The previous site (until they take it down) can be viewed here.

The new site can be seen here.

While the original site had its problems, it was largely simple, usable and a good way to find new music, connect with artists and listeners and to listen to the tracks I had marked as interesting to me while I worked. It was visually discrete and worksafe, and something I looked forward to watching develop as it grew and changed. It has now become a horrible, flash based abomination completely inaccessible to screen readers and other accessibility tools - and not that much better for ordinary users too.

I've included some links below covering the userbase reaction:

I used to like the sixtyone - a central round-up site for the fan response.

The t61 official facebook group is here. and the comments are not exactly positive.

This unofficial group is serving as a gathering point for dissapointed fans of the site.

This article from thenextweb is one of many positive spin articles (all very similar) which appeared within hours of the redesign, leading many people to suspect there's some SEO and astroturfing going on - the comments tell a different story.

These two open letters, one from an artist and one from a user, are some of the best written objections to the changes I've seen so far.

And last but not least, this feature from Reddit webdesign features the professionals telling t61 very clearly what they've done wrong.

Are you free of autoimmune disease?

Then you may be able to help with a study being run by the Cambridge Institute for medical research looking for genetic markers for autoimmune disorders. They have plenty of patients with Vasculitis conditions to work with at the moment, but a shortage of healthy control patients. After Ezekiel agreed to participate she passed the information to me so I could participate as a healthy control patient; but following my diagnosis on Monday, I can't do that anymore.

So if any of you are in Cambridge and healthy, and don't mind giving a little blood for Science! I'd be most greatful if you'd drop an email to Jane Hollis at jane.hollis(at)addenbrookes.nhs.uk and let her know you'd like to be a control patient.

these benefits can be awkward to get. Contrary to popular belief, they do require regular medical assessment, sign-off by doctors and an awful lot of paperwork/admin to get hold of. But once you do get them, they're handled on a consistant, national basis with transparent and legally enforceable criteria. There are even official appeals processes in place if you feel you've been unjustly denied. All in all, they could be a lot worse.

And if a recent government green paper, currently in its consultation phase, makes it's way to policy, they may well become so. This document proposes doing away with the Attendance allowance, Care elements of the Disability Living allowance and potentially the whole of the DLA and handing these over to local authorities to administer as part of the social care system. Leaving aside the fact that in my experience, most local authorities couldn't find their own arses with both hands and a roadmap, this removes almost all the transparency and protection from the system. It also puts us in a situation where Disabled People go from managing their own budget acquired via DLA and AA to one where the money is spent on their behalf by social workers as part of the individual care allowance which is, in my opinion, a serious step backward.

(I strongly suspect the admin side of the Social Care system will be completely unable to cope as well. They currently manage social care allowances for around 1.26 million people. 3.82 million recieve DLA and AA currently, so either we're going to see most of the transferred budget soaked up paying for admin costs as the social care system expands to three times its current size, or a lot of people are going to be left sitting by the wayside in poverty).

I am not the most coherent or experienced writer on issues like this, so I encourage you to go and read up about this at the following links:

Adult Green Paper could be catastrophe for diasbility allowance reciipents by Neil Bateman.

DLA and AA Threat at Benefits and Work

DLA and AA under threat by Mary at Batsgirl.blogspot.com

Andrade guilty on 1st degree murder and hate crime charges in Angie Zapata case.

Good.

A confession is not, and should never have been a defense. Seeing this foul little argument rejected by a jury so completely fills me with quiet satisfaction. Seeing a successful prosecution of a bias-motivated crime in a case like this makes me want to cheer. The more clearly the message is sent that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, that none of us are disposable, the safer the world is.

I'm going to go pour myself a drink now.

Our bijou little den of sin and iniqity is a house of plague this week, we're beginning to consider painting a red cross on the door and having done with it. A crackly throat last wednesday turned into full on oogle bloogle blarg *collapse* for this Weasel when the weekend came and shortly after that it felled Ezekiel too. We are wobbling along in our own little way this week (a little lopsided and not particularly fast) and putting ourselves back together. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be back in one piece myself by this weekend, there is an Ezekiel to look after, things that need doing here and at work and all kinds of shenannigans I could be shenanning.

The monsterous piece of sparklebunny electro from Little Boots in the youtube video at the top of this post has been helping with things immensely, I swear . The news that Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron are starring together in 'The Danish Girl', a movie about Lili Elbe and her wife Gerda Wegener also has me more than a little delighted. Follow this link for some excited commentary at Dorothy Surrenders and some deliciously nsfw examples of Gerda Wegener's art.

In less frivulous matters, I've been doing a lot of reading around recently after reviewing the Analysis 'Breast Screening: the facts-or maybe not' in the BMJ, the open letter from various uk medical professionals published in the times and Sandy's commentary on the whole thing at Junk Food Science. Leaving aside my obvious personal interest in this in the first place, I teld to look doubly close at anything in this area because some of the medicines I take do moderately alarming things to my long term risk of developing breast cancer. Two of the more fun and interesting things I stumbled across were some advice on Breast Massage to promote lymph flow and general health which I've been having a go at and certainly have no objections to continuing with whatever the benefits and the Anti-Bra website, dedicated to encouraging all of us to go unrestrained whenever practical for health reasons, which I am lucky enough to also have no issues with except when I'm exercising. It's nice to have a couple of things that seem to reduce your risk of cancer not be attached to an alt health quack with a dubious supplement for once .

But now 'tis time for sleep, as we've arial fitters and the local authority to deal with tomorrow morning, then I've got a story to get written (I didn't manage to post about the new topic, the dratted plague's fault!), busy busy .

It's a good morning .

A patient and their family being able to pay for one aspect of their treatment does not mean that they can afford to pay for everything and it makes a mockery of the nhs to penalise them for doing so.

I know some doctors have made arguments that explicitly allowing patients to purchase drugs and treatment that the nhs doesn't fund will be a slippery slope towards a two-tier NHS, but withdrawing treatment from those who need it is not the appropriate way to fignt this. If it happens, we need to fight it off case by case and trust by trust instead.