Dear Mr. Galloway,

I am writing to express my deep concern and alarm at the proposed Digital Economy Bill, sponsored by Lord Mandelson.  That the legislation is ill-conceived, unworkable and uninformed is lamentable, but in addition the genesis of the Bill - a barely-veiled attempt by Lord Mandelson to placate his powerful friends in the media world - is a remarkable example of cronyism and corruption at the highest level of Government.  So despite my links to EMI, and consequently to the BPI who are lobbying to push this Bill through, I feel compelled to register my unease.

And if there is one phrase which should awaken feelings of disquiet in any of us, it is "rushed legislation"  - a phrase unfortunately relevant here.  Harriet Harman indicated last week that the Bill will not be given the full parliamentary scrutiny that should so clearly be applied to such a controversial set of proposals, and instead the government seeks to push the Bill through in the "wash-up" before the dissolution of Parliament.  For legislation that could have a drastic effect on the privacy of individuals and on free speech; that recommends collective punishment normally only seen in the more backward schoolrooms; that is likely to destroy more jobs and lose the country more money than it short-sightedly seeks to safeguard - for all these reasons, it is imperative that the Bill be properly debated, particularly clauses 11-18 which cover 'technical measures' and court orders for website blocking.

It is with dismay, almost despair, that I come to the aspect of the Bill which caused me to write this, my first letter to an MP: the proposed discretionary powers to be given to the Secretary of State.  As the Human Rights Joint Committee recommends in their report on the Bill:

flexibility is not an appropriate reason for defining a power which engages individual rights without adequate precision to allow for proper parliamentary scrutiny of its proportionality.

The Secretary of State would effectively be able to alter future copyright law without further legislation, and would be able to determine how any new policing body is run, altering fines and terms of infringement at will.  This government often talks of "the rule of law"; and I am reminded of some words in Tom Bingham's recent book on the subject:

The rule of law [requires] that no discretion should be unconstrained so as to be potentially arbitrary.  No discretion may be legally unfettered.

Yet legally unfettered discretion is what the Bill seeks to establish.  I trust and hope that you will do all you can to prevent it.

Yours sincerely,

Al Doyle

Not many people (including Japanese) know this, but iPod Touches and iPhones have Japanese handwriting built right in. The trick? Turn on Japanese language support, and the Chinese keyboard. Odd, but works great. Input isn't as fast as a dedicated dictionary, but the ability to whip it out any time and figure out a street sign or nametag is wonderful. As far as translation goes, there are a few applications in the US app store, the best so far being one called simply, "Japanese." It's basic, but fine for basic translation. If you make it to Japan, the Japanese app store has a way better selection.

http://www.dshack.net/.a/6a00e5523d9daf8833010535ef7eb6970c-pi

"I was shocked to learn that only one in 20 music tracks in the UK is downloaded legally. We cannot sit back and do nothing," said Lord Mandelson.

From statistics like this, the UK music industry extrapolates estimated losses per year of around £200 million.  And I have to say, from personal experience, that times are tough at the majors.  Last year our label EMI executed vicious job cuts, resulting in a situation whereby not one person who worked on our previous album is still there to work on our next album.  At the time, people were going in to the office every morning, not knowing whether they'd still have a job in the afternoon. It was very sad for us to see some of the members of the promotion team, the production team and all the numerous other workers - with many of whom we had a personal, friendly relationship - in such a state of disorientation and insecurity.

So it's clear to me that the major labels, and some of the bigger independents like Domino and Warp, are feeling the pinch when it comes to downloads.  However...

The machine is still running.  The labels are working harder with fewer resources, and the majority of the coke-snorting, cocktail-slurping, teen-shagging ex-public schoolboy disgusting-excuses-for-A&R men have gone.  The industry is far less wasteful, and more cautious, than it has ever needed to be in the past.  And we hear recently that sales of singles are up, http://bit.ly/3ZwP3t. ; So why the breathless panic of Mandelson, the media and the labels?

Well one explanation is that rather than luxuriating in the licence to print money that the music industry once held, they now actually have to run things like a proper business.  Margins are lower, because the rules of the game have changed.  Downloads mean everyone has to work harder, "in a more diverse and competitive market", to earn the same amount.  But let's remember that "the same amount" means "an absolute shitload of cash".  It wasn't uncommon, even when we were being signed 5 years ago, to hear label executives talk of "bottomless pits of money".  Now this excess money has mostly gone, and most of those executives are at the bottom of the pit instead, staring into their reflections off the back of an M People CD.  But the machine's still running, and the pop hits are still rolling off the conveyor belt, and Lily Allen is still blowing thousands of pounds on brand new boots and panties.  Us artists are all right; we're not making as much money as we were at one time, but we more than get by doing what we love every day, which is not a bad situation.  With most of our income coming from live music, it means we have to be out on the road more, and labels are already adapting with most contracts now taking a cut of musicians' live earnings.  I can't predict what's round the corner, but I'm not worrying about downloads.

So please don't assume that all musicians are in support of the 3 strikes policy.  Penalising file-sharing is incompatable with privacy laws, will waste more money in policing than it saves the music industry in losses, and will piss everyone off.  I look forward to seeing Mandelson's new "law" get shot down in court.

Thing is, drawing comics really isn't that easy.  From the first moment you sit down to draw - after finding any excuse you can not to face the increasingly stupid-sounding idea you'd been nursing uneasily for the previous day or so - a host of unforseen decisions and hurdles start to multiply and crop up.  Let's take an example: your "idea" demands a scene which starts at night... someone sitting at a table, tired, drawing.  Now unless you're dealing with a character you've already developed, you realize, once you really start to think about it, you really don't know how to draw the person you thought you were imagining more or less clearly all this time.  How old is he? What color is his hair? (What does hair color mean, anyway?)  Also, should you show all of him sitting at that table, or should you just show his face?  From the front, or side?  If he's tired, is he resting his head on his hand, or should he be yawning?

Eventually, really having no other reason not to start, you just start sketching, maybe drawing the figure from the side, hoping for the best.  Shortly, however, he looks sort of bent over, like maybe he's in pain, or bloated, or sick.  But he was just supposed to look sort of tired, you think.  A normal guy, just sitting there. Erase. You decide to turn him around, maybe show him from above, since that's easier to draw, the shoulders and the hips sort of moving away from the viewer at an angle... then you can draw what's on his table, or what's out the window, too, maybe, like the moon, that's easy--

But now he looks like an animal, squatting.  And why from above, anyway? That seems weird, like something from a detective film.  Erase.  Better to just keep it simple- draw it from the side again.  Something sort of normal-seeming about that, anyway.

Before long, you arrive at your first panel, and i doesn't look quite as bad as you thought it would, though you wasted a lot of time getting up from your table to check your email and get a couple of snacks- and maybe you added too much detail to the drawing, too, though the detail is good, sort of, since it gives you some feeling of confidence.  Possibly false, you wonder.

Anyway, in that next panel, he's got to sort of look like he's considering what he's been drawing, sort of concerned a bit, for this to work.  Maybe like he's squinting at it, or something.

But. God-- do I have to draw that whole stupid room completely all over again?

Fuck that. I'll just draw a close-up of his face, furrowing his brow, hand on forehead, squinting... squinting... but-- then he looks constipated, like he's noticing something, somewhere far away.  Erase.  Maybe hand on chin?  Universal thinking posture?  I'll just quick scribble-around to sort of indicate it.  Nope, no-- he looks like he's biting his fist, for some reason.  Maybe I could just write "He was concerned, squinting..." over the drawing.  Authorial Voice, or whatever that's called.  Maybe good to introduce that now, too, as it could come in handy later, as a way of complementing/commenting on the action, like writers do.  Maybe it'll go faster that way.  God, I hate myself.

Finally, you arrive at the conclusion that the only way the two drawings work next to each other without over-dramatizing the moment, or making the page into a mess, is to redraw the whole room from the same angle and same composition and just rotate the character's head a little bit sideways-- which you discover by accident when you read an errant fleck of eraser on the paper as one of his eyes, fallen halfway around the side of his head.  Happy mistake!  You read the pictures back and forth.  Yep, he looks tired, then concerned.  Tired, concerned.  Tiredconcerned.  It works!

And only two or three hours have passed-- on to panel three.

And so on.

I believe the noise that you are referring to is caused by the hydraulic power transfer unit. When one engine is shut down during a prolonged taxi to save fuel, it's associated hyraulic pump is not powered. The active engine's hydraulic system suppies a means of pressuring the idle alternate system via the power transfer unit (PTU).
During takeoff with both engines running (I hope..), retraction of the gear can temporarily cause a high load from it's respective hydraulic system. If I recall correctly, this should not cause the PTU to activate but their is another type of transfer pump that kicks in perhaps causing this noise on climbout. In other aircraft types the PTU noise is likened to a barking dog.

marco bailey - muzika - pig and dan remix

james zabiela - tylium - spooky remix

quince - electric

smith/selway - mistral - anton pieete remix

frankyeffe atochi - traintek - joachim pastor remix

luomo - tessio - ramon tapia remix

moonbeam - chirpy

rolf imhof - sharing time - luetzenkirchen remix

oliver klein and peter juergens - der spatz auf dem dach

and already tweeted:

juergen paape - ofterschwang

john dahlback - autumn

dosem - beach kisses - joris voorn remix