Under Paris run 560 miles of abandoned medieval quarry tunnels. A hapless American freelancer has written a highly entertaining and illuminating story about the ‘cataphiles’ who visit them.4 cash loan advances paydayholiday payment loans month 3 periodloan bblack 3 paydaycash payday advance 6 loancash advance 10 loan payday 7cash payday loan 20 advance cash20 cash payday loan loan advanceadvance searches cash instant loans onlinefree 17 payday 12 loan creditloan payday advance 13 cash online

US media gadfly Michael Wolff (author of the excellent early dotcom book “Burn Rate“) suggests that thanks to the pressure of free music and the fragmentation of taste the music industry will shrink and profits on a huge scale will dry up. He provides an interesting analysis of the effects that the consolidation of the US radio industry and the switch to CDs have had on the music business… Thought provoking.

(Thanks to the often-interesting boing boing for the link).

The New York Times is publishing a weekly digest summarising some of the more entertaining comments from readers in its “Reader’s Opinions” virtual community. This backs up what I have always said – that the best way to encourage user participation (if you are a media organization) is to demonstrate that you are paying attention to it by using it from time to time. Now if it publishes these in the paper as well as online that would be really something…add slvr ringtone to mp3ringtones airtel downloadpolyphonic home alabama ringtone sweetcarter wayne 2 ringtone lilfree nokia ringtone tone 6310iringtones aladdin htmphone alltel ringtone downloadalltel phone music ringtone free Map

Salon reveals Penguin Putnam is running online courses on how to write featuring, among other things, the chance to have 7,500 words from your book read and commented on by an editor. Initially, this was to be an in-house editor but after a blizzard of submissions Penguin has altered the terms to “a professional editor” under Penguin’s supervision.

Of course the advice in the course itself may well be worth the money, but as for paying to get your manuscript noticed, as Geoff Kloske, an editor at Simon & Schuster told Salon, “I find U.S.P.S. is the best way to submit your work to an editor, and last I heard a stamp was 34 cents.”ga sex albany singlesphotos sexy amatureall pornstarsporn alicia machado videorape teens charged with 2002 3vintage 1930s pornameture vudeos sexpregnancy pregnant acclaimed and sex Map

This company has designed a keyboard that you project onto any surface and type on.

It doesn’t seem to me likely to work as well in real life as it does in the pictures on the site but it is nothing if not intriguing. Apparently, it will be available via Siemens for use with its forthcoming Pocket LOOX PocketPC device.

The Register reports that the Government from end of July will allow commercial provision of public Wi-Fi/802.11b networks.

“Previously, public WLANs in the UK could only be set up and used if no money changed hands, and operators were supposed to obtain a Wireless Telegraphy Act licence. However operators will still need a Telecommunications Act licence.”

This move should make it a lot easier not just for companies like Starbucks and BT to offer wireless Internet access but also for non-profit community organizations to make it available without as much red tape.

…the UK Government (or at least the Home Office, which is responsible for domestic security) seems to have finally lost all sense of proportion when it comes to Internet surveillance. Here is the main text of a fax I have just sent to my MP (using this handy site):

I am writing to tell you about a bizarre extension of Internet spying powers that the government seems to be trying to sneak past parliament. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act lets the police, customs and the intelligence services track people’s Internet use without a court order – this is bad enough. But now the Home Office is petitioning to enable a long list of other organizations to snoop as well, including all local authorities and even the post office – “A Universal Service Provider” in the text of the order. This is in the form of a statutory instrument “The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data: Additional Public Authorities) Order 2002”

Please let me know that you are indeed planning to oppose this and that you will be alerting other MPs to this disproportionate threat to personal liberties.

I appreciate the potential usefulness of Internet surveillance to fighting serious crime, so with some misgivings I was prepared to give the Government the benefit of the doubt when they unveiled the original act, but I can’t imagine why they believe that such a broad range of organizations should be entitled to know who I email and what sites I visit.

If you are in the UK I encourage you to read more about this issue and fax your MP, send them a letter or do whatever else is in your power to stop this misguided legislation.

Thanks to Simon, who nudged me to find out more about the issue.

A scheme aimed at parents and pupils in a deprived area of the UK to encourage computer and Internet use by stressing the educational usefulness of the Internet seems to be bearing fruit The details provided in this BBC story are too sketchy to be really useful, but the claims are encouraging:

…”Since becoming involved in the Parents Online scheme, Throckley First School has seen home PC access for pupils leap from 6% to 57%”…

“…The school has also set up a series of workshops for adults only, with many going on to find employment in computer-related jobs in the Newcastle area.”

I am skeptical that computers and the Internet are that useful in and of themselves either for improving education or employment in deprived areas – but they can be useful as a way to tempt people back into education or improving skills because they think computers are important.butts biggest bbwmature cunts bloodygirls blogs nude underage teendaughter mother how teaches to fuckskirt asian sexpatrick tera interracial pornnude korean ladies maturenaked hot girls emobukkake interracial forcedmasterbating movies shemalesporn ameratureadult porn babiessex adult for friendsthumbs amateur porn moviesgalleries porn 18stories adult stories sexanal amateur videoslesbian pics sex amateur college Map

… but instead of being published in weekly magazines, this one – The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – is being serialised on the Internet by The Guardian. The first chapter was enjoyable – I look forward to the next 17.ringtone free nokia 62552 ringtone sidekick putringtone ctu sprint 24ringtone cellular us free 3586i6225 ringtone nokia freea act fool ringtoneringtone act foolcent best 50 ringtone friend nextel Map

Every so often I find that instead of wanting merely to search for a word or phrase in a document I want to do something more sophisticated like “delete all text between ‘name:’ and a post code (which is a five digit number) and make it bold”. Word doesn’t make this too easy. I notice that OpenOffice.org Writer (the open source Word equivalent) seems to have more options but it is difficult to grasp the syntax. Is there an easy to use Windows program (preferably free/open source or shareware) to do this?

Incidentally, I have decided to switch to OpenOffice.org for the time being and see if this is a decision I can live with. Already I am hoping that someone will implement a “count the number of words in this selection” feature (which Word has). On the other hand, it handles file format exchange with my much-beloved Psion Series 5mx rather better than Microsoft Word itself does.

I was looking forward to using “Issuezilla” to find out when or if the word count feature would ever get added but I have found using this issue reporting software almost impossible. *sigh.