http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40246754 A man accused of posting blasphemous content to Facebook has been sentenced to death by a court in Pakistan. Taimoor Raza was convicted after allegedly posting remarks about the Prophet Muhammad, his wives and companions within the site's comments. Human rights campaigners have expressed concern. Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has described blasphemy as being an "unpardonable offence".
Well I'm all for good information from supermarkets, but telling me how much each poo is going to cost me ... 17p for 100 poos is cheap though
Wow, is that the time.? About 10 minutes ago I finished watching a film called Cloud Atlas [2012] and I'm still collecting my thoughts. As I began watching it I couldn't believe the cast of actors playing, and as I watched further, the same actors cropped up in different roles in different stories. For Cloud Atlas is a hugely ambitious, sprawling film of six separate stories, literally connected by time and space. The first is set in 1850-1 [iirc], then we have 1930, 1973, 2012, 2145, and one in a far off dystopian future [can't remember the date at all] which appears to end up on a far distant planet. They are all interwoven and each climax is teased out at the end. Don't be getting up from this one because it changes from one time story to the next with remarkable fluidity. It stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, James D'Arcy, Hugh Grant [with some really good acting], Hugo Weaving, Keith David, and a host of others I recognised but can't remember their names off hand. The 2004 book is by David Mitchell [no, not that one] and was said to be unfilmable. Well, the producers and directors had a bloody good go at it, and I reckon it is excellent. Mark Kermode found it really hard going and unfathomable, but watched it again a couple of years later and loved it. I think I loved it first go, but whether I can watch it again is another matter. Recommended, but get the snacks in. It lasts 2hrs 52m.!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40269625 Big fire in a block of flats in London, deaths confirmed. People jumping out of windows reportedly.
Yes I heard about this as I was off to bed.Tragic. At the time there had been no idea what the cause was. It's easy to suspect foul play because whole tower blocks tend to only catch fire so completely in Hollywood films [No, I'm not forgetting the WTC].
Yeah, fire regulations are specifically designed to slow down/ prevent a fire spreading and make sure there is an emergency escape route kept open. so to have a fire spread this quickly and seeming cut off escape routes is worrying. especially since that block was refurbished over the last couple of years so should have been very up to date. Lots of talk about it in the office, working for an housing association who own blocks like this there are plenty of people quite shocked by this.
The building was refurbished less than a year ago which included cladding it in plastic material which supposedly met the regulatory standards. At the moment it looks like this cladding may be the reason why the fire spread so quickly. None of this explains why there were no sprinklers or even fire alarms in the building. Whatever actually started the fire, there are many questions which the local community will be demanding to be answered. Thoughts and prayers go out to those poor families affected by this tragedy
I'll bet. This is going to sound very old fashioned, but you'll never get me living in a tower block. 1] because I've never believed that people should live that way, and 2] because whatever you do, heat rises. And a lot of heat rises very quickly. And no matter what fire regulations do, if a fire is big enough it will overcome them. Let's face it, they are only a time window anyway designed to allow people to escape and fire brigades to possibly put out the fire. But what do you do when a fire is all encompassing.? And when you eventually evacuate, you might be doing so from a very dangerous height. At least with homes on the ground the highest one might be leaping from a first storey is about 12-15ft, usually less. But more often than not on just walks out the first door on the ground. The mere thought of being trapped by fire on upper floors leaves me shaking.
What gets me in these situations is why we have to learn from our mistakes again. As if enough examples of past mistakes haven't provided us with enough evidence, we have to have some really recent ones, where ordinary people have to suffer and die just one more time, before some expert says that we should have done this or that, and/or not saved money here or there. And they will. Just wait a few days.
