Outsourcing IVF - WTF? Just read this article on Wired (the tech-utopian cheerleader) about the Outsourcing of IVF treatment and I'm pretty shocked by it.

The gist is that donor eggs in the U.S. are too expensive, and so a company will transport a sample of sperm to Romania where IVF treatment will be done with a (Romainian) donor egg and the embryo will be frozen and flown back to the U.S. for implanting into the woman who'll carry the kid.

That is just too freaky for me on so many levels

1) The whole Frankensteinian "process" doing the fertilisation, then freezing the embryo before implantation in another country.

2) Third world women selling their eggs to the highest bidder.

3) Childless couples forced to go to such lengths to get a child.

4) The fact that of all the poor countries available, the company set up its base in a country that is overwhelmingly white.

5) Most importantly, thousands of children die through poverty, war, neglect etc etc yet, it seems their life is not worth anything like the effort spent on creating just one life to join the "Global Rich".

It's probably just an over-reaction as Wired's whole existence is to hype technology "breakthroughs" like this but reading that article was like getting a peek down a long dark path that is probably best avoided.  ¶ 2:00 PM 0 comments

  Derek Broon - East Fife Chairman A total joke - Derek Broon, the East Fife chairman complains to the SFA about Hearts appointing Graham Rix as manager. Broon should concentrate more on East Fife's many many problems. Fair enough, the rules were brought in after East Fife's previous entanglement with a sex criminal but...... He shouldn't have interfered in this issue which has nothing to do with him or East Fife. Especially given that one of the best players is/was(?) on loan from....ooops, Hearts.

Broon is an ex-referee and fully paid up member of the SFA Blazerati who appears not to give a shite about East Fife as long as he gets to attend SFA committee meetings and stick his neb in like this. The only chairman I've ever seen that sticks himself front and centre of the official team photo where the manager should be. And that he used to be a director at Cowdenbeath, just proves he's more interested in being part of the SFA than a club.

Of course, he doesn't actually own the club. He's just a proxy chairman, enjoying his lilliputian amount of power after being given it by whoever actually owns East Fife.

In my opinion, the club is fucked.
It appears to me that East Fife F.C. to be being run into the ground, whether through malice or incompetence, I'm not entirely sure. However, any sale of the land for housing once the power station is knocked down would net any absentee owner a nice wee earner.

Look at Dumbarton as a totally unrelated example, Their chairman has already tried to sell their new stadium from under them - they've only been in it a few years!

Fitbaw is pish - peoples game my fat arse. Until there is a pyramid system, wages are realistic and we see more "phoenix" clubs like AFC Wimbledon, FC United of Manchester and Clydebank (new) then we're heading done the slope.

Hearts made a loss of 2m on turnover of 8m!!! They are totally FUCKED! They got loanshark type loans of 2m from Romanov to keep them going but the loans are due to be paid back in January (specifically through player sales) or they have to pay the loans off at a 10% annual interest rate!!!!

They would have been as well putting the 2m on a credit card! I don't think they will ever redevelop Tynecastle - they are meant to be playing at Murrayfield next year while it is being done but I don't think they will ever be back.  ¶ 5:22 PM 0 comments

  Excellent Webcams My bruv passed on a link to a Panda webcam at San Diego Zoo - superb although I don't know how he got it or just what you search for to stuble across something like that...

Another great set of webcams are those hosted by St Andrews.com, this is a site promoting the "Gowf"(know as Golf to outsiders), Fife's most famous export.

The Webcams though are superb, they show St Andrews, Edinburgh, Cardiff & Dundee in good detail. The best bit however is that you can take control of them, move them around and zoom the picture in and out. Look out for Desperate Dan in Dundee

Any other good webcams out there?  ¶ 9:03 AM 0 comments

  All your Bases belong to Google.... Martin just sent on a link to yet another Google creation - click to call

Where will their creativity end?

Google Earth is the 2nd best piece of kit I've used this year (after Opera Mini)

Google Ride Finder is just a baby but will be massive if coupled with GPS Mobiles -imaging booking a taxi, paying for it and then tracking the cab as it comes to pick you up. All on your mobile

Google Base has the biggest potential IMO, it could become a small ads (or big ads!) version of Wikipedia. The drawback is that like every database it depends on data quality. For example, a search for jobs in Edinburgh returns a job in California, US but google base gives the location as the village of "California" outside Falkirk.

Google Video will, in future, allow you to search for video clips from almost any source.

Google Books is just too much of an advance to fit in one sentence. Suffice to say, combined with P-O-D publishing, you will be able to buy a copy of almost every book ever published (outwith copyright anyway).


Google is the proverbial 800 pound Goorilla, the only possible competitior at the moment is Yahoo but they are trailing way way WAY behind. The only thing Yahoo has is a thriving community. There's nothing to say Google won't create that in a few years anyway using Google Base and blogger.  ¶ 1:22 PM 0 comments

  WW1 Again Was just looking through the excellent BBC History website and found a great account of the first shots fired by the British in World War 1.

Part of the article includes the following paragraph

"Ironically, the final shots of the war took place just yards away from the very spot where the 4th Dragoon Guards fought the opening engagement."

Doesn't that just sum up the complete waste that World War 1 was?

Unreal  ¶ 12:38 PM 0 comments

  RIP Alfred Anderson Scotland's oldest man, Alfred Anderson, died.
He was 109 and the last person to experience the Christmas Truce during the 1st world war.

I watched the program "The Last Tommys" last week and it left me feeling very very humble for the sacrifices these men and the men of their generation gave in a horrific war.

Alfred Anderson's story in particular was really really interesting and throughout the programme he came across as an absolute gentleman.

RIP  ¶ 1:13 PM 0 comments

  Auld Lang Syne Stayed at my Gran's on Saturday as I'd had a few drinks (Not enough!) watching the East Fife and Scotland games.

East Fife were winning 2-0 before a late collapse meant that they lost 3-2 - sair wan :-(

Scotland started poorly then played averagely, US look pretty rank as well.

Went out for a few drinks but the early kickoff of the EFFC match really messed up the body clock.

Anyway, I was looking for something for my gran in one of her many cupboards when I came across a thick envelope of stories, drawings etc etc I'd done at primary school.

Things like a drawing, done by me as a five year old, of a person and written next to it:

My Name is ....
I am a boy
I want a new t-shirt

:-))

Also lots of wee snippets of what I'd done on various weekends, what I liked at school, what I hoped to be when I grew up and pictures of my primary school class.

It was totally unexpected but I'm glad that the school collected all this stuff and that my Gran kept it all.

Also set up my Aunt with web access for the £15 computer I bought from e-bay. It's great to show someone the internet for the first time.  ¶ 1:18 PM 0 comments

  Review - Empire: Field of Swords I'd had a wee biography reading phase in the summer, mostly concentrated on mentalists like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and even good old Genghis Khan but it was Caesar that made the most impression.

Maybe it's due to the fact that his life and circumstances are so much more documented than Eck or Genghis so writers can go into a lot more depth and make the man more "human". Or it may be that I've been to Rome, totally loved it and can *nearly* imagine the places where "big" moments happened.

Whatever the reasons, it's left me a lingering facination about the end of the Roman Republic and the characters involved.

So when I saw "Empire: Field of Swords" for sale in Tesco I popped it in my trolley as a wee light read.

It follows Caesar from his time in Spain till the moment he crosses the Rubicon and is a real good read but................................ It isn't accurate :-(

People, places and events are made up to suit the story, I mean the main premise is that Caesar and Brutus are best of friends and a major sub-plot of the book is the growing resentment that Brutus feels towards Julius - but it didn't happen.

It's like the film Braveheart - The characters have the same names and the narrative is generally the same as happened in reality but there's an insistent nagging that it's all a bunch of made up bollixs.

Somehow I can accept it in a film (except U-517!) but not in a book.

So a good, fluffy, read but ultimately unsatisfying - the new "Rome" tv series on BBC is much better and is the highlight of my telly week now.

For my textual dose of Ancient Rome I'll get Suetonius' "12 Caesars" or see if I can get a biography of Cato the younger  ¶ 12:56 PM 0 comments