entertainmentradio Actor, comedian and award winning writer Reece Shearsmith is to join Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman in a guest role in an upcoming episode of Doctor Who, written by Mark Gatiss. Shearsmith has previously played Patrick Troughton in a docu-drama about the conception and making of Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time. He returns to Cardiff for a part in the adventure, directed by Justin Molotnikov and produced by Nikki Wilson.
Pragmatism over Theory: Protected vs Private I often favor pragmatism over theory; probably because programming is how I earn a living but also because I don't have any computer science degree and what I know I've learned from my experience. In the recent months, there have been a lot of discussions in the PHP community about the usage of private over protected visibility for methods and properties in Open-Source libraries. To summarize my point of view: "private" is for purists and "protected" is for pragmatic developers.
The Visual Mapping Timeline: an Exercise in Crowd-Sourcing I have recently published a blog post “The Visual Mapping Timeline: an Exercise in Crowd-sourcing”, at Wallace Tait’s invitation, for both on Visualmapper and on Hypershifters. I was really delighted when Wallace Tait invited me to write a guest post for Visualmapper. Accepting to write a post is one thing, coming up with an idea is another one.
Help the Silent Victims of Gaddafi's Rape Machine - Petition Online - UK To the NTC Gaddafi is using rape as a systematic method of war. Rape is happening everyday and mass rapes are taking place as we speak. The victims of such crimes are not only entitled to adequate medical treatment but also to psychological support and specialized therapy. Along the Tunisian boarder, a clinic taking care of victimized girls and women has successfully been established. Two years after Ahmadinejad’s re-election, Iran gets ready to protest On June 12, 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected president of Iran. The highly controversial vote had sparked an unprecedented wave of protests in the country, dubbed the ‘Green Movement’. The demonstrations were brutally quashed by security forces and a feared Islamist militia called the Basij. The ‘green movement’ was gradually reduced, its members imprisoned or forced into exile. Nevertheless, some opposition activists are trying to rekindle the movement, two years exactly after Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
Strax is taking temporary leave from his Paternoster Gang Vastra and Jenny for an audio spin-off from Big Finish Productions. The Sontaran butler will team up with Doctor Who characters Jago and Litefoot for the special after suffering a "disorientating attack" which leads him to mistake the two Victorian investigators for his friends. Together they find themselves on the trail of a creature that is stealing brains, which may or may not be linked to a haunted house in London. Played by Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter, Jago and Litefoot were created by scriptwriter Robert Holmes and made their first Doctor Who appearance opposite Fourth Doctor Tom Baker in 1977 story The Talons of Weng-Chiang. They were reunited by Big Finish over 30 years later, going on to collaborate on a string of dramas with a tenth series due for release this October.
Nginx configuration for Symfony projects Recent release of Nginx 1.0.0 triggered me to refresh my knowledge about its configuration options. There were quite some additions since I looked in the docs for the last time. New variables and directives let me to simplify my configuration for Symfony projects (both 1.x and 2). Configuration The convention says we should put virtual host configurations into /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory and then link to them in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/. Rules below define development virtual hosts. Thanks for trying the Visual Thesaurus The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus that allows you to discover the connections between words in a visually captivating display. With a subscription you will also get access to the Spelling Bee, VocabGrabber, and Online Magazine. 14 day risk-free trial! Visual Thesaurus
allgov The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating a Harvard-connected consulting firm for helping the government of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without complying with federal law. Monitor Group, an international consulting firm headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has admitted it violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act by failing to register that it was lobbying on behalf of Gaddafi’s regime. In one document released by The National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, Monitor stated that one of its goals was “to introduce Muammar Qadhafi as a thinker and intellectual, independent of his more widely-known and very public persona as the Leader of the Revolution in Libya.” The firm earned millions of dollars for directing Libya’s publicity campaign after it was revealed that Libyan forces tortured Bulgarian nurses doing humanitarian work in Libya.
Rape and Torture: Legacy of the Post-Election Crackdown Video Testimony from a Young Woman Raped in Detention, Most Detailed Account to Date UN Special Rapporteur Should Investigate Rape Allegations in Light of Rampant Impunity “The raw material of this video was originally obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting. Reach them at information@cironline.org.” (10 June 2011) On the second anniversary of the disputed June 2009 election and the ensuing repression, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran today released video testimony from a young female detainee describing in detail her severe torture and repeated rape after her arbitrary arrest. Her forceful testimony challenges the Iranian authorities’ official narrative, which denies widespread use of torture and rape by security forces against ordinary protestors.