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
[useful trivia]
You can sing Advance Australia Fair to the tune of the Gilligans Island theme song.
Go on, try it, you know you want to.
Once you try it you'll never go back...
(tune at http://home.mn.rr.com/classictv/Gilligan'sThemeSong.html )
[ Apple iProduct]
yes, there is an element of the population who will buy anything made by Apple because
(a) they can feel that they are a rebelling against mass consumerism by buying from litle old Apple or
(b) they think it might make others think they are an "artist" or
(c) they believe it wil be so intuitive that they will mutate into a genius (but in fact will neverr work out how to use the device anyway or
(d) they are too thick to understand how to make a purchase decision.
So all hail the iProduct. http://www.jwz.org/images/iProduct.gif.
[spiral (helical, actually) escalators]
Thank you Mitsubishi-san. Escalators need not just give a boring straight ride, they can be curved into coll helices. All that's misisng is the mirrors.
I can just picture a reaction to this from certain mathematical minds: "Where is the nearest one, I want to play on it?". Me too... If we ever meet in Singapore or Thailand, we can play on one...
http://www.mitsubishi-elevator.com/design/spiral/spiral.htm
[game player stereotypes dispelled] (original post by Margaret Meijers to tas-it list) The Entertainment Software Association has released a new poll that challenges what they see as the stereotypical image of a game player: obese, pasty, and antisocial. Instead, according to the ESA the average gamer takes a healthy interest in the community, sports, and religion. Findings include: * 79 percent of all game players report exercising or playing sports at an average of 20 hours a month * Forty-five percent of gamers volunteer at an average 5.4 hours per month. * Sixty-one percent of game players engage in some type of religious activity for several hours each month. * Ninety-three percent of game players read books or daily newspapers, while sixty-two percent often attend cultural events, such as concerts, museums, or the theater. * Fifty percent spend time painting, writing, or playing an instrument. * Ninety-four percent follow news and current events, and 78 percent report that they vote in most of the elections for which they are eligible. The survey involved polling 802 adults. I wonder whether similar results would be found for children? The article can be read at http://www.theesa.com/1_11_2005.html <http://www.theesa.com/1_11_2005.html> The pressroom for the ESA http://www.theesa.com/pressroom.html <http://www.theesa.com/pressroom.html> also contains plenty more information of interest, including demographic information on US gamers, research on links between games and violence etc. Margaret The pressroom for the ESA http://www.theesa.com/pressroom.html <http://www.theesa.com/pressroom.html> also contains plenty more information of interest, including demographic information on US gamers, research on links between games and violence etc. Margaret Margaret
[Sofia: Free College type materials on the web]
"The goal of Sofia is to publish community college-level course content and make it freely accessible on the web to support teaching and learning. "
Some of these materials are likely to be of use to some Australian senior secondary educators
kp
There are serious messages in this article for students interested in the ICT industry. And for others.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1326504/posts
Does Not Compute: Nicholas Carr.
"THE Federal Bureau of Investigation has officially entered what computer professionals call "software hell." After spending $170 million to create a program that would give agents ready access to information on suspected terrorists, the bureau admitted last week that it's not even close to having a working system. In fact, it may have to start from scratch.
Shocking? Not at all. A look at the private sector reveals that software debacles are routine. And the more ambitious the project, the higher the odds of disappointment. It may not be much consolation to taxpayers, but the F.B.I. has a lot of company. Software hell is a very crowded place.
Consider Ford Motor Company's ambitious effort to write new software for buying supplies. Begun in 2000, the goal of the project, code-named Everest, was to replace Ford's patchwork of internal purchasing systems with a uniform system that would run over the Internet. The new software was supposed to reduce paperwork, speed orders and slash costs. But the effort sank under its own complexity. When it was rolled out for testing in North America, suppliers rebelled; according to Automotive News, many found the new software to be slower and more cumbersome than the programs it was intended to replace. Last August, Ford abandoned Everest amid reports that the project was as much as $200 million over budget.
A McDonald's program called Innovate was even more ambitious - and expensive. Started in 1999 with a budget of $1 billion, the network sought to automate pretty much the entire fast-food empire. Software systems would collect information from every restaurant - the number of burgers sold, the speed of customer service, even the temperature of the oil in the French fry vats - and deliver it in a neat bundle to the company's executives, who would be able to adjust operations moment by moment.
Or so it was promised. Despite the grand goals, the project went nowhere. In late 2002, McDonald's killed it, writing off the $170 million that had already been spent.
Research by the Standish Group, a software research and consulting firm, illustrates the troubled fates of most big software initiatives. In 1994, researchers found, only 16 percent were completed on time, on budget and fulfilling the original specifications. Nearly a third were canceled outright, and the remainder fell short of their objectives. More than half of the cost overruns amounted to at least 50 percent of the original budget. Of the projects that went off schedule, almost half took more than twice as long as originally planned. A follow-up survey in 2003, however, showed that corporate software projects were doing better; researchers found that the percentage of successful projects had risen to 34 percent.
What happened between 1994 and 2003? The Internet boom went bust. Stung by wasted investments in complicated software systems, business executives began taking a more skeptical view of such projects. They scaled back their expectations, pursuing more modest software enhancements with narrower goals - and far higher chances of success.
Equally important, they stopped trying to be creative. Rather than try to customize their software, they began looking for cheaper, off-the-shelf programs that would get the job done with a minimum of fuss. When necessary, they changed their own procedures to fit the available software. Old, generic technology may not be glamorous, but it has an important advantage: it works.
It may well turn out that the F.B.I.'s biggest problem was its desire to be innovative - to build a new wheel rather than use an old one within easy reach. When it comes to developing software today, innovation should be a last resort, not a first instinct.
Nicholas G. Carr is the author of "Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage." "
[Free Software magazine] A magazine aimed at promoting the vast range of free and open source software http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/
[ICT and Social Capital report]
Institute for Prospective Techological Studies
The report examines the relationship between ICTs and social capital against the backdrop of the Lisbon objectives. It discusses the most relevant arguments put forth during a workshop held in Seville in November 2004, including the three background papers that were commissioned for that occasion. It includes an overview of the relationship between social capital and ICT, elaborates on the 'empowerment vs. balkanisation' debate, problematises the notions of digital divide and death of distance, addresses the relationship between social capital and communities of practice, and concludes with key messages to policy makers and key avenues for future research on ICT and social capital in Europe.
http://www.jrc.es/home/publications/publication.cfm?pub=1174
{explain this: ice cream?]
http://www.thelatetrain.com/features/30dff_11.html
So that's why home made ice cream tastes so much better... Explains it all really. No, I have no idea. Really.
[jigsaw puzzle that finally makes sense]
Let me say upfront that as a mathematician I find jigsaw puzzles pointless and infuriating (come on, there's clearly a solution, why muck around finding it?)
But since my friends think otherwise, here's one I could tolerate: a mirror jigsaw.
http://www.brokenoff.com/mirrorpuzzle.html
[human clock]
http://www.humanclock.com/?s=1
Humanclock.com shows a photograph of the current time, with the photo changing every minute of the day.
[nice writing about awful topic]
http://www.kevinsites.net/2005_01_23_archive.html#110676213140973816
[asteroid named after Douglas Adams]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6867061/
Asteroid Douglasadams was among the 71 newly named celestial objects announced Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass. Other honorees range from Ball Aerospace and the city of Las Vegas to the sometimes-overlooked co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, Rosalind Franklin.
rumour has it that GW Bush has a planet describing him...
[the Unbearable Sadness of Vegetables]
Sad images of food. No I have no idea at all really.
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/sad/index.html
[things that walk in the wind on their own]
This is clever, very clever.. a wind-blown transporter animatron thing.
http://www.strandbeest.com/animaris%20rhinoceros%20transport_en.html
[bizarre record album covers]
"Hideous" is insufficient to describe this collection. Handle only with possum gloves and suitable underclothing.
There is no clear winner but I suspect this one probably doesnt get many repeat sales. And this bloke deserves a mention for his name alone. And this one sounds like an early version of All Your Bases Are Belong to Us. While Satan has been Paralyzed sounds just the shot for some easy-listening music. And this pre-dates Eddi McGuire and Sam Newman by at least 30 years, and possibly 30 IQ points.
One or two of you may recall Millie Jackson, who spent a lot of time working on her oral singing technique. She had another record it seems, equally bizarre: http://www.bizarrerecords.com/pages/sexyMilliebath.html
This one might be the equivalent of the Lascaux cave paintings: the first preserved example of pre-pornography. The title of this record album suggests another example, but is simply a very bizarre letdown.
Can you spot the product placement in http://www.bizarrerecords.com/pages/xmasSanders.html ?
http://www.bizarrerecords.com/gallery.html give the whole collection.
[artist's impression of current facial appearance]
Ever wondered how those police artists produce an aged version of a human face (ie kid who went missing 10 years ago wil now look like this)?
Well bring on the TRANSFORMER. Upload a picture of your (or someone's) face and let it age, let it age, let it age.
http://www.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~morph/Transformer/index.html
[Squashed Philosophers: major philosophical works, in brief]
Major Western philosophical works, condensed and abridged to keep the substance, the style and the quotes, but ditching all that irritating verbiage.
"Socrates himself is particularly missed...."
http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/
[scantily clad women can sell anything]
Even the most compulsive shoppers don't buy a coffin on impulse. But then again, perhaps they haven't seen this alluring calendar http://www.undergroundhumor.com/more/sexy_coffins_calendar.htm
[3D illusion, Escher, LEGO]
Three of the most joyful things of my pre-teen youth, combined into one. A LEGO version of MC Escher's famous illusion. Note to mathematically illiterate; MC Escher is not related to MC Hammer.
http://www.lipsons.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/escher/relativity.html
