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15 May, 2008

Clumsy

Oh dear.  I suppose he was provoked, but I don't really see how this academic at a certain university could claim ignorance of one of the more extreme consequences of Data Protection rules.


12 May, 2008

Glad to hear it

This BBC article is fairly interesting, I suppose, but doesn't quite live up to it's headline.


6 May, 2008

Long lasts

Thanks to Ben Goldacre, I'm more than a little sceptical about the reporting of hard-science research by the mass-media, to the point where I read a headline and automatically dismiss the parascience* story as, well, a story, misunderstood or tweaked by a non-specialist journalist for sensationalist effect.  I'd like to think that's an overreaction, and one merely needs to take care, preferably using press articles as a means of discovering interesting research papers then drawing one's own conclusions from them.


5 May, 2008

Ephics?

Quick addendum to the Phorm traffic tracking/analysis issue: even the spyware pusher's logo seems to be blatant plagiarism.


1 May, 2008

Cognitive heat sink

For a few days, I've been noticing references online to the compelling concept of 'cognitive surplus', so have taken the time to investigate the source: Clay Shirky's presentation to a Web 2.0 conference last week.


18 April, 2008

Didn't see that coming

Excellent!  Having duly teased out the entrails of a ceremonial raven, the BBC has received the message that forthcoming consumer protection legislation is likely to replace the 'Fraudulent Mediums Act (1951)' (itself successor to the 1735 Witchcraft Act) and hence reform the occult: mediums, psychics and spiritualist healers may face prosecution if they cannot justify their claims.


18 April, 2008

Ragged remains

I noticed quite a lot of renovation work going on in the Paris Metro last month, with a couple of key stations closed outright.  The Independent reports that workers are uncovering a citywide 'gallery' of advertising posters going back at least as far as the 1930s.


15 April, 2008

Anti-lightning shield

In the New York Sun, a parent explains why she allowed her nine-year-old son to travel across Manhattan alone, using the subway and bus to get home.  She also responds to those who criticised her for it.


14 April, 2008

Not called killer whales for nothing

According to the Independent:

Orcas are among the fiercest animals on Earth, but in contrast with sharks and terrestrial predators such as tigers and lions, there is no record of them ever attacking people.


13 April, 2008

One day...

I normally resist the urge to post amusing cat pictures (though I love 'em), but this one has the perfect touch of subtle surrealism; I simply have to share it.

10 April, 2008

Germinating ideas

Never mind the hippie implications; I think this is a nice idea: handmade paper embedded with live plant seeds.  Imagine a greetings card one can plant.
Never mind imagine, buy one, or make your own.

9 April, 2008

Now that's effective

I don't think this needs any particular comment, but DIY shops in Northern Ireland have withdrawn mole-repelling devices from sale, since there are no moles in Ireland.

5 April, 2008

Basis of the war on moisture - feasible?

The prosecution case against eight alleged terrorists has finally revealed the nature of the threat which led to a global ban on liquids in air passengers' hand luggage.


2 April, 2008

Outside - overrated?

In a comment at Metafilter, aeschenkarnos reviews a new MMO game which isn't all that new, in fact – it may even have been the first ever, though few long-term computer users are likely to have encountered it.


1 April, 2008

Wash & go

Saving water used by a washing machine and reusing it to flush a toilet could be a good idea.  Directly incorporating a washing machine into a toilet is less practical.


31 March, 2008

Boom

Certainly meeting the primary criterion for inclusion at BoingBoing ("A Directory Of Wonderful Things"), this extreme-slow-motion video of a cigarette lighter at the moment of ignition is indeed a Wonderful Thing.

18 March, 2008

More on the Embuggerance

A Guardian interview with Terry Pratchett covers a range of topics, including the essense of why I appreciate his writing:

When I chose this ridiculous world that I called Discworld, it was a reaction to how fantasy fiction had become silly. I wanted to make it real. Let's have none of that 'Belike, he will wax wrath' stuff. Let's not imitate Tolkien. Let's not get medieval on their arses. Let's set the situation and get people to act as people act – cowardly and all the rest.


8 March, 2008

No judgement implied

I'm sure there are atheists who'll gleefully jump on this theory as vindication, and theists who'll attack it as blasphemy, but I was fascinated to read the idea that certain 'supernatural' elements of the Moses story may have been the result of psychedelic drugs.


7 March, 2008

Due contempt

I believe graffiti can be an art form – I totally reject the lazy reaction that it's automatically vandalism.  However, for every talented individual there are several mindless daubers and for every Banksy there's a Jan Philip Scharbert.


27 February, 2008

Keming

A word so obvious it ought to exist, 'keming' describes the result of improper kerning.


20 February, 2008

Ban it

I regard the consumption of bottled water in countries with safe piped supplies as foolish, but effectively a matter of personal choice: I wouldn't support an outright ban on people spending their money as they wish, though I would welcome a punitive price increase as discouragement, ostensibly to offset environmental costs.


18 February, 2008

Hic!

Why do we hiccup?


14 February, 2008

Control the means of production

Plaid Cymru have been criticised for mentioning it, but it's worth remembering that by paying subscriptions to a trade union in the UK, it's rather likely you're funding the Labour Party.


8 February, 2008

Must be blue paper

Here are a few techniques one can employ to improve the sound quality of audio equipment.


7 February, 2008

No more tears?

There may – may – be valid justifications for genetically-modified food crops which outweigh the potential disadvantages.  However, I don't think mere convenience is one of those justifications.


29 January, 2008

One-of-a-kind

Michael Swanwick bottles fiction: he'll write a short story, seal a copy within a glass bottle, then destroy all drafts and other copies, physical or electronic.  He'll then give away the bottled story, either to a friend or to be auctioned for charity.


11 January, 2008

Deliberately degraded

Rolling Stone offers a comprehensive overview of the 'loudness war' problem whereby music producers compress recordings to increase their apparent loudness, supposedly to boost the music's immediate attraction and make it stand out from other music – which is using the same trick.  The result is exhausting noise lacking subtlety.


10 January, 2008

Yes, please

Sooner the better.

10 January, 2008

Useful to know

According to MoneySavingExpert.com:

Amazon has a hidden price promise that if you buy something and it drops in price within 30 days you can get the difference back. That means if you did any christmas shopping there; you should check if the price has dropped in the sales, and if it has – claim the money back.


7 January, 2008

Uncanny valley

I've been mentioning my interest in photorealism (especially in CGI) for years, so I was pleased to discover this fairly long article by Peter Plantec, clinical psychologist and 'virtual human designer'.


21 December, 2007

Argyria

As Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing says:

The best thing you can hope for from taking a quack medicine is that nothing bad happens to you. The worst thing is you die. The weirdest thing is you turn blue.
Permanently.

19 December, 2007

Get the shopping, and get a life

I don't agree with Julie Burchill very often; in fact, her name on an article is usually sufficient reason for me to avoid it.  However, we're on the same wavelength on a topic I've already, er, 'discussed comprehensively': irrational support for independent retailers (corner shops, many bookshops and record stores in particular) on merely emotive grounds and criticism of supermarkets for 'destroying small town community life'.


17 December, 2007

Spot the decade

Isn't it odd how 'girlie' calendars went out of fashion (political correctness gone... entirely reasonable, actually) then, following the WI's effort dramatised as 'Calendar Girls', have gradually returned?  At first they were 'ironic', but some of the more recent ones I've heard about haven't even tried to disguise their nature.


12 December, 2007

I already know I have brown eyes

For $985 (about £5), deCODEme will analyse a sample of your genetic material, "scanning over one million variants in your genome" to ungrammatically establish your "risk for" eighteen genetic diseases and "find out where your ancestors came from".


6 December, 2007

High culture

Which is the second most visited tourist attraction in the UK, after Blackpool Pleasure Beach?


3 December, 2007

Maxim

I'm not entirely comfortable with the value judgement, but the following quote reflects the way I aspire to live:

Superior people speak about ideas, mediocre people speak about things, and inferior people speak about others.


28 November, 2007

'Pants it is, then

A certain environmentalist pressure group has been running a web poll to name a whale being tracked in an ongoing project.  The shortlist (of 30 – not so short) includes 'Kigai' ('strong spirit' in Japanese), 'Sedna' (the Innuit goddess of the oceans), 'Veikko' ('brother' or 'good friend' in Finnish); oh, and 'Mister Splashy Pants' ("just too funny to leave out").


27 November, 2007

Cultural guerrillas cleared

The UnterGunther, a branch of the group loosely coordinating Paris' subterranean culture (including the aforementioned underground cinema), specialises in restoration of unregarded aspects of France's urban heritage.  In 2005-6, they covertly occupied space high in the dome of the Panthéon, with the subversive purpose of... repairing the clock.


20 November, 2007

Hoard unearthed

Here's a diverting article about 1p and 2p coins, and the vague suggestion that they may be phased out.


17 November, 2007

Not what it's for

Am I the only one who finds this depressing?  Weapons, from pistols and grenades, through machine guns to rocket launchers, for LEGO minifigs.


13 November, 2007

The Belgian question

Today's Guardian offers an interesting review of Belgium's current identity crisis.


8 November, 2007

Negative intelligence

Oh dear.  National Lottery scratchcards have had to be withdrawn because purchasers were too innumerate to know whether they'd won.


7 November, 2007

I happy too

I have to restrain myself from posting links to icanhascheezburger.com (I could easily punblish 3-4 per week), but there's no way I can avoid mentioning this one.


6 November, 2007

How pointless

Ever played the game whereby one is challenged to write entertainingly on a random, mundane subject?  It's mildly diverting, but normal people don't get paid to do it, and people don't normally pay to have the results inflicted upon them.


5 November, 2007

A whole new level of pedantry

As David Morgan-Mar observed* , a 'quantum' is, by definition, "the smallest possible unit of difference".  Hence, the phrase 'a quantum leap', generally understood as referring to a large change, means quite the opposite.


2 November, 2007

What would happen if...?

The Guardian reports the "most bizarre tests ever conducted in the name of scientific inquiry" *.


23 October, 2007

Give us a grin

Using a 240 MP scanner to generate a 22GB digital image, photographer/engineer Pascal Cotte claims to have made 17 new discoveries about da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa', including the history of key details.


17 October, 2007

No peeking

By reading this entry, the owners of copyrighted content quoted below hereby acknowledge that use as fair.

On that issue, the lawyers operating the Consumer Law & Privacy blog have discovered a website with an amusingly restrictive 'user agreement'.


11 October, 2007

Play-doh ad

Anyone who, like me, loved the 'bouncing balls' and 'paint fireworks' adverts for a certain television manufacturer might be interested in the new one*, which features 200 multi-coloured rabbits in Manhattan.


10 October, 2007

Poptastic

No.31 in Jonathan Glancey's series of articles on 'classics of everyday design' is about Bubble Wrap.  Apparently, it was accidentally invented (as are all the best innovations) during the development of better wallpaper in 1957.


5 October, 2007

Shop around

Given that the UK is currently experiencing a postal strike which will delay all Royal Mail post for a full week, with further strikes apparently planned for every Monday until the unions get their way, fellow Brits might be interested in the contact details of the eighteen other licenced postal companies.


28 September, 2007

Persona non grata

Well, this seems pretty clear-cut to me.


25 September, 2007

Top level domain

Is it irredeemably geeky to be impressed by the British Library's domain name?


20 September, 2007

Never thought about it

It seems like the co-host of a US talk show doesn't know whether the Earth is round or flat – because she's too busy taking care of her children, so doesn't have time to think about such trivia.

Oh dear....


19 September, 2007

Literally inhuman

This interview with a Zimbabwian government official contains some of the most chilling statements I've ever encountered outside accounts of Nazi atrocities.


14 September, 2007

Never too old to rock'n'roll

'Wyldfyre'.  A cheesy Eighties hair-metal band?  So why did I see the logo plastered across the front of a minibus of morose pensioners a few minutes ago, on my way home from work?


13 September, 2007

Eternal dilemma

Siobhan/Kisa might struggle to decide*, but which is better: Second Life or cats?


5 September, 2007

Bag of holding

Yes, I always considered this a bit odd, too.

3 September, 2007

Wstęp wzbroniony!

The roads around St Hilary, a village in South Wales, are too narrow for large vehicles.  Road signs clearly state this fact: "Unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles", in both Welsh and English.  Yet satellite navigation units obviously know the local conditions far better, so drivers simply ignore the signs and proceed, becoming stuck.


2 September, 2007

The vanishing point

Though I've never seriously tried it myself, I've had an interest in 'urban exploration' (investigation of empty/abandoned public structures such as storm drain networks and old hospitals) for a while, so I was interested to read Geoff Manaugh's (long) interview with photographer/explorer Michael Cook for BLDGBLOG.


31 August, 2007

You're doing it all wrong

Ben Goldacre (with the anonymous contributions of senior UK newspaper managers) offers an alternative structure for newspapers' online presences.


21 August, 2007

Revolution imminent

I suspect this could be a step too far for some people... about 50% of the population, perhaps?

15 August, 2007

No haven

Everyone knows that ecological diversity around the Chernobyl nuclear power station has increased drastically since the 1986 disaster, as humans are excluded from a 30 km radius of the surrounding area and low levels of radiation have minimal effects on wildlife.  Everyone knows that.


8 August, 2007

Oi! Let's see that rebirth certificate, pal!

From 1 September, it will be illegal for senior Tibetan Buddhists to reincarnate without the approval of the Chinese government, according to The Times.


1 August, 2007

I'm a literalist

On BBC4 TV this evening: 'Ian Rankin's Hidden Edinburgh'.


1 August, 2007

Pathogenetic proposal potentially preposterous

So; is there an association between the use of heeled footwear and schizophrenia?


27 July, 2007

Truth in fiction

That staple of detective thrillers, incriminating fingerprints found on a gun, mightn't be entirely realistic.


26 July, 2007

Do not feed the squirrels

Must try this one on those people whose e-mails are routinely tagged 'Importance: High'.
I suppose it's subtler than replying with (paraphrasing!) "your priority is not necessarily mine".


23 July, 2007

Signs of stability

I can't help thinking, admittedly without evidence, that this highlights a fundamental difference between UK and US attitudes to the urban environment.