Today I saw something new:

That’s right: two complete posts consisting of nothing more than the same ad.

Scrolling down shows me that the very next item is exactly the same add from “The Fail Blog”, another site operated by the same company.

Ads with content I can stand. Ads without content?  *unsubscribe*

Golly. Every brand? All at once? All deciding to redo their formulation, redo their packaging, and retool their manufacturing plants, all with identical changes to formulation and packaging, all at the same time? Unpossible!

You’d almost think that every brand of powder was actually exactly the same, made at the same plant, and just packaged slightly differently. But that would surely never happen!

Unfortunately I believe this week’s spot has already been claimed. However, I’d like to make an early nomination for next week.

Steve Turner, assistant secretary of the Public Service Association of NSW, said … the blame did not lie solely with the Government as “any computer system can be hacked … even American defence force computers”.

[update 12/2/2009] Nope, there hadn’t been a Stilgherrian Live for a while. There is now though, so consider this a nomination[/update]

Firefox is particularly strong in Europe, the area over which the EU has oversight.

Firemen here to put out the oven fire http://skitch.com/jdumay/97em/kitchenonfire. about 1 hour ago from twitterrific

Paranoia is much more common in modern society than previously thought, says a British doctor, who warns it could lead to major problems in society.

Oh noes! Rampant paranoia! Is this what’s been making me think crazy thoughts lately? Our society is in danger! Quick people: we must be vigilant! Examine your own thoughts for any hint of paranoia, NOW!

Dr Daniel Freeman from the psychiatry institute of King’s College London says almost a quarter of the population experience regular paranoid thoughts,

One in four? Then it’s almost certain that I’m paranoid. Woe is me! Whatever could be causing this epidemic of paranoia?

driven by an avalanche of sensational stories in the media.

Oh. Right. Good to see that you’re helping there, doc!

But, that aside, it’s fairly cool. Planes, flying, around Sydney! Results from noise-level meters, so you can see just how noisy your new suburb is going to be. Even details about the planes — type of plane, altitude, flight numbers..

So today there was a tragic accident involving two planes with trainee pilots. SMH have a video online which shows the flight tracker, and shows the two planes involved colliding (and then one of them dropping off the radar — literally). According to the timestamps superimposed on the video, the crash happens just after 11:23am

The site lets you see historical data: in the box on the lower-left, un-tick the “Show Current Flights” button, then use the controls to choose the day and time you’d like to look at. So it’s easy enough to go back to 11:20am and run through the next few minutes and see the crash for yourself.

Except… that it’s not. There are no planes in that area at that time. In fact, there’s no light aviation at all. Someone has excised all light aviation records between 11:00am and 11:59:16am. If you set the timer to start art 10:59, you see a whole bunch of planes:

suddenly dissapear:

It’s not a subtle removal either, even if you ignore all the planes which freeze and then vanish from the graph. There’s a nice graph showing you the number of movements per hour for the day — spot what’s odd about today:

I fail to understand this. I… just fail. I really don’t understand why this is considered sensitive, and why it’s been removed.

Well done!