Making a world out of your digital photos

Photosynth - this is some super cool stuff in development at Microsoft…check out the videos for this, can you imagine coupling this with databases like flickr? That would be really awesome…

Friday Five – people who really annoy me…

In an effort to blog a little more often – I’m going to have some fun – here’s a blatantly stolen feature from Merlin Manns site, the Friday five…each Friday I’ll drop a list, if you have any more that you can add, bang them in the comments! Simple as that!

5 people who really annoy me

1. Chris Tarrant
2. Mick Hucknall
3. Simon Cowell
4. John Prescott
5. Dennis Rodman

I should probably chill out and stop letting these people piss me off, but they do – simple as that.

A great sport disappearing down the tubes…

I know nothing about cycling, but seeing the news that Floyd Landis – the winner of this years Tour de France – has tested positive for doping is really sad. No wonder he’s smiling though…he’s pumped full of testosterone.

Googletalk – disappointing…

What a piece of crap…I just dropped onto gmail (where I moved all my email accounts some time back) and someone pinged me for a chat on googletalk – and whilst I know it’s still in beta (which Google products aren’t), it is an absolute shocker. Very limited features, and chronic latency which I don’t see from any other web based product I use – even dropping keystrokes in messages. Very unsatisfying – I shall be avoiding googletalk like the plague! 

Ooops…

Managed to break something intermittently – all fixed now!

Set the fire to the third bar

I find the map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from me to where you’d be
It’s only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place where I’d find your face
My finger in creases of distant dark places
I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I’ve felt so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science

Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me

I’m miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold gound
I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms

After I have travelled so far
We’d set the fire to the third bar
We’d share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can’t keep it

I’m miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold gound
And I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm house

I’m miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold gound
I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm house

Set the Fire to the Third Bar – Snow Patrol (with Martha Wainwright)

I love Russia

No, really – I was lucky enough to travel to Russia a lot in 2003/2004 – and I loved every minute of it. I made some good friends there – who I’ll never forget, and saw some things I thought I would never see – so I was really excited when I heard that More4 were running a series of programmes about Russia this week.

Last night was the first of the week with two documentaries – one made by Marcel Theroux (brother of Louis) who explored Russia and charted some of the key problems that have faced the great nation since the fall of communism. The average male life expectancy has fallen by 7 years, and in the first half of 2005 the population of Russia fell by half a million. Its a shock that Moscow has more billionaires than any other city in the world, yet a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line. Theroux managed to capture the feel of Russia well, particularly the scenes where his filming in Krasnodar was disrupted by a Cossack Army Colonel – keen to show off his nationalist pride to the western cameras. It was sad to see some of the issues in Russia laid bare, but an excellent documentary.

The second of the programmes was more specific – focusing on the Moscow Theater siege which ended so tragically in October 2002. Over 40 Chechen terrorists took control of a Moscow theater threatening to blow the building up with many innocents inside. 19 of the terrorists were women – each equipped with a bomb strapped to their bodies, with which they threatened to avenge the deaths of their husbands and children in Chechnya. As the terrorists remanded the withdrawl of Russian forces from the remote state, the Russian army plotted an audacious (and yet flawed entry). After 57 hours, they started to pump an anasthetic gas into the building - followed by an armed raid. Nearly all of the terrorists were rendered useless by the gas, and some were shot by the alpha-force troops, but a key mistake in planning meant that there were not enough medics available to administer the antidote to the gas – 129 people died. The Chechyen widows got the vengeance they needed – even in death themselves.

Both of these documentaries were excellent – and theres four more this week worth watching:

• Tuesday 21st – How Putin came to power / Dispatches from Beslan
• Wednesday 22nd – Once upon a time in Siberia / Mamuchka

Discipline and Etiquette…

I’m not much of a rugby fan, I understand the rules – but I only really watch when its the world cup or the 6 nations. Over the last two weeks I’ve caught a couple of games – France vs Wales and most of the England vs Ireland game yesterday, and  I’ve been impressed with the way that the games are run, it seems to me that rugby has embraced the future quicker than many other sports. In both games I saw really controversial decisions being made by the referee with the aid of television evidence and a fourth official, whilst it was happening he had complete control over the players – and transparent communication (with headset microphones being broadcast through the TV).

I’d even argue that the short breaks (15 to 30 seconds) in both games, were the most exciting bits of TV I’d seen in ages, hearing the referee ask his fourth official to analyse a call that couldn’t clearly be judged from the field of play was taut and tense, and the resulting judgement in both cases was 100% correct, and accepted by all the players (however disappointed) on both teams.

Contrast that to the scenes in the Fulham vs Chelsea soccer game at Craven Cottage today, where an assistant referee somehow made the right decison despite being clearly unable to see the play, and Chelsea players surrounded and confronted the officials when one of their players was sent off. Despite my obvious schadenfreude at Chelsea losing – I despise the lack of etiquette in football today, my team are as guilty as any other.

It seems obvious to me – make football more transparent, embrace the technology available and allow the refs to only communicate with one player from each side (the captain). Punish dissent with 10 meter penalties and allow the ref to use a microphone, that way – we can all see and hear how decisions are being made.

And for gods sake, make these highly paid, highly skilled and highly responsible primadonnas STOP cheating!

Remember these names…

Lehmann
Eboue
Toure
Senderos
Flamini
Hleb/Bergkamp
Gilberto
Fabregas
Reyes/Pires
Henry
Ljungberg

Wednesday 8th March 2006
Arsenal 0 – 0 Real Madrid
(Arsenal win 1-0 on aggregate)

There has never been many better…

Remember that crazy Sony ad?

The one with thousands of rubber balls bouncing down a hill to the tune of Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats, brilliant – well, check out this parody, set to the same music – but featuring video game soldiers bouncing down the hill. Its awesome.