Pink Floyd — Comfortably Numb

The first solo is awe-inspiring. The second is good, but it's more cliché rock solo. The first is a masterpiece; from that first transcendent, soaring note through a stellar space of revelry and through to the final dying phrase as the second verse slowly draws into focus.

There are two guitar solos in this song and I prefer the first one.

There. I've said it.

Clarkson vs. Government

Jeremy Clarkson's recent verbal attack on the leader of our government, Gordon Brown, was amusing.

Now he did call Gordon Brown a 'one-eyed Scottish idiot', (YouTube video) and each of those statements taken individually is pure Clarkson territory and — in his typical context — rather funny. However, Jeremy's latest soundbite has been seen as being a bit above and beyond the grounds of taste and decency.

I did notice one thing, though, and it was this: Clarkson apologised for " [making] a remark about the Prime Minister's personal appearance".

Clarkson did also call the PM a liar. At least he implied this in a way which left very little room for alternative.

So, he's apologised for the labels Scottish and one-eyed, but idiot and liar have gotten clean off.

Good. At least free speech is still alive and well, even if freedom of opinion seems to have taken a battering.

We're kind of on dangerous ground here. Here's a man, admittedly a man with access to a larger television audience than most of the rest of us, stating his opinion about something. Now, broadcasting codes aside, he spoke freely.

In order to justify a position which ostracizes Jonathon Ross and praises Jeremy Clarkson, I must make important the distinction between someone freely stating his controversial opinion and someone openly and carelessly aggravating a person (or, even worse, being allowed the same) by dragging their privacy and their dignity irreverently into the limelight.

These are very different cases. I watched the Clarkson incident unfold with a great deal of interest.

If we are to cling to the last threads of "democracy" in this country, we must realise that in cases such as this it is our government's job to defend, using the full extent of the law of this land, the right of people — yes, even Jeremy Clarkson — to freely speak their mind.

The Economy doesn't appear to be working. Please try later...

I think this sums things up quite well.

Electronic Arts in Common Sense Shocker!

"...people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale."

So says Mariam Sughayer, of Electronic Arts' corporate communications.

Now, the implications of this statement are quite far-reaching. The obsession of the recording industries in pointing out that they are losing millions in revenue due to 'illegal' music downloading is lost when the facts are taken into account.

Here's a fact: To lose millions, you first have to make millions, then lose them.

Such a business model — built on imaginary losses — is a logical and mathematical mess. The world's economy is in the shape it is because it is in the hands of minds like this.

As far as the global economy goes, a little Darwinism is all that's needed, if the governments will allow that to happen.

But Electronic Arts' message is a sensible one, and one which many businesses could do with taking on board. They're taking the wider view, which is concentrate on what you do best.

Make good golf games.

The RIAA

And what they're up to.

This guy is starting to take a little heat from the RIAA.

Support him. Visit his site:

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com

Do your bit to ensure the future freedom of people who actually want people to hear what they've got to say.

Spread the word.

Time...

...is merely a function of the complexity of the universe.

Chrome update

Two things, here.

Chroming my way around reddit, I noticed This is the coolest animated gif you will ever see in your life.

So I clicked the link. It took me to a bare page with an — actually, quite good — hand-drawn animation as a .gif file.

After a few seconds, though, I noticed something was up. The animation started to slow down. From the 40-ish fps it kicked off at, the rate dropped to around 15 fps and even lower.

I opened the same page in IE and FF. Animation ran full speed for the duration.

Hmm. Not so good for Chrome.

Secondly — and this has been a pet hate of mine with tabbed browsing all along — the link at the start of this post was obviously copied from reddit. First, I copied the text into my post, then, after highlighting the text I'd just pasted, clicked the 'link' icon at the top of blogger's text form. A dialog appeared, and I clicked to go back to the reddit tab to then grab the URL. Except the dialog had locked the blogger tab and I couldn't switch.

Close the dialog, switch tabs, copy the URL, switch tabs again, click the link icon again, paste the URL.

Details, people...