Musings of a free mind...

A neccessary post...

I don't like making personal posts on a blog.  I like my blog to me insightful and, hopefully, informative.  My ultimate goal is that it provokes thought.  If it does any of these things then I'm happy.

Unfortunately I have to post this personal post, just to let you, my readers, know what's happening.

I haven't posted in a while because I'm moving into my new house and currently have no internet access.  It's horrible.  As someone who's grown up alongside the internet I feel very disconnected at the moment.

I should be back as normal within the next week or so.

Keep checking back people...

One worth reading...

Zee over at 'Black Woman Thinks...' has written a fantastic article on the British Monarchy, follwing today's backlash from the Royal Family over announcements that Prince Philip may have prostate cancer.

This woman ALWAYS talks sense, so I strongly advise you go and read the article now.

If you've missed the other two links that are just above you, you can find it here.

Expect a new article from me tomorrow!

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GTA to be pulled in Thailand?

An 18 year old man in Thailand has admitted robbing and killing (stabbing, 10 times) a 54 year old taxi driver.  He has allegedly confessed to committing the crime due to the influence of Grand Theft Auto.  He wanted to see if it was 'as easy as in the game.'

Horrible and tragic, I know, but the authorities in Thailand are in uproar and are requesting that GTA IV be removed from sale:  "We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games," Sakchai Chotikachinda, sales and marketing director of New Era Interactive Media, said.

The problem with this kind of situation is that there's always going to be one idiot.  The guy who kills because of the game.  The guy who kills because of the movie.  The guy who kills because of the heavy metal band.  The guy who thinks he can fly and so jumps from a building instead of trying to take off from the ground.

You can't punish everyone for one person's idiocy, neither can you protect everyone from that person and their aforementioned idiocy.  It just breeds hatred and contempt.

There will always be idiots who kill the innocent, it's very, very sad.  But it's a fact.  Put GTA back on the shelves, don't let the stupid among us dictate our entertainment.

And to finish off, here's an amusing quote from Ladda Thangsupachai, director of the ministry's Cultural Surveillance Centre: "Today it is a cab driver, but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner."

I'm sorry, what?  A video game shop owner?  How did they pull that one out of their ass?  Why not a policeman, a prostitute, a drug lord or any other character in the GTA series?

Anyway, off to the X360 to go shoot some people.  I expect you'll see me on the news later, then?

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Facebook facelift.

So, Facebook, the popular networking site, has undergone a redesign.  The makers of the site claim the improvements will make it easier to use and improve its functionality.  I'm scepticle.  You'd think they'd be happy sitting around watching their profits accumulate, but no!  Apparently it's time to mess with a system that works perfectly fine as it is.

Here's how a profile page looks now:

As you can see the main profile page now defaults to the person's wall.  The handy tabs above; 'Wall', 'Info' and 'Photos' allow you to navigate between those different aspects of the profile.

It's all very nice but I can't help feel that the whole redesign is a little bit, well, pointless.  Don't get me wrong, nothing about the new design is particularly difficult or awkward to use, but everything seems to take more effort now.  If I look at a friend's profile I want to be able to see their wall, links to their photos, their contact details and other information about them all on one page.  The old Facebook offered this.  Now you have to click between the tabs to get the information you want.

It was the little things that attracted me to Facebook; being able to see my friends' favourite quotes, music, movies and wall comments all on one page.  Now you have to go out of your way to find this information each time your friend updates it.  This quickly becomes a chore.

I fear that Facebook will lose its charm.  This could be an acceptable loss if there was improved functionality or some other useful aspect had been added but it seems to just be a redesign and, really, I can't see the point.