Word play

Here's a nice piece of software - www.visualthesaurus.com .

I enjoy words and this has to be the ultimate word exploration tool. Lots of fun to play with, as well as fulfilling a serious function.

ooops - retract that!

From Neil Gladwell: I'm afraid that you, like many others, have picked up on the petition about UK tidal data copyright without knowing that one of the basic statements of the petition is wrong. I publish tide tables here in the UK, I have a licence from the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) to do it and as of last year that licence cost me nothing at all. Its not true when Mr Bartholomew states Currently Her Majesty's Government is requiring payment by any who wish to use and publish this data. Sure I used to have to pay but it was a tiny amount, around 1p sterling for each copy of my main publication, and that was only because I wanted to use the data for commercial ends. I hope you have the chance to mention the petition isn't correct or amend your report.

Ah well. Still - the No.10 website still makes interesting reading.

Petitions

Scuttlebutt, the sailing news via the web, www.scuttlebutt.com, publicised a request to sign a petition for allow all British tidal data to be available to users free of charge.

In signing up I found myself on the 10 Downing Street website www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp where the petitions page houses all sorts of wonders. The top (!) petition is a request to allow the Red Arrow to fly over the 2012 Olympics (244909 signatures). Another in the top 5 is ‘Make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister (38876 signatures).

The Tide Table petition has gone a log way to go (1481 signatures) but very little time - the deadline in 11th January, so get signing! www.petitions.pm.gov.uk/Tidetable-data