The Guardian has a front page report updating the status of the Government's proposals to monitor all UK communications (the "Interception Modernisation Programme" or IMP).  This the proposal to record the names and addresses of all communications, but not (at this stage) the contents of the communications.  This execrable plan is estimated to run in at about £12 billion, a sum which you would think the Government would quail at, in the present financial circumstances.

Bizarrely, considering the database is supposed to be vital for  national security, one proposal is that it be run by private industry.  Apparently this is under the illusion that privatised work will be more cost-effective than that run by Govenment.  Ho hum.

Just picked this up via the Open Rights Group website.  Tom Watson MP has a blog and has solicited opinions on his colleague Andy Burhnam's Big Idea - that voluntary age rating of internet sites is a practical solution to the perceived problem of nasty websites being inflicted on unsuspecting kiddies.

A quick squizz through his blog suggests this blog posting has generated a larger number of comments than any others - mind you, even his worst-commented articles do better than most of mine in that regard :-( 

Team Grumpy has a blog!

I blogged the other day about Andy Burnam's campaign for cinema-style rating of web content.  Burnham is apparently the UK Government's Culture Secretary, has small children, and does not appear to believe that parental responsibility includes informing children about what they should or should not do.  He has proposed that a system of rating websites analogous to that used for motion pictures  (and we all know how that stops kids from watching DVDs) be used to rate web sites.  The ISPs would then offer the ability to screen out offensive web content.

It's amusing that this story surfaced shortly after the Internet Watch Foundation's action against a 1970s LP sleeve thrust the IWF somewhat unwillingly into the media spotlight.  Most internet users were probably unaware that a blacklist of websites was maintained in this way.

The Royal Mail has issued (or will issue) stamps to celebrate the upcoming Darwin anniversary.  There's also a miniature sheet, depicting the Galapagos Islands, and a variety of the specialised fauna found there.

I think they are particularly attractive, and it's good to see the profile of this most important of anniversaries maintained.  For more information, visit Norvic Philatelics - there is a much more information on the design, background information, and how to buy first day covers etc (and I also linked to their images).  I have to say, I never thought I'd blog about postage stamps, but there you go!

[Post edited to remove direct links to the images]

The Open University is hosting a web page devoted to the upcoming Darwin 200 anniversary.  Usefully, it's also the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species (free e-book, web book), possibly the most influential work in science ever (your starter for '10'!).

Of course, I can be accused of a little bias since the site is the work of my colleagues at the OU, but it's a more graphically pleasing route to finding courses such as Darwin and Evolution than the standard OU website!  The course is one of a number of Science Short Courses that expect no prior qualification, but which reflect topical issues in science - the courses are very popular, and offer a relatively low commitment introduction to distance learning via the Open University.

The BBC reports that Stalin has been voted into third place in a poll for the greatest Russian, held by a Russian TV station.

Never mind that he was born in Gori in Georgia! (You may recall Gori from the Russian military action in 2008).  Anyway, the result is a little astonishing, given his three decade reign of terror in which millions of Soviet citizens died.  His claim to greatness (other than being a hugely important figure in the 20th century) is presumably his reputation as the person who led the Soviet Union to victory over Nazi Germany.  As the BBC says:

The Guardian yesterday reported that the UK Culture Secretary plans to introduce a cinema-style "age-rating" for websites.  He's apparently going to contact Barack Obama once he's got up and running in the White House to try and set up some form of web site certification.  Not being one to set his sights too high, the "plan" is to involve only English language sites, but to compel ISPs to provide packages to provide the means to block unrated sites.

I presume such packages would be OS-independent, and an optional add-on.  Of course a number of likely problems loom over the horizon, including the scale of the internet.  How many web sites are there out there?  Back in February 2007, this question was asked at Boutell.com, and the answer was " more than 108 million".  Goodness knows how accurate that estimate is, and how the number may have increased since then!   The same site estimates the number of web pages in February 2007 to be in excess of 29.7 billion.

News reports on the BBC somewhat precede April 1st.  Apparently the Scottish National Party want an airbase in Scotland  to be used as a Scottish spaceport.

The party's Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, wants Virgin Galactic to use RAF Lossiemouth in his constituency as a base for space tourism.  

I see from the BBC news site that panda diplomacy is on again - China has gifted two giant pandas to Taiwan.  I admit that giant pandas are cute, and have the interesting novelty of a extra digit (the "Panda's Thumb") that is derived from a modified sesamoid bone.  But, really, a carnivore that subsists on a diet that is 99% bamboo, that cannot digest cellulose, and which needs to consume 9-14 kg of bamboo shoots a day has been dealt a rather unfortunate hand!

On the other hand, this YouTube video never fails to make me laugh:

The Register reports another of the original Star Trek cast has died: Majel Roddenberry, who must have had more roles in the Star Trek franchise than any other cast member:

• First officer in the pilot
• Nurse Christine Chapel 
• Lwaxana Troi (Deanna Troi's rather irritating mother) in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• The computer voice in many of the Star Trek shows and animations.  

When Astana rider Alxender Vinokourov was busted from the 2007 Tour de France for a pretty obvious case of blood doping, he received an astonishingly light 12 month ban from the Kazakhstan cycling federation.  A UCI challenge to the lack of severity was postponed because the dope cheat retired at that point.

Now that Vinokourov has announced his return from retirement, cyclingnews.com reports that the UCI has reactivated the appeal.  The UCI apparently seeks a doubling of his ban.  And so they should.  The guy is a fraud and cheat, and lied about the blood doping bust at the time, with flimsy excuses that his abnormal blood results were due to his injuries sustained earlier in the Tour de France.

 While browsing through Biogerontology looking for the citation details of one of my publications (which appears to still be available only online), I came across this review, which kind of stands out because of its subject matter.  And any paper with two citations from 300AD and 1300AD has to be looked at!

At the outset, I should say that I know next to nothing about Ayurveda, and that I am unwilling to take claims of efficacy of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) that lack a serious evidence-base seriously. (I regard Ayurveda as a CAM, as it most certainly is that from a western perspective).  This paper is a brief review article that I suppose has been peer-reviewed, and seeks to review the impact of the therapy on brain ageing.  Does it convince me?

I've spent a fair bit of time lately modifying websites.  I run several websites: Flies and Bikes (which you're reading now), my cycling club's website, the Oriel Cell Senescence conference website, and a simpler html-based website for the defunct cycling club Northwood Wheelers. 

The first three sites use the Joomla!* content management system, which I find to be very flexible and with plenty of useful add-ons.

I found this cartoon at jesusandmo.net over at Pharyngula.

The Register reports that a senior Vodafone network architect has be recruited by the Home Secretary to draw up proposals for the Interception Modernisation Program (IMP).

Tim Hayward, erstwhile senior programme manager at the UK's second largest mobile operator, was appointed IMP director in August. While at Vodafone he was responsible for 3G network architecture, according to careers information posted on the web.

There's a rather depressing article in Ars Technica (UK ISPs playing Grinch with P2P throttling, surf data, video?)about ISP attitudes to the service they provide (or not) in the UK.  AT focusses on  three areas in which the ISPs want to maximise their profits, in some cases by restricting costs (throttling P2P services), selling our data (by deep packet inspection, such as the vile Phorm system), and by demanding payments from broadcasters such as the BBC (because they have the temerity to introduce a very popular service such as iPlayer).

I'm not a BitTorrent user, but I feel rather anxious that a legal application like BitTorrent, which can of course be used for entirely legal activities such as legal downloading of videos, games, and software can be throttled back on the basis (or rather the explanation used to deflect criticism) that some people abuse it for illegal activities.  Of course this is a bit weasly, the real situation is that the ISPs have pitched their services at a price that doesn't cover the bandwidth people use.  Their solution seems to be to throttle back P2P services under the guise of copyright protection.

Well, I have to confess that I have some sympathy with this Iraqi journalist.  One might suspect Bush was lucky they were only shoes, after the mayhem he wreaked on the Middle East.

 [video:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9uIj0YvDBKE 425x340]

Following the the IWF-Wikipedia fracas for the last week or so, will there be any lasting changes to internet censorship in the UK?  I hope so.

Until the IWF saw to it that UK access to editing Wikipedia pages was prevented, I doubt that UK broadband customers were aware their internet service was subject to censorship.  The revelations surrounding the banning of the Scorpions LP sleeve Virgin Killer pushed the activities of the IWF into the public spotlight for the first time, and will perhaps precipitate a change into their operations.

So, is a belief in Santa Claus (he of the Coca-Cola-inspired red outfit) any less resonable than a belief in God (any God)?  The Unreasonable Faith blog thinks not: