Should I?

On the one hand, it’s a great resource. Loads of stuff on there to help with homework research and so on. Not to mention all those TV shows you thought were lost in the mists of time.

On the other hand … well … let’s just say that, even without clicking the “Yes I’m 18, honest guv” box, there’s an awful lot of YouTube that I don’t particularly want her seeing right now.

Ever aware of the rapidly dwindling amount of time left before teenage surliness sets in, though, I decided to seize the opportunity to spend time doing something together. And we spent a very pleasant half-hour playing with YouTube on the AppleTV.

We found what Missy A wanted (the Fresh Prince of Bel Air is OK for ten-year-olds, right?). And I got to explain to her the meaning behind the song that’s been bouncing around my head ever since Saturday night’s ceilidh.

I think she switched off when I started explaining the significance of ‘Linwood no more’ …

A quick question on all this piracy that’s been in the news (and everywhere else) lately.

Did the frequency of such attacks suddenly spike? Or have they been doing it for ages and the world’s media have only just noticed? And if the latter, where/when was the tipping point?

As some of you may know, from 2000 to 2004 I was fortunate enough to serve in the British High Commission in Cape Town. It was fun, and sometimes I went to the beach.

Sometimes in Moscow we go sledging. That’s fun, too.

I shall await the onslaught of criticism.

No further, that is, than good old eBay. For less than the price of a new MagSafe adaptor from Apple, I got two: one made out of a Mac Mini ‘brick’ PSU, and a natty Kensington travel thing that makes a funny noise when used with my MacBook Pro (but not with our black MacBook), and works on aeroplanes and in cars, too. Joy.

Oh, and thanks to a tip-off from Gizmodo, I got the original replaced at the Apple Store while I was in London. Well done, Steve. Who said people only write about bad service?

Now, if only you’d been as sympathetic about my dead Airport Express …

In the meantime, some links to amuse and / or take your mind off the waiting.

Solve the Italian Job cliffhanger once and for all - RSC puts up a prize for the best entry. C’mon, we know they got away with it.

What’s wrong with Neil’s new MacBook?

Cool, we made Sky’s caption competition. You’d all have got better photos if you’d backed off like I asked …

See Obama, Hook Up! h/t Wonkette. Really?

Large Hadron Colliderscope - h/t Theo

President Medvedev and I share the same taste in hardware - according to TUAW

… and finally, some Plinkety Palin (and McCain), via Tim Ireland. Brilliant.

PS not entirely sure what happened to the ‘Scouting for Girls’ post - it was there, and then it wasn’t, and now it’s back again. Odd.

Thanks to a pair of HomePlugs, an AppleTV and a bargain Samsung LCD that no-one wanted because it’s last year’s model (and it’s white), we can now enjoy all manner of digital media in the bedroom. Including - and arguably the main reason for this technological extravagance - what I shall nostalgically refer to as Virgin Radio.

[They’re ‘Absolute Radio‘ these days, apparently, which has already upset the vodka people. I assume whatever’s behind this change in nomenclature is related to the appearance of those gaudily flourescent ‘Zavvi‘ places where the good old Virgin Megastore used to be. Progress, I guess.]

But I digress. The other morning on Absolute Virgin Radio I was delighted to learn that Scouting for Girls will be releasing ‘I Wish I Was James Bond‘ as a single on November 3rd. Excellent timing - and deliberate, no doubt, coincident as it is with the UK release of Quantum of Solace on 31 October.

Fair play, chaps. I hope it sells you some records. And if you need a venue for the single’s launch party, give me a yell.

Gives me an excuse to play you the song again, too, complete with new video …

Hello Mr Bond, I’ve been expecting you.
Martini in your hand, and that eyebrow that you move.

Scouting For Girls - I Wish I Was James bond

Enter ZebraMap. I love this sort of thing. I always wanted a Geochron - for now I make do with the likes of EarthDesk and OSXPlanet.

It’s just gone 8am in Moscow. 7am in Kaliningrad. For my colleagues in Ekaterinburg, it’s already after 10. It’s lunchtime in Vladivostok. And over on the Kamchatka peninsula the working day’s already ending.

Just the other side of the Bering Strait it’s still yesterday evening, but it’s too early in the morning to go there right now.

How does this translate in practice? How do you plan a conference call between Sakhalin, Moscow and Houston? Or time your announcement (or even sporting fixture) to hit prime-time in all the major cities? Or simply plan your travel across this vast country?

I’ve already written something for Blog Action Day over at my FCO blog. But I feel should give it a go here too.

I hadn’t given much thought to what I was going to write. In fact, I’ve just written and deleted a thoroughly depressing draft looking at progress - or not - at feeding the world in the very nearly 24 years since Band Aid first asked us to do exactly that.

I found myself sitting on my comfy sofa in my warm flat, with my laptop that costs more than however-many-percent of the world make in a year, asking myself what the point of Blog Action Day really was. Am I really going to tell my kids in years to come (or tomorrow) that yes, Daddy helped end poverty and injustice - by blogging about it?

Then I decided to check out some of the other posts, from 11,509 sites and counting, who’ve contributed.

If you read one of them, please check out this from David Griner.

David has created a team at Kiva called ‘Social Media for Change’. Kiva, if you haven’t heard of it (I had, vaguely, but never done anything about it), lets you lend - interest free - to entrepreneurs in the developing world.

I like the idea - if you’re becoming disillusioned with top-down development, give bottom-up microfinance a go.

I especially like the mission statement David has written for the Lending Team:

We are bloggers, Twitterers, lifestreamers, networkers, podcasters and more. Some of us do it for money, others for fun. What connects us is our interest in being connected — and maybe helping change the world for the better in the process.

I’m in. And I will badger relentlessly my social media friends to come on board too. Maybe Blog Action Day can change something after all.

Here’s the link.

Here it is again, in case you missed it.

It’s here, people.

PS it’s Global Handwashing Day, too.

(Credit: Dmitry Kostyukov, AFP, Getty Images)

On board is Richard Garriott, a video game developer from Texas and son of Skylab and Spacelab astronaut Owen Garriott - whose trip has apparently cost him $30 million.

I loved it. But apparently the audiences didn’t. Or rather, not enough of them did. The Observer claims that some of them hailed Studio 60 as an ‘instant classic’, although apart from one review on IMDB I can’t find the reference.

Regardless, Studio 60 was cancelled after one series, and I’m sad.

Enter Richard Millington.

Over at his ‘FeverBee’ blog, Richard instructs us in some detail on ‘How to save a TV show‘, by mobilising online communities and generating not just necessarily just interest and pressure, but cash.

There’s 2,000-odd fans on Facebook already. I’m sure they’d all chip in a few quid. So how about it, Aaron? I’ll raise the money, you make the show? You know you want to.