The year is 2002, I am sitting in front of a computer that 10 years ago would have filled a large bunker and could model the aftershocks of a thermonuclear explosion and I want to find something on this computer. I have two choices: I can use 'Start:search:for files or folders' or I can type something into a browser window. The first will clunk and whir and a couple of seconds later will search the few thousand file names on the computer but will not search the contents of those files. The second will fully search over 3 billion files from other computers and return the answer within 0.2 seconds. Microsoft Windows is badly designed.
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2002 November
You couldn't make up this shit. Most people have some sympathy for Michael Jackson as someone who has clearly lost all touch with reality - but do you trust this man to bring up healthy, well adjusted kids? The latest - after dangling a baby that people think 'may' be his from a 4th floor window - a visit to the zoo with his kids in veils. BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Showbiz | Jackson's zoo outing
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Is it just me? Whenever anyone mentions the word Singapore - some know-it-all (usually a know-it-all like myself) drones "do you know that chewing gum is illegal in Singapore?" Well apparently it's true - at least until today, when it will no longer be a criminal offence and will be sold on prescription. Ananova - Singapore relaxes chewing gum ban So now that the traditional Singapore chewing gum anecdote is history here's an alternative gum trivium: "the ancient Greeks were known to be fond of a gummy substance named mastiche, derived from the resin of the mastic tree. In fact, Dioscorides, a Greek physician and medical botanist of the First Century, refers to the "curative powers" of the mastic in his writing."
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Just one in every seven young Americans could locate Iraq or Iran on a map of the Middle East and Asia. We may be dumb but the bombs are smart.
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Back from Europe - and how nice it was to be back, the sun is shining, nearly 70 degrees in San Francisco and yesterday we took a delightful stroll to Muir beach. So being the miserable git that I am, I'll have a go at the English: Plans to increase university tuition fees in the UK are being strongly opposed by the Labour left. BBC - Short attacks student top-up fees On the face of it the argument sounds convincing: increases in fees and reduced state subsidy of higher education lead to less people from poorer families receiving higher education. Wrong - analyze the facts and you realize that what is being argued for amounts to campaigning against tax increases for the wealthy - something which should be an anathema for self-respecting members of the left. Police Academy The facts: As the Economist points out, people in the UK are...
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Creative projects that people take on after the dot com crash - photographs of the entire California coastline: California Coastal Records Project -- Aerial Photographs of the California Coastline
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Nick Denton satirizes investment bankers for Management Today. Surely the affects of a recession on bankers were more obvious during the 80's (as my friend Kamal points out Milken awarded himself a bonus of over $600M in the 80's and that kind off excess has note been a feature this time round)? However, the patters of this recession, which looks more like Japan's zero inflation slump than the inflationary 80's will be felt differently as the ripples hit people who earn less. David Galbraith says: the article i would like to see you write - i would try, but am not qualified to - is what is going to be the story this time round as the downturn really hits the population at large - deflation - house prices - anti-war etc. Nick Denton says: I doubt it will have any impact on the war David Galbraith says: i was...
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The commonplace use of permalinks in weblogs has profound implications. At a recent tech discussion Mark Nottingham pointed out that the real difference between RSS and RDF (the cornerstone of the semantic web initiative) was that RSS was about lists. On the one hand this is true, however, the term list understates a crucial point about weblogging. Weblogging is designed to deal with nuggets of information that an author creates instead of a page that a publisher publishes. A permalink refers to a unique item, and in terms of the semantic web, indicates a component from which meaning can be extracted. more... In this context a page is irrelevant, weblog pages are transient things, but entries are made permanent through archiving. The difference between weblog publishing and most other web publishing tools is that traditional tools have been geared around producing pages, whereas the application servers and databases that sit...
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The press are having a field day in the UK over the latest royals scandal and conspiracy theorists will have a lot to chew on - Diana ready to convert to Islam - the Queen warning Diana's butler of mysterious powers at work. Every time the UK royal family picks itself up from humiliation, they are beaten down again by the press. I can't help thinking that this is an inevitable feature of an anachronistic institution, that was artificially bolstered by Victorian politicians from terminal decline. Lest anyone forget, the royals are no strangers to PR, the very name Windsor was invented to divert attention from the rather German sounding Saksen-Coburg. Google Search: cluster:Diana
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Lets face it - most software and computer hardware is crap. In most tech. organizations, design doesn't exist or is part of marketing or engineering, something that would have managers from other product-based industries slapping their thighs and crying with laughter. In "the ten reasons ease of use doesn't happen on engineering projects", Scott Berkun outlines some reasons why the most basic of design requirements, 'ease of use', is willfully ignored in software development. Over the next month or so, in an attempt to justify my ranting, I'll elaborate on the future of design in the Computer Industry. via Tomalak The ten reasons why ease of use doesn't happen on engineering projects - UIWEB.COM
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As the Economist points out, the time to act against a potential aggressor is before they acquire nuclear weapons, in the this respect the Economist votes in favor of war with Iraq. In terms of the implications of a war with Iraq, the two most important countries that the US must focus on today, for very different reasons, are Israel to the east and Pakistan to the west. Both have nuclear weapons and both are looking politically fragile. Israel.... In Israel, a coalition government has collapsed, and Sharon has endured three no confidence votes, continuing Israeli/Palestinian violence is playing to the right. The CIA cautions against involvement against Iraq while there is violence in Israel. Remember the Patriot missile system in the gulf war - well they actually brought down none of the Iraqi Scuds - their success was propaganda. A cornered Saddam could launch a bio or chemical warhead...
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