In the Sub-Saharan African Community school in Macaci, Cote D'Ivoire, in a suburb of Abidjan there is the 'Centre d'Action Communautaire'. This is one of 60 photographs, ten from each of six areas of the world, each illustrating the theme of Delevopment. The World Bank commissioned 1,800 images from photographers in sixteen countries and the best of them are now on show at www.worldbank.org/illuminate/. I really do recommend it. The picture of the community centre pupil is by Ami Vitale. (c) World Bank Photo Library, 2002.

We've all heard of "Yuppies" and most of us have heard of "DINKIs" - a pair of Yuppies, this stands for Dual Income, No KIds. I did hear a couple of new descriptions recently though. "SITCOMs" are what DINKIs turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. It stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. Then there's "SILKIs" - What SITCOMs turn into when they have more children which stands for Single Income, Lots of KIds. And finally there's the "LOMBARD", (the name of a well-known UK financial institution) a derisive description generally applied to a single Yuppie, it stands for "Loads Of Money But A Right D*ck"!

Regular readers will know all about my love of gadgets. This one walks, talks gibberish, sings, dances, plays games and needs a fair bit of attention otherwise he'll get into a mood! I'm describing "Pino". Irresistably cute and already a Megastar in Japan, Pino is set to be one of this year's (and Christmas') hottest gadgets. Depending on the amount of tender loving care/mild disinterest/active hostility, etc., you subject him to, Pino develops one of three personalities: Friendly, Shy or Naughty, which affects the way he responds to commands. Pino has a head sensor, two hand sensors, a sound sensor, infra red visor and a nose-mounted light sensor (not true vision though, like Aibo). Interacting with Pino through these sensors advances him through three stages of growth.

Age 1 - Pino displays basic emotions, sings songs and talks with other Pinos. Age 2 - Pino displays a full range of emotions, walks, plays games and responds to sound, light and infra red. Age 3 - Pino now has a fully developed personality (either Friendly, Shy or Naughty). You can also place two Pinos facing each other and they’ll interact.

The look is very much like a smaller version of Sony's prototype SDR-4X. I mentioned the SDR-4X a few months back, it can recognise faces, voices and names, hold simple conversations, it has a 60,000 word vocabulary and can pick itself up when it is pushed over. It will also sing with others in four-part harmony, can walk on uneven surfaces and so on. However, Sony say their humanoid robot will cost "as much as a luxury car"! (There's a BBC video you can watch HERE - you'll need Real Player installed.)

There's clearly a market for those who don't have that sort of money, and let's remember, even Aibo costs well over £1,000 by the time you've added the necessary software. Technically, Pino's not a patch on Aibo (and especially not on June's Maxwell :-). Pino has no non-volatile memory and progress is lost when the batteries are changed (there's a 'cheat' to step him through his ages though) and he's not rechargeable either, but what do you expect for fifty quid? However (and this is the point) it's an amazingly low price for its complexity and capabilties. If you're a parent, watch for Pino to appear in this year's letter to Santa! Frankly, when compared to a shoot-em-up game for the same price or more, Pino will at least teach your children to see how their moods and actions affect others; you could do a lot worse for a gift. You can buy Pino online, right now. I'd recommend Firebox.com as usual. If the Japanese experience is anything to go by, it might pay you to get in quickly. :-)

Short one for you today: 10 percent of the workforce in Egypt is under 12 years of age. Amazing.

Seen My Dog?

I'm talking about the dog in the top left hand corner of the screen! In this context, the DOG referred to, is the 'Digitally Originated Graphics' - that annoying little superimposed symbol that reminds you "to which channel you are tuned to" (sic - Kenny Everett). Have you noticed how frequently it ends up across some important detail?

The BBC seems to have woken up to the fact that viewers would like its DOGs to bog off and has done something about it, at least in Wales. BBC Wales, keen to gauge viewer response, must have been a little shocked to find that viewers weren't too impressed with the logo that had been slapped on their screens. But they were quick to do the decent thing - the DOG was gone after only a week. Now, if we can only get rid of all the rest of the so-called 'ScreenJunk'! Would you believe it, there's a whole Web Site devoted to Logo Free British TV. They say viewer power has already managed to get the DOGs dropped from Channel 4, BBC One, BBC Two and, in their latest victory, Channel 5.

I don't often get political here, and in truth I'm not really doing so now, but so much has been made of the UK Government's Dossier on Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction, it's publication has become quite an event. For any of you who wish to examine it, you'll find it's genuinely frightening stuff. I thought I'd read a couple of pages, but once you start, you find you have to read on. You can pick up a copy online right here.

...a bit of name dropping! This is Matthieu with Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. Not quite sure who the little guy in the middle is though. The event was an NSPCC Charity Day at Microsoft in Reading.

Every week I generate a WebTrends report of the activity on this site and every week I have a quiet chuckle to myself at the names of some of the automated Web search engines' "agents", generally known by the term 'Web Spiders' (because they 'crawl' around the web, gleaning information and indexing everything they find). For example, there's "Scooter" and GBlogs' own "Feed Crawler". There's "Modspider" from Lycos and InfoSeek's "Sidewinder". Finally, there's Inktomi's Spider - "Slurpcat"! Who says computer techies have no sense of humour? I wonder what they'll all do next week when they find their own names in this post? Maybe I'll be blacklisted for trying to attract them!

I had a couple of emails from people who had tried to post replies on the Tag-Board and failed, basically the board turns white and nothing else happens. I myself have noticed the Tag-Board tends to be unavailable sometimes. The problem is, being inside the main table, by not loading, it holds up the rest of the site. It's a great idea but for the moment I've reluctantly removed it. I'll keep a close eye on it however and see if I can put it back later. I think perhaps it's become a victim of its own success.

'Trottin' Colin Grimshaw has been in touch again - briefly - from Australia. He says, ''Greetings from a PC down here in Sydney! Weather lovely at around 24oC and Sunny too with BLUE skies... I have LOADS of pics for your web site once I get back.'' As soon as he sends them, I'll select a few to post here for everyone's enjoyment.

The BBC's new talent show Fame Academy is to offer the biggest prize ever for a TV talent show - although the Beeb hasn't yet revealed what the prize is! The 12 contestants in the Fame Academy house will start the series on Friday 4 October by singing live on TV. The series will combine round-the-clock supervision of housemates with a series of tough creative challenges. We'll have to see how good it is and if the BBC can create a reality show to rival "BB3" and "Pop Idol - The Rivals". It sounds interesting, but I wonder of the two genres can be mixed?

Have you heard of the Wayback Machine? Run by Alexa, the Web ratings and toolbar poeple, the Wayback Machine aims to "save" the entire Web at regular intervals. They now have umpteen terrabytes of data stored away. I've known about it for a few years and have regularly invited the "machine" to archive all the sites I'm involved in. You can look at Microsoft's Web site of 1996 advertising a Beta test version of project '97 and such like. My reason for pointing this out, is they're now started archiving old digitised films and it's a fascinating collection. I've sent this link to Tania, my 14 year old daughter! The Wayback Machine can be found at webdev.archive.org.

Want a bit of fun? You might need broadband or to wait a while, but this completely unintelligible Japanese Flash animation is utterly pointless and quite fun. The synchronisation between the music and graphics is quite impressive and the tune quite catchy. Size the new Window to about 400 pixels wide.

Big Brother is still with us it seems. Whilst looking for something else, I suddenly had www.AlexSibley.net thrust upon me. I wonder how many others there are? Is there a jadegoodey.com or a katelawler.org for example? When I have a moment, I'll have a look. One thing, I bet there's no link on http://www.alexsibley.net/ to jonnyregan.co.uk!

S'funny you know. About eight weeks ago, I redesigned this site. Already I'm thinking of changing it again. I look at other personal Websites and think, "Mine's a mess!" Anyone got any ideas for colour schemes, etc? :-)

Incidentally, the more I see of the "Slough Weather Girl" the cleverer that little image becomes. I noticed tonight, the sky goes pink at dusk!

I put a lot of new things on the Music Page and reorganised it a bit over the weekend. You can find the music used in the T.Mobile TV ad' and one of my favourite all time Jazz tracks, too. You can also download the MP3Pro Player/Encoder which creates and plays MP3 files half the size of regular MP3, yet plays with even better quality!

Sometime during the next week or so, the Guardian Unlimited judging team consisting of Anita Roddick, Evan Williams, Jon Bains, chairman of Lateral, Jen Bolton, the founder of GBlogs, Steve Bowbrick, Emily Bell, Editor in Chief of Guardian Unlimited, Simon Waldman and Alan Rusbridger are looking at a few thousand British Blogs, including this one, to pick a national competition winner. To be honest, rather them than me!

Now, I wouldn't want to try and unfairly influence such an august and impartial team but shhh . . . Guyz . . . you'll find a 'fiver' pinned to the back of the screen!

The previous item (see "There Can't be Two!" below) has given me a thought.

It's one of those things everyone does - eventually! Sooner or later, you look for your own name on the Internet - just to see what's out there. I know I did, amongst other things, I found the Stephen Bell School in the USA. How many John Smiths or Joe Greens or even Stephen Bells pass eachother by? Over the years, quite a few people have come to this site looking for a Stephen Bell that obviously wasn't me.

So, the thought is this; as this site is now pretty well enmeshed in the search engines, maybe I should keep contact details of all the Steve Bells who pass by? (Only those that wish to, obviously.) I could create a page of them, so that people searching for a Steve Bell have at least a partial list to start from. I think I'll do that, my name is 'common' enough to make it a useful addition to the site. So if your name is Steve - Steven - Stephen Bell and you'd like to be in the list, drop me a note from the feedback Page with your preferred email address. Tell me roughly where in the world you are, and add a few words by which others might recognise you uniquely. You could even send a picture if your like - now that would be interesting. Do we all look alike? :-) Watch this space.

I'm talking about "Steve Bells". Actually, I know there are many, it's a relatively common name in global terms. In the UK, there's an actor, a well-known political cartoonist and a technology journalist and a few dozen more by "our" name. Over the weekend, another called by the Website. He was simply looking through the web at his name sakes. Although I know his name (obviously) he didn't leave his email address. So if you happen to be the Steve Bell who lives in Cifton Springs, Victoria, Australia, to answer your question, "do you get feedback from others with our name on your web site?" the answer is yes, occasionally.

Last Week's Visitors
Unique Visitors - 310
Visitors Who Visited Once - 229
Visitors Who Visited More Than Once - 81
Thanks for visiting!

Back on August 6th, I mentioned "www.iwantoneofthose.com. it's a great site for gadgets of all kinds - things you don't need, but just WANT. Matthieu pointed out to me there's a better, easier URL. Good thing too really, because www.iwantoneofthose.com is a bit long! So just take the initial letters; the same site is also on www.iwoot.com.

"Computers are incrediby fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination."
Albert Einstein

There are some words about September 11th I wish I'd written on Cosmic Surfer's Website, Here.

"Although I'm not a military strategist by profession, I do fear that we may possibly be losing the element of surprise in the campaign against Iraq".

We know that Radio and TV stations have been able to do this for some time, as they can receive SMS messages on regular phone lines. It had to come to the domestic market as well. Matáv Rt has launched its fixed-line SMS service allowing users to send and receive short text messages on their fixed-line telephones. If the recipient of a Fixed SMS does not have a telephone suitable for receiving a text message, the SMS will be transmitted as a voice message using text-to-speech technology. I think it's a great idea. A standard SMS message costs 10p which is a fixed fee and is more than enough to say "I'll be late", or "Pick me up at 7". Great idea - I'll buy one and the intermediate service of SMS to voice systhesis is clever, too.

My Daughter, Tania, did the "What Dog are You?" quiz and it turns out she is a Pug. The descrption of the breed says,"The Pug has a stable, even temperament and is playful. He is a low activity, low maintenance dog."
Low Maintenance? Tania? Ha!

Colin Grimshaw has finally been in touch from Australia. We forgive him the delay because he's been a tad busy. He says . . . "Greetings from the land of VERY odd animals! Weather is GREAT although Sydney is still only just into Spring would you believe.
Have been all around Sydney these last fews days and to the top of the Sydney Tower (like the BT tower in London). Went on a harbour cruise yesterday and got in all the sites around the area.
Met an old school friend I last saw 40 years ago (photos will follow at some point). Watched the shooting of parts of HOME and AWAY the Soap which is seen on UJ TV. {Colin runs a TV Studio, remember.} They were filming at the harbour.
Off on a 4 hour flight today up to DARWIN and then during the week down to ALICE . . . yet more pictures to be taken."

Colin.

We look forward to the pictures, Colin. Watch this space!

I received an email from Dana at WebTalkGuys this morning. She's added me to their scrolling list of partner Web sites. I went to have a look and discovered www.stephenbell.net is top of the list. Thanks, Dana! Let's hope it brings more visitors, and if you're one of them, I hope you like the weird mix of things on the site, and welcome! Check out the WebTalkGuys link in the right hand margin. Their Weekly Internet Radio Show about all things "web" is always worth listening to.

Yesterday afternoon; a quote from June; "If you do something wrong for long enough, it becomes right." June used this phrase in a CBT Course she wrote a year or so back, to mean "Just because you've 'always done it this way' does not mean it's the best way to do it." True!

On the radio last night: 56% of British citizens have actively considered and investigated leaving the UK for good. I guess I'd have to count myself among that number.

Now's the time to sign up for the fourth season of the Fantasy Film League. Basically, it's a global web-based interactive game that is free to join and free to play. You have $70m to spend on one director and six actors from a list of about 100 directors and 1000 actors. Each cast member has an individual price depending on how successful they are. Once you have chosen your FFL cast and spent your fantasy money on them, you're in the game. Each time an actor in, or the Director of, your Fantasy Film appears in a real film, then you will score points in the game - exactly how many points depends on how well the films they appeared in did at the US and UK Box Offices. No fees and no prizes - just do it for the fun of it. Go on!

Melbourne patent lawyer John Keogh took out a patent for a "circular transportation facilitation device" otherwise known as "The Wheel". The world's gone crazy!

I don't know it's particularly recent, but I came across this idea yesterday. The Ultimate Cubicle. Designed with the assistance of Scott Adams, the man behind the brilliant series of Dilbert cartoons, some of the ideas are wacky - like the automatic shoe polisher - but overall, I would quite enjoy working in a space like this. Check it out if you're a work-time cubicle dweller (or even if you're not).

This morning, I received a text message from Australia from old friend Colin Grimshaw. In typical cryptic Grimshaw fashion, the message is brief; "Greetings from SYDNEY AUSTRALIA! Colin. 02/09/02 07:03. So, at least we know he's there. Hopefully there will be some further words and pictures to follow.

Last Week's Visitors
I'm stunned and delighted. I ran the statistics on this site for last week on Sunday and discovered 236 Unique Visitors stopped by last week. 195 visited once, but 41 visited twice or more. Wow! Great. Thanks. I'll do my best to keep it interesting.