a convenient truth

A post on [MeFi](http://www.metafilter.com/58954/Britain-for-Americans) directed me to [a sociologists report on Pubs](http://www.sirc.org/publik/ptpintro.html). It goes in great detail into the social etiquette in Pubs — how to get served, what privileges regulars get, how to distinguish between ‘local’, ‘circuit’ and ‘estate’ pubs. All stuff you know already, but you didn’t know you knew.

Weirdly gripping.

An excellent [interview with Noam Chomsky](http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3999). He’s a clever chap is our Noam, and more to the point his depth and breadth of knowledge in foreign policy is immense.

The UK has a law banning people from “glorifying terrorism”. Whatever “glorifying” means. And whatever “terrorism” means.

[Rackstraw Press](http://rackstrawpress.nfshost.com/) was created in response to this, and they’ve produced their first book, an anthology of sf short stories written in protest at the Terrorism Act.

The book is called, appropriately, ["Glorifying Terrorism"](http://rackstrawpress.nfshost.com/).

[Here is Bruce Schneier's take](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html) on Vista’s DRM features. He may be right that the law will need to get involved — whether that is going to happen or not though I’m not sure.

As [cascando said](http://www.metafilter.com/58569/The-End-of-the-Internet), [this blog about the TV show Coach](http://coachfox.blogspot.com/) is very reminiscent of Borges. Borges written by a North American. Writing about a sit-com. On a blog.

Sometimes I really do love the internets.

A photo from, oddly, Esther Dyson’s Flickr photostream:

The Lloyds building is a bit like this anyway, but it seems really, really weird that they just went and did this. Click the photo to go through to the flickr page.

I’ve never even heard of this woman before, but [this entry on her blog](http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2007/02/when_atheists_a.html) is properly hysterical. They seem to breed some special kind of insanity in the US.

Please, everyone go the the [BBC Trust consultation](http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open-consultations/ondemand_services.html) on the new on demand service, and respond. Make sure you complete question 6:

> “How important is it that the proposed seven-day catch-up service over the internet is available to consumers who are not using Microsoft software?”

If they decide to provide Microsoft-only access to their content it would be an unmitigated disaster. The questionnaire only takes 5 minutes to complete, and your answer really could make a difference.