One of the taonga (cultural treasures) I have brought back from the New Country (New Zealand):
The legendary Shell Stoke cigarette lighters! Interactive scratchie fun for everyone. Yes, I did drive all the way to Stoke to get some – they make great gifts; and yes, that is the real address.
New version of Mozilla Firefox – this one is called ‘One Tree Hill’, I presume it’s named after Auckland’s One Tree Hill , although there is a US soap of the same name .
I’ve been having major issues connecting to the site recently – I’m not sure if I can blame a dodgey server/host for that or not…. For the record – I’m in New Zealand. Everything seems to be so easy to do here, except, I expect, leaving.
I couldn’t find a list of Noam Chomsky’s engagements anywhere. Rather that sit back in my usual fog of apathy I thought that I’d start one myself. This is the unofficial, incomplete speaking itinerary of Noam Chomsky.
Please, if you know of a time/venue please let me know (if possible please send a web link too, or any other information). Better yet, if you know of a page that already does this, and that is kept up-to-date, please let me know and I don’t have to bother!
(Please also let me know if Noam is talking in London, as it seems that I’ve missed him.)
There’re also details here about how to get his schedule.
| Date | Where | Title | Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 May 2004 | Liverpool, UK | Part of the WOW Fesitval | |
| 22 May 2004 | Manchester, UK | University of Manchester | |
| 19 May 2004 | London | Simple Truths, Hard Choices: Some Thoughts on Terror, Justice and Self-defense | Free |
Update: I was asked by Prof Chomsky’s staff to not do this. The dude abides.
I have decided to start a speaking itinerary of the great professor as I couldn’t find one anywhere on-line. I hope that it’s useful and please let me know of any appearances (or if there’s a list already out there on the net).
And Noam Chomsky has a weblog called “Turning the Tide”
That old chestnut, the corporate web site re-design has come around again. It was about this time last year that we were working on the upgrade. We rebuilt a hopelessly crap web-shite so that all layout and formatting was done with CSS, it was HTML 4.01 compliant, cross browser compatible back to IE4 and NN6 (the earlier Netscape efforts get text only) and gave a nod to accessibility (without embracing it whole-heartedly).
This time we’ll hopefully iron out more of the accessibility issues. I’ve found these links on accessibility really useful, and if you haven’t considered accessible web design before, these may act as a useful starting point:
Wireless internet! Whoo-hoo!
Got a nice bundle from a supplier (who were slightly cheaper than e-buyer) that I will not name because they really screwed up – my order has taken nearly three weeks to arrive, they wouldn’t return my calls or answer my e-mails. I’m going to ask them for compo of some sort, and if I don’t get it I will name names. Bastards.
For those who are interested, I bought the D-Link DSL-G604T and got a free card thrown in. It seems to be great, I was set up in nearly no time. I had to bugger around with the config tool for a while as some strange stuff was happening (not finding the access point at all, or finding the access point but not connecting to the net) but it all appears to be ok now.
Another virus… go to MS, download the patch, install the patch, I guess this means that I’ll have to reboot, yes, it does:
Before you install this update, we recommend that you:
– Update your system repair disk (that fills me with confidence)
– Back up your system (stuff that)
– Close all open programs
So I have to shut down Putty which is running a MySQL session, Dreamweaver, Apache, Notes, several instances of Firefox with stuff in them I had found and wanted to look at later…. This is a drag.
And yes, I do decide to back-up my stuff (which takes ages) so hours later the patch is in place, and the firewall and virus checker updated.
Guy Madden’s “The Saddest Music in the World” is one of the strangest films I’ve seen for a good long while. And to boot, it’s a musical. Set in Canada during the depression in a surreal nightmare-like (I was going to say “dream-like”) version of Winnipeg, this film is hard to watch but worth-while if you’re up for something very “art-house”. I dislike the term art-house; I don’t think it really means anything; but it conjures up the right connotations for this film. Stylistically it resembles a music video or a cartoon; at times it has the overwhelming creepy/uncomfortable feeling that I remember experiencing when I watched “Eraserhead”.
What’s it about? I don’t think I’ll be 100% on the money saying what a film like this is about after only one viewing. Sure, it’s set in the depression and involves a music competition (to find the saddest music in the world) to which punters travel from all over the world. But I think it’s an allegory (or a parable, or whatever you want to call it) about the USA, (globalisation?), power, greed, and decadence. And as you might guess, it’s not in favour of its subject matter.
I didn’t enjoy the film but I’d like to see it again. I would recommend it – but only if you’re into “that sort of thing”.