If, in your place of work, a new employee starts to behave strangely – almost as if he or she wants to get the sack – you may be being filmed for a new BBC comedy show. Rik explains.

The quest to find the Web’s favourite colour using images submitted via email and MMS is an interesting concept, but I’m not sure it’s being successful in practice.

When an image is submitted, its pixel values are averaged to a single colour, so it’s important that people fill the frame of their camera with their favourite colour, otherwise it is muddied by the rest of the image. Unfortunately, people don’t seem to be doing this and the result is a ‘Web’s Favourite Colour’ that is, frankly, horrible. Maybe, if possible, the average colour should be taken from the central area of each picture submitted.

Of course, there’s no reason why you can’t simply bucket-fill your favourite colour in Photoshop and email it as a Jpeg, but I’m guessing this isn’t quite as fun as sending it via MMS.

I’ve always thought about using my figure (over there to the right) as a place for Google-style themes, but I’ve never fully committed myself to it. Well, I intend to change that, starting with 65 years of Dennis the Menace and The Beano. For those on buggy browsers, hit reload.

As a followup to my last post about BuyMusic.com, here are the adverts which have been blatantly ripped off from Apple’s iTunes Music Store campaign. Not surprisingly, they’re in Windows Media Format (can be viewed in MPlayer):

• Superfreak (WMV 1.6 MB)
• Rapper’s Delight (WMV 1.6 MB)

and here are Apple’s ads, which needless to say, are much more memorable:

• Nava
• Floyd
• Tyra

This week saw the launch of BuyMusic.com, a music download service in direct competition with the iTunes Music Store. However, initial reports about it are negative and here are a few reasons why, if you’re a Windows user, you may want to wait until the Windows version of the iTunes Music Store becomes available:

• The site is only accessible to Internet Explorer running on Windows
• Your rights to the music you’ve bought are restricted as your licence to make copies of songs varies depending on the record company the music is from
• Downloaded songs can’t be played on an iPod
• The songs are in Windows Media Format
• The advertising campaign is a rip-off of Apple’s, which shows a complete lack of originality and innovation.
• The site is, apparently, buggy

Sources:

• A Thousand Dotcom Deaths
• Wired News: Lots of Music, and One Big Flaw
• Ars Technica: Buymusic.com to take on iTunes Music Store, others

Due to our primal trait of morbid curiosity, it’s hard to turn away from the bloodied faces of Uday and Qusay Hussein. The Pentagon were reported to be debating whether to release the pictures to the world. Doing so would convince the skeptical Iraqi people that America had finally ridden them of two of their oppressors, but it would also cause critics of America’s operations in Iraq to accuse them of double standards; was there not outcry when Al-Jazeera broadcast pictures of dead American soldiers?

Surprising considering their usual sensational style of news broadcasting, yesterday’s front page of CNN.com did not show the images, instead there was a link to them next to which are the words ‘viewer discretion advised’. BBC News chose to display one of the images on its front page, but it was a fuzzy, second hand picture, probably from video footage of the prints. The Guardian, however, was unscrupulous with its reproduction of the images; their front page showed first generation images that were high in definition and brutal in their level of detail. In some circumstances, we should be exposed to the realities of war like this. However, shocking though these images are, I’m more disturbed by the fact that I feel like I’m being presented with trophies of this conflict.

The latest news is that TV crews are currently filming the bodies of the brothers in order for the Iraqi people to be fully convinced that they belong to Uday and Qusay Hussein. To an Iraqi people skeptical of The Pentagon’s claims and with first-hand experience of America’s power, will this really make any difference?

I have great respect for people whose talents lie in being able to do near impossible – if trivial – things. A few weeks ago, I posted a video of David Bernal aka Elsewhere (the guy in the Orange shirt) doing his incredible body-popping routine (WMV file 3.7MB). This time, here’s Tom Baker (no, not Dr Who), performing a near impossible trick with 2 basketballs (MPG 984KB). What I really like about this is the look of surprise on Tom’s face when he successfully pulls it off.

A report from The Guardian, 21st of July 1969. I wish I had been around then.

The chap who ran in front of oncoming Formula One cars whilst waving a placard which said ‘Read the Bible!’ was so nearly a recipient of the ultimate Darwin Award.

One of Whitley Bay’s redeeming features is that it has a pretty good second-hand vinyl and book shop. This, when new albums are slightly out of my budget at the moment, is very welcome indeed. After ten minutes stripping wheat from chaff, then handing over a few quid, I can leave the place with some great records. Here’s a few I’ve bought since I moved here:

• Penguin Cafe Orchestra: Signs of Life – This album is perhaps most famous for the instantly recognisable ‘Perpetuum Mobile’, a track used on countless TV adverts, mainly by One2One (I think). Ironically, when it was made, mobile phones were of the sort you had to carry around strapped to your back. This is a wonderful album, it’s just a shame that advertisers have got their mucky hands all over it.
• Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones & Rain Dogs – The shop had both of these Tom Waits classics in stock at the same time, both for 3 quid. I grabbed ‘em straight away.
• Bruce Cockburn: Eponymous – Bruce Cockburn’s first album is kind of like an upbeat Nick Drake record. This album was a bit more expensive at
  

Music Builder is a clever utility for OS X that scans your hard drive for MP3s and generates an HTML page of album covers. I found using Music Builder on my MP3 collection to be quite an enlightening experience, seeing as, admittedly, I don’t own some of the albums displayed. [via Submit Response]

PiertoPier are a group of WiFi enthusiasts who have set up a wireless network on Brighton beach, allowing people to use* the web and check their email while relaxing and soaking up the sun.

It’s a great idea, but I think it would only ever work on beaches like Brighton which are pebbly rather than sandy. Knowing sands magnetic attraction to the inner workings of expensive digital cameras as well as ham sandwiches, would you take your Powerbook to the beach?

• BBC News | Technology | UK Beach Gets Wireless Web

* note the avoidance of the usage of the word ‘surf’ in the context of this post.

Safari’s Activity window displays all the component files downloaded for a particular web page. Each item is clickable, making it easy to view stylesheets, images and scripts associated to a particular site. It also makes it easy to calculate a pages size in kilobytes, useful if you’re planning on entering the 5k competition.

In Safari, go to Window > Activity

Brent Spiner, the actor who plays Data in Star Trek: TNG is 54 years old, which means he was old enough to play an android in the original series. I just thought I’d share that because I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought he was much younger.

Long time readers may know of my ongoing search for information about the Sesame Street 70s funk classic The Pinball Song. Last time, it was established that the song is known as J Imagination (Lower) and was penned by Walt Kramer (not Herbie Hancock as previously rumoured). The singers on the track could be The Pointer Sisters, but I havent confirmed that yet.

I was puzzled that doing a Google search for Walt Kramer came up with no relevent information, not even anything about a Walt Kramer being a musician. The latest information I have thanks to a chap called Chris is that Kramer should in fact be spelled Kraemer. Entering this correct spelling into Google offers up more information about Walt, including a brief biography and this page, which lists Walt as the sound and synthesizer effect supervisor on the Star Wars spoof Hardware Wars.

As far as I know, The Pinball Song doesnt feature on any Sesame Street compilation albums and decent MP3 versions of it are like gold dust, which is a shame because judging from the number of search referrals I get to previous posts Ive written about The Pinball Song, theres a lot of interest in it.

UPDATE: Since posting the information below, Walt Kraemer, composer of the Sesame Street Pinball Song, wrote to me with some definitive information about it. Click here to read Walt’s letter.

What is the name of this symbol: # ? It’s a hash symbol right? Well maybe, but it’s also a(n):

• octothorpe
• octothorp
• octalthorpe
• octothorn
• number
• comment sign
• crosshatch
• crunch
• fence
• hex
• pig pen
• pound (as in weight)
• sharp
• square
• tic-tac-toe
• sulamit

Sources: Splorp, Wikipedia.

Such blobs are more common than most people realize, added (Sidney) Pierce, who has had numerous requests to analyze blobs. “Every year or so I get a foul-smelling envelope.”

Here’s another blob found at Fortune Bay, Newfoundland; except this one wasn’t discovered on a slow news day.

• The Scientist > Mystery Blob Probe
• Blob Tracking at Google News

Adaptive Path have relaunched with a site that once again demonstrates the inspiring web design skills of Doug Bowman. This is what happens when a highly talented graphic designer also just happens to be a CSS expert. [via Zeldman]

Just testing out Dean Allen’s Textile, a Humane Web Text Generator. Previously, I’ve been using his Web Writing Applescripts for Tex-Edit Plus to clean up the HTML before publishing it via a web form. Now, I’ve cut out this extra step by adding the Textile PHP script to my includes folder so that I can simply call the ‘textile’ function as the post is submitted to the database. Expect over-zealous use of ordered/unordered lists as I throw ‘em in just for the fun of it.

Ambrosia, purveyors of fine Macintosh software since the dawn of time, have released a great utility called Wiretap. Those familiar with Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack will recognise what Wiretap does: it simply allows the user to record sound playing through their Mac, whether it be from a Realplayer stream, a DVD movie or from iTunes. What sets this utility apart from Audio Hijack is that it’s free.

Wiretap does not record from an external source, so ripping audio directly from vinyl isn’t possible. Neither does it encode MP3 files, such is the high cost of licencing the MP3 codec; instead, the software outputs AIFF files which can then be converted to MP3 using iTunes. These omitted features aside, Wiretap is another high quality, simple utility from Ambrosia. They make great rice pudding too.

Thirteen floating wrecks – wasted, dilapidated and possibly leaking all manner of toxic substances – may be seen off the coast of Scotland and North East England later in the year as they head to Teesside in a controversial plan to scrap a number of US merchant and navy ships that are threatening environmental disaster in South Virginia. While environmental groups are saying it’s a ‘secret plan’ on behalf of America to foist some of its nastiest environmental hazards on the UK, Teesside’s shipyard workers will no doubt be glad of the contract in a declining North East industry.
More information:

• The James River Ghost Fleet
• Rusting and toxic? Haul it to the UK
• Plans to scrap ‘ghost fleet’ ships in Britain draw protests, complaint
• Cost Catastrophe Fear Over US ‘Ghost Fleet’

Paris’ experimental moving walkway, the Trottoir Roulant Rapide (Fast Rolling Pavement), reminds me of a transportation device described in Asimov’s 1950s Sci-fi classic The Caves of Steel. In it, city dwellers travel on what are called ‘strips’, parallel walkways which travel progressively faster from left to right; the idea being that as you walk across them you gradually gain speed and before you know it, you’re whizzing along towards your destination. The difference with the TRR - apart from not being the product of Sci-fi fantasy – is that the acceleration/deceleration zones are in series and not in parallel, although judging by warnings given to those using the TRR, this doesn’t make it any easier to ride. The BBC article has a nice flash presentation to explain how it works.

When people ask what the first record I ever bought was, I can proudly say that it was Tour de France by Kraftwerk, which was an EP released in July 1983 to coincide with France’s famous cycle race. I seem to remember that it was a co-purchase between my brothers and I; we liked the music on Channel 4’s TV coverage of The Tour so much that we found out what it was, pooled our pocket money, went to Woolworths Boots and bought it. After listening to it, I wished we hadn’t then proceeded to use it as a frisbee because it might be worth something by now.

Anyway, 20 years later, Kraftwerk are re-recording Tour de France for a new album (their first in 17 years!), the release of which is to coincide with this years Tour. After not being particularly impressed with Expo 2000, I hope Kraftwerk are getting back to the level of innovation they demonstrated with their music 20+ years ago.

Incidentally, the second record I ever bought was Star Trekkin’ by The Firm, but I think we’ll just brush that one aside for now.

• Pitchfork > Kraftwerk to Release First New album in 17 Years

[via Kottke]

Update- Here’s the Tour de France 03 video:

• Realplayer Version
• Windows Version