• 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.

My first thought for this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Extreme Closeup,” was Wayne’s World. (Party on, reader.)

Indeed, so ingrained in my memory is that phrase and that film, so was the second thing. It took me a while to think of anything else. In the end I decided on a close-up of an eye. I tried to do my own with a tripod and the remote control software on my Mac (never thought I’d use the “live view” on my 50D but it seems that it has its uses) but that didn’t work out so well. So this is an extreme close-up of B‘s eye. Sorry for blinding you with the flash…

A few years ago I was subcontracted to one of the large consultancies. I was taking over from someone who was, supposedly, quite senior and the task at hand, I was told, was very hard. I should take copious notes as she wouldn’t necessarily be around afterwards to help me. Making a mistake or missing out any one step could be disastrous to the whole process. If I did everything properly each new installation would take about a week.

There seem to have been a few food-related themes recently, and this week is no exception. The image above represents the PhotoFriday challenge “Edible.” It’s B digging into some more than merely edible food in Lisbon.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “The Weekend.” I’m entry number 187.

• Coming to an ID Card Near You: Your DNA – “Can there be any doubt that the UK government will, at some point, try to add DNA to the other biometrics on the card?” Scary stuff.
• How to spot a hidden religious agenda – Apparently this article was pulled from the New Scientist website shortly after it was published which is a bid odd as there’s nothing scientifically objectionable.
• Tea really does taste better from your favourite cup – “Your daily brew tastes better from your favourite mug.”

Apparently today is “Atheist Pride Day.” You are supposed to “change your Facebook profile picture to the [Out Campaign Logo] And change your status to something like ‘I am an atheist’ (or whatever).” I’m not on FaceBook so you’ll have to make do with this little post.

It turns out that the timing is quite good, too. Last night I went to a British Humanist Association talk by Daniel Dennett called “A Darwinian Perspective on Religions: Past, Present and Future.” It was chaired by Richard Dawkins. Here’s a fuzzy iPhone picture of the Q&A session at the end. (If only I’d brought my 50D!)

I’ve had my iPhone for over a year now. O2 have got more money out of me than they really deserve given how much I actually use it as a phone, but overall I’m still very happy with it. This is all the more surprising when you consider that I’ve been disappointed with pretty much every phone I’ve had over the years. The last one I was actually happy with was a Nokia 6310i, one of those boring but ultra-competent devices that basically just works. I even got nearly two weeks on a single charge; I barely get two days on the iPhone.

In my mind, this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “The Weekend,” is linked with the “Morning Routine” theme a couple of weeks ago. I guess that’s my fault for using my weekend breakfast routine last time. I fought the temptation to use the same image, and instead used this spot we used for brunch a couple of times when we were in Lille, France.

In the end it was the reliability that did it. Over the last few months my trusty 300D has been coming up with odd errors, refusing to recognise memory cards and generally getting cantankerous. Luckily I have always been able to coax it back to life but in the end the thought of travelling somewhere and have it fail became more painful than the anticipated hole in my bank account.

• The Numbers Post (aka Brutal Honesty) – “I hope that this article might serve as a counter-point to the articles that seem to go around the web about devs making hundreds of thousands of dollars off an iPhone app. Everyone within the dev community understands that the odds of that happening are very slim, yet those are the stories that people like to hear.”
• Why we’ve reached the end of the camera megapixel race – I had many reasons for upgrading from my 300D, but the 6MP sensor wasn’t one of them.
• Bring bad design to justice – Do your part…