Here's the cover of the journal Science (7th March issue which just arrived at my office), featuring a work by the graffiti artist Banksy.

Just thought this was a nice image!

A report on El Reg about MI5 reportedly wanting access to travel records associated with Oyster cards (report originally in The Observer 16/3/07) raises considerable issues regarding electronic data and privacy.

This makes me wonder what MI5 might want, once the Phorm system is installed in the ISPs representing the great majority of broadband users. 

Our paper in Aging Cell describing the identification and characterisation of a Drosophila orthologue of the exonuclease function of WRN is now available online, and open access.

For background to this article, see the related story about BT's relationship with the targeted advertising company Phorm. Note in relation to the patent application that Phorm (under a different company name had form as a spyware distributor) . For more information check out the links in that story.

Thanks to a commenter at an El Reg article, the following snippets from the Phorm patent (which you can read at the Political Penguin blog) should be noted:

British Telecom have a Privacy Policy. I reached this page from the BT Webwise page, so presumably it applies to their proposed arrangement with Phorm.

We may share your personal information with other companies so that they can contact you with details of other products or services you may be interested in. We will only do this if you have agreed to this and where the companies agree to use your personal information for that purpose only. If you have agreed to receive information about products and services from another company and later decide not to you will need to contact that company yourself to let them know. You can of course ask us not to continue to provide your personal information to any more companies in future.

This morning saw the first of the North Bucks Road Club events in the 2008 time trial series. Ian Stokes arranged several 10 mile time trials on the Astwood sporting course and we had the use of Astwood village hall.

On a pretty windy day, thirteen riders turned out. I very nearly failed to make it in time, puncturing in Cranfield en route to Astwood. I refrained from getting too grumpy, as a passer-by helped with my annoying tyre levers! Having (sort of) pumped up the tyre with my very small pump, I dashed off to Astwood, arriving after the first four or five riders had started, in a state of some perspiration. To add insult to injury, I ended up with number 13! I quickly removed unnecessary clothes (bib tights etc), much to the horror of my fellow competitors.

BT have hit the news bigtime recently over their shady deals with Phorm, a company which appears to have a shady past that many allege involves spyware. There's a good overview on The Register. Essentially what seems to be proposed is that BT Broadband subscribers internet browsing habits will be forwarded to Phorm, who run an advert server called OIX. Web pages which use OIX to serve up adverts will then aim adverts at you based on this information. Sounds creepy? Well it is.There are several issues here:

1. BT trialled this last summer, an act they are loath to admit to.

One of the enduring myths of cycle racing concerns the relative merits of tubular tyres relative to clinchers. Convention has it that nothing can compare to the performance of a quality tubular. However, lot of anecdotal evidence is bandied around supporting high quality clinchers as superior to tubulars. I was recently sent a link to test data regarding the characteristics of tyres versus tubulars - this gives clear data to support this contention.', '

Clinchers and tubulars

A couple of images to show the differences between a tubular and a clincher (links to external website images)

Seems to be a week for obituaries. Gary Gygax, who with Dave Arneson wrote the groud breaking tabletop role playing game Dungeons & Dragons, has died. The Register has an obituary, as does the New York Times. I spent a lot of time as a youngster playing a variety of role playing games, beginning with D&D. While I eventually moved on to other games (notably Call of Cthulhu) and eventually gave up gaming, I retain a soft spot for D&D, and particularly the original edition of a boxed set of three slim booklets (pictured left, and see the Wikipedia article).

D&D was derived from earlier miniatures war game rules, and was published by Tactical Studies Rules, later known as TSR. The company grew astonishingly rapidly (probably too fast), before being absorbed by Wizards of the Coast, a company that rose on the back of a craze for trading card games.

I was saddened to read on www.timetriallingforum.co.uk that Sheldon Brown had died (see this obituary). Sheldon Brown's website is a fabulous source of bike information, particularly related to fixed wheel and tandems. He'll be missed worldwide.