Spontaneous Monotony

BBC News | Microsoft Backs Down
Anyone unfortunate enough to read my Blogger, LJ, WordPress, MT, Pmachine, Nucleus, Drupal (get the picture?) blogs that I tried out before settings this up will no that I am not the European Union’s biggest fan, but for once in its 48 year history it has actually proved useful. Unlike many national governments across the world (including the so-called ‘free market’ USA), the EU has taken on Micro$uck$ and kicked ass. Realising they have little chance of success, Microsoft have decided not to appeal the ruling which will force them to:

a) Give software developers more information about how Windows works
b) Remove Windows Media Player (and its accompanying DRM crap) from default installations of Windows

Almost makes you want to start belting out Ode To Joy. Almost, not quite

Apparently SixApart (owners of MT and LJ), Google and some others have come up with a bright idea to stop comment spam- adding a ‘nofollow’ tag to links posted in comments. This prevents search engines from using links in comments to decide on rankings (most notably PageRank). This will do very little to stop comment spam, and I (cynically of course) think it has more to do with the fact that blogs are screwing up Google’s paid results by getting PageRank almost or just as high as people who have paid for the privilege. I for one will not be implementing this ‘feature’- I prefer to stop the spam comments from getting on my blog in the first place rather than an ineffective sideswipe at the spammer after the fact (which will incidentally also destroy what has made blogs so visible on the internet, and any potential blogs have to force Google to reform the screwed up PageRank system)

A number of administrators on the SuprNova IRC network have come out against the spyware bundled with eXeem- and the forced censorship of any criticism of eXeem on the IRC channel. This anonymous email from one of them is very cagey about criticising Sloncek’s involvement with the whole farce, but its intent is revealed when the author uses phrases like ‘sometimes it makes me want to just give up and leave’ and ‘the investers that invest in companies that run off Spyware/Adware like Cydoor and Gator should all be shot in my opinion’. When the people who enable (what’s left of) SuprNova to work effectively say stuff like that you have to wonder if Sloncek will now be forced to say something about it, or whether he’ll continue as the spineless sell-out he has been up until now.

NB: The head admin on the Suprnova IRC network (see comments) has said that none of his staff made the comments on P2Pnet referenced in this post. This obviously cannot be definitely proved either way, but it is something you should be aware of.

The Policeman’s Blog has a story about a rather bizarre Police journal, funded entirely by the public purse, that looks more like a party political circular for the Labour party than anything to do with what you would expect to be in a police trade journal (is catching criminals too much to expect?). Even more hilarious is the sub-headline ‘The writing’s on the wall for anti-social offenders’. This implies that there is such a thing as a pro-social offender. Beating up kids for their mobile phones, mugging old ladies and stealing bottles of Buckie is all fine, but make sure you don’t graffiti or the full force of The Law will come down on you.

This might be a bit too cynical, but could it be that the evidence of graffiti/vandalism (and hence the Labour Party’s complete failure on crime among other things) stays put- unless the council send out a cleanup team (which incidentally only the Labour-majority councils seem to do) sharpish, people walking down the street in the coming days and months will be reminded that ‘disaffected young people from deprived communities’ are who this government really cares about.

For some reason, I’m not comfortable with someone else’s laser gun sitting 36,000 miles above my head. Even more unnerving is the fact that its the Americans that are planning it, and they don’t exactly have a great track record for getting space-related stuff done right. The Hubble Telescope can’t be rescued because… erm… it would cost too much. The International Space Station has become another excuse to try and bankrupt the Russian space program, and the Americans already have enough crap up there without putting their supremely accurate weapons systems in space. No doubt this will give Dubya’s lot another way of using scare politics to steal elections- “those evildoing space terrorists are gonna steal them thur sataliteses- get ‘um Billy Bob”. Be afraid- would you feel comfortable having someone like this controlling a weapon satellite aimed at you?