There is a slightly strange advert on British television at the moment. It shows some motors from cars driving down streets with a voice over that points out some interesting points about Climate Change. Nothing odd so far. The advert however finishes not with a phone number or web address but a search query.

It says: “Search for Act On CO2″. And here’s what you get if you do…

It seems that the government has decided that it is not worth buying a domain specifically for the campaign when they are already number one for the campaign name. Oddly though they have paid to have a sponsored link for the term on Google. Biazarre. This behaviour is all very well but if the government site was to fall from the number one spot in Google’s organic listings then someone else could get a lot of traffic. This would be Googlebombing with free advertising…

I have purchased thewebriddle.com for use with the web riddle, and the forthcoming the web riddle two. Over the Christmas period more information will be going live over at thewebriddle.com.

This week the Crunchies were announced. These seem to me to compete only with Mashable. They are a set of awards from a set of blogs (TechCrunch, Read/Write Web, Giga Om et al) for “startups”. Commenters seemed generally annoyed with the lack of “startups” that were nominated. Voting is now open.

Official Site | TC Post
Mozilla launched Weave which is a new way of maintaining one browser experience across multiple devices. Apparently they just want to make the platform they have no desire to develop products for it themselves. It seems to me that this is just a repeat of Google’s Synchronised Bookmarks feature albeit broader and more open.  I’m not overly impressed.

Official Launch Post

I downloaded and installed Firefox 3 Beta 1 today as it would seem so did lots of other people. I am a bit out of the loop on Firefox development and I wasn’t really sure what the new version had that was new. And I didn’t really care to be honest — I don’t use Firefox at the moment (I’m using Camino instead).

 Anyway: I don’t want to comment on the new features as I don’t know what they are. But I will say that if you install the prototype of the mac theme — which is not installed by default but there are instructions re: how to do it on the Firefox Start page — the browser looks really nice.

There is a lot of discussion going on about the Kindle at the moment. This is this new “e-book” reader from Amazon. You can carry round zillions of books in your pocket and buy books when you are on the move (and read them instantly). And it only costs $400.

Who do Amazon think are going to buy this thing? It is being marketted as if it is suitable for non-geeks. There are lines in the promotional video like ”no need to have a computer” etc. But Amazon have just really missed the point here I think. Books are good technology. They are doing really well, and they have done for a long time. However simple they can make the interface it is never going to be as simple as opening a book. And it’s going to be more expensive.

And I don’t know about you but I tend to only read one book at once. Why the hell would I want to carry around so many at once? At first I thought the situation was that this device fixed a problem that didn’t exist. Books are after all good as they are. But I think now after reading some more about it I don’t think that it even does fix this imaginary problem. Reading is still going to be awkward with this fancy electronic ink screen and it will just not be the same as the reading that everyone is useful.

I can’t see a single reason why anyone would buy this device when you could buy an Eee Pc for the same price. It just makes absolutely no sense.

Rerelease of the web riddle will be coming soon. Watch out for notices on this blog in a few weeks.

I’ve added the Gravatar plugin to the comments section of the blog so that they should show up if you comment with a registered email address. How fun is that!

If those empty cardboard tubes in the middle of toilet rolls weren’t shipped about the world then the world would be a better place. We should squash the rolls first to save on space in lorries. Apparently they sell them this way in some shops abroad. This should be done everywhere.

Credit to my father who started this meme.

I tried to pick up my photos from my local Jessops today. But I found that they were not there yet. I was told by Snapfish that they would be. This is the first time that I have used Snapfish - and admittedly I am not giving them any money for this service - but really I expect better. I am going to try to get them tomorrow.

I got very angry in Natwest today. The assistant didn’t know what she was talking about but she pretended that she did. I was trying to tell her that she was incorrect but she wouldn’t believe me. I have since phoned Natwest and they have assured me that I am indeed correct and have apoligised for the behaviour of the assistant in the branch.

You can borrow more money from Natwest totally interest free than they state in this table. And don’t let them tell you that you can’t. You can apply to borrow up to £2000 interest free should you so desire. And you are entitled to the next years limit (guaranteed) from the 1st September.