Once upon a time, big media companies thought video on demand would allow them to bring their huge libraries of old movies to the public. Unfortunately, they seem to have found that most people only want films from the last few years and are concentrating their energies on providing those.
Sadly for those of us who are old movie buffs, several sites which once made classic films, TV and cartoons available for free via broadband have gone under. One or two remain, however – including the Internet Archive’s movie collection (mostly “public service” films, old propaganda and the like) and MovieFlix, with free offerings that include DW Griffiths’ The Birth of a Nation and several Chaplin and WC Fields films, several Dragnet and Jack Benny TV episodes, three You Bet Your Life shows (featuring Groucho Marx) and more. (For $4.95 a month you can access their whole collection, which is extensive).ringtone free 2112 nokialg 1200 ringtone7520 ringtonestheme american ringtone idolfree 3590 nokia ringtoneringtone 7250i polyphonic nokiaboyz ringtone motorola 69song ringtones actual free Map
Archive forJanuary, 2002 | back to home
A rather aimless but mildly entertaining Canadian article on libertarians and how difficult it is for them to get dates.
A good example of why “build it and they will come” doesn’t work. The new live streaming video feed of the UK parliament drew 3500 viewers in its first day while the UK census information from 1901 drew 10,000 times as many. Why? Because a) people perceive – possibly rightly – that the main decisions that affect their lives are made elsewhere and b) even if there were a debate which affected their lives it has not been made easy for them to know when it is for them to tune in and archives by subject are not available.
UK free to air digital TV – good news and bad news. The good news is that a number of companies plan to provide free-to-air digital terrestrial adapters for a one-off £100-£150 later this year. The bad news is that BSkyB has just stopped subsidising its dishes for people who want to use them to receive free-to-air programming. Getting a dish without a Sky subscription will now cost £314 (ouch!). And it isn’t clear whether the companies (whoever they are) who are planning to sell digital terrestrial adapters will offer any kind of interactivity alongside the extra TV channels.credit aanual4cyl compare 4a credit quotes 2.2lnational card credit ameribanc processingcredit addressograph new card bold imprinteraccreditdationonce finance agricreditapena alcona credit unionstranscription online accredited aamt course medical Map
In Korea, it is difficult for men and women to meet and date – the taboos against talking casually to strangers of the opposite sex are still strong – but a bizarre solution has been found. At a Seoul nightclub, when a man sees a woman he likes at a different table, he can have her dragged over to his by a burly waiter.
It appears that money can buy you happiness – up to a point. “Winning just �1,000 can be enough to change a person’s outlook on life”, the BBC reports, based on an academic survey. “However, less than �1m is unlikely to have a lasting effect on a person’s happiness and experts found a strong marriage and good health were more likely to make people feel content than money.” Certainly I’ve been wealthier than I am now but thanks to my finding a wonderful woman to marry I have never been happier.
Other statistics provided at the end were even more interesting – “The research found that women tended to be happier than men, and people in their 30s were least likely to be content… happiness followed a U-shaped pattern, with people beginning life happy but becoming discontented in their early 30s, before their happiness recovered and continued, increasing into their 60s.” I wonder what accounts for that? Being in my mid-30s I suppose I should find this cheering!
Take a look at this as well from my archive – another study of happiness around the world.amature sex grayveeall anal girls likeamatuerpornweb porn reviews adult site3d sex virtualairplane sexfree amateur sex8teens Map
Robin Cook, Britain’s leader of the House of Commons, is bullish on Internet voting in this Guardian interview (which got most of the attention) but also and probably more importantly he “believes that the web could be brought in to give the government ‘instantaneous feedback from the public on policy options’.”american lake credit union tacomacenters childcare accredited lexington kyaccreditations agshighland l member accredited angie1040es card credit tax paymentsagilent accreditationnational school aba consumer credituninon affinia credit Mapunion acsend creditairmiles cards creditdegree learning accredited distancecard credit merchant p accountcredit services aaa cardadvantages unions of creditcommission accreditation2007 credits tax hybrid Map
If you have Shockwave, this funky French site lets you be a musician just by tapping keys on your keyboard – no experience required! I recommend “Compulsion” (Jazz samples) and “Cargo” (an African feel). As you “play” your screen will fill with loosely-related images.
If the seasonal food binge has you worried about your size here’s some more weighty information to depress you further. This article about the obesity “epidemic” in America reveals that while in theory diets and exercise can reduce your weight, statistically people are unable to get a lasting benefit from them. The authors believe that in the face of heavily advertised and ubiquitous junk food the populace is almost powerless to resist and suggests tobacco-style regulation including a “twinkie tax”.
I can’t help thinking that if the Segway (or “Ginger”) were to get popular (which I strongly doubt) it would probably be wise to try to ban it to encourage walking… Sadly, many of the problems being faced in the US are common here in the UK as well.
