- Ars Book Review: “Patent Failure” – Interesting book review about the effect of patents on an industry. Apparently cost more money than they make in anything but chemical and pharmaceuticals.
- Lucky to be a Programmer – I don’t program as much as I used to but this explains why I love to when I get the chance.
- WordPress 2.6 – Usual drill. I’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, the underlying software of ZX81.org.uk. If you see anything wrong please let me know!
- 20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA – Still in any doubt that computerised voting machines are a bad idea for free and fair elections?
Tag: Politics
- Review: Charming Wall-E Sweeps Up Trash, Hearts – Seems that being bought by Disney has not cramped Pixars style. Definitely one that I’ll see at the cinema.
- Labour fifth as Tories win Henley – When Labour get fewer votes than the BNP in a by-election there is a big problem…
- Legal, British P2P ‘by end of year’ – Is the music industry finally ready to embrace new distribution models?
- A humanist discussion of… ‘creationism’ – A nice rebuttal of some of the more common “arguments” against evolution.
- Classics in Lego – Famous photographs in Lego. Fantastic!
- A shaming victory on 42 days – The governments absurd law, allowing the Police to detail people for up to 42 days without charge, is not popular. Just hoping the Lords send it back with some rude comments attached.
- French version of The Apprentice ’not allowed to fire contestants’ – Against my better judgement I got quite into this years (UK) Apprentice. The French version sounds even more entertaining…
- No ID Card Function Creep? Pull the Other One – “Now, tell me again why we should trust the UK government over ID cards?”
- Burma cyclone: Regime turns back US aid ships – The Burmese military junta puts their own position above the lives of over two million people. Sick.
- US imposes 72 hour pre-reg for Visa waiver travellers – And this is going to help how?!
- ID Cards: Scandalous as Well as Idiotic – More on ID cards and the lengths that the government is going to in order to make sure that we all get them, like it or not. Very sneaky.
- Want to buy Jacqui Smith’s ID? – “Four people have been arrested after the BBC bought a driving licence and utility bills in the name of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.” Yet the government insists that this is a good reason for having a national ID card? They still don’t understand…
- The Dumbing Of America – “The toxic brew of anti-rationalism and ignorance hurts discussions of U.S. public policy on topics from health care to taxation.” The article is about the US but it’s also increasingly true here. Depressing.
- New Indiana Jones movie is dreadful – Oh dear. Like many people I’ll probably still go see it anyway…
- SMS costs more than using Hubble Space Telescope – “Text messaging [is] anywhere from four to 42 times as expensive as talking to the Hubble.”
- Senator to ISPs: “Think twice” about ‘Net neutrality… or else – It’s encouraging that some politicians understand the issues of net neutrality. Let’s hope that there are also tech-savvy MPs here in the UK.
- Peep Show for free! – If you’re in the UK this is a must-have download: the first episode of the new series of Peep Show. It’s perhaps the best comedy show on British TV at the moment. Highly recommended.
- The Free Web: 15 Years Old Today – The subject line says it all! Where would we be without the web?
- An elephant never forgets? George W. Bush’s lost e-mails – “The administration has chafed at external oversight and shown a tendency to come up with dubious legal justifications for ignoring laws it doesn’t agree with.” Just what is Mr Bush trying to hide?
- WordPress 2.5.1 – I just upgraded to the newest version of WordPress. Looks good as far as I can see but let me know if you spot anything untoward.
- Madonna, Hard Candy – “It’s about grooves rather than memorable songs, and Madonna just doesn’t make for a convincing soul diva [as she] sings them with the emotional engagement of a sat-nav suggesting a right turn onto the A23.”
- Amnesty unveils shock ‘waterboarding’ film – This video makes it pretty clear why waterboarding is torture and not just an “enhanced interrogation” technique as George Bush would have us believe. Very nasty. (Don’t watch over dinner.)
- DRM: The Gift that Keeps on Taking – “Now, people, aren’t you really glad you bought DRM’d music”
- Free your mind – How can a writer make money when distribution is free…
- The Cost of E-Voting – One of the many reasons that I am against e-voting machines: the cost. “The cost … increased 179 percent per voter on average.” All that money for a less reliable system. Bargain!
- Change we can believe in – I didn’t realise that we were in line for some new coins. They look surprisingly good, certainly much better than the new US notes. (Originally from daringfireball.net)
- Bali bombings: A sister’s search for justice – I’ve always said that it’s much easier to be against capital punishment when it’s just an abstract idea. Here the sister of one of the Bali bombing’s victims argues why she’s still against it.