Hey! These controls aren't working!

Both Daily Kos and the BBC (and, apparently, the Washington Post) are reporting that the US is unhappy with the erector-set council it built for Iraq - apparently it doesn't bend in the right places, instead putting up resistance when pushed. Shame, that. Next thing the council will be wanting to control the country's oil reserves and handle the distribution of lucrative contracts to local or regional companies.

grr, eircom

I would like to sign up for flat-rate internet access. For €30/month, I can get 150 hours, with excess being charged at the regular dialup rates (5¢/min peak, 1+¢/min off-peak). I can get to the Eircom site to register for this as long as I'm not dialed up via Elive as apparently Eircom think I'm no longer in Ireland if I do that and have restricted their registration site to Irish IPs only. Dorks. Anyway. In order to sign up for flat rate, I need my account number, but since I've just changed addresses, closed one account, and set up another (no, nothing so simple as changing my address while retaining my account would do for Eircom), I don't yet have my new account number. So I'm stuck on the aforementioned regular dialup rates until such time as something falls through my letterbox telling me what my new account number is. Bah.

augumented living

It just occurred to me (well, duh, I'm slow) that using Google to "check someone out" when you're interested in them, as I understand is the habit of some people, is merely the tip of a very large iceberg now that you can also download and listen to their favourite tune, clips - or perhaps all of - their favourite movies and TV programs, listen to streams from their favourite radio stations, read the texts of a scary amount of their favourite books - particularly if they like classics - or at least sample them on Amazon... damn this net is a scary and powerful thing.