The burnt man at Oxford Circus station

There is a man who stands at the bottom of the stairs in Oxford Circus tube station in London. His face appears to be very severely burnt all over. Many people who catch sight of him get a horrible shock -- he looks like he is from a horror film or some kind of nightmare. It upset me to see him there. I was also disturbed at my own feelings of repulsion.

I don't know if he is begging for money or not. I've never seen him ask for anything.

Have you noticed him too? I wonder if there are any pictures of him.
I wish I knew his story. Does he stand there for sympathy, or to shock people?
Maybe he is he lonely, or perhaps mentally disturbed.

Sony Hit Bit computer fan club

Around 1984-5 Sony gave away a computer free with one of their video cameras. This was the first computer I owned, at age 3 or 4! It had a version of Microsoft's MSX Basic, and could play games. I now know that the Sony Hit Bit was part of a range called MSX computers. There's a site with Hit Bit game ROMs and references to an MSX emulator. The Sony Hit Bit started me on my lifelong hobby and career with computers.

There are quite a few fan sites for MSX computers at the end of this post. I've included some pictures of the manuals for MSX-BASIC. They contain some basics for learning programming. I'd like to start a Sony "Hit Bit" computer fan club. Please add your comments here if you ever owned one of these. It would be great to see a real one working, or find an emulator. rom-world.com site has an MSX emulator and games.

Hit-Bit memories: One game was the only computer game my mother has ever enjoyed playing. You played a fireman, running up and down ladders to save mice from fires. I also remember a maths game where you had to walk along platforms collecting numbers and operators to make the correct sum, before some water rose up and filled the screen.

There seem to be several emulators that would play these games, it looks like amusement-center.com/compile might have a commercial one, under their Project Egg. But it's all in Japanese and I don't understand it.

Related articles:

• MSX Resource Centre
• MSX emulator in Japanese! (translation)
  
• MSXcafe.com in French - with full dossiers of all the MSX computers (translation)
  

• John C Dvorak asks "Whatever Happened to MSX Computers?"
• MSX Computers on Wikipedia
• List of MSX models, including the Sony Hit Bit (HB series)
  

• Hit Bit on Flickr
• Hit Bit on Old-Computers.com
  

Manuals I have:

In the future, all companies will be organised like this

Below I have re-posted an inspiring description of how team behind The Pirate Bay is organised.
Spectrial is the current legal trial of the Pirate Bay for copyright infringement.

Where to buy tickets or the question of accountability

Some of the omnipresent questions at the main stage of Spectrial are the questions of accountability and organisation. It seems like one of prosecutor Roswall more important lines of arguments. When our three heroes answer them we understand how the answers can seem a bit absurd to you people that are not used to the workings of our organisations.

Let me illustrate with an example. Tonight we will be holding a party. There are tickets for the party, I think. I do not know how has got them though. We receive a lot of questions on how to buy tickets. Thing is, none of the people organized in the Spectrial knows how to sell nor how to buy these tickets at this moment. Or rather, someone knows but we dont know who it is.

What follows is a short description on how we work. It has its ups and downs. But it produces.

A major up is the fact that we are NEVER BORED. Each one take the role they feel they can fill. Quite often these roles are abandoned. The network then reorganizes til someone is filling the role again, or, the role is disregarded by all nodes and that role dies out. This could happen to the party tonight, but that wont be the case. A party is ohh so nice.

This is one of hundreds of examples of our management. It is how we have been operating since the very start. People have a hard time grasping it. They ask us; Who’s in charge? Who are you representing? What is your goal? What is your agenda? Why? When? How? These questions are wrongly posed and I am afraid I cant give you the right ones, that’s up to scholars later.

People might be working with us making important contributions to one of our projects and still say that they wish to be part of The Pirate Bay/The Bureau for Piracy/S23MXK. Well, they are. There is no formal organisation. Only work with joy and no to full accountability.

This is how we PWN U ROSWALL. The work that is being produced by the peers of the Spectrial is propably “worth” six-seven figures. Thing is one could never buy it. Its a brave new world here, we are making a huge experiment.

Please join us, pick your role. Take upon you the responsibility you feel you should. Have fun. And know we love you. But dont ask ME where to buy tickets, because I dont know. Ask questions on this unclear text in the comments and we’ll continue with a talk there.

Johan Allgoth
confused peer

Yay, snow!

It's been snowing all night!

The TFL journey planner website is slow but still responding...

Punk Russell Fag Brand

We saw Russell Brand at the Pleasance theatre near our house today. He was brilliant!