July 2005 Archives

Having been at home for much of the last fortnight we've noticed how many recorded calls by autodialler we're getting now. It's about one every other day, except for today where there's been three already. Some of them are the usual badly recorded American voice offering some prize in Las Vegas or similar, others go dead immediately - presumably if we left it to the answerphone then we'd here the whole exciting pitch.

There doesn't appear to be a lot we can do about it. We could ban unannounced numbers, although that would cause problems for some legitimate commercial callers. Also that wouldn't solve the problem entirely because sometimes there is a number - it just doesn't appear to be a real number as the prefices don't seem to be legitimate (you get disconnected messages if you ring them and they are not listed in the official code lists [pdf])

For reference here are the numbers we've had recently:

• 08776 276 591 (4 calls)
• 08663 448298 (1 call)
• not available (3 calls)

Update: Apparently the banning you can do only affects "number withheld" whereas the autodialler calls from the US are "number not available" - so there'd be no point in that anyway. Also this afternoon we had three more calls so I've updated the numbers above - note six if those calls were received today.

From Comic Book Resources - CBR News - The Comic Wire

Templesmith ran down his laundry list of upcoming projects as well: ... "And hopefully another monthly (or semi-monthly thing) from IDW called 'Wormwood,' if the gods are kind to me…and the sleep deprivation doesn't kill me. This would be a more personal thing, offbeat crazy stuff-- like a Guinness-drinking, slightly black, horror version of the old Doctor Who, but he sleeps with his companions, is a bit of a bastard, and already happens to be dead."

I've come across a few interesting things today related to maps and pictures. Most recently I see (via Slashdot) that Google Maps has introduced a new feature allowing you to see satellite imagery overlaid with the map data. Here is where we live (almost).

Other interesting links are

• Geograph
• Get-a-map from the Ordnance Survey
• Geobloggers

The trailer for V for Vendetta is kind of interesting. Unfortunately like most such trailers these days it's all fast cuts and explosions so it's hard to get a real sense of what it's like. Note the actual movie file is here for those of us who like to watch movies full screen - something the brain dead quicktime plugin doesn't seem to allow.

These pictures are quite amazing.

here and also here