A Welsh View

Daily Links

Stowaway Found Dead In NY Jet
Oops! Live Son Gets Funeral
Thief Swallows Diamond Ring

German Toilets

Can anyone who has been to Germany verify whether or not this is true?

Flash Casino

Feeling in a gambling mood? This site has flash versions of roulette, blackjack, craps, baccarat, video poker and keno. [via Entensity]

Misc Photos

Are these people crazy?

Lightning Strikes The Strip

This is too freaky.

I'm confused.

Cute.

Mother Bakes Baby In Oven

World Net Daily: Mother bakes baby in oven

A five-month-old baby boy remains hospitalized after allegedly being placed inside a hot oven by his own mother who is now in custody.

Agence France-Presse reports the child is in a Swedish hospital, suffering second-degree burns all over his body from the incident which took place last weekend.

The incident reportedly took place on Sunday, and the boy's 30-year-old mother was arrested two days later as police grew suspicious that she had intentionally inflicted the injuries.

Windows XP Box...In A Windows XP Box

Hollywood Treads Softly Against Pirates

International Herald Tribune: Hollywood treads softly against pirates

While the recording industry has made headlines with a few hundred lawsuits, the movie industry has been sending out hundreds of thousands of threatening notices via e-mail messages each week to the people who make its products available on the Internet.

The music industry's approach has contributed to a decline in downloading but has also produced a public backlash, angering millions of its customers. That is one reason Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, said his industry would not follow the same path soon.

"I'm not ruling out anything, but at this moment we don't have any specific plans to sue anyone," Valenti said. "I think we have learned from the music industry."

What Hollywood must do now, Johnson said, is to move faster to develop the licensing agreements and technology that can make digital video services easy to use and worth paying for.

In other words, the biggest challenge for the video industry lies not with pirates but with bytes, cash and lawyers.

ATTN: Female Readers

I know how much women worry about their weight, so female readers of this blog should take a look at this picture, particularly over the Christmas period when the calorie intake goes through the roof. It should make you feel better about yourselves.

FrogPad

I can't understand why anyone would want to switch to a keyboard that requires re-training. Of course, keyboards like the FrogPad are much smaller than other portable keyboards but I find it hard to believe that within just 6-10 hours people can type 40 words per minute on the keyboard.

Also, why do these mini keyboards cost vastly more than regular keyboards and even full-size portable keyboards?

English Spelling

In a reply to a letter in today's Times newspaper, author Lynne Truss, highlights the errors of English spelling.

"[George Bernard Shaw] once said that English spelling was so irrational you could spell the word "fish" as "ghoti" if you put together the GH from "enough", the O from "women", and the TI from "nation".

The Times Quiz 4: Health Quiz

Sex and drugs and alcohol

The Times Quiz 6: Arts Quiz

Find Nemo - or your nemesis

The Times Quiz 5: Fashion Quiz

Earn your zeitgeist stripes

The Times Quizzes: Answers

Here are the answers to all of the quizzes.

The Times Quiz 3: Sport Quiz

Can you pick the winners?

The Times Quiz 2: Emotional Intelligence Quiz

Follow the golden rules to make your home life happy

The Times Quiz 1: Annual Christmas Quiz

People, places, names, faces: how well do you remember 2003?

The Times Quiz 7: Verbatim Quiz

The linguistic remains of the day

The Times Christmas Quizzes

The Times has published a variety of quizzes on it's Web site. As only people in the UK can view The Times web site without subscribing I will post the quizzes in the next few posts.

The Times Quiz 8: Required Reading

Name the ghost writer

Boxing Day

In Britain and parts of the Commonwealth it is Boxing Day. If, like me, you are unsure what Boxing Day is and why it is celebrated here are some possible explanations.

There is much dispute over the true origins of Boxing Day, but one common story of the holiday's origins is that servants used to receive Christmas gifts from their employers on December 26, after the family celebrations. These were generally called their Christmas boxes. Another story is that this is the day that priests broke open the collection boxes and distributed the money to the poor.

Boxing Day is now a public holiday in the UK, and traditionally a day of sport. Like other public holidays which may occur on a non-working day, the "day off" will occur on the first day after the public holiday that would otherwise be a working day, though Boxing Day itself remains on the 26th.

[via Wikipedia]

University Teaches Pet Therapy

BBC: University teaches pet therapy

A course for people who want to psychoanalyse their pets has been launched by Edinburgh University. Developed by the university's Royal School of Veterinary Studies, the Distance Learning Package in Companion Animal Behaviour comes on a £80 CD-Rom.

It gives training tips as well as advice on welfare and techniques for dealing with "problem behaviour".

The university says the course covers everything from popular pets, dogs, cats and hamsters, to the more exotic, including parrots and iguanas.

More information can be found here.