Internet 'tax'

So, the music industry is thinking about giving up on chasing people who illegally download music and putting a 'tax' on Internet charges instead? Great. Why should I pay because some crackhead teenager after his Britney fix can't be arsed to buy a CD? I don't see the government saying "OK guys, we'll get rid of speed cameras and just charge all motorists equally to get the fines".

Downloading illegally shared music is illegal, and the people who do it are criminals (as the law stands). Whether they think this should be the case or not, people who download this stuff know it is illegal and should therefore be prepared to face the consequences. I don't see why they should be let off just because they are hard to catch and everyone else made to pay for them.

The way to change the music industry is not to download stuff illegally shared on P2P networks. The way to do it is to embrace the emerging legal downloads on sites like Magnatune. If all record companies adopted this approach then illegal downloading would cease to be a problem. Of course they don't like this idea as it would eat into their profit margins, but in the end we would all be better off (especially less popular artists).

Some countries (Canada?) have a tax on every blank CD sold. Some of the money goes to the big record labels on the assumption that people will be copying music. The presumption of guilt has seemingly gone unquestioned. Most blank CDs are not used for copying music, as most people who work in IT will tell you. Who are the record labels to think that they can make the law? If this new Internet tax proposal gets anywhere it will show just how much in the pockets of big business our government really is.

Wind Power

Wind power is great. It's clean, efficient, and promises cheap energy for all with no pollution. Despite this, some people bizarrely object to it (the NIMBY brigade, as usual). I think that the best solution would be to slap these people until they realise that while turbines might be visible on hills, at least they mean we don't melt more ice caps or generate nuclear waste that will be a problem in 10,000 years (and produce more expensive electricity!). Failing that, us level-headed people need to make it known that we support wind farms.

This 'Embrace The Wind' site allows you to put your name down as a wind supporter. As a bonus, they will engrave your name on a wind turbine as a show of thanks. Go on - immortalise yourself in a turbine and do some good at the same time!

Scottish Parliament

Take a look at the Scottish language version of the Scottish Parliament Web site. If this wasn't an official site I would have assumed that they were taking the piss. I mean, come on! It's like those pages on the Web that translate to Geordie by inserting 'fook' between every other word!

Music mindmap thing

Music Plasma looks like a really good idea. Type in the name of a band or 'artiste' and you'll see a blobby map of other bands with your chosen one in the middle. The closer the other bands are to your chosen one, the more similar they are (apparently - looks about right to me). The size is meant to denote popularity, but I don't know how they work that out, as it looks wrong to me in places. Maybe it goes on Amazon sales figures? Still very clever though.

Music mindmap thing

Music Plasma looks like a really good idea. Type in the name of a band or 'artiste' and you'll see a blobby map of other bands with your chosen one in the middle. The closer the other bands are to your chosen one, the more similar they are (apparently - looks about right to me). The size is meant to denote popularity, but I don't know how they work that out, as it looks wrong to me in places. Maybe it goes on Amazon sales figures? Still very clever though.

Windows controls our nukes. Christ.

It seems that BAe are fitting things like warships and nuclear submarines with Windows-based command systems. Yes, the same Windows that is likely to be the bug-ridden piece of crap you're using right now. You don't have to be a computer scientist to realise that while losing a couple of hours work and having to reboot is a bit of a pain at home, it is somewhat more of a pain in a 'will my computer decide to crash the sub, or perhaps launch some nukes?' situation. What did BAe do to the guy they asked to look into this when he come out with the 'wrong' conclusion? They sacked him! Joy.