Just a quick one

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8435805.stm

So they're building a big statue in Senegal ("When completed early in 2010, it will be bigger than the Statue of Liberty in New York.") The President says that the statue was his own idea and "...he says he will personally take 35% of the revenue it generates, with the rest going to the state. "

Just out of interest, is he paying 35% of the £16.6m cost of building it?

News from History - 5 Sept 2005 to 11 Sept 2005

Way back in 2005 I started to play around with php. One of the things that I made was a simple little chat site so that some friends and I could talk while at work (as we couldn't get on msn). To begin with it was really simple and I gradually added features to it over time. One of the things I liked to do even back then was read a bunch of blogs and news stories and pass on the ones that I thought were interesting.

On the 5th of September 2005, I added server side logging of what was said in the main chat page. Given how life is kinda hectic and I really don't have time to post regularly on this blog, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the past, and see what was interesting back then. I plan to put posts up here with a week at a time, detailing the links and what I think of them now - hopefully some of it will be interesting for anyone who happens to read them :-)

So to start with, 5/9/05 to 11/9/05:

on the 5th, we have:

• the house that css built - quite a neat demonstration of what can be done with no images at all, just cleverly written CSS code
  
• a baby grown outside of the womb - I've heard of ectopic pregnancies, but I'm no medic and I'm not sure if that was what happened here, exactly. I do know that it's interesting stuff - might it mean that men can one day give birth?

On the 6th:

• Buttock vibrating technology to be included in cars - I've not heard of this happening for real yet, but it wouldn't surprise me...

On the 7th:

• MP critiscised for taking the mickey - A grant of £48k was given to study Gypsies and travelling communities. Monmouth MP David Davies (Conservative - note this is not the David Davis who resigned over the terrorist detention extension - there's an e in the surname) wrote to the Heritage Lottery Fund asking for the same amount to study people who don't travel around. I thought it was amusing...

On the 8th to the 11th:

no news posts. I should point out that on the 7th and 8th most of our talk was around the forthcoming release of Exalted 2nd edition, but I figure most people won't want to see links to that. If anyone does, just say so in the comments :-) On the 9th I wasn't at work, so there was not a lot of chatting and linking going on, and likewise on the 10th and 11th (as they are a weekend).