Aren't you glad that London is in safe hands? 

Boing Boing have a great suggestion of a place to put your grow-op.  

The ORG have thirty things you can do about DRM. 

Glad to hear that my criticisms of the eBay API are being read by the right people. I really want to build cool stuff that works with eBay's API, but it needs to be so much simpler. It is for the same reason that I don't build tools that interact with Microsoft's Live services - because they are way too complicated. If it's a choice between a nice simple Google API which is well documented and does things sensibly, or a Microsoft or eBay API that takes hours to understand, why should I choose to implement the more complex one instead of the simple one? 

Glenn Reynolds has linked to this story about a wrong-house porn raid by the police in Washington State. Thugs in uniform - that's all there is to say. 

The government are slowly phasing out school coursework. Why, exactly? Because people are cheating. Of course, because of the thorough silliness of the system in not defining the purpose of it, the line between cheating and research is quite fine - unlike in the university, where it's quite clear when someone is cheating because of things like footnotes. Exams are a crap way of finding out whether someone is any good at what they are doing - they're glorified memory tests. Remembering stuff is not wildly relevant compared to knowing how to actually do something useful with the knowledge when you've got it. 

Les has found another new idiot who believes that the Harry Potter books are responsible for school shootings - which, of course, wouldn't happen if they read the Bible or played godly games like Left Behind: Eternal Forces. Funny how the hypodermic needle of the media is very subjective and unpredictable. 

Andrew Sullivan rather likes David Cameron because of his support for gay marriage. 

Phishtank looks like a very useful application - it allows you to submit websites that are phishing scams - and it's got an API - the browser extensions will hopefully be coming soon. 

At least there is one sensible politician left. Of course, this'll be hyped up as if it's important. 

Are the lawyers happy? They're killing Grazie the cow.  

Dave has put up the old Trade Secrets podcasts. I'll probably listen to them soon. I've got 2.87 GB of unlistened podcasts. 

Thanks, Simon. The commute has it's disadvantages too - namely, when you are stuck on Tonbridge station surrounded by obnoxious people for 45 minutes in the cold, miserable rain. I have difficulty reading books on the train - and writing - but I can blog and code and use the 'net quite nicely on the train. Public accountability: I owe Simon beer. 

The Discovery Institute are less efficient than government. Josh, again: "if the NSF spent $4 million on a research program that had as little to show for it as the DI can show for their money, Congress would be holding serious hearings into that mismanagement of funds". 

Kathy Sierra has a great entry from a while back explaining why she's not a "woman blogger" or a "blogHer". 

Tim Lee reckons that Yochai Benkler is a 'reluctant libertarian'. 

If you are a Muslim and you think that not cutting up young girl's vaginas and killing gays is perhaps a good idea for your society to develop, get yourself down to the Secular Islam Summit in St. Petersburg, Florida. 

Harvard are going to require a religion course for all undergraduates. PZ reckons their is some value in undergraduates knowing about religion: "In the same way that knowledge of cholera and dysentery would be supremely important to a 19th century city dweller?" 

It's God or dead, folks. Why a gun, Mr. Ham? I mean, toasting them dissidents in an oven is so much easier. 

I found the constant reference to 'package' by politicians to be quite worrying. What exactly is wrong with 'report' or 'clip'? Oh and the reason that women don't go in to politics is because women are smart, beautiful (in the Platonic/Nietzschean, non-sexual way) people. Going in to politics is like getting a shit-filled balloon and smashing it over your own head. Leave that crap-shovelling to the dullest of men; the only meaningful response to politics is entering a repetitive cycle of laughter and despair. 

I'm a huge fan of xkcd - it's about the only web comic that can make me cry and shout "fuck yeah" (see here). I love the latest one. 

Some homeschooling statistics. 

Tom Coates has a cool time lapse video of him cleaning his flat. I'm not sure that public performance could be enough of a motivation to clean up this lived in room of mine.