kierenmccarthy.co.uk

Yesterday, the news came through that Judge Walker in San Francisco had ruled that the controversial Proposition 8 – which bans gay marriage in California and had been approved by referendum two years ago – was unconstitutional. The ruling is quite an interesting read and may well set significant legal precedents further down the line. [...]

So I’ve finally updated the software that this blog uses – Wordpress – from 2.0.1 to 2.8.4 – which will mean nothing to most of you but cause others to wonder what the hell I’ve been up to.
I’ve also tidied up the page and fix a range of bugs so the site is clean and [...]

It seems that the Internet is catching on with the most powerful men in the world. Both the Pope and the new US president Barack Obama have this week announced new web strategies and told anyone that would listen how much they love this Internet.
The conversion is hardly surprising – both men derive most of [...]

Yet another extraordinary statement has come out of Nominet – the .uk registry owner – today. This time, the chairman Bob Gilbert lambasts a “number of false allegations” made in a resignation letter from former director Jim Davies.
The letter was posted on the Nominet members’ private mailing list, nom-steer, and contains “sensitive and confidential board [...]

Singer Jennifer Lopez has filed papers against the owner of jenniferlopez.org and jenniferlopez.net, accusing him of cybersquatting.
The two sites are owned by one Jeremiah Tieman who lives in Arizona and uses the sites to display news, pictures and videos of and about the singer and includes a disclaimer at the bottom stating that the sites [...]

There’s nothing like a big event to get people thinking, particularly when that event is the inauguration of a president who brings with him the hopes and dreams of a generation.
Barack Obama will be sworn in as 44th President of the United States in nine days on Tuesday 20th January. There are also a range [...]

It may be worth declaring a conflict of interest straight off: I can’t stand David Frost.
As a child, he instilled a strange kind of lonely hatred on Through the Keyhole – a formulaic game show in which the preening host would constantly insert amusing anecdotes about some famous person he had interviewed decades earlier.
And [...]

So British superband of the moment Coldplay is being sued in Los Angeles for plagiarising guitarist Joe Satriani in their hit Viva la Vida. Joe says that the song – also the title of Coldplay’s fourth album “incorporated substantial, original portions of Plaintiff’s composition ‘If I Could Fly‘.”
Read the actual court document detailing the [...]

I was at the United Nations in Geneva last week to watch what was happening to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as it prepares for its third outing, this December in Hyderabad, India.
Actually I was there for a different reason – an ICANN consultative meeting on the future of the organization the morning before the [...]

I have been itching to do some writing but have been caught up with other things: friends visiting, fixing up the van, and work. So I’ll quickly going to knock up a list of blog posts I want to write so I don’t forget next time I am in front of a laptop, have 20 [...]