Teknovis

I love the message that was posted on the homepage of The Pirate Bay over the weekend!

The Promo Bay (Copyright George Barnett)

Brilliant messaging!

Tags: The Pirate Bay

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everybody!

Given the day it is, I thought that I would write about a very Irish themed Google Doodle! No, not the slightly bland St. Patrick’s Day doodle that is being used today.

Instead, the doodle created by Irish student Patrick Horan, as described in Ireland’s winning Google Doodle graces homepage today.

Patrick Horan's Google Doodle (Copyright Google)

I really like the steampunk look of it!

Tags: Google

I read Teen charged over Facebook post this evening, and frankly I am amazed at the stupidity of this charge! (It is a very short article, so I will include it here.)

A teenager has been charged after making comments on Facebook about the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan last week.

Azhar Ahmed (19), posted the comments on his profile page and has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence, according to West Yorkshire Police.

A police spokesman said Mr Ahmed, of Fir Avenue, Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, was bemoaning the level of attention the British soldiers who died in a bomb blast last week received compared to Afghan civilians who have died in the war.

Mr Ahmed will appear at Dewsbury Magistrates’ court on March 20th.

Making prosecutions against teenagers based upon Facebook comments seems extremely petty to me! Teenagers make stupid comments (it is part of being a teen), and any adult with a bit of sense would just ignore them! Crime must really be low in the UK if this is what the police spend time investigating!

Secondly, without seeing his original comments, his reported comments do not appear racist to me!

Tags: Facebook, UK

I recently read an article about Irish politicians wanting to censor the Internet – Senators want online abuse images blocked.

They are calling for Minister for Justice Alan Shatter to introduce systems to block access to websites containing child abuse material.

It always amuses me to hear politicians pontificating on subject matter that they do not understand :)

Tags: Censorship, Ireland

Wikipedia is going to be free for Orange users, according to Wikipedia Wants to Be Free — for Mobile Users, in Africa.

Technically it is a really simple, but I love the idea of sharing knowledge freely with people who may not otherwise have access to Wikipedia. It also has great potential for generating good press coverage.

Tags: Orange, Wikipedia

I read during the week that the Collins Dictionaries are now available online in Collins launches free dictionary site.

The dictionary site seems very nice, and I am going to try using it as my main online dictionary.

The address is www.collinsdictionary.com.

A humorous story for Saturday afternoon…

A group of 3,000 Swedish file sharers have succeeded in getting their organisation, called the Church of Kopimism, recognised as a religion by the Swedish authorities.

The full story is Sweden recognises church of file sharing as a religion.

Tags: Sweden

Happy New Year everybody! I hope that it will be a good one for you! I thought that I would start the year with something light-hearted :)

I have not been following the recent Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) arguments, but I know enough about it to know that I am against it :) Anyway, I came across the following humorous comment by Dave Piscitello:

If #SOPA passes, supporters will seek to change Internet’s TCP/IP to Trademark Copyright Patent/Intellectual Property

Enjoy!

This week I heard of another fun Google Bomb – a search for “what defines an English person” takes you to the Wikipedia definition of Cunt!

Unsurprisingly, this may not be suitable for viewing in work!

Tags: Google, Wikipedia

I came across an article containing many interesting facts and figures today – The mobile web in numbers.

I am sure that I will have many occasions to reference this article in the next few months!