Halfapenguin.com

I'm shocked, the BBC seems to have ended its trial of video podcasts.. as someone who has a hectic schedule i'm somewhat limited in my ability to get my weekly dose of newsnight, question time and even panorama at times... I thought at first it was because i was traveling outside the UK at the time, but it turns out the trial has been discontinued... It wasn't a perfect substitute for watching the show, but it was a good dose of BBC current affairs i could watch when its convenient (one of the advantages of a video ipod). If the BBC does choose to continue (which i hope they do), it would be good if the full versions of these shows were available. However i do appreciate the edited versions of these shows, since they give me a chance to watch highlights when i'm taking a quick without the full blown program. The today program is a staple of my early morning wakeup ritual and the 10 minute chunk works well as a digestible piece of current events.

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I had this thought a month ago when i first watched the Sound of the Drums, and that was this symbol everywhere throughout the finale. Admittedly made sense given it was mostly shown on the Valiant, but places like this on the gas mask are not on the Valiant.

The way i see it there are 2 main options, firstly simply since he took the technology from the Valiant, it had the same label, and this was a red herring, which RTD is good at setting up. However there is a second possibility. brought up by mentioning that as Harold Saxon, he was an industrialist, and so presumably in order to build the Archangel technology, he had to have some kind of industrial base. Therefore its entirely possible he took over "V" systems/incorporated/plc, and used his knowledge to create the satellite network. As a result its likely as H C Clements had access to Torchwood technology, Vcorp has access to limited quantities of Timelord technology. My feelings are that this is a red herring, since it would re-hash a previous plotline, but still i thought i should make the observation...

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Another update, now on the left toolbar a random selection of tags are now shown. Nothing huge i know, but still something more added to the accessible structure of the site. More complex updates will be coming soon.

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Actually, nope i haven't had a breakdown, i just had to deal with what happens when the M25 doesn't exist. Today i left the Albany area at 11:30, i arrived in Stony Brook at 7:30... on a trip that should have taken about 4 hours. There was a toll road on the way out, however they don't accept cards, and i was out of cash (previous tolls). My TomTom claimed a difference of 20 minutes, funny way of describing a 4 hour period stuck in Manhattan. The optimal route (including tolls) takes you through very congested motorways in the centre of Manhattan it was horrific, tiring and exhausting. So for the time being i'm going to think happily of the M25 and the hour's i've spent on it ;)

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I was just thinking, looking at the iphone, as a piece of technology, aside from apple's attrocious implementation of AT&T, trying to violate the principle in europe of subsidised phones and other attendant problems. (Currently not an apple fan, i'm eagerly awaiting the gPhone this week). At what point can i start having copyrightable ideas about iphone like concepts... it all started with the apple patent application for the ability using an iphone interface to be able to rearrange buttons with fingers (aside from being a terrible exploit of the "process" patent), got me thinking. If a person, say Tio Holtzman, discovers (probably in a drug induced stupor) the "Holtzman Effect" or rather a method of manipulating super strings to produce interesting spacio-temporal effects... and then someone, named Norma Cenva, comes along and takes the work (saves a couple of planets from bad math), and proceeds to produce a Foldspace engine, based on the initial equations and techniques of the first, in our system of patents, who owns the right to the foldspace engine? The kamakaize inventor who stumbled on the equations or the intuiative genius who took a badly implemented invention and built something truly amazing out of it?

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Just listening to yesterday's interview by John Humphrys of Jeremy Paxman. Two of the most capable interviewers going head to head... Personally i completely agree with Jeremy Paxman, the BBC should trim back, and concentrate on the things that it can only do. However John Humphrys is very good at holding his own, titantic battles :) For those of you who didn't here, for while its available check out Listen Again. I'll write about my thoughts a bit later.

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I'm listening to Paul McCartney's latest single - nod your head, and i'm wondering how this can be the same man who was in the Beatles... Its grating, annoying, and generally terrible. It sounds like someone who still thinks they are still amazing, but really are over the hill. It makes sense why he's arguing for extension of copyrights, he can't do anything new that's good, and knows the McCartney name wont sell enough of this music, so he wants to keep collecting money from the Beatles tracks (despite having more money than most people can imagine, let alone dream about).

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