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Last.fm had some server problems this week, and they lost data from some users, myself included. Nothing serious, just any tagging done in the last 3 weeks would have been lost. Annoying for some people who had tagged a lot of songs, but seeing as I don’t pay for the service, I can’t complain. But what is impressive is their response: all the users who have been affected have been given access to all the paid subscriber services until the end of the year.

This is a great example of positive response to service problems, made especially amazing as this is a free service. This also has the added bonus of allowing me to demo the paid services. I imagine they’ll get a fair few new paid subscribers from what will have little expenditure on their part. Kudos to the Last.fm team.

In reference to the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq document released yesterday:

"Our mission in Iraq is to win the war. Our troops will return home when that mission is complete." It’s kind of sad in a way that that’s the sort of sentence that has to be spoken out loud. It’s like something you’d say to a child. "We’re at the grocery store to do the shopping. We’re going to stay here until all the shopping is done. We’re going to shop until we’re finished; then and only then will we go get ice cream."

The Shape of Days: Thoughts on the ‘National Strategy’

What’s sad is that I know I’ve uesed that exact phrase with my kids on more than one occasion (the ice cream one, not the Iraq one)

Half-Life 2 Survivor was recently shown off in Japan. It features a right hand joystick for movement, a left hand joystick for aiming and shooting, a left foot pedal for ducking, and a right foot pedal for jumping. It also has an IC card slot where you can insert a memory card to record your game progress.

Pity that there’s 0 chance of this coming to Australia any time soon.

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