Jesus Fucking Christ

Sir Liam's guidance follows a youth alcohol action plan drawn up by the    Government which warns that young people who drink too much are    significantly more likely to take drugs of all kinds and be absent from    school. Of those children excluded from school, 45 per cent had had a drink    in the past week compared with only 21 per cent of those who had never been    excluded.

Repeat after me "Correlation is not causation".  It seems vastly more likely to me that the kind of kids who are excluded, and have nothing better to do with their time, will be drinking, than that kids will have a drink at home and then become malcontents, instantly getting into drugs and kicked out of school.

Thankfully, someone also says:

"The dilemma is that – unless you introduce them slowly to drinking –    when they do start at 15 or 16 they go absolutely ballistic – so maybe there    is something to be said for what happens in France where you can get diluted    wine for youngsters."

thus showing some sense and understanding.

From

Just back from Tesco

[Poll #1339678]

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 1-29-2009

• White House Unbuttons Formal Dress Code
  An interesting look at the changing culture inside The White House
  (tags: usa politics Obama)
• Robert Peston reports from Davos
  Where points 2 and 3 (the Chinese Premiers speech and the bankers cry for help) arep particularly funny
  (tags: funny news economics politics)
• Topical treatment wipes out herpes with RNAi
  (tags: medicine health sex TheFuture)
• The classified ads of the London Review of Books
  All humans are 99.9% genetically identical, so don't even think of ending any potential relationship begun here with 'I just don't think we have enough in common'. Science has long since proven that I am the man for you (41, likes to be referred to as 'Wing Commander' in the bedroom). Box no. 3501.
  (tags: funny advertising romance)
• 26 Cakes Perfect for Geeks
  I want the dragon one!
  (tags: geek food cake pictures)
• Taming Doubt
  There's a moral there.
  (tags: emotions programming)

Government announces new ISP legislation

"Our response to the consultation on peer-to-peer file sharing sets out our intention to legislate, requiring ISPs to notify alleged infringers of rights (subject to reasonable levels of proof from rights- holders) that their conduct is unlawful," said the report. "We also intend to require ISPs to collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers (derived from their notification activities), to be made available to rights-holders together with personal details on receipt of a court order."

I'd like to see some detail on the word "reasonable" there...

From

Microsoft Songsmith

Is a bit of work that came out of Microsoft Research, taking voices and providing a musical backing to it.

There's an advert floating about for it that's sheer awfulness personified.

And there's no way that it's going to produce amazing, emotive music that reaches into the depths of your soul.

But frankly, listening to what it does to Eye of the Tiger, I'm impressed at how well it works.  Sure, it's banal and pointless, but the point here isn't that it's produced something you'd buy, but that it's produced something that actually works with the vocal part without clashing at all.  That's a very impressive step all by itself.

So, as something you'd pay money for: FAIL.  As a harbringer of something that may be very interesting in a few years time?  WIN.

(Also, it produces funny things, like that video)

I want a doggie

This is very clever

Cheers to the_magician for the link.