Wedding TV
Horse and Country
Sky Real Lives
Wine TV
Baby Channel
Luxe TV
Fashion TV
Bedroom tv
that's without venturing into the shopping, dating, and religion channels - which are just totally scary...
The Perils of Privatization
Gosh. Letting big companies run essential infrastructure and services for profit - is a recipe for disaster? Who knew. The privatisation of the water companies in the UK has been a fiasco here too.
The Perils of Privatization | The American Prospect
The Perils of Privatization | The American Prospect
The Book List
The person who made the book shelf for the official Doctor Who web site was very clever.
1. The French Revolution.
In the pilot episode 'An UnEarthly Child' history school teacher Barbara hands Susan (the Doctor's grand daughter) a book on 'The French revolution' – Susan proclaims 'it didn't happen that way'.
2. The Time Machine – H G Wells.
The author hung around with the 6th Doctor in 'Timelash'. And the (7th) Doctor was reading it at the beginning and again at the end of the Doctor Who movie as the 8th Doctor (McGann). You could say it book-ended the film -hah.
3. Monty Python's Big Red Book.
(Dunno how that got in there. I know John Cleese had a guest spot once - but other than that... Obviously it's a favourite of someone's.)
4. Everest in easy stages.
5. A journal of impossible things – by John Smith.
Well... Did Nurse Joan find a publisher for the Doctor's scribblings then? That would provide a few tidbits of information for his enemies wouldn't it?
6. 'Type 40 TT Capsule Complete Manual'
Romana's preferred reading - the TARDIS manual.
7. The Black Orchid.
8. Understanding Telebiogenesis
Nyssa was on about trying to find a book on it in Castrovalva. It might be just a posh, more scientific word for regeneration.
9. Brigit Jones's Diary.
(Is that the closest thing they could get to Harriet Jones's Diary since there was an act of parliament preventing her from having one? Is this some sort of a foreshadowing hinty-hint?)
1. The French Revolution.
In the pilot episode 'An UnEarthly Child' history school teacher Barbara hands Susan (the Doctor's grand daughter) a book on 'The French revolution' – Susan proclaims 'it didn't happen that way'.
2. The Time Machine – H G Wells.
The author hung around with the 6th Doctor in 'Timelash'. And the (7th) Doctor was reading it at the beginning and again at the end of the Doctor Who movie as the 8th Doctor (McGann). You could say it book-ended the film -hah.
3. Monty Python's Big Red Book.
(Dunno how that got in there. I know John Cleese had a guest spot once - but other than that... Obviously it's a favourite of someone's.)
4. Everest in easy stages.
5. A journal of impossible things – by John Smith.
Well... Did Nurse Joan find a publisher for the Doctor's scribblings then? That would provide a few tidbits of information for his enemies wouldn't it?
6. 'Type 40 TT Capsule Complete Manual'
Romana's preferred reading - the TARDIS manual.
7. The Black Orchid.
8. Understanding Telebiogenesis
Nyssa was on about trying to find a book on it in Castrovalva. It might be just a posh, more scientific word for regeneration.
9. Brigit Jones's Diary.
(Is that the closest thing they could get to Harriet Jones's Diary since there was an act of parliament preventing her from having one? Is this some sort of a foreshadowing hinty-hint?)
Homepage Secret-ness
Already people are up to speed on what some the books on the bookshelves refer to. No one's copped yet that 'the History of the Universe' (by Oolon Caluphid - and also mentioned in 'The Hitch hiker's guide to the Galaxy*) was being read by the Tom Baker's Doctor in 'Destiny of the Daleks'. A story that featured the search for a certain Dave Ross...
*A certain Douglas Adams worked on Doctor Who for a while dintcha know? Of course you did. That's why there are still little nods and references to him and Hitchhiker's throughout the new series.
TV.com Forums - Homepage Secret-ness (SPOILERS)
*A certain Douglas Adams worked on Doctor Who for a while dintcha know? Of course you did. That's why there are still little nods and references to him and Hitchhiker's throughout the new series.
TV.com Forums - Homepage Secret-ness (SPOILERS)
Cory Doctorow: Our dangerous statistical ignorance
(Of course what's not being mentioned here is that ALL Governments whether left or right learning inherently distrust the people they purport to represent. A few short decades ago politics was about ideologies - but all that idealism has gradually died away. What's left is their pretense that they can protect us from the boogie men out there... the bigger the pretended potential fears - the more they can get away with in taking away the hard-won freedoms previous generations fought for... oh and our privacy too.)
Cory Doctorow: Our dangerous statistical ignorance | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Cory Doctorow: Our dangerous statistical ignorance | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Moffat Replaces RTD!
omg.
This pretty much means that if anything - Doctor Who is only going to get even better!
Moffat Replaces RTD! - News - Doctor Who - Online Magazine & Fan Site
This pretty much means that if anything - Doctor Who is only going to get even better!
Moffat Replaces RTD! - News - Doctor Who - Online Magazine & Fan Site
The Wrong Man
Nobody gets that Elections aren't ever won anymore. You need things like getting people to rally behind an ideology, a cause, something to do that. Now it's just that the current Government loses. And Gordon Brown - well sorry, but he looks like one big loser.
k-punk: The Wrong Man
(Great little piece right until the last two paragraphs - where the last one falls apart into incoherent gibberish. Media studies hey. Gotta tack on a reference to Baudrillard (or some such) -or they're just not doing their job.
k-punk: The Wrong Man
(Great little piece right until the last two paragraphs - where the last one falls apart into incoherent gibberish. Media studies hey. Gotta tack on a reference to Baudrillard (or some such) -or they're just not doing their job.
What's a 'Trapper Keeper'?
I'm re-watching that old Southpark episode...
Trapper Keeper: Mead's Answer to the Swiss Army Knife.
wikipedia entry.
Official site.
We don't have them in the UK - of course now, it being stationery - I think I want one.
Trapper Keeper: Mead's Answer to the Swiss Army Knife.
wikipedia entry.
Official site.
We don't have them in the UK - of course now, it being stationery - I think I want one.
Nouveau poor
One of the most annoying aspects of the 'credit crunch' is the sheer volume of middle class journos now 'playing at being poor'
Here's one example:
Jay Rayner finds some hits and misses in his Aldi shopping bag | Business | The Guardian
In the article notice how he's not economising by eating baked beans on toast or ramen noodles... funny that.
I'm going to start a list... Nouveau Poor watch.
Here's one example:
Jay Rayner finds some hits and misses in his Aldi shopping bag | Business | The Guardian
In the article notice how he's not economising by eating baked beans on toast or ramen noodles... funny that.
I'm going to start a list... Nouveau Poor watch.
The Crash Course | Chris Martenson
Uh-oh. 'Merika is doomed.
Apparently the next 20 years are going to have to be totally unlike the past 20 years.
Yay!
Apparently the next 20 years are going to have to be totally unlike the past 20 years.
Yay!
what silly knits the BBC are
Jenny
Odd this one. It took me a couple of viewings to like it properly. But I'm left with a few quibbles... (and they (RTD, Alice Troughton, David Tennant) even mentioned them in the commentary too.)
Nigel Terry - the white haired General guy - Cobb. Surely he's a LOT older than just one week old? So why doesn't he remember things from before then? Tsk. They should have had all the cast in this episode in their 20s and that would have made things a little more believable. A bit. Since I do have a problem with the war thing having only lasted a week. A year, six months - possibly but just the one single week? Please. Also - when they're talking about so many generations - what was it? Something like 20 a day... or so - that's going to be an awful lot of dead bodies - where did they put them all?
Hath Peck - drowning. In the commentary RTD mentioned it wasn't the writer's fault - he was told he had to have quicksand in there - a fx of glass breaking to try and make it work. You need to hear the commentary for this bit.
There was a few points of similarity with the Sontaran episodes.
Poor Martha getting fully emersed in gloop again. Terra-forming gases. [The Sontarans where terraforming Earth to make it into a massive cloning planet) Cloning soldiers for war. The whole cloning off-spring business itself.
Now either this is a mistake on the production staff or is, as I suspect, part of the story arc. Because (and I've only watched this twice so I might have missed something) there wasn't anything overtly arc-y I could detect. No mention of disappearing bees, no sightings of Rose (they've only happened in present day Earth so far), no cryptic prophecies - which leads me to conclude the cloning thing is part of the arc. Maybe Jenny will put in an appearance at the end too - if she can find herself a time-machine on her travels that is...
So the finale looks like it's going to involve Davros, Daleks, clones and cloning,
invisible back-hugging insects?.
*mmmmmm - strokes chin.*
Nigel Terry - the white haired General guy - Cobb. Surely he's a LOT older than just one week old? So why doesn't he remember things from before then? Tsk. They should have had all the cast in this episode in their 20s and that would have made things a little more believable. A bit. Since I do have a problem with the war thing having only lasted a week. A year, six months - possibly but just the one single week? Please. Also - when they're talking about so many generations - what was it? Something like 20 a day... or so - that's going to be an awful lot of dead bodies - where did they put them all?
Hath Peck - drowning. In the commentary RTD mentioned it wasn't the writer's fault - he was told he had to have quicksand in there - a fx of glass breaking to try and make it work. You need to hear the commentary for this bit.
There was a few points of similarity with the Sontaran episodes.
Poor Martha getting fully emersed in gloop again. Terra-forming gases. [The Sontarans where terraforming Earth to make it into a massive cloning planet) Cloning soldiers for war. The whole cloning off-spring business itself.
Now either this is a mistake on the production staff or is, as I suspect, part of the story arc. Because (and I've only watched this twice so I might have missed something) there wasn't anything overtly arc-y I could detect. No mention of disappearing bees, no sightings of Rose (they've only happened in present day Earth so far), no cryptic prophecies - which leads me to conclude the cloning thing is part of the arc. Maybe Jenny will put in an appearance at the end too - if she can find herself a time-machine on her travels that is...
So the finale looks like it's going to involve Davros, Daleks, clones and cloning,
invisible back-hugging insects?.
*mmmmmm - strokes chin.*
Driving and cheap flights lay waste to recycling campaign - Times Online
"the number of cars owned by British households had increased by five million to 27.8 million in the past decade. All regions have had an increase in car registration, but the North East and East Midlands have had the biggest growth, up 30 per cent each."
*sigh* I hate cars.
Driving and cheap flights lay waste to recycling campaign
*sigh* I hate cars.
Driving and cheap flights lay waste to recycling campaign
Lost - Locke chosing objects that he owns
Gah.
So in the last episode of Lost 'Cabin Fever' we see the eternally unaging Alpert visit Locke and present him with a series of objects from which he has to chose those that 'already belong to him'.
Of course the Lost blogsters and even the official blogster at EW are inadvertently showing their complete ignorance of Tibetan Buddhism. You see, upon the death of the old Dalai Lama the wise old head monks of the Monastery use various mystical methods - reading signs and portents etc. to set out into the world to seek out the boy which contains the reincarnated soul of the Dalai Lama. Once they find the child they think is he -the final test is to present him with a series of objects and ask him to chose the personal belongings he remembers owning from his previous life.
So Locke is a little Buddha then - which could well explain his baldness and his mystical leanings. It also explains why he's so messed up - the poor dear has had his pre-destiny severely messed about with...
So in the last episode of Lost 'Cabin Fever' we see the eternally unaging Alpert visit Locke and present him with a series of objects from which he has to chose those that 'already belong to him'.
Of course the Lost blogsters and even the official blogster at EW are inadvertently showing their complete ignorance of Tibetan Buddhism. You see, upon the death of the old Dalai Lama the wise old head monks of the Monastery use various mystical methods - reading signs and portents etc. to set out into the world to seek out the boy which contains the reincarnated soul of the Dalai Lama. Once they find the child they think is he -the final test is to present him with a series of objects and ask him to chose the personal belongings he remembers owning from his previous life.
So Locke is a little Buddha then - which could well explain his baldness and his mystical leanings. It also explains why he's so messed up - the poor dear has had his pre-destiny severely messed about with...
How to record TV in the modern age.
- Turn on the Sky guide – scroll through miles and miles of days worth of EPG (Electronic Program Guide) to find the program/s you want.
(IMPORTANT While you're there also take a note of the start and end times of all these things.) - Do this as many times as there are programs you want to record.
Setting the Auto view is totally essential – but an easily and frequently overlooked step. - Have a little weep - it'll make you feel better.
- Then go to your VCR or DVR and painstakingly set in all the times for those programs – remembering to add extra minutes to the beginning and end of the program - (because, despite having run TV broadcasting for decades now, the TV companies still can't manage to keep to a proper timetable -ever. No one knows why.
Be forewarned that if there's any sports event on at the time there's a very good chance it will over run and whatever you wanted to watch will run hours late or even be taken off air altogether. Even if 10 million people watch Doctor Who every week – the 12 people in the world who watch Hamster racing will get preference. Because it is sport and all sport is sacred - for some reason.)
After all that even if you've done everything perfectly correctly - and with so many steps it's easy to mess up – you'll find that whatever you record will be covered up by that bloody irritating giant blue reminder box anyway.
It was difficult enough in the days when we just had video cassette recorders – and then you could watch one thing and record another – bliss.
And people wonder why bit torrents are so popular?
P.S. I can't afford a Sky plus and I resent having to ay extra for one. So ner.
Self-sacrifice in Doctor Who – a list
Season One.
Ep. 2.
The End of the World.
Tree Princess Jabe.
The Unquiet Dead.
The maid Gwyneth.
Father's Day
Peter Tyler – Rose's Dad.
The Doctor Dances.
(Near-miss, rescued at the very last second – Captain Jack.)
The Parting of the Ways.
The controller.
The broadcasters.
Lynda with a 'y'.
Captain Jack. (Resurrected.)
Season Two.
Tooth and Claw
Sir Robert MacLeish.
School Reunion.
K-9
Satan Pit.
Mr Jefferson.
Doomsday.
Yvonne ('You shall not pass') Hartman
(Near-miss – Rose.)
Season Three.
Gridlock.
The Face of Boe.
42
Captain Kath (Eastender Michelle) McDonnell
Christmas Special.
Voyage of the Damned.
Bannakaffalatta.
Foon Van Hoff.
Astrid Perth.
Any one I might have missed?
Ep. 2.
The End of the World.
Tree Princess Jabe.
The Unquiet Dead.
The maid Gwyneth.
Father's Day
Peter Tyler – Rose's Dad.
The Doctor Dances.
(Near-miss, rescued at the very last second – Captain Jack.)
The Parting of the Ways.
The controller.
The broadcasters.
Lynda with a 'y'.
Captain Jack. (Resurrected.)
Season Two.
Tooth and Claw
Sir Robert MacLeish.
School Reunion.
K-9
Satan Pit.
Mr Jefferson.
Doomsday.
Yvonne ('You shall not pass') Hartman
(Near-miss – Rose.)
Season Three.
Gridlock.
The Face of Boe.
42
Captain Kath (Eastender Michelle) McDonnell
Christmas Special.
Voyage of the Damned.
Bannakaffalatta.
Foon Van Hoff.
Astrid Perth.
Any one I might have missed?
David Aaronovitch - is a retard
Hi, I'm David Aaronovitch - I'm a middle-class retard who is lucky enough to live in (or near) a city, I own a car, has a bank account, a credit card, have e-mail, and the internet - so can order things online [well... because shops on the internet don't use the postal service to deliver packages do they? - oh no - magic pixies do that] so anything that is outside of my direct experience is a fabrication and a lie....
Post offices: we killed them | David Aaronovitch - Times Online
I, (speaking as me again not as Aaronovitch) on the other hand, living in the non-privileged real world, do use the Post Office - so I've had the experience of having had local offices close on me and so have had the annoyance of having to go into the town centre to see the queues for the PO go out of the building and on to the street and curl round the building... I guess none of THOSE people needed to use the Post Office either.... they just liked queuing for the sheer fun of it.
So I'm particularly annoyed that this pompous selfish moronic prat - should be paid to write drivel like this. He should be writing children's fiction about rainbows and unicorns - it's obviously a world he has more in common with since he plainly doesn't get out into the real world much.
Post offices: we killed them | David Aaronovitch - Times Online
I, (speaking as me again not as Aaronovitch) on the other hand, living in the non-privileged real world, do use the Post Office - so I've had the experience of having had local offices close on me and so have had the annoyance of having to go into the town centre to see the queues for the PO go out of the building and on to the street and curl round the building... I guess none of THOSE people needed to use the Post Office either.... they just liked queuing for the sheer fun of it.
So I'm particularly annoyed that this pompous selfish moronic prat - should be paid to write drivel like this. He should be writing children's fiction about rainbows and unicorns - it's obviously a world he has more in common with since he plainly doesn't get out into the real world much.
CCTV boom 'failing to cut crime'
BBC NEWS | UK | CCTV boom 'failing to cut crime' : "'Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV."
Well dur.
If you replace any of the hi-tech solutions we've been presented with during the past 20 years - it's always been a fiasco. It's always cost quite stupidly and scarily high amounts of money and never done whatever it was brought into do properly. Why's that? Well, I'm guessing it's because computer and tech. salesmen are very good at selling their snake oil solutions and politicians are - bless 'em - woefully ignorant when it comes to technology. It's all so much 'magic boxes' and 'fairy dust' to them.
110 major computer failures hit NHS.
The child support agency's messy history.
Not to mention the recent hoo-ha where Government departments have been rather cavalier with the public's personal information.
And now the MI5 fancies tracking everyone's movements - all in the name of preventing terrorism of course. Despite it being, by anyone's account, still a very rare thing.
Well dur.
If you replace any of the hi-tech solutions we've been presented with during the past 20 years - it's always been a fiasco. It's always cost quite stupidly and scarily high amounts of money and never done whatever it was brought into do properly. Why's that? Well, I'm guessing it's because computer and tech. salesmen are very good at selling their snake oil solutions and politicians are - bless 'em - woefully ignorant when it comes to technology. It's all so much 'magic boxes' and 'fairy dust' to them.
110 major computer failures hit NHS.
The child support agency's messy history.
Not to mention the recent hoo-ha where Government departments have been rather cavalier with the public's personal information.
And now the MI5 fancies tracking everyone's movements - all in the name of preventing terrorism of course. Despite it being, by anyone's account, still a very rare thing.
Two televisual observations
Lost is so damn complicated now - I see that Sky One has started showing special 'enhanced' (I'd have said annotated) versions - where they have pop-up notes at the bottom of the screen reminding us of previous episodes/happenings/plot points/ - characters - and on screen 'easter eggs'. It's actually pretty useful. I've learnt stuff I'd missed before.
Another random thought I've had - No one can deny that the new Doctor Who took a lot of 'Buffy' lessons - (for example how they changed the show's format to it's current one-single-story per show and having the longer season arcs where the last two to three episodes have the Doctor up against a 'big bad' - another key lesson they learnt was to have strong female characters with distinct home lives) only now with the upcoming 6th episode - it looks like they've gone for the whole hog and given themselves what looks like their very own super powered slayer-style character.
The Doctor's Daughter - hey? Don't suppose she's going to eventually turn out be Susan's mother from the first Doctor's era. Wouldn't that be something? But I guess an idea like that is going to be way too tricky and complicated to work in... mores the pity.
Another random thought I've had - No one can deny that the new Doctor Who took a lot of 'Buffy' lessons - (for example how they changed the show's format to it's current one-single-story per show and having the longer season arcs where the last two to three episodes have the Doctor up against a 'big bad' - another key lesson they learnt was to have strong female characters with distinct home lives) only now with the upcoming 6th episode - it looks like they've gone for the whole hog and given themselves what looks like their very own super powered slayer-style character.
The Doctor's Daughter - hey? Don't suppose she's going to eventually turn out be Susan's mother from the first Doctor's era. Wouldn't that be something? But I guess an idea like that is going to be way too tricky and complicated to work in... mores the pity.
Compare and contrast
This article:
Junkfood Science: Starving toddlers mistaken for “healthy eating”
with this one:
Too fat to toddle: How plump kids are transformed at fat camp.
and ponder - how is it after all the millions of years human beings have been stomping around this planet - how so many of us have become so damn stupid that we don't know how to feed our own children properly anymore?
The human race is doomed.
Junkfood Science: Starving toddlers mistaken for “healthy eating”
with this one:
Too fat to toddle: How plump kids are transformed at fat camp.
and ponder - how is it after all the millions of years human beings have been stomping around this planet - how so many of us have become so damn stupid that we don't know how to feed our own children properly anymore?
The human race is doomed.
Poisoned Sky
Awesome: The return of the ship Valiant.
Best lines:
"Back of the neck."
“Are you my mommy?”
Arc:
A brief second's glimpse of Rose shouting mutely before the Doctor's transmission linked to the Sontarans.
Still loving Donna - still being irritated by big teethed Martha
Best lines:
"Back of the neck."
“Are you my mommy?”
Arc:
A brief second's glimpse of Rose shouting mutely before the Doctor's transmission linked to the Sontarans.
Still loving Donna - still being irritated by big teethed Martha
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