Email newsletter

We didn’t flag it on the revamped site for Earthrid till today, so we had better mention that we have an email newsletter which is sent out when we have new releases or other major news. To join it, just send us a “subscribe” instruction via the form on the Contact page and we’ll make sure you keep informed.

Of course, for all the latest news, we offer two RSS feeds: see the box at the top right of the page.

Analogue Cheese Flavour

The San Marco brand bills its margherita pizza as a “deep pan pizza base topped with tomato sauce, analogue cheese flavour and mozzarella cheese”. So, does “analogue cheese” contain highly resonant filters that might make pizza-loving synthesiser owners “phat”?

“Analogue cheese” is in fact listed as being “water, vegetable oil, milk proteins, starch, salt, emulsifying salts (sodium citrates and sodium phosphates), colour (beta carotene)”.

Oh.

Responsible politics

The UK’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown:-

“I take full responsibility for what happened. That’s why the person who was responsible went immediately.”

(Source: everywhere).

So he takes responsibility, but he wasn’t responsible.

Do you see?

If you did see, straight away, you have a career in politics ahead of you. Otherwise, you pass.

Money isn’t everything

From the header of a weblog about marketing on the Web:

Ouch.

Other than that, apparently you have to use Twitter. For er, viral er interactive um… yeah.

Business as usual

The BBC reports one Dr Nina Federoff, “science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007″ (another example of the Obama presidency keeping advisors from the previous administration) as saying that “There are probably already too many people on the planet”.

There’s no “probably” about it. However, Federoff carved out a career in biotechnology and is not so delicate about advocating the dream that GM crops will save the day, going so far as to say that opposition to widespread growing of genetically modified crops indicates that “we want to go back to the 19th Century”.

Funnily enough, Federoff would have as all believe that, by submitting the world to GM experiments, we would be going back to prehistory. Her article ‘Prehistoric GM Corn’ in Science magazine (14th Nov. 2003) followed the traditional GM industry ploy of presenting the technology as spectacularly new whilst somehow also being nothing new at all – whilst confounding terms to serve the mission.

Cutbacks

Photograph taken in Bourton-on-the-Water, the Cotswolds.

Earth Hour

At 8.30 pm (your local time), you are asked by the World Wildlife Fund to turn off your lights for an hour.

The site (well, one of them – there seems to be some redundancy) also suggests that you “Make a video of your event, upload it to YouTube and add it to our YouTube group” and “Write a live blog post during the event”. Presumably that’s if your video recorder, camera and computer run off pedal power or your own wind turbines in the garden.

Well, it’s only a gesture to those in power, and to each other so you might as well join in.

Are you sure?

OmniWeb just threw up an alert. The problem wasn’t OmniWeb’s fault (the ethernet plug had fallen out of its socket). But I wonder if anyone facing this challenge has ever tried this suggested course of action…

The plug-in

Ah yes, the plug-in.

It’s a good job I only have the one, otherwise I might find it hard to guess which “the plug-in” was being referred to, besides having to click “OK” every time one failed to load.

Nannying applications through every single modal dialogue with no option but “OK” is great fun.

Snow news day

If you are unfortunate enough to live in Birmingham and need to travel locally by train, you will, on most journeys, be forcibly subjected to television programmes. Sitting in the “Quiet Zone” of each carriage offers no escape since these zones are open to the blaring of the televisions. The signal cannot be shut off. You can close your eyes but you must hear.

Currently the choice (by the train company) of aggravating infotainment is Sky News. Sky News is the sort of station that is unable to think beyond having jingles that have fake Morse code as a theme. That idea was old by the sixties and was done much better back then. Furthermore, Sky News is the sort of station that literally has ONE news story, and today that story is “IT IS SNOWING”.

Here’s what a loop of “news” about the sky sounds like.

DIT DEE DIT DEEE
It’s snowing.
The weather forecast shows snow.
Here’s a map of the UK, showing where snow will fall.
It’s snowing.
And now a special report from someone by a roadside.
Drivers have been warned not to drive unless they have to. But some people need to travel by car to get to where they want to go (NB: this is very nearly a verbatim quote).
It’s snowing. Back to the studio.
DIT DEE DIT DEEE
It’s snowing.
Here’s a map of the UK showing snow. The forecast is for snow.
This is the worst snow for 5 years. (They don’t remark on the freakishly mild winters).
It’s snowing. Here’s a special report from London.
Here in London it has been snowing. Drivers are having to drive slowly.
Concern is mounting for Britain’s already ailing economy as shops close early (again, this is pretty much a verbatim quote).
It is snowing. But it is not all bad. This small boy is enjoying playing in the snow.
Back to the studio.
DIT DEE DIT DEEE
It’s snowing. Here’s a map showing snowfall in the UK. Snow is expected.
And now a comment from An Expert with an excited “I’m on TV” smile. She explains that this has been the heaviest snow fall in “many years” (see elsewhere the report of “5″ for “many”).
Back to the studio.
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
There is no escape.
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE
AND REPEAT.
DIT DIT DEE…

Yes it’s snowing. But you might prefer walking to catching a train.