Monthly Archives: August 2007

I heart Selly Oak

As a slogan it’s no “..it’s not shit” (hem, hem), but it’s nice to see that students aren’t just wasting their lives on facebook and in the Gun Barrels. Via Birmingham University Labour Students

The Times reports that “Officials will fit sensor equipment to Birmingham’s fleet of 70 dustcarts so they can pinpoint their location every minute of the working day.” The paper claims that this is because the binmen are “taking unauthorised breaks”, which is probably not the whole story – it might have more to do with efficiencies of routes and planing and that. But as an aside, it’s possible that it’s to track the workers. Gone are the days when workers would be trusted to do their jobs without ‘tagging’, it would seem. Perhaps if workers weren’t outsourced, messed around and were safe in their jobs this sort of monitoring wouldn’t be necessary (but that’s just a personal rant, so please ignore).

Halo effect

D’Log, that always has the oddest things to show and tell, links to Daden a company based in Brum. On their site they’ve got Halo – who is “sample chatbot (created with Vhost’s SitePal service)” (follow the links on the origninal post if you’d like that explained a bit). She sits with a back drop of The Rotunda and Selfridges (that places her around The custard Factory) and you can talk to her – typing – and she answers back I asked Halo about Brum and she told me: “Birmingham is in the British Midlands. It is about 100 miles north west of London. It is England’s second city”. Yah Boo Manchester, a virtual girl said it so it must be true. Since she seems to live around by the Spotted Dog I asked if she’d complained “Dogs need to be in the countryside. I love working sheep dogs.”. Not quite ready for the Turing Test, then, but fun all the same.

Growing a beard

Bearded “is a bi-monthly music magazine based in the Moseley suburb of Birmingham”, that I’ve just seen on Wikipedia but I hadn’t heard of previously. I’ve learnt that it “that distributes for free nationwide through a distribution network of independent record shops, alternative music venues and other hubs of alternative culture”, it sounds interesting – why haven’t I seen this? Then I see that it’s first issue is out on 20 August 2007 – nothing like getting your promotional wiki-ing in early guys. Seriously though, it will be good to see, and if writing about themselves in some bizare future-past tense is any training I bet it’ll be a good read..

As a rule, we think Brummie is spelled with an ‘ie’

But, then it wouldn’t rhyme on these limited edition t-shirts from Team Bostin.

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Monthly Archives: August 2007

I heart Selly Oak

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Halo effect

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As a rule, we think Brummie is spelled with an ‘ie’

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