Today marks 75 years since the first regular high definition (as in 405 line) television service began broadcasting from the BBC studios at Alexandra Palace in North London.

The BBC’s Nick Higham has posted two videos about the anniversary: BBC celebrates 75 years of TV and Behind the scenes at Alexandra Palace, the cradle of television.

There is also anniversary coverage on:

• The BBC Story site
• The About the BBC Blog
• Ariel
• BBC News: the story of the competing Marconi-EMI and Baird systems in 1936

(Test Card C illustration from the Test Card Circle.)

I absolutely agree with the points Felicia Day makes about RSS.

It’s the only way to efficiently track updates to websites.

If sites are removing RSS feeds, I am at a loss to understand why.

Dave Winer, who has been involved in the development of RSS, has also responded to Felicia’s post.

James May’s Man Lab is back for series 2 – excellent.

Amazing video – more details at the Quantum levitation site and on Physics Stack Exchange.

I attended the Wetherspoon 2011 Autumn Real Ale and Cider Festival, which ran 5 to 23 October 2011 and featured 50 real ales and 10 ciders.

I’ve detailed the drinks I sampled at various different JDW pubs during the festival, with marks out of ten.

The festival included American craft ale, shown as [US] below, beer brewed exclusively for the festival [exclusive], and resurrection beer (beer that has not been produced for some time brewed again for the festival) [resurrection].

• Beartown Wojtek- 8.5/10
• Bell’s Brewery Black Silk [US] [exclusive] – 6.5/10
• Box Steam Piston Broke [exclusive] – 7/10
• Brakspear Tripple- 8.75/10
• Brewster’s American Chopper [exclusive] – 8.5/10
• Broadoak Chedder Valley – 7.5/10
• Cotleigh Commando Hoofing IPA – 7/10
• Double Maxim Anderson’s Best Scotch [exclusive] – 7/10
• Everards Whakkatu – 8.5/10
• Exmoor Hart [resurrection] – 7.75/10
• Fat Head’s Yakima Sun [US] [exclusive] – 7/10
• Hilden Twisted Hop [exclusive] – 7.5/10
• Hook Norton Flagship Ale – 8/10
• JW Lees The Governor – 8.5/10
• Moorhouse’s Pendal Porter- 8.75/10
• Oakleaf 10 Little Acorns [resurrection] – 8/10
• RCH Firey Liz [resurrection] – 9/10
• Salopian Vapour Trail [exclusive] – 6/10
• St Austell Proper Black- 8/10
• St Peter’s Golden Ale – 8/10
• Thwaites Daniel’s Hammer [resurrection] – 8/10
• Thatchers Chedder Valley – 7.5/10
• Thornbridge Brother Rabbit – 6/10
• Traditional Scottish Ales Taking the Pith – 7.5/10
• Two Trees Farmhouse Perry – 9/10
• Wells Naked Gold – 7/10
• Wharfebank Treacle Toffee Stout [exclusive] – 8.5/10
• White Horse Rustler [exclusive] – 8/10
• Woodforde’s Kett’s Rebellion [exclusive] – 7/10

Full details are given in the festival tasting notes [2.4MB PDF].

So, that’s how Google does it…

I went to the sixth meeting of the WordPress London local group at the Telegraph offices in Victoria on Thursday 20 October 2011.

During the meetup, Paul Gibbs (pictured above), Developer at the Telegraph, gave an illuminating presentation on what’s involved in running the WordPress powered Telegraph blogs and MyTelegraph, the latter claimed to be the largest BuddyPress site in the UK.

Graham Armfield also gave an interesting presentation on WordPress and web accessibility, giving those present plenty of food for thought.

WordPress London meets on a monthly basis – if you’re not based in London see if there is a WordPress local group near you on the WordCamp UK wiki.

Dries Buytaert, project lead for Drupal, and Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, interviewed together (for the first time) at SchipulCon 2011 in Houston, Texas.