Rage on Omnipotent

More on hydrogen production

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 10:33:24 GMT

More on hydrogen-powered fuel cells: The Economist has a table of the relative costs of production for various processes: Cut the cost of these by one-third to one-half and you have a real competitor to traditional electricity production methods.

Kitchen Think Dramas

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 10:21:29 GMT

My friend Clare George's new novel The Cloud Chamber a) is excellent and well worth a read, b) was reviewed in the Observer a week or so ago - they classed it as a "Kitchen Think Drama". Yuk.

This is a smartly executed novel, part spy story, part scientific thriller, part romance.

Israel and Iraq

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 10:04:55 GMT

Good to have this debate out in the open. Is it permissible to link Israel and Iraq? Does even expressing the potential of a link mean that one is anti-semitic? Read Yasmin Alibhai-Browns' article (linked in Howard Jacobsen's response) and then her rebuttal. An example comment (from Alibhai-Brown) shows the type of debate:

What happened must forever be kept alive in the memory of the world. But that does not mean granting the state of Israel immunity from criticism in perpetuity.

eMarketer's Broadband Forecasts

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 09:51:36 GMT

It's a beauty. eMarketer says "we don't hide our forecasting method" and then produces an article that entirely obfuscates the process.

Building Communities with Software

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 13:40:19 GMT

Joel on how to build communities using software; in this case discussion forums. Some very good (and simple) lessons for any piece of software.

Global population density

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 13:27:16 GMT

Neat image of population density across the world (from 1994)

Methanol-powered fuel cells for laptops

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 13:23:33 GMT

Methanol-powered fuel cells for laptops are getting nearer. Next step is cellphones, etc.

Chrono-Me-ter

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 15:01:58 GMT

Found this site from the London Bloggers tube map. I love his Chrono-Me-ter. I have to work out a simple way of doing one. Just brilliant.

Online Clips - Bremner Bird and Fortune

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 14:14:12 GMT

Ben's right, Bremner, Bird and Fortune are brilliant. The Bush-Blair .autocue clip (available here in Real Audio) is just laugh out loud brilliant. But it isn't actually funny directly because it's Blair, or because the speech is from Bush or because of the current geopolitical situation. It's just a standard wrong-man-in-wrong-place-with-wrong-tools situation we used to have in the Carry On films. PS I hate the word "geopolitical" and all its variants. Why can't we say global or political or Iraq or American or whatever. No. Suddenly its geopolitical and therefore deeper, nastier, more complex. An Islington word, I think.

More T68i Remote Control Software

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 13:37:53 GMT

Nice use of Bluetooth: using your mobile phone to control a presentation (or whatever). Very neat, and not something you'd have brainstormed.

Duncan Wilcox: PageRank 2.0

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 12:43:31 GMT

Where Google goes next. Very rational analysis of how Google can upgrade the web without resorting to semantics, RDF, etc. And a great quote from Sergey Brin:

Look, putting angle brackets around things is not a technology, by itself. I'd rather make progress by having computers understand what humans write, than by forcing humans to write in ways computers can understand.

British Girl Baffles Teacher with SMS Essay

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 12:34:05 GMT

Cracking teenage SMS-speak essay. Read the article for a translation.

"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 : kids FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc."

A Breakthrough in the War on Terror? I'll Believe it When We See Some Evidence

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 12:33:05 GMT

Robert Fisk isn't convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the mastermind of 9/11.

In the theatre of the absurd into which America's hunt for al-Qa'ida so often descends, the "arrest" - the quotation marks are all too necessary – of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is nearer the Gilbert and Sullivan end of the repertory.

Warren Buffett on derivatives

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 11:18:03 GMT

Warren Buffet really disklikes derivatives. I have to agree with him. Anywhere the market has a natural skew (to better figures for traders and CEOs), there's an opportunity for (potentially honest) mistake and fraud.

The world's oldest eye

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 11:13:31 GMT

First corneal graft patient still going strong at 50, which makes her eyes 130 years old.

Dali picture sprung from jail

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 11:08:48 GMT

Cracking story from the US: somehow a Dali original hanging in Rikers Island prison has been stolen, despite a 24-hour guard at the door.

The real shopping basket revolution

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 11:07:00 GMT

Here's my answer to people who say that we haven't gained anything from technology and societal change: it used to take three days for a family to earn enough wealth to buy a bag of flour. (Which costs us around 50p).

20 questions against the computer

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 12:00:59 GMT

20 Questions against the computer. It's bloody good, taking 19 questions to get satellite dish.

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 10:17:42 GMT

Profusely illustrated course on info-design [Robot Wisdom]

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 10:13:31 GMT

Edward Tufte: Ask E.T. forum (info-design) [Robot Wisdom]

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 10:13:09 GMT

Illustrated history of the graph [Robot Wisdom]

Artificial stupidity, Part 2

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 10:09:39 GMT

Part 2 of Salon's article on the Loebner prize. More Turing test madness.

Interactive Web Sites Boost Politicians, But 'Double-Edged Sword'

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 10:08:17 GMT

Interactive political websites are on balance a good thing, but might not help the politician.

London from space

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 09:54:32 GMT

Great image of London from space with few clouds. Other pictures are here.

Mobile blogging how-to guide

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 09:51:56 GMT

Moblogging for Radio how-to.