The BBC echoes my sentiments (actually, that’s probably a little self righteous - I’m sure they’d have said that anyway!) on how the web has created a fantastic outlet for both journalists and citizens in passing on the latest news about disasters.

The bombings in London in July, and hurricane Katrina this month have sent all sorts of citizen journalism through the roof. From up-to-the-minute first-hand photographs of the bombings aftermath, to Wikipedia’s constantly-updated Katrina page, the will of everyday individuals to pass on what they know has quickly created a very respectable source of information.

Storm blogs offer Katrina insight [BBC]

Techie blogger Nugget thinks that Google are walking away from a chance to open up instant messaging in the same way as SMTP opened up the world of email by disallowing users of their Google Talk service access to the world’s Jabber servers.

All Google has done is create yet another closed-loop system. They’ve made it just a little bit more of a burden for people to reliably have IM connectivity to all their friends. They’ve made it a little bit harder for people to communicate. They’ve made it a lot harder for the overall state of instant messaging to progress.

His comparisons, or not as the case may be, with the state of email 10 or 15 years ago, make a lot of sense. All I hope is that Google sees sense and incorporates it in the future, perhaps when they take the ‘beta’ seal off of it.

Have a read if you’re interested.

On Google Talk, I apparently talk a lot (cheers to Oishii)

Here’s where I become Mr. Nitpicky again, because I love stuff like this.

It’s beck and call, not beckon call, schitzophrenic does NOT mean split personalities, it means split from reality, and Xmas isn’t an attempt to remove Christ from Christmas, X is the Greek letter for chi.

Study up, so that you can always be right in those grammatical arguments.

Common Errors in English

Matt Campbell and friends decided to find out the answer to that very question, and last week managed to try it out for real, by putting a tiny camcorder in a model rocket, looking down at Earth.

The results are rather nice - shooting away from Earth, you don’t expect the speed to be quite that.. well, speedy.

Campbell has posted videos of their exploits on the Camcorder Rocket Project homepage, where you can also read about events leading up to the tests. The group also had a second day of launches just two days ago.

The project was also the ‘Video of the Week’ on CamcorderInfo.com, where there’s also an interview with Mr Campbell.

Interesting? Sure. Crazy? Definitely.

CVS Camcorder Rocket Project (cheers to Make Blog)

Looks like ex-Libertines frontman and token idiot Pete Doherty has shamed himself once more. According to an NME exclusive, he headbutted Razorlight lead singer Johnny Borrell in an ‘unprovoked attack’ backstage at the Leeds festival. As much as I detest Razorlight, he doesn’t deserve that. (Much.)

That detest is slowly wearing off though, seeing as Johnny apparently “put Doherty on the floor and left the dressing room”. Somebody needed to, and if it must be a long-haired croaky-voiced pop star, then I might just be able to cut him some slack.

When will Doherty realise that he’s just a, er, how do you put it.. IDIOT? I don’t understand how somebody who openly takes class A drugs, smashes people’s faces in on a regular basis for no apparent reason, and is generally a top class moron, can still manage to hang onto any ‘fans’ whatsoever.

Oh, and he can’t sing. At all.

Kind of shows the state of the human race, in fact.

Having preached about Firefox so much in the past I may as well be a fully ordained Mozilla priest, I and many of you would have no trouble installing the browser on a PC. However, it’s not as easy for somebody who uses a PC for only a few things, and never needs new applications.

But don’t let that put you off! You can still make the much-needed switch to more secure, speedy browsing. Webuse.info have a great total beginner guide to installing Firefox. The step-by-step guide also includes helpful screenshots to make sure you don’t lose your way and get totally lost.

If it’s for you, first off well done for reaching this page. I’m not being patronizing. Well I am, but seriously, well done.

If it’s not for you, print it off and give it to as many Net beginners as possible. You know it makes sense.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Installing Firefox (Cheers to Lifehacker for that one)

Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1 and injured many in Florida a few days ago, has reached New Orleans on the south coast of the USA.

Coverage is all over the Interweb of the terrifying windstorm - in which gusts of wind have been recorded up to 200mph. Here are some links to keep up with the news:

News sources

Hurricane set to lash New Orleans - BBC News
Reporters’ Log - BBC News
Hurricane Katrina Smashes Gulf Coast - National Geographic
Monster Hurricane Hits - Sky News
Google News search for ‘hurricane Katrina’

Other sources

Flickr Hurricane Katrina - including the amazing photograph of the Louisiana sky on the left.
Deadly Katrina - a hugely in depth specially made weblog detailing events.
Hurricane Katrina - another blogger’s story.

MyProgs.net allows you to keep track of all of the applications you use on your PC in the same way as you do links on del.icio.us.

You can tag programs and sort your favourite apps, and see what applications are ‘hot’ right now, by way of the Popular page.

You can now see my recent tagged applications down at the bottom of the right sidebar, courtesy of RSS2JS.

MyProgs.net

Here’s a rather interesting article for you. USA Today techie columnist Andrew Kantor takes a half-jestful look at how laws such as theft and copyright will stand up when faced against technology.

People are finding it harder and harder to find where the line is drawn for things like reproducing photographs - especially when it’s something that if mirrored in the offline world would be legal.

With technology, it’s easy to break the law… (via Make Blog)

Can anyone living in the city verify that the New Yorkers really are this bad at parking? Or were the car park attendants just majorly wasted when they marked out the spaces?

I found this example of automobile wizardry while exploring the Empire State on Google Earth, which I’ve referred to many times before on this here part of the Interweb.

I also stumbled upon the Japanese way of bridge building, which to them means turning a small, usually ugly, construction into something surprisingly beautiful. Here’s how to really do roads properly:

Yes, that little park seems to be built into the bridge, with the road travelling underneath. If only everyone was as creative with such small spaces.