Anonymous Philanthropist Donates 200 Human Kidneys To Hospital
By far my favourite photo from my recent trip to Uganda
Radiohead have released the latest single from their album In Rainbows, Nude, as five “stems” (bass, drums, guitar, strings fx and voice) that you can download and remix to your heart’s content. More info on radiohead.com.
It’s been a sad day; first I discover there’s an album of Radiohead “Baby-Rock” covers, then I discover that they made a movie of A Prayer For Owen Meany, one that John Irving felt so uneasy about he insisted they changed the title.
You can imagine my relief then when I discovered that there are still people out there making art. To whit: a shrimp running on a treadmill to the Benny Hill theme tune. Viva YouTube!
Nick Clegg on Menzies Campbell’s resignation:
I spoke to Menzies at length last night: he’s one of my oldest friends in politics.
Sensitive.
Jon Hicks over on hicksdesign.co.uk has started an impromptu competition to design album art for the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows. There are some great designs, as well as some funny ones, some fairly ropey ones, and some that look like (gasp!) Coldplay album covers. This is my favourite so far:
Arch-Apple apologist John Gruber on the iPhone’s eight-ringtone limit:
My guess is that it’s not a bug, but that no one at Apple expected anyone to be dumb enough to buy more than eight ringtones.
So there you go: if you want more than eight ringtones on your phone, you’re dumb. Clearly he’s never met a teenager.
The thing that concerns me with Daring Fireball is not that John Gruber loves Apple; I love Apple. But he loves Apple unconditionally, and that’s never good. That, and he doesn’t allow comments, so it’s hard to challenge anything he says.
Funny, I’d never stopped to consider what religion my OS adhered to, yet lo it came to pass that popular Linux-for-dummies distro Ubuntu has become available in Christian and Muslim Editions.
Presumably geek Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and the rest of them are hard at work on their respective editions, too. And given that most religions these days operate at a much more granular level than merely “Christian” or “Muslim”, I imagine we can look forwards to further bifurcations in this market: Ubuntu, Christian (Church of England, traditional) Edition, for example. The mind boggles.
I’ve started a new blog, where I post occasionally on matters relating to software development. You can find it at dev.netcetera.org/blog. Enjoy! (If you’re into that sort of thing.)
I visited RAF Upper Heyford about 20 years ago with my dad; I was on school holidays, my dad, a (civilian) civil engineer, was managing a construction project on the base. At the time the airbase was on long-term lease to the US air force, who had a squadron of F1-11 fighter/bombers stationed there. On the approach to the base, Dad tooted for peace at the CND campaingers camped on the grass verge then laughed: “Watch their faces when they see where we’re going!” he said. I’d like to think I remember them shaking their fists at us as we turned in.
This was a time of heightened tensions between the US and Libya, and the F1-11s from Upper Heyford had recently been involved in a bombing raid over Tripoli after Ronald Reagan accused Colonel Gadaffi of involvement in state-sponsored terrorism abroad. Security on the base was high, and I have fond memories of driving around the base (on the right!) escorted by an airman who sat on the back seat with his assault rifle cradled in his lap. An assault rifle! In my dad’s car!
At lunchtime we headed over to the burger joint in the shopping mall, where they sold Budweiser beer and raccoon-tail keyrings and accepted American dollars. The base was a few acres of pure Americana transplanted into the ever-so-English North Oxfordshire countryside.
Well, that was then and this is now. I live in North Oxfordshire these days, and I noticed recently that Google Maps now has high-definition satellite imagery of this inconsequential little corner of the world, including the Upper Heyford airbase.
The base isn’t in use any longer, at least not as an airfield. I’ve driven past a few times; the buildings are boarded up and derelict, and long grass grows up the rusting fences. But the runway is still in use; the land’s used for storage by a company who lease cars to businesses.
If you’re still reading, you might care to check out the aerial image of Upper Heyford as it looks now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cars sitting idle before. Zoom out a couple of clicks - I found the scale of the operation there pretty awe-inspiring.
We don’t see CND campaigners on the roadside any more. Ironically, those who care most about the rest of the planet are these days focusing most of their efforts on campaigning to raise awareness of climate change and mankind’s carbon footprint; I wonder whether they prefer what’s on the runway at Upper Heyford today to what was there 20 years ago?
