David Brake's blog
Weblog on the Internet and public policy, journalism, virtual community, and more from David Brake, a Canadian academic, consultant and journalist

Archive forJanuary, 2006 | back to home

26 January 2006
Not your usual London Transport notice
Filed under:About this blog,Humour & Entertainment,London,Personal at6:00 pm


“Due to a whale in the Thames services may be subject to delays”. And yes it’s true!

I should have blogged this sooner. It’s not as funny now that the whale is dead. I stuck it up on my Flickr account right away but forgot to cross-reference it here. You might find it interesting to check out or ‘subscribe to’ my photo feed there – particularly if you know me. I tend largely to take pictures of odd things I see around London that intrigue me. There’s a little ‘jigsaw’ of pics from it on the navigation bar at right…

21 January 2006
Tracing An Email
Filed under:Email discoveries,Privacy,Spam at1:13 pm

Ever get an email from a stranger and wanted to know where they were? Or wanted to complain about a particular piece of spam? Here’s a guide that spells out how to trace an email (and how to then complain to the originator’s internet provider if appropriate).

12 January 2006
Damning Canada with (very) faint praise
Filed under:Current Affairs (Canada) at11:27 am

Canada is not merely not a page turner but even a socially acceptable synonym for boredom among otherwise apparently open-minded people. Why should this be? The same people who perk up at the mere mention of Palestine, or who become instantly animated over Venezuela, show more interest in the drying of paint than about Canada.

A Guardian columnist recently tried to get Brits interested in Canada – more particularly the upcoming election – but spent two thirds of his column making fun of Canada’s dullness and the remaining third completely misinterpreting the current Canadian political situation (does anyone really think that if Harper does win (God forbid) it would mark a true Conservative revival?)

8 January 2006
It’s funny because it’s true
Filed under:Computer Games,Humour & Entertainment at9:27 pm

Ad for CivAnon
(Yes there is a site you can visit if you click on the ad).

It’s a good thing I can only play Civilization IV on my wife’s computer – if it ran on my Mac, my productivity would be nil. It is fun though – dare I say more fun than Civ III? The new version requires a lot less micro-management than Civ III did.

P.S. I interviewed Civ’s creator, Sid Meier, back in 2002 when he was promoting Civ III (and I’ve got a picture to prove it).

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