Sad flamingo tries to hatch stone

I'm quite busy at the moment, working on two interesting projects (of which, details soon!) and getting into the swing of the new academic year - quite a lot of really fascinating ideas coming out of this year's dissertation students so it might be an interesting term.

But in lieu of a more substantive post on design or education, or Florida's third world election system, I thought I'd post this article as it made me go ahhhh... There's a lesson for us all here - not sure what it is yet, but a lesson to be sure.

BBC NEWS | England | Gloucestershire | Sad flamingo tries to hatch stone: "Sad flamingo tries to hatch stone

A lonely and confused male flamingo has caused a flap at a nature reserve in Gloucestershire.

Andy, an Andean flamingo, spent a fortnight trying to incubate a pebble which he has mistaken for an egg.

Wardens at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge first thought the 40-year-old bird had injured himself.

Nigel Jarrett, a bird nesting expert, said: 'The birds are very attentive and do make excellent fathers, but this is above and beyond the call of duty.'

Mr Jarrett eventually replaced the pebble with a wooden replica of a flamingo egg.

Two weeks on, Andy is still there, leaving the 'egg' for only an hour a day when he goes to feed.

Mr Jarrett said: 'We let Andy sit on the replica in case a female flamingo for some reason rejected her own egg.

'We could have then placed the rejected egg under Andy for him to incubate as an alternative parent.'

Breeding season

Mr Jarrett believes Andy's broodiness is down to his body being full of hormones at the end of the breeding season.

'He doesn't seem to have a mate. It's possible that he did have a partner and for some reason their egg didn't survive as they can be snatched by gulls and crows.

'His mate may have left after the egg disappeared, but Andy may still not have noticed and carried on, thinking the pebble was a prospective chick.'"

Mess

I honestly don't know where mess comes from. I tidied up last week before going away for three days leaving the house to Pickle and the cat sitter. I got back on the Friday night to see the place as tidy as I'd left it, and smelling of vanilla air freshener.

The next morning I went to London to meet an old student (very drunken afternoon/evening as it turned out) and spent most of Sunday sitting very, very still indeed.

Monday I was up at 4.45am as I had to go to Leicester and wasn't back until 8pm. Went straight to bed after watching Law and Order.

Tuesday I went into work and then sat at the computer all night trying to get my new Palm to work. Wednesday I spent at home trying to write a sample chapter of my new book and then went to the gym, followed by a rare early night.

Now here I am writing this surrounded by old newspapers I don't remember buying, a pile of washing up (did I eat this week?), a fetid bathroom (personally i am clean, but when i shower it obviously just gets sprayed over the walls rather than going down the drain) and a bedroom piled high with dirty washing and a desk covered in paper, books and CDs (even though I don't play CDs anymore, as I use iTunes streaming wirelessly to my stereo).

Where does it come from? I haven't done anything this week!

Maybe it's a girl thing? The messier the flat the more likely I am to get a surprise visitor who will have a go at me about the mess only for me to protest that it was tidy yesterday and it's not normally like this, honest.

iTunes now playing: Summa from the album Summa by Part, Arvo

Buzz off...

This movie apparently won first prize in the Philips Digital Art Festival. It's rather clever - move your mouse around the image, then rest it on the guy's nose.

I am better than your kids.

It's been a long week and it's only Tuesday. No wonder I found myself laughing at this. I shouldn't, but I did - take a look for yourself at I am better than your kids.

If you work in an office with lots of people, chances are that you work with a person who hangs pictures up that their kids have drawn. The pictures are always of some stupid flower or a tree with wheels. These pictures suck; I could draw pictures much better. In fact, I can spell, do math and run faster than your kids. So being that my skills are obviously superior to those of children, I've taken the liberty to judge art work done by other kids on the internet. I'll be assigning a grade A through F for each piece

Consumer choice redefined

MSN Entertainment - Music: "How can I get MSN Music downloads to play on my iPod?

Unfortunately Apple refuses to support the popular Windows Media format on the iPod, choosing to only support their own proprietary DRM format. If you are an iPod owner and are unhappy about this, please send feedback to Apple and ask them to change their policy and interoperate with other music services.


There are more than 70 portable audio devices that support MSN Music today, and we hope that someday Apple decides to join with the industry and support consumer choice."

Ah. That'll be the 70% of consumers who have chosen to buy iPods then? (I was on a long train journey today and it seemed every other person was listening to an iPod).

The irony is, Microsoft's new music download service (like Real's, who are also pushing Apple to 'support customer choice) doesn't work unless you use the latest version of Windows. Could I sue, as a Mac user? I wonder...

Apple's iPod and iTunes work on Macs and Windows, and supports MP3, WAV, AIFF, MP4/AAC as well as the DRM-enabled AAC files from the iTunes Music Store. So much for consumer choice. MS and Real appear to be attempting to create a myth of incompatability. Sadly, so many people blindly use their products as they're automatically downloaded and installed, they might just win this one.

US-Election.org: The world's voice, the world's vote

On the radio this morning I heard the report of Bush's acceptance speech and mention of him being re-elected as "leader of the free world". trouble is, only a tiny proportion of that "free world" is actually allowed to vote in the election (60 days and counting).
In my book, that's not democracy - that's a dictatorship. Perhaps it's time for truly universal suffrage and the extension of voting rights in this election to everyone with a vested interest.

Anyone who believes the President of the USA is the leader of the free world has a duty to vote on behalf of the free world. Looking at US-Election.org: The world's voice, the world's vote the free world want's Kerry by 71% to 10%. If Bush really believes in the God-given democratic system (and oh boy did I nearly throw up at that point), he should be praying in earnest tonight.

The Presidential election in the United States has an impact on people in countries throughout the world, yet only US citizens are permitted to vote in that election. US-election.org is a Web site designed to permit people throughout the world to cast a ballot in the US election.   To learn more about the people that built this site, click on About Us at the bottom of the page.

The ballot will not count, at least in the sense that it will not help determine the outcome of the US election. But it will make it possible for you to express your viewpoint and have your voice added to those of others around the world. The results of your vote and those of all other votes will be shown,  country by country, on this site.

Man fired for heckling Bush

Whatever happened to the right to free speech? I've read quite a few news stories recently about people being turned away from rallies for wearing anti-Bush slogans or refusing to sign pledges of their support, and worse actually being arrested for daring to say they don't agree with the things they hear.

Add to this people being arrested and imprisoned without charge, trial without jury or the right to representation, confessions gained through dubious means, private communications being monitored without a warrant, removal of the right to vote from large sections of the population, and suppression of negative stories in the media and you have to start wondering...

Smaller countries get invaded for less. Any bets if Bush wins in November he'll declare a premptive war on himself?

The guy in this story should sue. To be sacked for voicing your opinion stinks. That's what rallies are for for crying out loud, and it's made even worse when you find out who the client was - what on earth is a county school district doing sending advertising people to a partisan rally and then getting a father sacked because they felt their hospitality was being abused? How does this help kids get a better education? How much did it cost? Who now picks up the tab for supporting this guy's family while he retrains as a nurse?

The guy isn't going to sue and says he sees his boss's problem. I can't believe that. If I were his boss I would firstly have not put my staff in a situation where they felt duty bound to attend a political rally and support the sponsor's political views. failing that I would have told the client where to stick their business if they were so extreme as to deny a fundamental democratic right to one of my staff. I would then have spread the word around the industry that this client was not someone to do business with.

CNN.com - Man fired for heckling Bush - Aug 21, 2004: "CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) -- A man who heckled President Bush at a political rally was fired from his job at an advertising and design company for offending a client who provided tickets to the event.

The fired graphic designer said Saturday he won't try to get his job back.

'I'm mad less about losing the job -- I'm more mad about the reasons,' said Glen Hiller, 35, of Berkeley Springs. 'All I did was show up and voice my opinion.'

Hiller was ushered out of Hedgesville High School on Tuesday after shouting his disagreement with Bush's comments about the war in Iraq and the search for weapons of mass destruction. The crowd had easily drowned out Hiller with its chant: 'Four more years.'

'He surrounds himself with people who support him,' Hiller said of Bush. 'Your opinion ... is viewed as right or wrong.'

When he showed up for work at Octavo Designs of Frederick, Maryland, the following morning, he said he was told he'd embarrassed and offended a client who provided tickets to the event -- and that he was fired.

The client was a public relations worker who represents the Berkeley County school district, he said. 'It's just bizarre that you disagree with them and it all turns evil,' Hiller said.

Messages left with Octavo Designs were not immediately returned Saturday.

The father of two young girls had worked at the design firm for five months, doesn't plan to appeal the firing, and holds no grudge against his boss.

'To some degree I can see her point of view,' Hiller said. 'Advertising is all about having the perfect tan and driving a cool car. It's all about image.'

Hiller said he now plans to pursue work as a registered nurse, a field in which he worked for 10 years before landing the design job.

Last month, Charleston City Council apologized to two protesters arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts to the president's July 4 rally. The pair were taken from the event in restraints after revealing T-shirts with Bush's name crossed out on the front and the words 'Love America, Hate Bush' on the back. Trespassing charges were ultimately dismissed."

Fame!

Fame at last! As the Apple Turns is one of my favourite sites - you don't need to be an Apple fan to get the humour. I strongly recommend tuning in regularly or subscribing to its well-hidden RSS feed. They get their leads from tips sent in by readers and I have just had an hon mensh (as Private Eye puts it) which is an honour indeed! The story I spotted was about Microsoft giving their employees basic geography lessons after several serious diplomatic incidents - serious but laughable...

"faithful viewer Jonathan Baldwin pointed us toward a silicon.com article which reveals that Windows 95 had been banned outright from the entire country of India-- not because the product is supremely awful (which, frankly, would have made us want to emigrate), but because 'when coloring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India, Microsoft colored eight of them a different shade of green,' implying that Kashmir wasn't part of India, which is actually against Indian law.


But wait, there's more! According to The Guardian, Microsoft employees were actually arrested in Turkey when officials discovered that 'Kurdistan had been shown as a separate entity on maps of the country.' Microsoft software has also shown the Korean flag in reverse, and Microsoft employees were 'questioned by police in China, where it is an offense to refer to Taiwan as a country or as the Republic of China.' Tom Edwards, Microsoft's 'senior geopolitical strategist' (see, they are trying to take over the world!), blames the 'lack of basic geography' among his company's employees.


Actually, though, it's not only geography, but also a lack of cultural knowledge that's tripped up the company on occasion. The game Age of Empires 2 ticked off Saudi Arabia 'because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques.' Another game, Kakuto Chojin, included rhythmic chanting in the background that just happened to be an Arabic excerpt from the Koran, and again the Saudis protested, leading to the game's withdrawal worldwide. And due to what is described as an 'unfortunate error in translation,' the Spanish version of Windows XP 'gave users an option to select their gender from not specified, male, or 'bitch.'' Uh, whoops.


Not that we wouldn't make any or all of these mistakes and more ourselves; heck, we can hardly get through an episode without offending either the Australians or all of Canada or both. ('Curling is a sport for the aged and infirm!!' See?) Then again, we make no claim to be able to make and sell products to a global market, so maybe we shouldn't let Microsoft off the hook so easily. In any case, here's hoping that Microsoft's new 'geography classes for its staff' aren't too effective, because some of these blunders are far too entertaining not to be repeated."