As I hinted at though, I’m unfamiliar with almost all the bands and artists. With that in mind, I’ve created a Spotify playlist with all the bands currently announced to play at the festival. Roughly speaking, the rules were either the latest album from each artist/band or if they’ve only released singles or a couple EPs, all of those.

Please feel free to subscribe. If there are any bands performing that you can recommend, you’re welcome to comment below or friend me on Spotify and post some to my inbox.

“We were written off to save our capital ships. I remember it well – my wife was eight months pregnant,” he said. “We didnt at any time question the mission, we questioned how to do it successfully, which was our right.”

via BBC NEWS – Falklands War: SAS role in the conflict.

I always kind of assume these types of missions just happen in the movies. Not so it seems.

Some LAPD officers reporting on disturbances in the black communities of South Los Angeles in 1992 used code to describe disturbances in their areas: NHI – “No Humans Involved”.

Members of the predominantly white, male police force said it was “gallows humour” and regularly described the African-Americans they were meant to protect and serve as “monkeys” and “gorillas”.

Via LA riots: How 1992 changed the police

Wow. I’m probably being naive but I’m shocked that this was happening only 20 years ago. I wonder how much of it goes on now-a-days?

I have some big news: starting today, I’m podcasting for a living.

via Introducing 5 by 5 Studios.

I just found this post from when 5 by 5 started (January 10th, 2010). I can’t believe it’s such a young network! I thought I was listening to a fairly mature one when I started subscribing to The Talk Show, but it turns out it was still early days.

I’ve been meaning to write more about 5 by 5 and TWiT etc, but I’ll save that for another time.

“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.”

Mike Tyson

eBooks should be inexpensive. Because I can’t loan them (with rare exceptions), because I can’t resell them, because I can’t buy a cheaper used copy, because I’m only licensed to read them at all on “supported” readers under whatever terms the publishers will allow me to, an eBook simply has less utility and value to me. Right now, eBooks are far less flexible than physical books and therefore a worse value. Yet they are far cheaper to produce and sell for everyone involved. The pricing absolutely has to reflect this. If I can get a used copy of a book for less than the eBook, no sale. If I can get a new copy of a book for less than the eBook, no sale and screw you.

Via Bits vs Atoms

Jeff Atwood thinks you should pay less for an eBook, and explains why. He has a lot of valid points. However, the reason I’d actually happily pay more for an eBook is for the convenience of having the book with me at all times (thanks to my phone) without having to carry it with me, and get it out of my bag each time I want to read it.

The fact is I’m more likely to finish an eBook than a traditional book, and I’m willing to pay extra for that.

3a. One of (A) will buy one or more of (B) for A LOT of money

(A) Google, Facebook, Twitter

(B) Instagram, Path, Pinterest

via John Sheehan : A few random 2012 predictions.

Good call.

Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the thought is staggering. BUCKMINSTER FULLER

via @qikipedia

Love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rRK7vlBG8A

Staff in the contact centre at Bedford House were called in to a meeting this afternoon where they were told the centre is scheduled to close.

The 230 staff who work in the centre have been told their jobs are at risk.

Via http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/9629320.230_jobs__at_risk__at_Debenhams__Taunton_call_centre/

The Customer Contact Centre was where I started a Debenhams.

Almost certainly the worse job I’ve had, and my 3 months there felt so much longer. That said, the people there were genuinely great. It was only a few months old at the time, and so there was barely a person working there who was stuck in their ways or bitter. It was quite refreshing.

I also have my line-manager at the time to thank for getting me into an IT job – something I wanted for many years. I’ll always be grateful to her for that. It turned what I considered to be a bad move at the time (leaving Wickes for Debenhams) into one of the better moves I’ve made.

I get the impression from reading comments from members of staff on the above link, management could have handled it better.

I’m sorry for all the folk who work in the CCC.

We all ran up the stairs, high-fiving the sales managers as we went like we were taking the field in an all-star game. As we gathered in the room, we were all clapping to the music that was booming from a stereo set up in the corner. It was as loud as a rock concert and was playing that music they use at ball parks: “We will, we will, ROCK YOU!”

Via Confessions of a Car Salesman

There are far too many choice quotes in this lengthy article.

Admittedly I’m only halfway through it, but like a good book, I’m reading it at every opportunity (using Instapaper to track my progress).

I’ve long disliked certain kinds of salesman. This has just reenforced that for me.

Update: I’ve just finished it. I’ll admit, although I disagree with what the salesman do, I do kind of see why they do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4OnDizZ7UT0#!

It’s still great though, in it’s own way.

It was only 3 years ago I use to feel odd for doing it (that’s when I owned a Blackberry – that wasn’t why I felt odd though).

It’s shocking how quickly things have changed. The mobile internet had many false starts, but I think the iPhone changed that.

When dads get together they discuss what the best age would be to introduce them to Star Wars, and just as importantly in what order (start with A New Hope btw).

As Shakilus, from Deptford, south-east London, lay dying, he called out for his mother saying: “I don’t want to die”, the Old Bailey was told during the trial.

Via Honey trap girl guilty of murder

Christ. As someone who has only just found out about this story, that was horrible to read.

The poor mother.

The latest occurance is with the stand-off in Toulouse.

Whilst one correspondent is reporting in, Eamonn Holmes speaks over them to go to another correspondent, who has absolutely no new information what so ever. It keeps it fast paced though. Keeps you gripped.

via Sparrow takes flight: how a startup built the Gmail app Google couldn’t | The Verge.

“Today at his SXSW fireside chat, head of Google+ Vic Gundotra said “I am 100% to blame” for the social network lacking an API seven months after launch. The reason? “Your stream could easily be overwhelmed” if Google allowed third-party apps to post content on users’ behalf.”

Via http://m.techcrunch.com/2012/03/09/vic-gundotra-sxsw/

I find Google+ frustrating in various ways, but one of them is that they have no Write API available making it easy for other apps to post to it. When I’m in Reeder, I quite often want to share a post with my friends on Google+. Unlike Twitter and Facebook though, there is no option for Google+.

As a result, I then need to:

• Copy the URL in Reeder
• Open up the (very buggy) Google+ iOS app.
• Paste in the URL.
• Go back to Reeder for a page title.
• Go back to Google+ and paste it.
• Go back to Reeder for a quote.
• Go back to Google+ and paste it
• And then write my own content.
• Post it.

Unlike other apps on iOS, Google+ has a real knack of forgetting what you were doing when leaving the app, so often you’ll find that what you have written has been lost*.

That said, having been a user of Google Buzz which was very proud of it’s API, I’m quite happy for Google+ to hold back on one. Because of it’s API, Buzz basically became a place where you can read Tweets, Diggs, Delicious links, RSS feed entries and other items not actually generated on the site itself. But no native content. Everything you read on Buzz could be obtained elsewhere, and in a more appropriate format. It soon became a ghost town and a failure (for other reasons too).

I think it’s good that they’re getting people into the habit of posting natively on Google+. Looks like they’re learning from their mistakes.

* Another pain in the arse is when you make the mistake of posting with no signal. If you do this, you lose your post also.

I’m open to different types of solutions to this problem, but I suspect that tweaking the inbox is not enough, and that email has to be replaced with a new protocol. This new protocol should be a todo list protocol, not a messaging protocol, although there is a degenerate case where what someone wants you to do is: read the following text.

Via http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html

It’s been a long time since I last read a good speculative piece about the future that got me thinking (the last one I can remember is Tim O’Reilly’s “What Would Google Do”, which isn’t the same thing as Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do book).

I like the idea of rewriting email but from the angle of it being a todo list.

No pleasing some people.

Your own children are little angels. The only time they do anything wrong they’re either tired, or going through a phase.

So very true. We say that about Stan all the time. Truth is, he’s probably just a little shit who needs a bit more discipline than we give him.

“‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he [Steve Jobs] told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’“

The text in bold is the biggest tease. What was he talking about?! Until now, it felt like we might never be sure exactly what he was talking about. Sure they would release an Apple TV, but what made Jobs think he’d cracked it? Until now, it felt like he’d taken that bit of info to his grave.

As frustrating as that was, I kind of liked it. I liked the fact we may never know. That the pundits would forever be guessing.

However, in a recent TV interview, the author of the book (Walter Isaacson) has said he simply left the details out of the book:

Isaacson replies by saying that his next book will really be about the history of the ‘entire digital revolution’. He then says that he left a few things out of the book, one of those being details of “what [Steve Jobs] thought the next Apple TV should be.”

He says that he left it out of the book “because Apple hadn’t yet done it and I thought that, maybe, that was unfair to Apple before they produce the TV…reporting what Steve thought it should be.”

via Isaacson Left Apple Television Details Out of Steve Jobs Bio.

Just saying.

Izzy

As I write this, Izzy is just over 4 months old, and we couldn’t ask for a better baby.

As I recently wrote on Facebook, if she ain’t sleeping she’s smiling. We feel incredibly fortunate to have a kid sleeping from 7pm through to 8am every night without fail. In fact we just feel incredibly fortunate to have a kid as great as Izzy.

Stan

Stan (or Stanley as he refers to himself) is 2 and a half, and he’s brilliant – although where Izzy as no problems sleeping, Stan has no problems with waking up many times during the course of a night.

Such a happy and excitable little boy, he now has his own character. One of the proudest moments in my life was when he came out to me in the kitchen recently, holding a potty shouting “I’ve done a wee! I’ve done a wee!!”. It was his first wee in a potty, and we all missed it. I was so chuffed that I was the first person he told though.

A zero-day (or zero-hour or day zero) attack or threat is a computer threat that tries to exploit computer application vulnerabilities that are unknown to others or the software developer. Zero-day exploits (actual software that uses a security hole to carry out an attack) are used or shared by attackers before the developer of the target software knows about the vulnerability.

via Zero-day attack – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

And so now I know. I hear the term used all the time, yet I was never sure what it meant. I thought it might be an exploit using a vulnerability that existed since the very first version of the software. Not so.

Basically, every day this chap called Dan Lewis sends out an email containing an interesting article that teaches you something new.

So far I have learnt about an April Fool involving a volcano, America’s plans to invade Canada (as a means of defence against the UK), and a little-people themed theme park in China called The Kingdom of Little People.

You can get an idea of what’s covered by viewing the archives.

That said, the left pundits and pols let the right walk all over them. For example in the latest ridiculous shitstorm about contraception. The basic argument of the Catholic Church is that they shouldn’t have to pay for something that’s against their values. The Republicans see a chance to fight with Democrats, so they grab it. They say it’s a question of liberty. No one should have to pay for something they don’t believe in.

But they obviously don’t really believe this, even if the Catholic Church does.

A simple way to corner them would be to raise another issue that the Catholic Church has a moral objection to — the death penalty. Why should members of the Catholic Church be required to pay for killing people when it’s against their values? Why should any of us be forced to pay for it?

Via Scripting News

Well put.

If you’re interested in useful tips for Unix, check out the Arabeque blog. He’s got an excellent series on using Unix as an IDE.