No user-serviceable parts inside.
Name: The Rt Hon KJP
resistance is useless
today
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
visited *loading* times
[just a hoax, your honour]
Ye Olde Museum of Hoaxes http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/ ... always good for a laugh.
[sign here mate]
Credit cards, and the disregard that shops pay to the signature...
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/
And the things people will agree to ... http://www.salguod.com/blog/archives/2004/12/people_will_sig.html
[trends for 2005]
It's that time, when industry pundits propose their best guesses for the technology trends of the coming year.
Includes identity management...desktop searching...personal medical devices..etc.
[today felt like ..]
Early warning
Stranger on the radar
Ripple in the wavelength
Leave it in the hands of fate
Nobody noticed
the difference in the readout
The sadness in the answer
A twist in the logic
[things to do with ellipsiodal magnets]
If you happen to have some, by some chance.
They skate, purr, glissando, sing/whistle etc. They can be fondled, twisted, caressed and playfully pushed around
And you can annoy cats with them. Hehehe.
http://www.uberorbs.com/Home.html
But don't swallow them.
[bizarre lamps]
0. A Nimbus Cloud lamp... looks like a cloud hanging near your ceiling. http://www.thegreenhead.com/cool-stuff/2004/10/nimbus-cloud-lamp.php
"It would be great to get a bunch of these cloud lights suspended all through a room or even better if they developed giant supercell storm cloud lamps with lightning." Oh yes...yes indeed. I think I know someone who might appreciate that idea.
Or you can make a cloud lamp of a different type if you have a spare lava lamp and some pearlised soap. http://www.emanator.demon.co.uk/bigclive/cloud.htm
1. A Leg Lamp: an allegedly sexy leg incorporated into a lamp. If you wish your room to look like a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or the operating theatre after an amputation. No blood, just the leg. http://www.leglamps.com/content.htm
"This clever leg lamp will get more attention than anything you've ever had...for gifts, bars, dens, fraternity houses, playrooms. The leg of this lifesize Leg Lamp is one of a kind. With the shade it stands 42 inches high. The light illuminating the leg from inside can be turned on simultaneously with the light under the shade or separately, with your choice of stocking, shoe and lampshade it can be "Customized to fit any decor.""
I have bolded the bits that convince me that anyone buying this is very scary indeed...
[animation of tsunami]
This is quite stunning.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2004/12/26/international/20041227_QUAKE_FEATURE.html
(normally NY Times needs registration but this seems to work without it. Click on SIMULATION.)
[are animals smarter than people?]
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan wildlife officials are stunned -- the worst tsunami in memory has killed around 22,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast, but they can't find any dead animals.
Giant waves washed floodwaters up to 2 miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.
"The strange thing is we haven't recorded any dead animals," H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national Wildlife Department, told Reuters Wednesday.
"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," he added. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."
[pointless activity: "Looks Like"]
"The name of the game is to psychoanalyze who the people in the photos are."
Why, I don't know. But then I can't understand why footballers play in shorts in winter, and cricketers in long trousers and sleeves in summer. Or why the bagpipes were invented. Or how anyone can watch more than one film featuring Hugh Grant. Or who first thought of the idea of milking cows...and why.
http://helookslike.blogspot.com/
[Arthur C Clarke: another prophecy fulfilled]
Arthur C Clarke was pretty clever to "predict" the role of global satellite communications way ahead of time. (And when asked in 2001 if he would change anything in 2001 A Space Odyssey, he admitted yes, the airline referrred to in the book was a bad choice as it had gone bankrupt by 2001: other than that he'd change nothing)
However, the Sri-Lankan based author must be feeling a bit strange: nearly 50 years ago, his first story after he moved to Sri Lanka was..about a giant tidal wave hitting the harbour of Galle...
"Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in "The Reefs of Taprobane," 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean."
Clarke of course expressed massive sympathy for the victims and has some staff missing from his destroyed beachfront businesses in Sri Lanka.
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/
[i-lean: novel furniture]
The i-lean is a very unusual piece of furniture. Unlike most furniture that you sit on, lie on, stand on etc, the i-lean is built to be leaned upon.
Yes, just walk up to a i-lean and lean against it to rest your ... well ... whatever is is that leaning rests. I guess it works on the principle that has been in use in countless bars and with countless boyfriends/girlfriends: leaning is something we all do sometimes.
It's yours for just $1200.
"The body's interaction with I-lean is natural and comfortable. It is ideally used in areas where social interaction is constant and people linger. The form encourages conversation and relaxation at the same time while giving place and space for people to congregate.
Ideal use: Bars, Lounges, coffee houses, for teachers, rest areas, bus stops, loft style spaces, impromptu gatherings."
http://www.elseware.to/products/i_lean.htm
[satellite images might provide more information on earthquake processes]
"Satellite imaging can help construct a before-and-after picture of destruction in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami from last weekend, helping in the allocation of aid resources. Such imaging may also bolster the argument for an alert system in the region."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4248386
[did the Earth move for you?...earthquake permanently moves islands and shakes Earth's orbit]
"That earthquake has changed the map," US Geological Survey expert Ken Hudnut told AFP.
"Based on seismic modeling, some of the smaller islands off the southwest coast of Sumatra may have moved to the southwest by about 20 meters. That is a lot of slip."
The northwestern tip of the Indonesian territory of Sumatra may also have shifted to the southwest by around 36 meters (120 feet), Hudnut said.
In addition, the energy released as the two sides of the undersea fault slipped against each other made the Earth wobble on its axis, Hudnut said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1540&e=5&u=/afp/asiaquakeusmapshift
[digitising the world]
Some time back I gave some thought to what can and can't be readily digitised. In particular, what are the limits on expressing complex ideas in a binary/two-state form?
As a personal challenge, I wondered if something like say "beauty" can be reduced to a set of on/off or yes/no choices.
For whatever reason, I conceived a set of say 100 or so attributes, the possession of each of which represented beauty (in this case, physical or surface beauty of a person as perceived personally).
Example: if I considered that having visible tattoos were a sign of beauty for a person, I would have "visible tattoos" as a checklist item. Fulfilling this checklist item (having visible tattoos) constitutes 1 point, not having them constitutes 0. The sum score across all items is a coarse measure of the construct "surface beauty as perceived by me".
This list potentially covers all sorts of things that might make up beauty: possibly hair colour, skin type, racial/ethnic background, talent, smoker/nonsmoker, musculature, height, relative age, etc. Just what is in the list will vary according to the person doing the appraisal, but let's overlook that for the time being.
An obvious concern is that each item counts the same (eg tattoedness and brunettedness might be on the list, and a score of 1 for either counts the same). This can be overcome by weighting, or if that is not allowed, by simply having the same question multiple times.
A second concern is that some items are too coarse or depend on others. For example, the tattoo might only be attractive on fair-skinned people. If so, the list item becomes "fairskinned AND visible tattoo". Or, more likely, "fair-skinned AND visible tattoo AND NOT (tattoo is of a dragon OR tatto is of naked person).
So far I have more or less convinced myself that a construct such as this (pointless though it may be) could be codified into a binary format. But to get anything like a useful measure, a much larger list is needed.
The exercise of constructing one is interesting in itself, as it forces one to look at aspects of things that are often assumed or implied. This process is quite sobering and enlightening.
[is stupidity genetic?]
This suggests so:
"STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Brotherly love was put to the test this week after two 18-year-old identical twins swapped their clothing and traded places so that one could escape jail.
The inmate walked out of the Kronoberg Jail, which is located in the same building that houses the headquarters for Stockholm's police department, undetected on Monday after a visit by his twin brother.
During a visit, the two siblings, neither of whom were named, managed to switch their outfits without anyone noticing.
After visiting hours ended, the inmate walked out, pretending to be his brother. "
Now the more astute might notice that this cunning scheme leaves the normally-free twin in jail. Apparently he too figured this out at some stage and decided that the idea was not as clever as his prisoner twin suggested.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=9&u=/ap/20041221/ap_on_fe_st/twins_jail_break
[water water everywhere]
a list of the foods highest in water. Water itself comes in pretty high (funny that..). But what the dickens is the last one; "Tea, tundra, herb and laborador combination (Alaska Native)"?
http://www.nutritiondata.com/foods-000129000000000000000.html
[songs of Maths and Science]
A MASSIVE maths and science song database...http://www.science-groove.org/MASSIVE/
[social experiments]
"Antanas Mockus had just resigned from the top job of Colombian National University. A mathematician and philosopher, Mockus looked around for another big challenge and found it: to be in charge of, as he describes it, "a 6.5 million person classroom."
Mockus, who had no political experience, ran for mayor of Bogotá; he was successful mainly because people in Colombia's capital city saw him as an honest guy. With an educator's inventiveness, Mockus turned Bogotá into a social experiment just as the city was choked with violence, lawless traffic, corruption, and gangs of street children who mugged and stole"
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/03.11/01-mockus.html
[OL becomes RL]
A 22-year-old Australian gamer has spent $US26,500 on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4104731.stm
The virtual island includes a gigantic abandoned castle and beautiful beaches which are described as ripe for developing beachfront property.
Ah yes. I have a virtual Sydney Harbour Bridge for sale at a reasonable price.
[idiots at large]
Today. In a large food place. Nearby, two idiots with American accents.
Idiot 1: "Oh, that tsunami in Asia has destroyed the beach where they made the film The Beach with Leonard de Caprio"
Idiot 2 "Oh, that's terrible... how will they ever fix it back up?"
Right.
At that stage 23,000 people had been killed and this idiot found it terrible that a beach where a film was made has been destroyed. Get a life, Idiots 1 and 2. Sadly, 23,000 other people can't.
