Do you want wi-fi with that?

In a move that actually makes our McD’s better than the ones in Paris, they’ve announced that by the end of the year 1200 McD’s in the UK will have free wireless internet. Whoop!

Why is this better than Paris? Because although they’ve had free wi-fi for ages, you have to buy something to get the keycode for the toilets… So in the UK, you can McSurf after your McShit and not spend any money!

I am an uncle! Again!

From Indy in Auckland: “Just a quick email to let you know that we had our second baby today 05/10/07. Carys Ushani Silva was born at 0917am (NZST 🙂 ) and weighed 2.83Kg”

Thing is, I was tempted to get home and buy a flight to Auckland as I knew the second nipper was due in October, just not when. Money, however, kicked in as a factor. As did the fact that Lou’s ****** off over there just before I got back to the UK and I don’t want to end up seeing her there with her part-time boyfriend.

But **** that.

*bounces* I is an uncle! Sod tradition, family trees and actually having to be related! Congratulations to all involved and for crying out loud, take a break before the next one…

Music downloads mean no free wireless

A confusing title perhaps, but let me explain. BT are currently trying to convince people to open up their wireless routers so that the UK becomes a huge wi-fi zone. Very commendable, especially when a lot of their accounts are bandwidth-limited, so if some guy sat in a car outside your 2-up/2-down decided to leach Lost Season 3 on BitTorrent, your downloads are crippled or chargeable for the month thereafter…

The illegal download thing comes in again with this case in the US where a woman has been charged £108,000 for downloading 20 songs. Bizarrely, the case hinged around the fact that she made them availabl for download, so it wasn’t so much how she got the songs – it was what she did with them afterwards. The prosecuting lawyer said she broke the law by making them available, she maintains it was an accident and she knew nothing about it.

So, folks, lock up your CDs. If you leave them lying on a table then someone could copy them and you’re looking at a twenty grand fine for each track that someone else steals. Well, that’s te loiv they’re following.

OK, so how does this relate to the BT story? Simple – if someone else uses your router (no matter how “secure” a portion of it is and regardless of a logon being needed), any illegal activity goes back to your IP address. Child porn downloads, Torrents, hosting of pirated films… by the ruling in that court case, it’s your responsibility. The two clash completely. OK, you have the defense that it wasn’t your computer so you had no control, but it’s your responsibility and the music lawyers seem to have started a nice precedent for “guilty until proved guilty”.

What do *you* want?

Lola has a very good post on her blog today. Deep, insightful and honest. It lists what she looks for in a partner, what she hopes to find and why she looks for these properties and characteristics.

I replied to her post and I agree with pretty much everything she put. I reckon almost everyone I know would look through it and say “yup… I agree” to most of her criteria. Thing is… is that all it takes? Bar the magic “spark” that changes a friendship into a good relationship, is it possible to just tick boxes and go “you’ll do”?

The only one I’ll add to her list is “Must want children… and fairly soon”.

I won’t rip her text off. Please visit the link and have a look. Comment there or comment here.