The other week in Boston, I spotted a sign in Burlington Mall advertising “Simon Guest Services”. Instinctively I reached for my camera only to be pounced on by a couple of uniformed guards. They ‘advised’ me to put my camera away as photography is strictly forbidden. Negotiation was futile; any attempts at humor wasted. Well it seems photographer Thomas Hawk also had such an experience and as a result there is a photo meet at noon today on Bush Street (how ironic!). Pity I’m 8 timezones away, ‘cos I’d love to join them!

Should Photography be Illegal?, NYC Subway Photography Ban, The Photogrpaher’s Right - A Downloadable Flyer

Technorati Tags: photography

Burried amongst the acres of newsprint describing the awful events in London last week were some lucid comments from that old curmudgeon, Richard Ingrams:

Muslims have been sternly lectured in most of the papers about the need for them to change their ways - to adapt, to integrate, to control the fanatical elements. Nowhere have I seen any suggestions that the non-Muslims might also have an obligation of sorts to change their ways.

Boston, July 2005 is a set of 85 rather uninspired snaps taken during last week’s W3C Web Services Addressing and Web Services Description face-to-face meetings hosted by Sonic in Bedford, MA.

It’s fascinating how people evaluate risk. I’m heartened to hear reports of an increase in cycling following last week’s bombs on public transport, that seems like a positive outcome, more so than, say driving a car. So whilst last night’s Trafalgar Square Vigil was totally appropriate and quite moving, it bears reminding that in 2003 3508 people were killed on Britain’s roads, that’s 9 deaths per day. Where was their vigil?

This introduction is fun and I’ve no doubt goes down well in the States where people are more, er, enthusiastic, but to this Brit it’s an all too embarrassing reminder of how Neil Kinnock snatched electoral defeat from the jaws of victory in 1992, We’re all right! We’re all right! .. brrr!

The Chairs’ Report along with minutes (dotted with some of my photos) are now available for last month’s W3C Workshop on Schema 1.0 User Experiences. My executive summary: “we’ve all invested a ton of money in this thing, so fix it without breaking it!”

Technorati Tags: schemaexperiences, w3c

So after years of funding terrorist attacks in London and now fueling them with the “war on flies^W terror”, this is how America chose to express its solidarity. You can run and we’ll hide.

So, is it “a XML thing” or “an XML thing”? Well Googlefight says “an XML”, and Google is always right.

Ever since the Shengen Treaty, boarders in the Benelux countries are less of a thing. All the same it may come as a surprise to the Dutch that according to Google’s new European map, they’ve swapped territory with Belgium.

P.S. I love the way Redcar and Whitley Bay, of all places, make it onto the Zoomed out UK map, ahead of Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Leeds, York, etc, etc.