Look, I know that from time to time, I post these stories, and it could just be viewed as US-bashing. And I'm also aware that on a civil liberties front, the UK is actually rather behind the US in many ways. But this one is really something special, and should spread far and wide. I don't even have the energy to be angry about it, because I'm busy being stunned and horrifed that this can happen.

This an account of how a the US system accidentally tortured an innocent man to death through bureaucracy, jobsworth-ism and plain lack of decent human feeling. There is no "security" that can possibly be worth this price.

Made me laugh, anyway.

Charlie Stross on a really good, simple baseline rule on deciding if a work fails a basic gender-equality test. There might be the odd work that gets exempted from it, but the number of works of popular entertainment that fail it is disturbing.

Aww, lookit the little fluffy Guinea Pigs. So cute! So fluffy! In their funny outfits! It’s not often the Torygraphy impresses me, but I do love the way this set of photos is structured…

On the one hand: poor bastards. On t’other, oh my god, the jokes…

One of the few people I know who really has Twitter cracked. His stream is made up of short critiques and quick ideas, usually very sharp and on target. This is a good example, neatly summarising the key problem with the work. He’s well worth reading.

Interesting cross section of society. The overall view skews a bit anti, but when you’re talking about smack and crack in places, it’s going to be hard not to, I guess.

I’m going to spend an hour or two thinking about this tonight, and see if I can come up with a reasonable forecast/application. I imagine the other applicants will be better qualified, but it’d be a fun thing to even try to do.

Well, I know what I’m doing on Saturday.

Just read that headline a few times. Go on. Now: that’s not science-fiction. It’s, y’know, a real thing. Tell me that’s not enough awesome for a week, right there. That’s cheered me right up, that has.

I feel unclean linking to the Dail Heil, especially for a non-story like this “rebellious artist is middle class public schoolboy shocker”, but I remain a fan of Banksy’s work, and will be interested to see what impact this has on his future efforts.

Counterbalance – here’s the sort of crappy sensationalist headline that the Express likes to run with, about the decaying state of out society “Buglars to be let off” type stuff, being shredded by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.

Good metaphor. I get my geek news through blogs instead of community-type sites for this sort of reason – the window where the site is gentrified enough that the a-geeks don’t annoy me but the masses and the attendant noise/churn haven’t arrived is small.