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This BBC story from Wednesday is pretty disturbing. The city of Middlesbrough has installed talking CCTV cameras to curb “antisocial behavior.”

Camera operators can talk to people on the street, scolding them for littering, fighting, or other offenses.

You know what that reminds me of?

The instructress had called them to attention again. ‘And now let’s see which of us can touch our toes!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Right over from the hips, please, comrades. One-two! One-two! . . .’

‘Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You’re not trying. Lower, please! That’s better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.’

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston’s body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and—one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency—bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.

– Part 1, Chapter 3 of 1984 by George Orwell

On the latest Boston Behind the Scenes, I asked my listeners what kind of accent I have. I’ve gotten two responses so far:

From Marie:

My crazy guess is Chicago but my one undergrad linguistics class doesn’t really give me a leg to stand on.

From Guido:

I want to say that based on your accent, and perhaps temperment [sic], you are from Chicago.

What does someone from Chicago sound like, anyway?

For a number of years now, I’ve expounded on the virtues of the Brookstone Super Size Family Umbrella. I’ve called it a sturdy umbrella with an exceptional warranty. Even though it is expensive, I’ve been happy with its size and compact profile when folded, and I’ve appreciated its lightweight frame.

Not anymore.

I lost one of these during the winter, so I went into the store to buy a new one. The new model was even lighter than my first ones, and seemed to have a better opening mechanism. Unfortunately, the first time I took it out in the rain a light gust broke one of the supports. I brought it back to the store, and I was told that the warranty had been switched to one year. It seems illegal to change warranty terms after the purchase, but I didn’t need to fight that fight, as I’d just bought it the previous month. So, a bit annoyed, I took the new one home. Of course, I expected it to protect me from the rain.

I took it out a few times, and it served its purpose. In fact, today was one more opportunity to use it. Unfortunately, the first gust caused what can only be described as catastrophic failure. This time four supports broke and half of the umbrella collapsed.

Now, wet and angry, I’ve decided I’m bringing it back and getting a refund. No more Brookstone umbrellas for me.

I have to keep up with the news for my job. At the same time, I like to know what news everyone else is keeping up with. My favorite tool for this is the Yahoo! list of most popular news stories.

This feature puts the news stories, columns, and pictures that people click the most on one page, along with the most emailed and highest-rated content. So on this one page, I can see what people are reading and sharing most on the most popular news site in the world (as ranked by Alexa).

Sometimes this page can be surprising (like when an obscure science story makes it to the top of the list), sometimes it can be disappointing (when both lists fill up with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton “news”), and sometimes it can be downright bizarre.

A few minutes ago, it was a mix of the last two. The most emailed story was headlined Keith Richards: `I snorted my father’ while the most viewed was Couple fights to name baby ‘Metallica’. These were joined on the list by some real news, a few cute animals, and the requisite nearly-naked women.

So there you go: in one place, you can learn about secret jails in Ethiopia, doggie yoga, where to buy the car from Knight Rider, and of course the above story of a rocker mixing his father’s actions with cocaine. And the best part is, you can see how much people care about all of these things.

It’s a quite enlightening exercise.

Steve Garfield took this funny picture of me at the Boston Media Makers meeting yesterday.

I saw this at Gadgets in Jamaica Plain today. You push on his tail to crack the nuts…

Last week, I was invited to join the O’Reilly Digital Media blog, and today I got all set up. I still need the login info to post, but I’m officially in their system.