Arigato Mr Roboto

A few years ago I was privileged enough to be invited on an all expenses paid trip to Japan. It was a scheme set up by the Japanese government to apologise for forcing my granddad to work on a railway project during the war that ultimately put Network Rail to shame.

Despite initially being apprehensive about visiting a country where I would be 3 feet taller than the rest of the population, and being expected to eat all my meals before they were cooked, I nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed my experience and have always said I would go back to the country in a heartbeat if given the chance.

Still to this day I marvel at the place; the entirely different culture, the history, the temples, the technology, the humility of the average citizen. Even the raw fish was nice.

Of course Japan is also known for its earthquakes. In most places, they build their houses out of cardboard so when an earthquake hits, they simply topple over with minimal damage.

Sadly, when an earthquake happens under the sea, there is little that can be done about preventing the inevitable Tsunami. The devastation to the affected areas was very sad indeed. If the damage caused by the water wasn’t bad enough, they now have the prospect of their third Nuclear disaster. All they need now is for Godzilla to emerge from the water.

With such huge advances in media coverage and global communication, a lot of the drama was caught live on TV. Is this a good thing? Is there anything we can learn from this?

This is the subject of this month’s Soapbox discussion so get on your Soapbox and have your say!

Can you handle the truth?

As a young schoolboy, one of the first lessons I learned was that you never snitch on fellow pupils. Whether you like them or not doesn’t matter. It is the biggest sin one can commit. I remember one unfortunate boy breaking this rule once and it resulted in him having his head flushed down the toilet. He was then given a good kicking after school and spent the rest of his poor miserable school life being despised by all the other kids and bullied.

Although honesty is supposed to be the best policy, there are certain times when it is necessary to keep secrets. Some things are just better left unsaid. For example, most companies would go out of business very quickly if their customers found out what was said about them behind their backs.

Now put this on a global scale. If, for example, Mr Sarkozy made a racist comment about Barack Obama and started spreading rumours about David Cameron’s fondness for sheep, he would inevitably upset them. Now, it’s not a good idea to upset people with big guns and other weapons capable of blowing up your country in less time than it takes to say “I surrender”.

This is the trouble with this whole Wikileaks scandal. While I’m sure we would all like to see a bit more transparency in governments and an end to the obvious corruption that is prevalent, there are some things that could be potentially damaging to International relations; things that could potentially lead to military conflict.

This is the subject of this month’s discussion on Dadooda. Do you agree with the publication of confidential documents, or do you think it’s a bad thing? Get on your Soapbox and have your say!

Planning world domination with Dadooda

Always wanting to improve the experience for our members, our little band of Dadooda elves have been busy working away at a new feature. The Planner.

Those of you who use the Dadooda PAL may be familiar with this as there is a similar feature on there. Basically, it is an online organiser that lets you add diary entries and send yourself alerts so you don’t forget. You can also email your friends with your diary, complete with any items you have submitted on Dadooda on any given day. Clever eh?

It’s all part of our ongoing quest to improve Dadooda as a whole and pull everything under one roof.

You can find the Planner by logging into your Dadooda account and clicking on the “My Planner” link on the top of the page.

Have a play and let us know what you think!

Visit the Dadooda Website

Web Wars Episode X: Attack of the Digital Economy Bill

A long time ago in a Parliament not so far away, the evil dark Lord Mandelson set about his ruthless plan of eradicating the people's freedom on the Internet by introducing the Digital Economy Bill.

After the Date of Royal Assent on April 12th, the Bill is to commence on June 12th, in just 10 days time. Internet Connections will be shut down for anyone even suspected of breaching copyright in any way. A state of martial law is to be instigated for web surfers and the Ofcom Stormtroopers, already regulating the galaxy with an iron fist, will send offenders to concentration camps - where they will learn to pay attention.

Although Darth Brown and the evil Labour Empire have been defeated, the new rebel coalition alliance appears unable to repeal the bill, despite strong reservations.

In this already troubling time filled with recession, volcanoes, oils spills and Google spies, there seems no hope for the band of hapless web surfers...

Disclaimer: All characters portrayed in the above scroll are both fictional and feckless characters. Any references to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. Further more, any digital copyright infringement on a well known science fiction series is null and void as per section 1.03 of the Sense of Humour Act 2010.

Crikey, what's happening to the world?

OK, so the UK is still reeling from a recession. Now we have a hung parliament and the rather unappealing prospect of a Tory/Lib Dem coalition government. This is scary enough on its own without natural disasters being thrown into the mix.

Thanks to Muslim women not wearing the veil, according to a rather loopy Iran cleric, earthquakes have started happening as a result. Perhaps we also have teenage boys getting their jollies on web cams to thank for the volcano in Iceland.

If that wasn’t bad enough we now have an oil spill in Louisiana to deal with. What’s next? Is someone going to accidentally drop a trident missile? Is this never ending cold weather going to turn into an ice age and wipe out all life on the planet? Is a meteor going to hit the earth? Is Mount Yellowstone going off?

If you read the Daily Mail, I suspect the answer is categorically yes to all of the above. Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that it’s not been a good few months.

What do you think about some of the above? Get on your Soapbox and have your say!

Choking on a cloud of volcanic politics

So I guess the two biggest topics dominating our news headlines at the moment are the General Election and the chaos caused by the erupting volcano in Iceland.

Now, I could easily write an entire essay on the link between politicians and “smokin’ ash” but I think it would be safer to just point you all in the direction of the two latest entries on the Dadooda Soapbox.

Who do you think will win the General Election? Have you been affected by the volcano? Do you think air travel is safe to resume yet?

Get on your Soapbox and vote!

The intrepid adventures of our leader

OK so trying to think of new things to post on blogs and links to submit on Facebook and Twitter gets a bit difficult sometimes. I was racking my brains earlier trying to think of something entertaining to write that wouldn’t involve me upsetting people – which is quite hard by the way!

It dawned on me that perhaps I should start posting things a little closer to home… oh I don’t know… let’s say like posting links to submissions made by Dadooda’s creator Neil Stapley.

You see Mr Stapley is quite the explorer don’t you know? Oh yes he’s travelled far and wide and has submitted just a few of his fascinating experiences on Dadooda.

That is why over the next few days I will be posting links to some of his videos and photos. They make for interesting viewing.

View Neil's profile on Dadooda