grahambinns.com

Matt Revell has started posting a series of interviews with the Launchpad Development Team. His interview of yours truly, Meet Graham Binns, is the first up:

Matthew: What can we go and look at that you've done on Launchpad?

Graham: The bugs pages :)!

Actually, a great deal of my work is work you don't get to see. Although I do some UI work (I'm working on something pretty cool at the moment that should hopefully appear in either Launchpad 2.1.11 or 2.1.12) the majority of what I do is back-end. In particular, I've been responsible for developing the way Launchpad interacts with other bug trackers like Bugzilla and Trac.

This just in: TV shows that include sex may increase the risk of teenage pregnacies [link].

Teenage girls who watch a lot of TV shows with a high sexual content are twice as likely to become pregnant, according to a study.

Boys watching similar programmes, like Friends and Sex and the City, were also more likely to get a girl pregnant, the research in Pediatrics found.

The study authors said limiting exposure to sexual content on TV might reduce teen pregnancies.

Or, heaven forfend, kids should be educated about safe sex.

I don't know if it's just me who finds this startlingly obvious, but I'll lay out my argument here, just in case.

1. Teenagers, as a rule of thumb, tend to be horny.
2. When done right, sex is fun.
3. Certain TV shows portray sex as fun because it is, when done right.
4. Teenagers watch TV.
5. In the end, with all the different methods of accessing TV shows these days (web, torrent, DVD, hell, even TV itself), it's pretty hard to stop teenagers from watching TV shows, especially the ones that they think are cool to watch.
6. Watching something that says "hey, this is fun" is more likely to increase your desire to do said thing.
7. Because of 5, kids will watch these programmes, even if you don't want them to (get used to it, they're teenagers, they'll do plenty of things you don't want them to do).
8. Teenagers will most likely experiment with sex before they stop being teenagers; Point #6 will encourage them, but it would probably happen anyway because of point #1.
9. If you don't educate your teenagers about safe sex then the chances are massively increased that they will either get pregnant or catch an STI.
10. Ergo, educating your kids about safe sex is the best way to prevent them getting pregnant or catching an STI. They will have sex, regardless of whether you want them to or not.

Thankfully, the BBC article makes this point and quotes a couple of good sources of information, though it fails to link to them. I'd suggest at least linking to Brook, which offers "free, confidential advice on sex and contraception to young people."

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 307

Fooling around with sunlight on the doors of a wardrobe. I like the way the wood grain makes the image feel slightly surreal.

Happy Goth Christmas, everyone.

I'm exhausted. It's been a long two weeks and, though I was supposed to be going to the the Canonical Halloween party at Canonical Towers tonight I decided that, due to lack of sleep and general grumpiness on my part, I would be better off concentrating on finishing the Halloween story that I've been promising everyone all week.

Incidentally, if I promised you this story, thank you for taking the promise: you've helped to keep me honest.

The story, The Girl, Death is available here and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Please go and read it and feel free to send feedback to blog AT this domain. Alternatively, you can leave a comment on this entry (the stories section of the site is pretty rudimentary, thrown up in a hurry today; I'll fix it later and migrate any comments I receive).

Finally, I'd like to thank my fiancée, Sarah, for being my beta reader, guinea pig and editor. If it weren't for her this story wouldn't have been published, no matter how many promises I made to others.

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 302

Danilo Segan of the Launchpad team prepares to give a lightning talk. This was one of those accidental images that just worked.