UK residents can sign both the below petitions, anyone else can sign the second one only.

• http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CancelHaitisDebt/
• http://www.avaaz.org/en/haiti_cancel_the_debt_8/?vl

Go on, you know it makes sense!

I was in the market for more of those expensive razor cartridges – you know the kind, Gilette Mach 3, or Wilkinson Quattro Titanium, that sort of thing. So I was looking in Boots and despairing of the cost of de-hairing my face, when I saw the King of Shaves ‘Azor’ on the shelf there with the others. The price was in the same region as the others, a little cheaper perhaps. It had awards from Which? and some men’s magazine, so I thought I’d give it a go.

It’s great: it gets the skin smooth like any new razor, but is easier to use because it’s very light and quite flexible. Also, the blades seem to last for an age. So I’ll be getting more of those in future. Order one yourself:

King of Shaves Azor Hybrid Synergy System Razor – Warp

I’d tried gel pens before, but had never been that pleased with them. Whether it was the sometimes scratchy feel of the nib on the paper compared to a biro, or the way that the ink often simply stopped coming for a few letters, I don’t know.

Encouragingly, even though there were few mentions of it online, the Uni-Ball Jetstream seemed to be the answer for a left-hander. So I gave it a try. It’s great! Now I can take notes at meetings without coming out looking like I’ve changed the toner on all their printers. The texture’s good, too. The only catch is the price. They’re a lot more expensive than your bog-standard Bic, but worth it.

So I thought “Why not register,” and post on my blog in the hope that someone else may take notice? So here it is. Register to become a donor here

It’s presented really nicely – I’ll stop now. I’ll wait until it’s finished and then I’ll review it. Do we have a deal?

Technorati: Books business off-topic

Sun’s uses a custom system running on their intranet. IBM’s is more interesting: they have a private island in Second Life, inaccessible to non-IBM employees. Why more interesting? Because although restricted access, it still exists is a “public” space, almost mirroring the real world.

At first I though “what’s the point,” but now I’ve come round to the idea that it could be really useful to use the virtual boardroom model. You could chance upon other people, talk to people aside from the main meeting informally, and do many of the things you can do when you’re at the real boardroom. The trouble with the Metaverse though, is that the food’s rubbish.

Technorati: Metaverse

Technorati: Happy New Year

Xinhua reports that the first stage of trials of an HIV vaccine have been successful, and now they’re moving on to the next stage.

Pretty good.