Inside Story

Now this is interesting, a local theatre company have created a production blog charting their progress from humble beginnings to a full-blown piece of theatre.

Even though their Blog has only been going since 26th March, there is already an impressive amount of material available. If you have never been involved in the process of putting on a play, concert or other form of performance art this blog looks set to provide you with an interesting insight.

The play, "ABSOLUTELY! {perhaps}", will be showing at the OFS Studio Theatre, George Street, Oxford between the 3rd and 7th May. If I can persuade them to let me have a discounted ticket, I will probably attend and write up a review.

Skyp-jacking - A Cheap Trick

Skype is a successful person to person IP Telephony company. No arguments about that.

By contrast Podcasting is an organic, well established, popular and widely publicised personal broadcasting phenomenon. Like blogging it was started, and continues to be led, by a few dedicated non-corporate individuals. The content produced has found itself a keen following amongst the technocrati.

Which is why this particularly shabby attempt by Skype, one of the more successful P2P and VoIP players, to misappropriate the idea and establish a new corporate nomenclature seems so opportunistic and utterly unworthy of them.

I wonder what Adam Curry would make of this? I know he is a big fan of Skype, and frequently refers to them in his Daily Source Code podcast as "the phone company".

I guess my biggest problem with this article, which (since it is reported by two seperate news feeds) is so obviously based on a briefing from someone at the company, is that the term Skypecasting, if it exists at all, applies only to one tiny part of Podcasting - the recording of a Skype call and the inclusion of that recording in a Podcast. The suggestion that individuals are using Skype to distribute their podcasts is laughable. Point to point sharing is just massively inefficient compared to the podcasting infrastructure which exists within distribution channels like ipodder.org, Podcast Alley and Openpodcast.org.

Sadly, this story has lessened the credibility of both Skype and the reporters who swallowed the story and regurgitate it wholesale.

Happy Ostara

The truth is that the pagan vernal festival is almost coincident in date with paschal festival of the Catholic church, which is always held on the first Sunday after the date of the first full moon that occurs on or after the Vernal Equinox – or 21st March. Depending upon when the first full moon on or after the Equinox occurs, Easter falls sometime between late-March and mid-April.

All cultures living in temperate or winter dominated climates celebrate the coming of spring with major rituals and festivals. One of the most important of spring festivals among pre-Christian Germanic tribes was dedicated to the goddess Ostara

According to the historian Bede the Venerable (673?-735), writing in chapter 13 of his De temporum ratione, the heathen Anglo-Saxons called the third and fourth months "Rhedmonath" and "Esturmonath" after their goddesses Rheda and Eostra respectively.

So, Easter gets its name from this goddess of spring and the dawn, whose name is spelled Oestre or Eastre. Modern pagans have generally accepted the spelling "Ostara" and it is this word which they use for the Vernal Equinox.

In keeping with the policy of the Catholic Church to subsume the names and rituals of pagan festivals into Christian feast-days, the name of Ostara's (Eostra's) festival was transferred to the celebration of Christ's resurrection when Anglo-Saxon and German heathens converted to Christianity. Thus, unlike other European cultures, English and German Christians still attach the name of a heathen goddess to their most sacred holiday: Easter or Ostern.

In other European languages the holiday's name is based on the Hebrew word "pasah," to pass over, thus reflecting the Christian holiday's Biblical connection with the Jewish Passover.

Other names by which this Sabbat may be known are Oestara, Eostre's Day, Rite of Eostre, Alban Eilir, Festival of the Trees, and Lady Day.

Ostara, or the Vernal Equinox is one of the Lesser Wiccan Sabbats or Rituals. At the equinox the light and dark are in balance- day and night are of equal length, but the light is now gaining after the dark days of winter, towards the long days and short nights of summer, with their greater warmth.

To Pagans Ostara is a time to celebrate the arrival of Spring, the renewal and rebirth of Nature herself, and the coming lushness of Summer. The forces of masculine and feminine energy, yin and yang, are also in balance at this time.

In the Pagan Wheel of the Year, this is the time when the great Mother Goddess Earth, celebrated as a virgin at the festival Imbolc or Candlemas in February, welcomes the young Sun God to her and conceives a child of this divine union. The child will be born nine months later, at Yule, the Winter Solstice. (Curiously enough this is also Christmas time).

Pagan customs such as the lighting of new fires at dawn for cure, renewed life, and protection of the crops still survive in the Southern Americas as well as in Europe.

This is also a time when many historical figures are believed to have spent three days dead, or in the Underworld. Jason and his Argonauts, King Arthur, and of course Jesus.

The Rabbit is one of the chief symbols of the Goddess Oestara. It is believed Rabbits became associated both because of their fertility and because pagan worshipers of Oestara saw the shape of a hare in the full moon. For the Celts, the hare was a sacred animal and there was a strict taboo on killing them. In Celtic countries, well into Victorian times, people would not eat the hare at this time. For other Pagans the hare was killed and eaten to in order to partake of its magical fertility and the Easter hare pie scramble still takes place in Hallaton in Leicestershire.

Eggs are clearly one of the most potent symbols of fertility, and spring is the season when animals begin to mate and flowers and trees pollinate and reproduce. In England and Northern Europe, eggs were often employed in folk magic when women wanted to be blessed with children.

There is much symbolism in eggs themselves. To the Pagan, the golden orb of its yolk represents the Sun God, its white shell is seen as the White Goddess, and the whole is a symbol of rebirth. In several mythologies, a ‘World Egg’ is laid by the Goddess and split open by the sun God.

In Hindu tradition, the divine bird laid the cosmic egg on the primordial waters and from it sprang Brahma and the two halves formed heaven and earth. The cosmic tree is sometimes depicted as growing out of an egg floating on the waters of chaos. In Egyptian legend the Nile Goose laid the cosmic egg from which Ra, the sun, sprang. In China the yolk was the sky and the white the earth. The egg is also an emblem of resurrection and the initiate or ‘twice born’, since its laying is one birth, its hatching another. The egg is closely associated with the serpent, another important springtime emblem. One Egyptian legend says that Kneph, the serpent, produced the egg from his mouth. Orphism, holding the egg to be the mystery of life, creation and resurrection, often depicted the egg surrounded by Ouroboros, the circular serpent with its tail in its mouth. The English Druids call the cosmic egg the ‘egg of the serpent’.

Decorating hard-boiled eggs is an ancient Pagan custom also associated with Ostara the Goddess of Fertility. In ancient days, eggs were gathered and used for the creation of talismen and also ritually eaten. The gathering of different colored eggs from the nests of a variety of birds has given rise to two traditions still observed today - the Easter egg hunt, and coloring eggs in imitation of the various pastel colors of wild birds.

It is also believed that Pagans first got the idea of weaving baskets from watching birds weave nests. This is perhaps the origin of the association between colored Easter eggs and Easter baskets.

Many cultures still have a strong tradition of egg coloring; among Greeks, eggs are traditionally dyed dark red and given as gifts.

Although Easter Egg hunts are now a fun game for kids - another story goes that in Europe eggs were decorated and offered as gifts and to bring blessings of prosperity and abundance in the coming year. As Christianity rose and the ways of the "Old Religion" were shunned, people took to hiding the eggs and having children make a game out of finding them. This would take place with all the children of the village looking at the same time in everyone's gardens and beneath fences and other spots.

It is said, however, that those people who sought name and disgrace the heathens and heretics, would bribe children with coins or threats, and once those children uncovered eggs on someone's property, that person was then accused of practicing the old ways.

Lambs are one of the first young animals to appear in the year. In pre-Christian Rome the Vernal equinox was known as the shepherd's festival, and a month later came the festival of the goddess Pales, patroness of shepherds. All the sheepfolds were hung with leaves and branches. The altars of the goddess were fumigated and all the sheep were purified at twilight. Millet and milk were offered to Pales, and her protection was invoked for the flocks. This is possibly the reason why the Lamb became associated with the Christian festival.

I hope you have enjoyed this post on the influence of Pagan rituals on a Christian festival. Finally, I will leave you with a Pagan Blessing of the season.

Eastertime

Click click click click clickin'... lay a lickle egg for me!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Elethunk or Just Like Me(me)

I am reading a fascinating book at the moment called The Meme Machine In short the definition of a meme is something that can be transmitted from one human to another by imitation. So, for example, if a child learns to peal a banana by watching her mother, a meme has replicated.

I intend to write a full post about the book once I have finally finished it but at the moment it is slow going as the author presents many examples and posits which must be fully thought through and appreciated before moving on.

One of the basic assertions included in the book is that human beings are the only animals which learn and develop new cultural norms through imitation. Today I read that humans may not be alone in this behaviour and that Elephants are now being found to have vocal imitation skills.

Bandwidth Burglars

Last night I received a bandwidth consumption alert from my hosting provider. I am already at 75% of my permissible bandwidth for the month, and it is only 22nd!

Looking through my logs I found that I have been getting a whole lot of redirections from Google Images to a couple of specific files. I have also noticed that my hit-rate has been going through the roof since early February. The pattern is such that this cannot be casual look-ups because it is the same two image files time and time again and always together. From a bit of simple detective works I now suspect that someone is linking directly to images on my site.

I don't mind people linking to the site itself (in fact I encourage it), but to hijack my bandwidth just to serve up images which then appear on someone else's site is not fair play.

Unfortunately my tracking service is not good enough that it can actually give me the web URL where my images are appearing, so in order to flush them out early this morning I replaced the named files with some alternatives of - ahem - questionable content. Nothing that would scare horses or young children, but certainly something which would look damned odd and call into question the integrity of the thief.

That files were renamed at 1am GMT, the hits continued till well into the morning, but then suddenly at 6am this morning the relentless hits have stopped.

I will leave the files as they are for a few more days, and then return them to their original names. Hopefully the miscreants will have learned their lessons and moved onto other places for their ill-gotten image feeds.

I Am Here - Again

After a long absence I am delighted to see the fully functioning return of GeoURL.

GeoURL is a location-to-URL reverse directory. It allows you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location. By this method you can see where I am located, and also the websites and blogs which are nearby.

Press on the green button in the left hand column to see.

Making Money Out Of Mobile

I just completed an interesting online survey.

Martina is writing her thesis on the sociology of the mobile phone, investigating in particular its marketing implications.

If you live in Italy, the UK or the US, and you're aged 20-40, she needs your help.
To collect data Martina has created a 30 question survey to learn more about mobile users as mobile consumers. It takes less than 10 minutes to complete it and if you leave your email address she will send you a copy of her findings when the project is complete in mid-April.

Reasons to be Cheerful

To paraphrase the late Ian Dury, I have a number of reasons to be cheerful today. Lets list them out....

1. I spent yesterday evening in the presence of a great talent showcasing material for his forthcoming album (more on this in a later post).
2. It is a beautiful spring day here in Oxford. The sun is shining from a clear blue sky, birds are singing and I will certainly be taking the Z3 for a spin with the roof down this afternoon.
3. I just recieved a tax rebate from the Inland Revenue. It is barely enough for a good meal out, and I must keep reminding myself that it was always my money anyway, but it is nice when the government pays me something for a change.
4. My preview copy of Azuli Presents Miami 2005 just arrived. Since 2000 this annual compilation, based on the Miami Music Conference, has given me the inside track on the sounds for the forthcoming summer. Time from CD arrival to iPod consumption - 30 minutes!
   
5. It is Friday - so tomorrow I get to lie-in for an hour or two. Bliss!

Time to count your reasons to be cheerful?

Peace Movement

As sure as day follows night and the seasons change, it is nearly that time of year again to take a stand and sit for peace.

There are few things that unite mankind, especially where choice is concerned, but there is one thing we all do, and can decide to do in unity on April 15th.

No matter of your status, wealth, race, gender or age Poop for Peace is the day when every one of us can sit and have a good long think, make an extra special effort and hopefully deliver a satisfying result. Individual participation can be achieved privately and hopefully without fanfare, because there really is no need or benefit to bragging about the size of your contribution.

Sign up now and remember to do your bit on the day!

Peace 'n' love!

When Technologies Collide

Have you ever flipped through a pile of photos and found one which you just cannot remember? With the ease and minimal cost of digital photography I have found that I take hundreds of photos and so the problem is likely to occur even more frequently in future. Fortunately, digital photograps can give a clue by recording the date, time and camera information within the .jpg file, but on a ten day trip around lots of sights on a vacation one temple or castle can look pretty like many others.

At last the problem of photo locaiton mystery misery may be over. Thanks to Ricoh who have combined the technologies of digital photography and global postioning. Their neat little Ricoh Pro G3 device will take a Compact Flash GPS or communicate with a nearby Bluetooth GPS receiver, and stamp the current location data on each image file along with the normal time/date and other user specified notes.

If you are also a user of ESRI ArcGIS you can use the geographical data to link the photo to a pushpin on a map. Imagine being able to plot your photographs on a global database.

Now all we need is a camera which can also read RFID tags to get and add the names of all the people in the picture. That will certainly be a help at parties and school reunions.

Distraction

You can normally tell when I am massively distracted by another project - I stop blogging.

Right now there are lots of interesting and exciting things going on in my life, and as usual I am under strict confidentiality terms for almost all of them. So I have this real dilemma that right now I am working long days and late nights as I work with others to test the viability and most effective approach for each opportunity, and yet cannot blog about them. - Soon maybe, but not right now.

Meanwhile I will keep dipping in and updating as often as possible.

Online Radio Guide - Radio42

Another in the occasional series where I recommend to you, my readers, one of the jewels among the mass of online radio stations which exist out there.

This time the choice is Radio42 which I have only recently discovered, but which seems might be short lived owing to a change in the payment of new royalty fees due in the station's home country of Germany starting from the 1st April 2005. The GVL (a German music licence organization) is going to raise it's tarif for webcasters dramatically and this will leave the hobbyist radio station head, Bernd Niedergesaess, with a bill of more than 30.000 Euros each year in the future.

For a number of years now Bernd has been webcasting smooth lounge music to the masses, and even relay's the Compost Radio Show which I wrote about back in September 2003. The station offers a range of player and bandwidth options so you can get a listening experience which suits your setup.

I have heard much good and new music in the short time I have been tuning into Radio42. I have then gone on to downloading some tracks legally from iTunes. I am sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of listeners who do the same - sample for new stuff using an online service and then go on to support the artists by buying tracks as a result. It is a great shame that, because of royalty regulations, this excellent service may have to close. However, there is hope! Bernd is looking to switch the output location of his servers to Switzerland and become part of the Lounge Radio group. Look out for Lounge Radio 42 sometime in late March and early April. To do this he does need financial support, so please visit his site, listen to his output, and Paypal him a few Euro to help him in his efforts.

Share and enjoy!