Skip to main contentTag: Politics
- “The Government” – “Try something. Every time somebody complains about the evils or failings of ’the government,’ strike out ’the government’ and see what results.” (via @marcoarment)
- People get red-dy – “The idea of a ginger festival may sound like little more than a bit of fun, but when 3,000 redheads came together for a recent gathering it became a bonding experience.”
- Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why. – “It’s not that the old meds are getting weaker, drug developers say. It’s as if the placebo effect is somehow getting stronger.”
- Life after Humph – “The show is such a fixture, such a massive part of the radio landscape, I think British radio would be the poorer without it so they made a great decision.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Welcome back I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
- Iran election: state moves to end ‘Facebook revolution’ – At best this is very suspicious. And changes are we’re not talking about a best case scenario here. Let’s hope that those in power see sense.
- I stole your images, put them back or I will call a lawyer? – When people steal my images I’m never sure whether I should be flattered or offended. If I ever get an email like this I’ll know which way to think…
- Apple drawing 3.0 line in the sand for iPhone developers – This can only mean that the release is getting pretty close. And, significantly, that the APIs are stabilising — I had to rewrite almost everything I did with the first beta when the latest version of the developer kit came out.
- DNA Database Doublecross – “Yet again this government shows its deep contempt for international courts, and demonstrates its profoundly cynical belief that the innocent simply haven’t been proved guilty yet.”
- Jacqui Smith enlists high street help for ID cards scheme – Doesn’t using high street shops to make ID cards make it substantially less secure? Wasn’t the whole point that ID cards were an unbreakable scheme? This just gets worse and worse.
- Objectified – New documentary from the people that gave you Helvetica. Looks interesting.
- Georgia recalls Soviet crackdown – I visited ten years after this. It’s a really beautiful country and such a shame that it keeps descending into civil war or getting into a scuffle with its northern neighbour.
- Odds of Dying in a Terrorist Attack – “You are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist.” Maybe the government should start protecting us from the police instead? (via Kottke.org)
- A thought experiment – “This presents a problem for customers who are still running the 2.2.1 firmware: they can’t get your fix until they upgrade to the 3.0 firmware.”
- U.S. support for Detroit would buy 50 million Tata Nanos – “What else might we do with $100 billion in this industry? Assuming that we could get a wholesale price of $2000 per car, that’s enough to buy 50 million four-passenger 54 mpg Tata Nanos. The fuel savings from driving Nanos to the 7-11 instead of monster SUVs would save taxpayers $100 billion every year.”
- Right to privacy broken by a quarter of UK’s public databases, says report – “The report, Database State by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, says that more than half of Whitehall’s 46 databases and systems have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness, and could fall foul of a legal challenge.” And people wonder why I’m against ID cards and internet snooping laws.