Mike Riversdale

World War II for today's yoof! Ha ha ha ha - awesome. Love the use of date/time, brilliant. Read the whole thing ... (thank you Bits & Pieces blog for the link and graphic)

Take 4 minutes out of your hectic life, sit back and listen as Carl Sagan puts EVERYTHING into perspective. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 from a record distance, showing it against the vastness of space. By request of Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission and now leaving the solar system, to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth. It was subsequently used by Sagan as the title of his 1994 book of

I have to say that I have recollections of something very similar to this awesome tweet reporting from Phill Jupitus . Start with tweet #1 : Bar of hotel full of 'team building week' management types clumsily flirting with each other... Fucking hilarious... Work your way through the rest of the drinks with the corporate types to end with : One of females has asked for "a glass of water" it is all over, people! Mark your coupons scoreless draw... Thanks for watching. Goodnight My favourite on the way has to be: I just heard the magic words "You should see my suite! There's two baths!"

It's a site I've never used, Chatroulette . Here's Wikipedia's slant : is a website that pairs random strangers for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website randomly begin an online chat (video and text) with another visitor. At any point, either user may leave the current chat by initiating another random connection. But I love what this dude (Meron) does with it! AND then along came Ben Folds with a tribute to Merton!

And once you've seen this watch out his brilliant, impassioned and totally on the mark cut down of Catholicism . National treasure Stephen Fry joined provocateur extraordinaire Christopher Hitchens to debate against Ann Widdicome and the Archbishop of Abuja, John Onaiyekan. The topic was 'Is Catholicism a force for good in the world?'. Needless to say, Hitchens & Fry didn't think so. Also needless to say, they provided the most convincing arguments of the evening. Mr Fry's passionate and emotional speech is presented here in its entirety, along with his closing remarks.

Ok, so Dave and I are sitting in The Snug at the most fine Twisted Hop last week and we gaze across at the bookshelf full of books. Now, in Hay-on-Wye (near to my old home of Monmouth in Wales) they have a thriving second-hand book trade where pubs can buy books by the weight to fill up their bookshelves and give it a "homely" feel. I wondered to Dave if the same happened here. I then grabbed the closest book. It was by Peter Cheyney. Heard of him? Nope, neither had we but we had the power of the web at our fingertips and a quick search brought up Wikipedia: Peter Cheyney . By God! He was a multi-million selling author from the 1930's, 40's and 50's. MULTI-MILLION! He was probably as well known then (a mere 60 years ago) as, say, Dan Brown is now. He was HUGE! Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney, known as Peter Cheyney, (22 February 1896 — 26 June 1951) was a British crime fiction writer who flourished between 1936 and 1951. Cheyney is the author of hard

Well, it's in the March 12th Worser Bay School newsletter (pdf) which is available on the World Wide Web so that makes him as accessible as J K Rowling in my eyes. From the City All sorts of things come from the city. Smoke like fog floating around. Cars roaring like Tigers. Squeaky wheels like mice scuttling. Babies crying like birds cheeping sweetly. Trucks like bears grumbling hungrily. Trees whooshing like raindrops splashing quickly. by Jack R

So, I see an ad on TV with a bunch of rugby-types advertising http://no8.co.nz and I think, "Hmm, that's right it's World Cup year next year". Having been a small player last year in a similar site aimed squarely at cashing in on "all things World Cup" I was intrigued as to who these jokers were. So I went looking ... ... never found it. But, I did find this bee-a-uty within their Terms & Conditions : So that means I broke their Terms & Conditions by linking to them in this post. Google, Bing and anything else crawling their site and then linking back to it are breaking their Terms & Conditions. Every poor sod that ever wants to send someone to their site is ... well, you get the idea. I'm sure they will not come after any of us with a lawsuit. What it does say to me loud and proud is that they do not understand the web. It also says to me that it is a closed and "give me your details so I can market to you" approach. I do n

Today it was announced ( Stuff: A sign of success for Wellywood hills ) that there will be a "Wellywood" sign on the side of a hill into Wellington Airport sometime in June - here's what the Stuff.co.nz artists think it might look like: picture from Stuff.co.nz Whilst I think that's an okay idea I still believe that Duncan's idea from way back in March 2008 is much better - either side of the Miramar Cutting have the Pillars of Argonath! This what they look like from the films (made in Miramar, of course). And this is what the Miramar Cutting looks like from Google Streetview : See, perfect place to have them! It's just before the landing/take-off from Wellington International Airport and so would be seen by thousands of people. Awesome idea eh! And one that is supported far and wide ... ish Update - and this is a mashup between the two photos from MrReasonable : BTW: I'm not actively pursuing this idea, I'm not really thinking it

For anyone that has the pleasure of being in the car with me you will finally get the peace and quiet of turning off/onto a main road without me blurting out, "Fucking stupid rule!" Here's the proposed change from "madness" to "sanity": All the details at Stuff.co.nz: Give-way rules set to change - Govt New Zealand is the only country in the world with this priority rule. The Automobile Association says the rules are a factor in 2560 intersection crashes, and one or two deaths, each year. Some 17 percent of crashes are at intersections. Thank you Colin for the heads-up tweet

Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой Thanks Nick for the Buzz

This just in from Breathing Space about their latest workshop : Kia ora everyone, Liz and I hope this emails finds you well. I am delighted to say 'Being Present with our Children Workshop’, was a huge success. Participants came away inspired, with a heightened awareness of when they are connected with their children and how different it feels when their not connected. We hope that more of you can attend it in the future. I would also like to inform you that we have a few more places left on the Anger Workshop this month - details below: Understanding Your Anger Workshop Venue: Miramar Playcentre, Crawford Green, Miramar Date: Wednesday,10th March Time: 7-10pm. Upon registering (and receiving payment) Liz and I will send you a couple of exercises that will ask you to reflect on your anger, consider what the triggers might be and how anger manifests itself for you. The workshop then introduces ways of further understanding anger and will provide strategies for you to take mor

Hope (1st March) was a happy one for you all and that you were eating leeks, speaking Welsh and singing (just to perpetuate the myth) to the best of your abilities. The classic picture is still valid :-) HAPPY ST DAVID'S DAY! If we were in Wales ("Never Forget Your Welsh") we'd be wearing a daffodil and/or leek , quoting Max Boyce , singing at the top of our lungs AND having a go at every Englishman you could find . Happy birthday to my darling wife as well! Liz on Waikiki beach - Originally uploaded by Mike Riversdale