I know this is off piste for Electronic Museum but I feel extremely strongly about this, and you should too. Web2 and museums aren’t terribly important next to human rights atrocities, hard though that is to believe…

Please go and spend five minutes:

1. Reading about some of the issues and history behind Chinese occupation of Tibet

2. Signing the FreeTibet petition or making a donation

3. Taking some form of action, either locally or by joining protest groups, online or otherwise

Last but not least, spread the word on your blog, via email, whatever else takes your fancy.

Thanks for listening. Image stolen from boston.com

Here are the rules:

1: Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

2: People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.

3: At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4: Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Without further time-wasting, are my eight (why 8?):

• I supported Snow Patrol (just as they were about to make it huge) when in a band called the Dead Lovers. Lead singer Toby is now trying to make it on his own.
• I am completely addicted to the (really quite bad) “Jack Reacher” novels of Lee Child, and have read each at least 3 times. Luckily I also have an appalling memory, so each time is still pretty exciting.
• I am thinking quite hard about possibly writing a novel. But don’t tell anyone. [Oops...]
• AV Roe (of AVRO fame), Marie Stopes and, indirectly, Barnes Wallis are all in my family tree. And I’m still not **** rich…
• I have Grade VIII piano, and compose the occasional tune on my laptop (Ableton. It rocks.)
• I have never known my father, who died when I was a week old.
• I have a mildly weird thing about having clean hands. Not, like, freaky or anything…but you know…
• I have a degree in Geophysics (aka “The art of not digging things up”). If you know how I came to be a “web professional”, please let me know

My nominations (* thinks: do I actually know 8 people with blogs…? * – and in brackets the likelihood they’ll contribute too…) :

Brian Kelly [100% certainty: you know Brian, he loves this stuff ]

Paul Walk [65% certainty: Paul may object to me copying the idea...ha ha. In joke.]

Stephen Pope [unknown: Steve blogs infrequently, so it may happen, but may not, depending on what's on TV.]

Jane Audas [60%: may not be "designed" enough for Jane but you never know. If you catch her during a geek moment, anything's possible </view source>]

Simon Wardley [80%: not sure there's enough content about ducks]

Seb Chan [90%: yeah, reckon so. Seb's up for most stuff]

Nina Simon [60%: possibly, but I don't really know Nina except via the web so it's a bit of a punt...Hi Nina!]

Jennifer Trant [70%: depending on how stupidly busy she is organising museums and the web 2008 ]

If I was clever, I could probably say something deeply insightful about how the social commentary layered on top of a social commentary gave a truly interesting new perspective on the Social Graph, but to be honest I just find it blindingly funny…

If so, I’ve just started a new blog all about being a dad the second time around. Plan is for it to be a fairly personal look at what it feels like doing that whole baby thing again. To be honest though, I’ve already deviated from the content plan with a post about cruel parenting, and once the sproglet is here my brain will have turned to mush for another 6 months. So don’t expect much.

Anyway – go to http://dadtwo.wordpress.com for some general parent-like ramblings.

I’ll shut up now and never deviate from the true path of Electronic Museum ever again.

Not much, anyway.

http://www.break.com/index/japanese-tetris.html

Sounds good? Yeah. I thought so, too. Until you look at the topic matter or the URL: http://www.creationmuseum.org

Apparently $27 million has been spent on this museum which will have exhibits showing humans sharing space with dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. The caption under the lead image on the Tenneasean.com where I first read about this reads: “The museum has permanent staffers sign a statement of faith that says they believe that dinosaurs and man once co-existed.”…

The interesting (read: scary) thing about this is that while freedom of speech of course allows anyone to hold these views, the fact that they are framing these beliefs within a museum context lends some kind of credibility – which of course anyone with a sane head on their shoulders knows is false.

There are probably some parallels with the discussions we’ve all had about museum authority and web2.0 but to be honest I just wanted to post about something off-topic because it pissed me off. I’ll flag it as irrelevant and then you can avoid future posts next time I rant