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Cringley on Wikileaks
Cringlely has written a very good article about Wikileaks from his journalistic point of view. He identifies a number of problems that I'd been thinking about and more; I've thought for some time that the Wikileaks approach is particularly unprotective of its sources - although, in this case, Bradley Manning was given a small amount of rope and ( Read more... ) -
Thoughts on "CSI: Hard Evidence" for the Wii.
It's bizarre how incomprehensible this game is from the non-player perspective. I can only hope Laura is getting a lot more interest out of it than I am having to sit here watch it.
The main part of the game is where you visit various scenes, which you can "search". The way you search is by waving the mouse pointer around and watch for changes ( Read more... ) -
The Laserjet Bombers
Most people reading this won't know who Bunny Huang is, but he does a regular on his blog called "Name that ware". Basically, a bare PCB is photographed and put up, and people have to guess what device it came from. This is often a lot easier than it sounds: key components and design features often narrow down the range extremely quickly.
Somewhat ( Read more... ) -
Libya & Oil
It's with some increasing bemusement that the "Terrorist for Oil Swap" scandal is being played out in the media over here. The story, which seems to be mainly driven by the varying demands of a committee of US politicians, seems to be a pretty straight-forward story of appalling Government self-interest the way you would read it in the US press.
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Post-World Cup thoughts
Now the World Cup has ended and is completely over (for England) we can now get onto the post-mortem. For once I might actually go out and buy a paper tomorrow to see what the pundits say, but here are my initial thoughts:- we've been moaning about the technical quality of our players for a long time; as long as I can remember watching. But this ( Read more... )
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Alex's Lazy Guide to F1 Safety Car Rules
So the complete shower that is the F1 rules committee has managed to turn up another trump today; Schumacher has been demoted for overtaking behind the safety car when he, er, wasn't behind the safety car. Let me say up-front, this is a complete pile of crap; it was a valid manoeuvre. But they've found a rule which supposedly outlaws it, 40.13:
"[ ( Read more... ) -
Post-election aftermath
For those who haven't seen, I did a bit of a general election prediction before the count. How did I do? Well, not great - I predicted a hung result, but with a much weaker Labour and a stronger Liberal Democrat seating. I got the Tory numbers closer, though they are slightly weaker than I predicted.
The big news, of course, is that the Liberal ( Read more... ) -
Big General Election Prediction
Long time no post, so here are my predictions for tomorrow night (well, let's be realistic: Friday afternoon):
- 6% national swing to the Tories, leaving them with 315 seats;
- Labour down a fair bit, finishing on 230 seats;
- Lib Dems down on what they expected, with around 70.
Much as I don't particularly like the idea of this result, I think it means a ( Read more... ) -
Worrying notes on the "big freeze".
Fig. A. Paul Simons, The Times weatherman:
“If the Gulf Stream slows down/diverts, we're in big trouble. Thoughts are that it hasn't changed yet, and it will take a lot more meltwater from the Arctic to change it - but we need a lot more information about what's going on with the Gulf Stream.”
Fig. B. that now-famous picture of ice-bound ( Read more... ) -
Some notes on the amazing Republican double-speak
Now that Guantanamo is in the process of shutting down and the inmates are being given decadent luxuries such as defence attorneys, the right wing is bleating about security and justice again:
Sen John McCain, a Republican who lost to Mr Obama in the 2008 presidential race, stated that military tribunals were the best venue for terror suspects.
" ( Read more... )