The next generation of CCTV cameras might be just a tad more intrusive:

Seven cameras in Middlesbrough town centre have a facility, which allows operators to bark orders at those involved in anti-social behaviour.

Officials hope the additions to the town's 160 cameras will help to further reduce street crime.

[...]

Barry Coppinger, Middlesbrough Council's executive member for community safety, said: "[...] For example, if an operative now sees someone dropping litter, they can tell them to pick it up, or if they see an incident starting to get out of hand, they can give advice that will hopefully nip it in the bud."

[...]

I can't help wondering whether this might build up public resistance to even more CCTV surveillance. For better or worse, the British public has largely accepted the spread of CCTV over the last decade or so, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that even though CCTV cameras in our town centres are usually easy to spot if you choose to look for them they're not drawing attention to themselves. If you're not outraged at the very idea of being watched, it's easy to forget the cameras are present for long stretches of time, and I think that the CCTV cameras being so unobtrusive has been a crucial factor in the public's acquiescence to their spread.

However, if operators of these new cameras are frequently to be heard telling off hoodie-wearing teenagers or errant cyclists won't this serve to make everyone more conscious that they're under observation? I know that the initial reaction from the average Daily Mail reader is likely to be that that litterbug deserved to be called out, or that pair of men getting into a loud argument over a parking space really needed to be told to clam up and walk away, but over time I think more obvious signs of surveillance (not to mention very public corrective messages coming from on high) might just undermine public support for CCTV. Especially if there's a perception that the cameras are being used as an inadequate substitute for police on the streets. After all, which is going to be more effective: an amplified voice over a tannoy system telling a couple of rowdy revellers to calm down, or a quiet word from a police officer on the scene?

I do believe this photo of a solar transit involving the International Space Station and the space shuttle Atlantis might just be the most impressive image of space hardware I've seen in this century.

(I mean, this is nice, and this is pretty neat, but they're just not in the same class, are they?)

[Via Q Daily News]

A collection of speculative fiction-related links I've picked up over the last week or so:

• This side by side comparison of the original and remastered versions of Star Trek (the Original Series, that is) demonstrates how carefully the special effects have been revamped. If I were in the market for a DVD box set I'd have no objections whatsoever to the changes. Unlike a certain other SF franchise where the reworked versions changed the storyline. (NB: first link is to a 42MB Quicktime movie.)
• Talking of classic Trek, I don't think Kirk and Spock getting Closer is in the remastered Trek.
• Jim Emerson's reports from the Toronto International Film Festival included highly encouraging comments on Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain and Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.
• Matt Gardner's Fantastic 4 – Doomsday Flash animation is very, very nearly as funny as his X-Men: Death Becomes Them from last year. Actually, cancel that: I'm probably just letting my inner X-Men fanboy side get the better of me. There really isn't anything in it – if you liked the one, you'll almost certainly enjoy the other.

[Remastered Trek link via MetaFilter, Fantastic 4 - Doomsday via Our Lady Has Mystick Powers, posting at Barbelith Underground]

Why Savage Love is the best advice column ever:

I'm a recent college grad who's having a tough time meeting a nice girl. I'm above-average in terms of looks (I work out regularly) and I'm pretty smart (I went to a top school). My problem is that I'm not outgoing, but very shy. This is probably the reason I'm not a big fan of the bar scene. Is there some way or place I can meet cute, smart girls in a more comfortable setting? Thanks.

Doing My Best

You, my friend, need a gay friend. A fun-lovin', presentable, passable male homo who wants to go out drinking with you, will get shit-faced with you, and, when he notices a girl checking you out or you checking out a girl, will push you in the girl's direction or walk up to her and ask if his cute but painfully shy straight friend can buy her a drink. Women love cute-but-shy guys with gay friends. Trust me.

You can return the favor by going to gay bars with your gay friend, getting shit-faced with him, dancing shirtless with him, and telling anyone who hits on you that you're hopelessly straight but that your gay friend here is single and awesome.

Finally, DMB, if your gay friend hooks you up with the woman you wind up marrying, he not only gets to be your best man, but he also has the option of blowing you immediately before the ceremony. The gay mafia is pretty strict about enforcing this last provision.

The cover for this week's edition of the New Yorker is a memorable piece of work, but I think I prefer some of illustrator John Mavroudis' other cover concepts.

For my money, the fourth and fifth iterations (the two images of the tightrope walker walking between the towers-as-clouds) and the last one (the view from above the tightrope walker) are more striking.

[Via Away With Words]

Wil Wheaton has fond memories of the early seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation:

[On the episode The Naked Now...] One of Geordi's first stops is to visit his good pal Wesley Crusher, who shows off one of his science projects (a mini tractor beam,) and one of his toys, a device that lets Wesley recreate speech from anyone on the ship. Any doubt that Wesley is a complete weenie is removed when we learn that he uses this device to have Captain Picard say things like, "Welcome to the bridge, Wesley," instead of having Counselor Troi say things like, "Smack my ass, Wesley, I'm a naughty, naughty bitch." To entirely erase any lingering doubt, Wesley spends the rest of the scene whining that the captain won't let him on the bridge, even though Wesley is so obviously smart and cool. (On a personal note, I'd like to thank the writers for making such a great first impression with my character. In addition to this spectacular scene, I also got to say lines like, "So you mean I'm drunk? I feel strange, but also good!" In fact, John D.F. Black — who I didn't realize at the time hated me — also wrote Justice, where he gave me the awesome line, "We're from Starfleet! We don't lie!" Thanks for that one, too, Mr. Black.)

[Via Apropos of Something]

600 doctors have signed a petition asking the BBC to release Cardiac Arrest on DVD:

More than 600 doctors have signed up to a campaign to resuscitate Cardiac Arrest, which ran for three series from 1994-96, and caused enormous controversy because of its graphic scenes and politically incorrect humour. The BBC1 series, starring a young Helen Baxendale as a hardbitten doctor, portrayed nurses, managers and consultants in a deeply unflattering light, with exhausted junior doctors heroically muddling through on vodka and practical jokes.

The series had eight million viewers at the height of its popularity, but ran into criticism that it was hugely unflattering to the NHS and its staff. There was outrage when one episode showed a young haemophiliac with a nosebleed bleeding to death in a casualty department. Another episode featured Baxendale attempting to save a patient while her colleague read to her from a soft porn book. Several of the nurses were obsessed with sleeping with a young doctor and showed a complete lack of interest in the patients.

Nothing since has come close to presenting such a blackly comic view of life at the sharp end of the NHS, with the possible exception of the same writer's Bodies. (I didn't seen enough of the latter series to get hooked, but what I saw made it look like a picture of where the characters from Cardiac Arrest would have been a decade on.)

Adam Freeman on the death of Steve Irwin:

Believe it or not you do have a responsibility to stay alive. You have a family to provide for. You have kids that love you and will be crushed if you leave this earth that soon and that stupid. If I go – who will program the TiVo?

So you know what I do to preserve my family? You know what I do when I am not working or playing (safely) with my kids? I do what any responsible, sane adult should do…

I sit motionless in a comfortable chair at least 3 yards away from any electrical current, open window, running water or heavy object. I make sure the room tempurature is exactly 72 degrees, that I have had all of my vacinations and that I have not accidentally ingested any deadly toxins like pop rocks and cocoa cola. I sit motionless and I wait until I am called upon to do something else.

THATS living. I am going to be here for a long time and enjoy every minute of it.

While I'm onn the subject of Steve Irwin, I'm indebted to MetaFilter poster iconomy for pointing out this LiveJournal user's icon. (Icon archived here in case the user changes it.)

[Via Cruel.com]

Inmates shave heads to mop up Philippine oil spill:

MANILA (Reuters) – Thousands of prisoners have been shaving their heads and chests to donate hair to help mop up the Philippines' worst oil spill, officials said on Wednesday.

The collection was in response to a nationwide drive by the government to amass tonnes of hair and feathers to absorb more than 200,000 liters of industrial fuel that leaked from a tanker when it sank off the central island of Guimaras on August 11. [...]

[Via Seed]

Why YouTube works:

Why is online video taking off now? Part of the answer must be because most people have broadband now. I doubt that is the main cause, though.

YouTube has made three main innovations:

1. Making it incredibly easy for users to contribute videos
2. Making a central location to find video clips, with lots of good ways to find them (browsing, searching)
3. Giving the Internet a way to link to videos, and giving television clips a way to exist on the Internet.

The first two points are fairly clear, but the third could be the most important. [...]

I don't think there's any "could" about it.

[Via plasticbag.org]

Achewood on the Google logo.

[Via Buzz Andersen's del.icio.us bookmarks]

I'm just guessing, but I suspect that the very thought of these Mac Mini Skins would make Steve Jobs cry.

(But then again, perhaps not: remember the iMac Flower Power.)

[Via #!/usr/bin/girl]

Minuscule – the ladybug is a wonderful little animation about a very competitive ladybird, a horde of bluebottles and a spider who's having a very bad day.

Apparently this is a French pilot for a series of animated shorts. If they can maintain this high standard it'll be worth looking for on DVD some day.

[Via MetaFilter]

This page listing the lamest edit wars on Wikipedia is scary:

Ethnic feuds

Werner Herzog
Born in Germany in 1942 of a German mother and a Yugoslavian father, and raised in Bavaria, Germany. Does that make him a) Croatian or b) Serbian? Fill your edit summaries with original reporting and interviews. Yes, interviews that you conducted — or heard rumors about.

[...]

Copyrights

Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
Can anonymously written folk songs be copyrighted? What if the anonymous author sues Wikipedia? Or his son? Such a serious controversy on such a serious article can only be settled by a soul-scarring delving into international copyright law, which fails to convince an obstinately irascible user out to impugn Wikipedia's credibility.

[...]

Punctuation

Berwick-upon-Tweed
A slow-moving edit war that centred over the use of … an exclamation mark. As User:Ulayiti exclaimed on the talkpage, "Come on guys, you can't actually be having an edit war over one tiny exclamation point!"

[Via Making Light (Particles)]

Lore Sjöberg brings us the ultimate blog post:

Boing Boing: Crocheted replica of subway map cracks DRM on collection of old video games.

[...]

Slashdot: AMD, SCO patent MP3 over TCP/IP, sue ATI, EA. Microsoft probably responsible somehow.

[...]

Cute Overload: A kitten licks a puppy while the puppy licks a bunny.

Fleshbot: Same as Cute Overload, only with coeds.

[...]

If only Johnny Depp could have a scene like this in the next Pirates of the Caribbean film.

[Via Pharyngula]

Testing airport security the Spinal Tap way:

I don't care about terrorists. You know why? LIFE INVOLVES RISK. The only way of making air travel completely safe is to BAN FLYING. The "zero risk" game is unwinnable, and the only people that lose are us, in the form of our civil liberties. Every time I'm asked to remove another piece of clothing at the airport security check, I go nuts. But quietly, lest they probe my bum-bum.

My question was this: are the security checks really any more effective? To find out, I decided to re-enact the classic scene from the 1984 movie This is Spinal Tap, where bassist Derek Smalls puts a foil-lined cucumber down his pants, which is picked up by the security wand. Only I decided to go one better, by putting a buzzing vibrator down my pants.

Childish? Yes. Silly? Indisputably. Entertaining? Oh yes…

[Via Cruel.com]

This is what happens when you get a critical mass of web geeks in one place.

[Via plasticbag.org]

The teaser for Pan's Labyrinth looks really good. Perhaps even good enough to make me forgive Guillermo del Toro for making us wait for Hellboy 2.

[Via Ghost in the Machine]

It's not a tremendous surprise that Steve 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin was killed in an encounter with wildlife, but the specifics weren't what most of us would have predicted:

Mr Irwin's manager John Stainton told the BBC the stingray's barb had pierced the personality's heart.

"He came over the top of a stingray and a barb, the stingray's barb went up and put a hole into his heart," he said.

"We got him back within a couple of minutes to Croc 1, which is Steve's research vessel, and by 12 o'clock when the emergency crew arrived they pronounced him dead."

[...]

The stingray is a flat, triangular-shaped fish, commonly found in tropical waters.

It gets its name from the razor-sharp barb at the end of its tail, coated in toxic venom, which the animal uses to defend itself with when it feels threatened.

Attacks on humans are a rarity – only one other person is known to have died in Australia from a stingray attack, at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1945.

Sounds like the very definition of a 'freak accident' to me.

Irwin could come across as a bit of a nutter, but it was patently obvious that he cared quite sincerely for the welfare of the creatures he encountered/wrestled/trapped/brawled with. David Attenborough he wasn't, but Irwin's more … hands-on … approach made for great TV too.