Grains of time

Just a couple of random things…

• All Hardware Sucks.
• Amazon UK have started selling DRM-free MP3 downloads. They even include helper application packages for a number of Linux distributions. I see this as being a potentially dangerous cash sink 🙂
• BBC’s Horizon had an episode about ‘Time’ the other night: excellent stuff, introduced by the doesn’t-look-like-he’s-really-a-grown-up Prof Brian Cox (who apparently used to play keyboards for D-Ream – remember “Things Can Only Get Better”?). Proper intelligent person science. A discussion about a proposed model for How Time Works suggested something called “grains of time”. Regardless of whether the theory makes sense or not, I like that phrase and plan to use it whenever I can.
• I’ve also been watching “World War II: Behind Closed Doors” which is a series of quite in-depth dramatised documentaries about the relationship between the Western Allies and Stalin during WWII; it started with the slightly less well-known Nazi-Soviet pact made just prior to the invasion of Poland in September 1939. How many of you reading this knew that shortly after Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 3 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East, thus the Germans and the Soviets co-operated to split Poland between them? This worked very nicely for the Soviets until – as is rather more well-known – the Germans attacked them in June 1941
• Jacqui Smith. Please stop it. Stop, stop, stop. No thanks to the ID cards and biometric database. No thanks to the DNA database for people who have been convicted of nothing. No thanks to 42 days. Stop attempting to silence political opponents using heavy-handed police force. Stop allowing local councils to use terrorism laws to spy on parents trying to get their children into schools of their choice. Remember, you got 36% at the last election. You have no mandate. This is not wanted.
• All Hardware Sucks.