Spontaneous Monotony

Forgive me for not joining in the collective Google adoration party, but Google Calendar just isn’t very good. For one thing, it isn’t integrated with Gmail (you have to leave the Gmail site altogether to access the Calendar, and vice-versa) and for another it lacks basic calendar functionality – device sync (hell, even Mozilla Calendar has this – through FinchSync) and proper event repetition options (put simply, if like me you have a particular lecture every monday, tuesday and thursday then you are entirely screwed, because that isn’t one of the options [preset repetitions are SO last century]).

To be honest, this is fairly underwhelming considering the amount of expectation that built up around Google Calendar (or CL2 as it was called in pre-release testing, the worst kept secret on the internet). OK, the device sync is just about forgivable (because Google promise they are working on it), but the lack of proper event repetitions is just amateurish and lazy, which is not something you can say about a lot of Google services.

See Also

• Wikipedia: Google Calendar

My new .eu domain is up and running. I actually ordered it last Friday (the first day registrations were open to the public) but due to a mistake by my hosting company it’s been pointing at the wrong server since then. Now any address that works for this site, will work fine if you substitute .eu for .co.uk – here’s an example. However, please don’t link to .eu addresses in this way, because I’m thinking of making the .eu domain point to a different part of the site, and if/when I do that the permalinks will no longer work.

See Also

• BBC News – Rush to grab European net names
• Wikipedia: .eu

Yep, there’s no cunning plan like a copyright cartel cunning plan. Universal Studios plan to combat consumers’ frustration with the price and DRM infection of DVDs (which is driving them to P2P networks) by… wait for it… charging them more for inferior quality video with more DRM. You know what the best part is? You get to pay for the delivery mechanism (your bandwidth limit) too! Truly a fantastic deal for the consumer.

[EDIT] You might be wondering why there is no ‘See Also’ link on this article. That’s because I can’t find one.

I just got my Guild Wars: Factions preorder box from Game, and (in addition to the key giving early access to the game) it includes a selection of the game’s soundtrack (I think it includes 6 or 7 songs) but the most reassuring thing is that it’s done properly. No Windoze Media, or DRM-crippled loanware, just full-quality uncompressed WAV files. Of course encoding in a lossless format such as FLAC would have been equally acceptable, but it’s the lack of DRM that is the biggest stand-out.

Not content with simply ignoring them, John Reid now asserts that the Geneva Conventions (which prohibit, among other things, torture/abuse of POWs, and aggressive warfare) are out of date. Why? Well, apparently for no other reason than the fact that the recent conduct of British and (especially) American soldiers (think force-feeding and other torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, ‘extraordinary rendition’ prisons, et al) is entirely inconsistent with these laws.

Here’s a novel concept. Instead of acting as an apologist for war criminals, why doesn’t the Defence Secretary try and bring some of them to justice?