Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Danny Cipriani

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Published
by
bcg
on 7 March 2008
in Culture
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I have just discovered that Danny Cipriani has been dropped from the England rugby team for the match against Scotland tomorrow.  The reason appears to be that he was seen leaving a nightclub last night:

Cipriani axed from England team

The incident calls to mind the pathetic antics of the England cricket team at the world cup last year - but Cipriani was not drinking, nor was he out a long time, according to his club.

I can understand Brian Ashton wanting to keep a tight ship, and to impress on his players the seriousness with which they should take playing for their country.  But relaxing - albeit late at night - with your friends - especially if you aren't drinking! - does not, to me, count as 'inappropriate behaviour'.

Apart from anything, Balshaw has been shockingly bad at full-back, and Cipriani has the potential to be significantly better!  I think Ashton has gone too far here - I hope we don't live to rue the decision on Saturday.

Politics

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Published
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bcg
on 6 March 2008
in Culture and Quotations
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The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.

Larry Hardiman

The green car?

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Published
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bcg
on 5 March 2008
in Sci & Tech
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Having written about a wooden car a few days ago, I found an interesting piece about a 'green' car, with 'zero emissions':

Green sports car set for launch

It uses hydrogen fuel, so creates only water as exhaust.  However - it requires hydrogen, and getting hygroden an energy-intensive process:

Critics point out that to produce hydrogen by splitting
water uses a large amount of electricity. At present, the majority of
this electricity comes power stations burning fossil fuels and
therefore brings no environmental benefit.

However, the fact that this is the case now is not a good reason to stop exploring and researching this technology.  Hopefully one day someone will crack it (so to speak).

Javascript hacking

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Published
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bcg
on 2 March 2008
in Programming and Web
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I just read an extremely funny article from the States about 'securing' websites using javascript, with the username, the password, and the 'secure' page URL written in the clear: 'So you hacked our site?!'.