Hmmm …
I’ve got to admit, I’ve a BIT of news, I’m going to share, that’s been on both the BBC News channel …
And on their website.
But I’ve got to admit, I’ve just had the rather sad news an old friend has died: of pneumonia, arising from a complication of cancer.
From what I’m told … ?
From what I’m told, it was actually mercifully quick: something the family concerned are grateful for.
Knowing the person concerned, they would have hated a slow and debilitating death.
The irony is … ?
Literally, I’d just had a phone call to tell me I’ve an interview, tomorrow.
And to find out that, then of a friend’s death … ?
Well …
You have to assume they’re funny.
You really do.
Because you’d be crying even harder, if you didn’t … … … …
So …
This one’s for Jen: hoping she’d’ve appreciated it.
»»·««
Lets get moving on, shall we … ?
Before I get too depressed … !
At ANY rate, I do know I managed to see this article go past on the BBC’s news-site, this morning, informing us that the British government were being officially ripped off by its various IT suppliers.
Surprise, surprise … !
Now, in spite of the amount of support that George Osbourne gave to the open source movement whilst in opposition, I’ve a funny felling they won’t be switching en masse to Ubuntu.
And I’m also going to point out that Labour weren’t the only ones to spend serious cash on IT.
Look around Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar for anything to do with Eric Pickles, MP for Brentwood, and have a read about the £7500 Laptop.
»»·««
The OTHER bit of news doing the rounds on the BBC’s news channel* and website … ?
Is the news that a High Court, today, has ordered British Telecoms — BT, in other word’s, Britain’s biggest Internet Service Provider — to block access to file sharing site, NewzBin.
And I’ve got to admit, I’m thinking I’m … hmm …
Well, annoyed is possibly one way of putting it.
Because I’m thinking this has implications.
Lots and lots of implications: probably than just one layman can come up with.
But there’s one that springs to mind, here: or possibly several.
Now, I’m quite happy to admit that I’ve used peer-to-peer BitTorrent clients in the past.
In fact, I occasionally still do.
I’ve always encouraged people to experiment with various different operating systems: mostly various different distributions of Linux.
And I’ve usually used a BitTorrent client called Transmission to do this.
Even with the broadband download limit I have through BT, using peer-to-peer technology.
It takes longer to download a file, like this, but doesn’t chew up as much bandwidth.
So I can’t help but be interested in this sort of thing.
Interested …
And worried …
You see, it strikes me that insisting an ISP automatically blocks a website?
Is understandable, given that Newzbin seems to be devoted to illegally file-sharing copyrighted materiel: after, I think I’d want to keep out of trouble, in their situation.
Possibly.
But I’m also wondering why on earth it’s BT’s job to police the internet: in what seems to me to be the first step on a long slippery slope towards censorship of the ’Net.
When the various movie studios could be doing something a touch radical.
Like …
Oooooh …
Maybe give their movies away?
After all, for anyone with a DVD or PVR hooked up to their TV, and a way of getting them to their computers …
That’s what they’re effectively doing, already …
* Just who ARE the newsreaders, today … ? They aren’t the regulars, I know that … !
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