Sunday, March 30, 2008

The Perfect Woman!

I never get bored surfing the net.

Just take a quick look at this lady.


(via kottke and Fimoculous)




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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Whipping and Crucifixion can harm your health

On Maundy Thursday, somehow it is only right that I should point to this story from the Manila Times via BBC news and The Telegraph.

It seems that whipping and crucifixion can be bad for your health.

In the Philippines, devout Christians are being urged to use "well maintained whips" for self flagellation and to get tetanus vaccinations before being crucified. Additional advice has been provided to ensure that crucifixion nails are properly disinfected before use.



Happy Easter everyone.








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Monday, March 17, 2008

Uh Oh!

Here's an article that might be of interest to readers in Wales with an interest in Higher Education.

It appears that European Commission Auditors have concerns about monies claimed by Welsh Universities for overheads claimed and paid for as part of Objective One projects.


A Welsh Assembly spokesman said

" The eligibility of overheads claimed by universities was raised during external audits by the Welsh Assembly Government as part of the routine audit programme. Universities will not be asked to repay Objective One overheads where they can demonstrate that they have claimed them in accordance with the EC approved methodology. As with all European funding, if project sponsors are unable to demonstrate that they have claimed expenditure in accordance with EC guidelines they may be required to repay grant on any ineligible expenditure."

Mmmm





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Friday, March 14, 2008

On Coffee

Joffrey's Coffee and Tea Company in Florida has an interesting marketing campaign running.

In their "java beta test" campaign in exchange for your meat space address, email address and blog address Joffreys are offering ten thousand bloggers a free sample of their flavoured "Jamaican Me Crazy" coffee and a link from their special Java Beta Test link page.

I love coffee, couldn't help myself and signed up.

So far the promised linkage has brought "On a Hill" three visitors.

Not many, but not surprising as I'm just one of the thousand or so bloggers already listed and writing about flavoured coffee.

It's clever.

Before this campaign started I'd never heard of Joffreys.
I have now; and so have you!

When and if my free cup of coffee arrives I'll let you know what it's like.


There's no such thing as a free cup of coffee.


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Thursday, March 13, 2008

Welsh Digital Divide?

The BBC continues to work hard to integrate its mainstream media transmissions with those of us that inhabit the web. There is doubt that their researchers, producers and managers are working hard to drag us into the connected twenty first century.

This morning on the Internet Blog, Max Gadney points us at the visualisation of comments from BBC News' Have Your Say. I've not watched any of the programs, but the visualisation tool on the top right hand side of the series page is superb.

I love the way the data is presented, I love the way it's colour coded and the way it moves.
It's almost impossible to look at the graphic without clicking, exploring and digging deeper.
If I have a criticism, it's shame that the key and FAQs sometimes obscures part of the display.

Max expresses a preference for exploring the Emotions displayed by the commenters but my attention was drawn to the "Regional Display"




Can someone tell me why are their so few comments from Wales?

Could be that we in Wales are not interested in the issues presented in the program?

Does the obvious lack of comments reflect in some way the "digital divide" and reveal something about the way that the Internet is used in Wales?

Today is BBC News School Report day.

This is another example of the BBC making every effort to not only engage with it's viewers but to give "12 and 13 year olds from UK schools the chance to make their own video, audio or text based news at school and broadcast it for real"
Today "schools around the country will take part in a News Day, simultaneously creating news reports and publishing them on their school websites, to which the BBC aims to link."

A quick glance at the School Report location map shows only eight participating schools in Wales, (five of which are I believe schools where teaching is undertaken through the medium of Welsh). Not one school in Cardiff seems to be taking part!

Can someone tell me why are their so few participants from Wales?

Could be that the majority of schools in Wales are not interested in providing pupils with the opportunity to speak to a wider audience through mainstream media and the internet?

Does the obvious lack of participants reflect in some way another "digital divide" revealing something about the way that the Internet is used / taught in Wales?

How do you say Digital Divide in Welsh?