• The Myth of Japan’s Failure – “Japan has succeeded in delivering an increasingly affluent lifestyle to its people despite the financial crash. In the fullness of time, it is likely that this era will be viewed as an outstanding success story.”
• Man Embraces Useless Machines, and Absurdity Ensues – Technology: making life simpler.
• Merry – Sat here with my newborn son and wife, with all my family staying nearby, this post rang bells. It’s sometimes important to realise what you have.

• Fifty years of LEGO – Best. Toy. Ever. And still going strong.
• Polish IT worker calculates exact speed of snail mail – Apparently snail mail is actually slower than a snail.
• For those who thought that the MacBook Air had no use… – It’s odd that Steve Jobs didn’t mention any of these uses though.

• Are You Better Off than You Were 2,000 Years Ago? – The next president of the United States of America? If only…
• Apple unveil iNvisible iBook – Even more Apple announcements this week. Kind of.
• How to Spot Arial – I never realised that Arial and Helvetica were so different!

The funny thing about Alexandria is that the all the things that it’s famous for are no longer in one piece; it’s a city famous for what it was.

First stop are some Roman ruins, a small but well preserved amphitheatre. One spooky part is a spot in the middle where your voice gets amplified, you hear back anything you say with a slight delay.

Next stop: catacombs. These were the tombs of a rich, egyptianised Roman. Most interesting was some of the art work which combined Roman and Egyptian style, sometimes with errors (deliberate or accidental?), such as only three jars next to the mummy (there are supposed to be four for the internal organs of the deceased) and the dead having head-gear normally reserved for gods.

I just read Daniel Eran Dilger’s “Winter 2007 Buyer?s Guide: Microsoft Zune 8 vs iPod Nano” but I felt that it was missing something very important for readers outside the United States.

So to fill that void here is my attempt. I have not actually used any of the new Zunes or iPods but I don’t necessarily feel that this has any material impact on the final result¹.

The first day of walking was to take me from Sermano to Corte. I was driven to the start by taxi along the scary, narrow lanes that surround Corte.

It doesn’t take long before things start to go wrong. Crossing a stream I manage to put my whole foot in the water, fortunately only fleetingly and so I am not completely waterlogged.

On the approach to Wembley there were a gaggle of vendors selling glowing rabbit ears and furry wands. We speculated whether this was where Gwen Stefani bought the wardrobe for her tour. They probably sell the same merchandise for most gigs here, but there are few other artists that I could imagine actually wearing such cheap and cheesy accessories.

Of course she didn’t, at least until about two thirds of the way through the set when she launched herself into the audience, alternately running around and standing in the crowd to sing a verse. At one point she borrowed some rabbit ears from a fan. Very fetching.

This review has taken a long time coming. We saw it a couple of weeks after its initial release — so late that we had difficulty finding a cinema in London that was showing it in fact — but I’ve been sitting on my thoughts since then. Why? Well, as useful and informative as the CRAP Alert system is, not being able to compare and contrast my score to that of the CAP Alert team removed some of the fun. Nevertheless, you can’t wait forever so here is the full review.

We went to see Pet Shop Boys play live at the Hammersmith Apollo on the 6th. It was a great gig, possibly the best of theirs that I’ve seen. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen them over the years and the first time I’ve not left at least a little disappointed.

But despite the ups and downs of their live shows, they have maintained their prime position in my music collection since at least Actually came out in 1987. That makes me feel old! Of course you can’t really rationalise something that tugs at raw emotion in the way that music often can[^1], but that has not stopped me trying to figure out why I keep listening to them[^2].

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I’m not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.

| | | Scientific Atheist | \| \| \|—\|—\|—\| | 83% | |—|—| | Apathetic Atheist | \| \| | 75% | |—|—| | Spiritual Atheist | \| \| | 75% | |—|—| | Angry Atheist | \| \| | 50% | |—|—| | Agnostic | \| \| | 33% | |—|—| | Militant Atheist | \| \| | 25% | |—|—| | Theist | \| \| | 17% | |—|—| What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com | |—|