David Walliams on 24 hour panel show for Comic Relief

For Comic Relief the co-creator of Little Britain is hosting a 24 hour panel show where he plans to stay up until midday tomorrow, joined by guets such as Dara O'Briain and Stephen Fry - Mr Fry will be coming on very soon.

I'd love to stay up all night and watch it but have to work tomorrow.

Viewable round the world - http://www.bbc.co.uk/rednoseday/24hourpanelpeople/

And if you have money to spare, donate some pennies to Comic Relief!

I'm not surprised people were protesting in Bahrain

Take a look, courtesy of Businessweek at a collection of screenshots from Google Earth. The software was blocked in Bahrain but annotated pictures from it were circulating in the country. They show the royal family's properties - huge mansions looking very fertile, and vast swathes of empty desert where people aren't allowed to build, next to the dense overcrowded cities.

The ruling elite have all the wealth, and aren't afraid to show it. Kind of like how the wealthy business owners in western society have all the money and such an influence on politics. I'd definitely be protesting.

Charlie Sheen and Colonel Gaddafi, surprisingly hard to tell apart

In the Guardian today,  see if you can tell the difference between recent quotes from the actor and the controversial dictator (still clinging on to power).

Who compared themself to the Queen of England, and who said 'Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body'?

As an Englishman I do have to apologise for our dearly loathed Prime Minister who is currently on a tour of the Middle East with the intention of selling more British weapons to various dictatorships. Sorry, the rest of the world.

All PS3s shipped to Europe will be confiscated

Bad news for Sony: The Guardian reports that LG got its wish in a patent lawsuit concerning LG's patented technology which Sony appear to be using in the PS3. Tens of thousands have already been seized in the current 10-day ban which LG can appeal to have extended, and if the worst came to the worst have the PS3 consoles ordered to be destroyed.

LG are also hoping for a similar judgement in the US. These disputes are alongside another six patent battles between the two companies - Sony would like LG smartphones to be banned from the US.

The likely outcome is that Sony will have to pay LG a licensing fee for the patent, which will also be retrospective for all PS3s ever sold. On top of the fact that each PS3 sale loses money for Sony already, they're not going to be too happy.

These ongoing patent battles never seem to accomplish anything - so is the current patent system not the best possible way of dealing with inventor's rights? Discuss.

I leave you with a nice song for reflection. I must declare an interest, as an owner of a gaming laptop and an Xbox 360.

Skiing fail

Ager Stefan Stubai drop PTTP from Stefan Ager on Vimeo.

Stefan Ager, a skier, films himself here about to do a nice drop into powder, and ends up doing a drop alright.

He was OK.

The future is closer than you think, flying cars are ready to buy now.

The Parajet Skycar is the world's first street legal flying car. It may look more like a dune buggy, and it flies more like a paraglider than the cars in Futurama, but you can buy one now for £55k. The car was taken from London to Timbuktu - 3700 miles - by the creator and a former British army officer showing it can cope with the extremes of the Sahara, (and driving in London!).

See more on the Parajet website. If only that was a referral link and my readers could be persuaded to buy one..

Perhaps this is more like the image that 'flying car' brings to mind:






UPDATE: After writing this, I browsed to XKCD and had a 'Randall, get out of my head' moment:

Real life The Simpsons intro

Come Home To The Simpsons from devilfish on Vimeo.

Commissioned by Sky One, this video does a real life take on the classic introduction. Needs no more explanation.