texas view the planet.

Between 2003 and 2009, $2.7 billion of state and federal money will have been plowed into expanding 23 miles of Interstate-10 in west Houston to as wide as 18 lanes in some stretches of the city's main east-west road.

"It is a concrete monstrosity," said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in the Texas city who fought the expansion of "I-10" and lost. "It probably shows as much as anything the philosophy of development here."

It probably shows that Texans think that there's plenty of environment to go around. Which, if you lived in Texas, you would probably believe too. There's huge areas of it that are nothing, where a highway greatly improves the scenery.

Peter Belisi

Here's an interesting tale of how a business, Belisi.com, started. Working as a bartender in Palm Beach Peter Belisi wondered how to create a sense of style consistent with the wealthy crowd around him: but without having to spend the money of that wealthy crowd.

He hit on the idea of using a single accessory, the tie, to make his mark. Priding himself on never wearing the same one twice he quickly garnered a reputation as someone with style, someone to be consulted as to what was in fact style.

Since then he's been able to build on that, using his own innate sense of taste, and build the business into something which is now a byword for the place to go for for stylish and high end accessories.

It's an inspiring story of how to use a particular talent that you have to get ahead: or if you want to use the economic words, we should all try and find what we're least bad at. There's plenty of bartenders out there, but only Peter Belisi had the style.

Broadband Offers

Post 1

Easy ways to find the cheapest broadband offer

How do you decide which broadband provider offers the right package for you with so many to choose from and such competitive prices on the market these days for high-speed connections?

You may not need a huge download limit or a best UK broadband internet deal, if you only use your broadband Internet connection to surf the net a little, check your emails, and do a little online shopping. You need to be aware and know exactly what download limit you will require, or you could pay more than you have to simply because of an Internet service provider’s adverting. "Unlimited Broadband" is one of the ISPs favorite advertising lines and some of these so-called "Unlimited" download limits will have a fair usage policy (which is usually not well advertised and hidden amongst the small print). The advertising can make you believe that you need something, when you really don’t need at all.

In this day of heavy competition between ISP providers, Cheap UK broadband deals are very changing. You mustn’t assume that because you have seen an advertisement somewhere, either on the radio or TV, that it will be the offer you get. You will need to check out the latest deals and prices before signing up to any contracts. Better still, read what other people have to say about their experiences and recommendations on various review sites like: UK ISP reviews

You may also consider checking out the latest deals when it’s time to renew your existing contract. There are always special offers on for anyone making the switch to a new one, so there’s a good chance that you could find a better ISP than the one you’ve currently got.

Online Shopping

Why is it better to shop online?

Online shopping makes you wonder if we will ever have to leave home to do our shopping again, but there are still people who want to go out and do their shopping in the stores, for various reasons. What are the advantages and disadvantages of high street and Shopping sites on the Internet?

Because there are much lower overheads for online retailers most products can be found online cheaper than that of the high street. But then, some high street shops may have clearance deals and in store offers that you can only buy if you go into the store. Another bonus is the reward shopping websites where you can get cashback on your UK shopping, without paying any extra money as well.

If you tried to visit every high street shop to compare cheapest prices, it would be very time consuming, where if you use an online price comparison website, you can compare the products and the prices, to find the best deal in no time at all.

One huge plus of high street shopping is the face-to-face interaction with another human being, because if something goes wrong, you can always return your goods to the shop. However, if you choose a reliable online retailer that offers a no quibble exchange policy/guarantee, this should not be a problem at all.

Online Coupons

Try and save money – Use Discount vouchers or online coupons

When shopping online, you may have noticed a box at the checkout stage asking for a promotion or a voucher code. A lot of the online shops and services offer discount voucher codes or online coupon codes. So it may be worthwhile checking if you can get some money off the price by using a discount voucher for your shopping. So how do you find these discount voucher codes when you want to shop online?

You can find these codes on the Internet shopping forums and free UK stuff websites. There are so many of these sites online; you only need to search for them. One thing you need to make sure when you put these discount voucher codes in the check out is to see if there is an “update price” or other button so the discount is applied to your purchase. Do not buy from a shop just because they offer a discount code. You should also compare UK prices before you decide which shop is cheaper.

Make sure you have found the right site, which is offering the latest up to date codes. Once you have checked the expiry dates, try to apply the code at the check out, and make sure you get a new total with the money off being discounted. Sometimes the voucher codes may not work or have expired and you might have to try a different one.

If you are a regular online shopper, you can join one of the established ‘freebie’ websites, where you can find free stuff as well as the online discount vouchers & coupon codes. Be sure to only sign up to reliable sites, as some websites can bombard you with emails, if they don’t have a proper privacy policy.

Broadband Wireless

Going wireless with your broadband connection

Cheap wireless broadband Internet has made life so much easier for laptop users, whether at home or away from home. Once you have gotten used to a wireless connection, you might not want to use wires ever again! But are there any problems with wireless connections?

With the image and file sharing websites growing in popularity more and more, it is hard to live with a dial-up Internet connection. Even if you live in an isolated or remote area, there are ways of getting cheapest UK broadband ISP. You can get broadband via satellite and many mobile companies offer facilities for you to connect via your mobile phone.

As with anything these days, the prices of UK wireless broadband modems are dropping and you can usually find a decent router for under £50 in most shops. Some cheap broadband deals will come with a free modem when signing up to a contract.

The main problem you can encounter with a wireless connection compared to a wired broadband network is security. You will need to make sure your connection is encrypted to stop other people using your connection. The encypting is not as hard to do as it sounds, and most routers and ISP modems come with instructions of how to do it. If you require any assistance, your UK broadband internet provider will be able to help you. And guide you through the process.

One of the common mistakes people do when they go wireless is to buy the cheapest available equipment, without doing any research. It is always worth reading broadband ISP consumer reviews on wireless equipment before parting with your money. Remember, a reliable connection is more important than saving a few pennies on equipment.

Mobile Phone Deals

Finding the best mobile phone deals – Some advice

Mobile phones are getting better all the time. Not necessarily cheaper, as the mobile handset manufacturers are trying to make you pay pretty much the same price for the Cheap UK mobile phones by adding more features, making it look better etc., However, if you are not fussed about the latest handset, you can still get some really good deals on slightly older models or not so popular models. If you shop around for the best mobile phone deal, it is even possible to get the handset of your dreams by choosing the right deal. The most important thing when you choose your next phone is to comparison of mobile phone offers and deals by using a comparison site and then buy, rather than buying a phone in an impulse.

One thing which you have to do at the outset is to have an idea of the amount of talk time you need. Decide if you really need off-peak minutes or not. If you are a heavy phone user, it is probably worthwhile going on a monthly contract. Monthly contract phone deals also offer you free or cheap UK mobile handsets. You are also likely to get a latest one. If you are a light user, you will end up paying a price for the handset, but could save money on monthly line rentals if you go for a pay as you go deal. Getting a SIM free mobile phone is always expensive, but it is worthwhile considering it if you want the flexibility of using it on any mobile network of your choice. What is worth bearing in mind is that even handsets which are locked with networks can easily be unlocked without much costs involved.

Most people who are crazy after a particular phone end up paying extra if they do not shop around. You may also want to consider reading mobile phone UK handset reviews written by other customers who have used a particular handset. If you ever get tempted to buy a mobile phone insurance with your handset, it is worth bearing in mind that most of these so called insurance policies are not worth their money and you have to make sure you read the small print carefully.

Solving the Spanish Flu

This is really quite fascinating at The Register. It looks as if someone has finally worked out what it weas that made the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak so dangerous:

A Canadian lab reconstucted the Spanish flu virus from human tissues preserved in the Alaskan permafrost and infected macaque monkeys. Their findings were reported on Thursday in the journal Nature, and should give a better view of how the virus killed humans than earlier work with infected mice.

It turns out that the H1N1 Spanish flu virus (the current bird flu threat is from H5N1, the nomeclature derived from the proteins which coat the virus) killed 50 million by over-stimulating their immune system, causing the lungs to inflame and rapidly fill with liquid. Lead author Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin said: "Essentially people are drowned by themselves."

That then explains why it was so lethal amongst the young and healthy:

So a young, healthy person with a young, healthy immune system would be a ripe victim for the 1918 strain. Associated Press reports co-author Michael Katze, of the University of Wahington, said: "It was the robustness of the immune system that helped victimize them."

 

Technorati tags: Spanish flu, avian flu, influenza, history

Wondering

So, was the problem I was having posting to this blog all about the other computer, or something to do with blogger?