Live and Beyond is around one month old now. Although the first blog entry was blogged on 8th Jan, things really took off after the 20th,as by then we had a proper theme, layout, RSS and all the other web2.0 jumbo on by then.

Live and Beyond’s Technorati Rank: 99,928 (115 links from 38 blogs)  (As of: 18:00 GMT 20th Feb 2007). Out of the 55 Millions blogs out there (Wonder how many of them are spam and how many are actually active) it is easily in the top 0.2%.

I am satisfied with it and I hope it picks up as the months go by.. But, I still don’t trust technorati as it is so slow and inaccurate. I wish there was another blog ranking service. I wrote to Google about it and they said they will look into it. (Yea sure!). I mean, they already have everything indexed and it will so easy for them to implement a top 100 blog list. (Anyone with the API’s out there can create this list using google? Drop us a comment!)

I think I should blog about technorati being crap…

Have another great month at Live and Beyond. A big thank you to all the people who visited, commented and linked us.

 - Pr0xy K1ll3r

I’m a big fan of The Simpsons - they’ve been going for over 15 years and have over 350 episodes out - the titles have only ever changed once and they still stand today. You can tell because when it goes to Lisa playing her saxophone in the class, the purple twins look huge. But being the winter season (up in the northern hemisphere anyway), I thought I’d show this - a slightly more festive Simpsons. Watch it quick before it gets taken down by YouTube for some lame copyright restriction!

Source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/38392483@N00/385912858/

This is what the abstract of the patent says:

“An amusement apparatus including a user-operated and controlled apparatus for self-infliction of repetitive blows to the user’s buttons by a plurality of elongated arms bearing a flexible extensions that rotate under the user’s control.”

erm.. seriously, wtf!? 

Wait! you have to see the diagram of this g*mp machine!:

(Click to Zoom)

Source : European Patent Office

Thanks to Matt for ‘Hey check this out!’

Goolge has made a slight update to it’s Image search. It’s not clear how much else of the search engine they’ve updated if at all, but now offers an AJAX’d up (as everything seems to be nowadays) interface where you hover over an image you like and it displays information for it. Check it out - http://images.google.com and type something in.

As I was watching BBC News 24, I’d realised that they’ve updated a whole load of stuff. They’ve updated what their screens look like (removed the clock and shrunk the main headlines scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen), whilst removing the huge red bar stating the news story they are reporting it on.

I first received the news that they would be updating their idents and visual graphics on-screen a few weeks ago and as a keen BBC News 24 viewer, I was rather pleased. They’ve also updated the BBC Media Player which went from being packed full of links and information to being simple, redesigned and much easier to watch. Check the screenshot below - click to expand it on screen.

The British Security Service (MI5) now have an electronic mailing system to offer British citizens living in the United Kingdom updates on the current national threat level.

Source: MI5
“The current national Threat Level system was introduced in July 2006. If you subscribe to this e-mail list, you will be alerted if the threat level changes.

Our prime concern is to ensure public safety. Please note that there will therefore be occasions when, for operational reasons, a delay is necessary between the threat level being changed and the public being informed.”

Simply signup from the website to receive updates on the “What’s New” section to keep you informed of what MI5 is doing to protect the United Kingdom and updates to the website, and also changes in threat level. Currently the UK is at “severe” after the suspected plane bombings earlier in Autumn 2006. The threat level has stayed the same ever since whilst the perpertrators were being investigated for plotting to detonate liquid explosives over the Atlantic between the UK and the US.

Anyone in the UK who is concerned regarding national security should use this service to get the latest updates.

Sign up for email notifications from MI5