BrizBunny Rotating Header Image

May, 2010:

Terry Pratchett – Who

It easy having disparate interests; like science fiction and fantasy. We all manage it, and cope with it. But, what could be better than an unanticipated overlap? For me Sir Terry Pratchett talking about Dr Who [^] can only be described as pure bliss.

matt-smith-dr-who

Sir Terry’s story isn’t one of unquestioning adoration, and that makes it better. He acknowledges the flaws, and they upset him as a storyteller. Terry’s relationship with Dr Who has waxed and waned as his life has changed. But he keeps coming back and like the rest of us he accepts it with the flaws and even with the shaky sets of the old Dr Who.

It seems that everyone who had ever watched Dr Who has had a watching through their fingers, or hiding behind the sofa moment. And the Weeping Angels have managed to send a tingle down my spine.

Now how do we get a Dr Who / Discworld cross-over?

Road Safety – Embrace Life

The Embrace Life [^] ad campaign for seat belts is a contrast to the graphic shock tactics normally employed for road safety messages.

Safer Roads

The Sussex Safer Roads ad is intelligent and family friendly, but still manages to shock. This has been doing the rounds on Facebook recently, hopefully that will help spread the message a bit further; everyone needs reminding that there is no reason not to wear a seatbelt!

As far as I’m concerned this ranks up there with the Victorian Pictures of You [^] campaign.

Facebook Privacy Settings

Are you terminally bewildered when you want to edit your Facebook privacy settings? Well the NY Times has proved that you are not alone, it turns out that there are more than 170 options [^]. And to make matters worse, not all of the options are where you would expect to find them!

facebook privacy map

All this makes it even harder for the users to be sure of what bits of “their” information Facebook is showing the world, or Google. Also in the article is a word count of the site’s privacy statement – from 1,004 words in 2005 to today’s 5,830. Does anyone read them all?

Good news, Wired have just reported that Facebook’s Head of Public Policy, Tim Sparapani, has announced that new “simplistic” privacy options [^] will be launched in coming weeks. Apparently this has came about as a result of the recent user backlash about privacy changes.

If you are fed-up with the treatment you get LifeHacker has a guide on how to set-up a minimalist Facebook profile [^]. Another option is the the reclaimprivacy.org [^] bookmark that scans your Facebook profile and shows you a summary of your privacy settings. The bookmark also displays links to the various settings, making changing them a lot easier.

Of course there is always the self destruct option of deleting your account!

Flowers

Sorry about the language, but I love this spring picture of a little girl romping through the tulips [^]:

flowers

The picture originally started off as a spring feature [^] in the Boston Globe, without the extra caption! That little bit, especially the “right in the face” just gives it an extra boost.

Bunny Phobia

A story in the Telegraph of a German teacher with a phobia of rabbits [^] has been running around the internet [^] for the past week of so.

bunny phobia

Apparently a student drew a rabbit on the blackboard knowing that it would affect the teacher. The teacher is now seeking compensation for the distress and loss of earnings.

My guess is this teacher is going to find it hard to go back into the classroom now that word is well and truly out. In fact with a phobia like this how does the teacher manage to leave the house – especially around Easter time! Or is this a hoax?

Interestingly although Leporiphobia shows up on the ‘net as the irrational fear of rabbits no reliable source will confirm this. Just goes to show you can’t believe everything that you “research” with Google. Rabbits do belong to the Leporidae [^] family so it looks right; but bunny-phobia sounds better!

Thanks for the tip-off Larry, I thought it was just me being a bunny-phile and no-one else would find this interesting. Obviously I was wrong.