John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles and, with Paul McCartney, formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that would produce the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as “Give Peace a Chance” and “Imagine“. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, but re-emerged in 1980 with a new album, Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews, and he became controversial through his political activism. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon‘s administration to deport him, while his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement.

As of 2010, Lennon’s solo album sales in the United States exceed 14 million units, and as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 27 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Non-U.S. users frequently encounter the annoyance of geo-blocked content when trying to access popular sites like Hulu, but every now and then we feel the burn in the States, too. Reader hengehog details how to access BBC’s iPlayer from outside the U.K.More »

(Via Lifehacker.)

Remember remember, the Fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot.
I know of no reason,
Why the gunpowder treason,
Should ever be forgot.

So, the time of year again. 5th of November, more commonly known as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. So, I shall give you a bit of backgroud information on the infamous plot and treason of the one Guy Fawkes.

On November the 5th, 1605, a man by the name of Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament, in London.
(For those of you who don’t know where the houses of Parliament are, it’s where the Big Ben is.) Guy Fawkes had earlier infiltrated the Houses of Parliament, laying down more than 36 barrels of gunpowder in the undercroft of the house.

However, this plot apparently leaked out, and in the very early mornings of 5th November, Guy Fawkes was captured by the king’s guards. Far from denying his intentions during the arrest, Fawkes stated that it had been his purpose to destroy the King and the Parliament. Nonetheless to say, very brave man. He was tortured for a period of four days, where he revealed nothing but the names of the people who already have been captured as part of the plot. He was hanged, drawn and quatered on the 31st January, along with number of others implicated in the conspiracy.

A brief summary of the event which took place that fateful night.

Celebrations on this night involve fireworks displays and the building of bonfires on which traditionally “Guys” are burnt. Children are supposed to make a Guy doll, and then burn him on the bonfire. Jolly cheerful, ain’t it?

And now back to the question: Why do we celebrate Guy Fawkes Night?

One simple reason my friends.

Commonly, people celebrate this as the day that Guy Fawkes was captured and the plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament failed.

They celebrate the fact that the Catholic church still ruled with it’s power ad the King didn’t get assasinated.
I know, highly happy occasion, isn’t it?

Me? I celebrate this for a different reason. I reckon this day should be celebrated by what it had hoped to achieve, a show of the people standing up against their parliament. It’s a show of rebellion, an idea that is passed down through the centuries.
We are told to remember the idea, but not the man because a man can fail where an idea cannot.
And four hundred years later an idea can still change the world.

Who knows? Maybe one day, someone might actually succeed in finishing what the Gunpowder Plot started.

Sigh. Here we thought Facebook, Twitter and all those silly little websites were making our lives easier. Not so!

British insurance company Legal & General recently published a scary-sounding report called ‘The Digital Criminal’ which asserts users of Facebook et al. are opening themselves up to disaster, like burglars.

You know, because burglars can see when and where you’re on vacation, then find your home, break in, steal your stuff, pee on your toilet seat and overfeed your fish. Then you come back and you’re shit’s gone, your toilet’s sticky, your fish is dead and you kick yourself, ‘Why did I tweet myself in the foot?’

Considering all the dangers lurking in — and, apparently, out — of the internet, Legal & General and other insurance companies are talking about raising rates for those who indulge in virtual networking. Still, they admit its not so black and white:

Malcolm Cooper, director of pricing and underwriting at Legal & General, said: ‘Its a challenging one for the insurance industry. Just because someone is burgled, you cant prove that its down to details posted on Facebook.

‘It could be that we start asking how many youngsters are in the home for example.’

Cooper obviously hasn’t heard that it’s not the young one who are responsible for the silly Twitter boom. It’s The Olds! Although, we admit, his rationale does make a good argument for selling one’s ingrate children.

(Via Gawker.)

The music legend performs a special mini-concert on top of the Ed Sullivan Theater Marquee. Songs include: “Coming Up,” “Band on the Run,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Helter Skelter,” and “Back in the USSR.”

Seven Sexton sent us a link to this awesome 1992 video of Queen‘s Brian May talking about “The Fireplace,” his famous electric guitar that he and his dad built from scrap bits such as a mantle from a 100-year old fireplace (hence the name), a chunk of a table, a spring from a motorcycle, a piece from his mother’s knitting needle, etc. Amazingly, this is not some fragile relic he keeps in the closet, but a working guitar, one you’ve heard on many Queen songs. His family was poor and his dad built most of their home electronics, including their television and radio. Wonderful, inspiring little piece. I love the opening quote from him:

I’m still a kid. Basically, I LOVE the sound of the guitar. I love making it. I love standing there and making that noise.

(via MakeOnline)

Apparently, some folks in the UK haven’t yet realized that no database is fully secure, and any large database of info will almost certainly be abused at some point. In what appears to be a stunningly bad idea, the UK has put together a giant database including info on every child in the UK. The goal is for it to be used by childcare professionals, but you can bet it will be misused quite soon. As internet law expert Michael Scott notes: ‘Who thought this was a good idea? And why?’

(Via Techdirt.)

British physicist Stephen Wolfram today officially launched his new, massively-hyped search engine, Wolfram Alpha. Now for the inevitable letdown; and for the hard questions more journalists should have been asking weeks ago.

Wolfram Alpha has, inevitably, been repeatedly compared to Google. Of course: just like the fatally overhyped search engine Cuil, Wolfram Alpha was previewed for sympathetic press, who, with help from all sorts of other media, quickly raised expectations to unmeetable levels (a long and storied tech-industry tradition).

Wolfram is attempting to almost magically deduce useful, precise information from the mess of information that is the World Wide Web. That’s a task that has thus far eluded even the scientist who invented the WWW itself, Tim Berners-Lee, who has spent more than a decade on a crusade to do basically the same thing through a system he calls the ‘Semantic Web.’

In its present state, Wolfram Alpha excels at providing information people don’t care about, like ‘How far will the Earth be from the Sun tomorrow?‘ or ‘the average body mass index of a 40-year-old male, whether the Eiffel Tower is taller than Seattle’s Space Needle, and whether it is high tide in Miami right now.’ Try asking something more complicated and you get an error message like the one at left (Google might get this one wrong, but at least it tries!)

Will Wolfram Alpha ever improve? Sure, but it’s hard to imagine it ever improving enough to be truly useful; human language itself lacks the precision to enable what Wolfram is attempting. Or so it would seem. As social tech professor and author Clay Shirky has written, ‘Actual human expression must take into account the ambiguities of the real world, where people, even those with real taste, disagree about what is interesting or affected…’

For now, people of real taste disagree about the fate of Wolfram Alpha. But those sorts of opinions have a way of converging as a startup’s fate becomes more clear.

(UPDATE: Comments enabled; they were off due to a tech glitch.)

(Via Valleywag.)

Londoners: rally today at Scotland Yard 11AM to preserve the right to photograph!: “Just a reminder for you Londoners: the National Union of Journalists and the British Journal of Photographers are having a photo-in today at Scotland Yard, a demonstration against the outrageous new law that can put you in jail for ten years for taking a photo of a police officer ‘a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’

We’ll be gathering at Scotland Yard today at 11AM, cameras in hand, to make the point: Nineteen Eighty-Four was not a manual for statecraft.

Monday 16 February 2009, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 will come into force, potentially making it a crime to take a picture of members of Her Majesty’s armed forces, including constables.

The Act amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer. The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who ‘elicits or attempts to elicit information about (members of armed forces) … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.

The penalty could be of up to 10 years in prison. While BJP does not believe the Act will result in the imprisonment of photographers and photojournalists, we believe the Act could be abused by some police officers who are already loosely using Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to prevent photographers from taking pictures in public places.

So, we have joined the National Union of Journalists’ call for photographers to make their voices heard at a media event on 16 February in front of New Scotland Yard. The plan is simple, turn up with your camera and exercise your democratic right to take a photograph in a public place.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Visitors can look around the Cabinet Room….Number 10 Downing Street has opened its famous front door to the public after more than 270 years, with a virtual tour for web users.

Visitors can look at rooms, find out historical information and click on objects such as paintings and furniture for extra details.

Tony Blair told the BBC the tour was “an excellent way of showing the tremendous history of this building”.Number 10 has been used as a home by prime ministers since the 1730s. [via BBC News]