Today the Daily Telegraph reports that social networking sites, such as Facebook, face a ‘data cost crisis’, as advertising revenue declines from a position that wasn’t exactly lucrative in the first place.

Research by the consultants Deloitte suggests that the cost of storing electronic data ‘has soared to more than $100m (£68m) a year for larger sites, as users increasingly want to upload memory-hungry photos and videos’.

And here’s a version for the US market with some of the same kids. But with every trace of Britishness and most of the Madness imagery removed it doesn’t quite ‘get it’ and ends up looking like a dog’s dinner.

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‘At a computer conference in Alexandria, Virginia, Stefan Savage, a computer security expert who led the “Sneakey” project, surfed the photo-sharing website Flickr and found pictures that clearly showed peoples’ keys, even if personal information in the shots had been blurred out.

In one demonstration, the team cut duplicate keys after analysing images taken on a mobile phone. In another, they used a telephoto lens to take pictures of a set of keys on a cafe table from the roof of a university building.’

The Guardian: Copying keys from photos is child’s play

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‘An ancestor of Monty Python’s famous Dead Parrot comedy sketch has been found in a joke book dating back to Greece in the 4th Century…

[The ancient gags] have been published into a multimedia online e-book, which features video of veteran comic Jim Bowen bringing the old jokes back to life in front of a 21st Century audience.’

BBC

One of the old jokes:

‘Someone needled a well-known wit: “I had your wife, without paying a penny”. He replied: “It’s my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?”‘

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‘Supermarket Sainsbury’s has said it will challenge a ban on selling ‘ugly’ fruit and vegetables which fail to meet EU rules on size and shape.’

BBC News

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Imagine the scene: a beautiful sunny Autumn day on the banks of the canal in Castlefield, golden leaves rustling above my head.

I sit down on a bench, lift my Greggs chargrilled chicken sandwich out of the paper bag and suddenly I’m surrounded by three large geese. One of which keeps running up to me, trying to get at my sandwich.

I get the impression that this bird knows exactly what tactics are most likely to get a result. He’s large, really quite intimidating and at one point I retreat behind the bench. But eventually I realise that I can keep him at bay by stretching out my legs. So I sit down again. Actually he’s not that bad after all. Quite cute.

But what’s this? Sudden a ‘honking’ sound in the distance. Two really big swans arrive, leap out of the water, wings open and run towards me. They could probably break your wrist with a peck, so I leap behind the bench again. Much to the amusement of some people who are passing safely on the other side of the canal.

Eventually the swans give up and take to the water again. One flaps its huge wings and they sail off into the distance.

Take my advice, if you’re thinking of relaxing with a sandwich, stick to Piccadilly Gardens…

‘…consider the devastation of Iraq’s health, once the best in the Middle East, by the ubiquitous dust from British and US depleted uranium weapons. A World Health Organisation study reporting a cancer epidemic has been suppressed, says its principal author. This has been reported in Britain only in the Glasgow Sunday Herald and the Morning Star. According to a study last year by Basra University Medical College, almost half of all deaths in the contaminated southern provinces were caused by cancer.’

John Pilger writing in The New Statesman

I log out of my main Facebook profile and create a new silly profile for a laugh. I click in the email they send me to confirm and immediately there is a message in the new profile saying that David (one of my existing friends on the main profile) has added me as a friend. I confirm his request.

Except that he never did. How could he add the silly profile as a friend when I had only just created the profile a minute earlier and he knew nothing about it?

So, full access to David’s profile when he never actually added me as a friend. Meanwhile David had disappeared as a friend on the main profile but reappeared later.

I message David from the silly profile and he replies ‘who the *@#! are you — I never added you!’.

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Watch the six minute video (super-widescreen format!). It includes two minutes of exclusive archive footage of August Bank Holiday 1991.

A trailer to embed and share can be found here on YouTube.

The real facts and figures behind Pride can be found here.

Manchester Pride 2008 opened last night. A group of 18 year olds gathered to (more…)

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The driver was nowhere to be seen and the passenger was reading a celebrity magazine with an article about Britney Spears.

In my opinion the area between here and Platt Fields Park is one of the most dangerous for cyclists in the whole of Manchester.

‘Scientists have devised a cheap and simple method of turning water into rocket fuel using solar power in a development that could generate a new source of green energy for the home and workplace.’

The Independent.

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The candlelight AIDS vigil on the final night of Manchester Pride has always been a key event and, to some people, the most important part.

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‘A list of companies and government agencies using costly phone helplines to make money at customers’ expense has been published by a consumer group.’

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Now, once again, that policy has been exposed for the fraud it always was.

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Formerly The Scala, it opened in 1912 and was only the third cinema in Britain.

Meanwhile the Victorian railway arches on Store Street, near Piccadilly, are being demolished.

‘Each day, according to the government-backed report, Britons throw away 4.4 million apples, 1.6 million bananas, 1.3 million yoghurt pots, 660,000 eggs, 550,000 chickens, 300,000 packs of crisps and 440,000 ready meals. And for the first time government researchers have established that most of the food waste is made up of completely untouched food products – whole chickens and chocolate gateaux that lie uneaten in cupboards and fridges before being discarded.’

The Independent

‘EARLY BIRD’ TICKET PRICE UP BY 25%

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Some of these used to pop up on ITV in the early hours a decade ago. Maybe we need a dedicated British B-movie TV channel?