Feb 13 2007
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Seven reasons why stretchy web site layouts are dead:

Posted by | design | No Comments

Seven reasons why stretchy web site layouts are dead (in the manner of a del.icio.us post): 1. Although designed for the increasing plethora of screen sizes, few people open their browser fullscreen on a massive display, so you don’t need to design for that variety. 2. Most stretchy design templates behave in unpredictable ways for some content, making them look ugly. 3. Most stretchy designs allow for text that is unreadably long. 4. They are a way to show off technology (CSS) rather than make things ergonomic. 5. If something is right with a certain layout – stick to your convictions and make that option the default, thats what Apple do. 6. Imagine flexible layouts in famous paintings. Would Da Vinci have used fuzzy felts? 7. The Etsy guys recommend not to use them.

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Feb 05 2007
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Drudge Report and anti-global warming stories.

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There are currently 34,000 news articles in Google News warning of Global Warming, but Matt Drudge has found the one that doesn’t. “Climatologist Calls Global Warming Fears ‘Greatest Deception in the History of Science’…” That’s all fair enough, except that the article doesn’t seem to warrant the front page of one of the most widely read news sources in the US. It is written by Tim Ball, a former Geography professor who works for an anti-global warming consultancy that refuses to deny that it is funded by energy companies. I have no problem with people denying Global Warming – I don’t believe in censorship and think that freedom of speech gives a greater chance of the truth. However, Tim Ball does believe in censorship, or he would reveal the source of his backers. My main problem, however, is Drudge, who through ultra selective reporting also believes in censorship. Reporters in…

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Feb 02 2007
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The Boston Tee-Hee Party

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The Boston Tee-Hee Party The Mooninite bombscare gets more and more surreal by the minute. It’s rather like someone had decided that traffic lights look like bombs, in the manner that one of Oliver Sacks patients famously mistook his wife for a hat, but because bombs are more serious than hats we have to take it all seriously. Yes all bomb scares have to be taken seriously, but everything does not seriously constitute a bomb scare, or we would have no resourses to deal with bomb scares. Mad people are always warning about bombs and the end of the world and imaginary demons, part of the role of authorities is to filter out mad people that think everything is suspicious. Things that do not constitute suspicious devices, include traffic lights, lamp posts, blinking movie signs and the same blinking street art that has been in NYC for more than a…

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Jan 30 2007
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Last week a real saint died.

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Last week a real saint died. Abbe Pierre, was the type of Christian who was in direct opposition to Fox News watching, Christian abortion that is the evangelical right. In other words, he was not the type of person who was more interested in protecting a particular brand of western suburban lifestyle from anyone different, rather than actually helping the unfortunate. After saving the lives of thousands of Jews and political refugees, working with the French Resistance during WWII, he dedicated his life, as a Catholic priest, to helping the homeless, when he found a destitute, pregnant woman, lying on the mud floor of a shelter in Paris, with two dead children next to her. He admitted breaking his vows on more than one occasion, saying that the hardest thing to resist was the tenderness of a woman. He survived both a plane crash and a shipwreck. As an atheist,…

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Jan 27 2007
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Daniel Tammet’s blog

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Daniel Tammet is simultaneously extraordinarily gifted and well balanced. His blog is the best thing I’ve read in ages. There, I have learned, amongst other things, that the collective noun for collective nouns is a ‘peculiar’. I’ve put the documentary about him posted on Smashing Telly it’s a must see. Optimnem Blog: The Blog of Daniel Tammet

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Jan 25 2007
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Child Witches Case Dropped.

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A pastor in the UK who mentally abused children, accusing them of witchcraft and praying for them to die, cannot be charged, after a 10 month investigation by police, since the law that covers child abuse does not cover mental abuse. This is the same as the situtation in the US, and is a perfect illustration of why laws against mental abuse of children are needed, to challenge the excesses of extreme religion which specifically target children. Telegraph | News | Child “witches” case dropped

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Jan 24 2007
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Is Tit for Tat a flawed game theory strategy?

Posted by | predictions | No Comments

Here’s an idea that has been bugging me for a while: what if the Tit for Tat game theory strategy is not successful in the real world, ever? Here’s why – Tit for Tat works because it creates a (technically unstable) equilibrium. In models of reward/retribution between two players Tit for Tat is always the best option. But we know that in the real world there are rarely two systems that are isolated, and grievances are normally propagated down generations when retribution is against a different individual that has been strereo-typed as having similar characteristics. This creates a potentially infinite cycle of violence, even when Tit for Tat is used as a strategy by every actor. I believe this could be modeled very simply by creating a 3 party risk/reward game where a certain percentage of plays from a -> b would randomly affect party c (but the players would…

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Jan 24 2007
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Graffiti in NY bar

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Darrin sent in this graffiti gem: “A few years ago, in the men’s room in Fanelli’s Tavern, downtown Manhattan:” “(in large letters) I fucked your mother!” “(below, in a smaller hand) Go home, Dad. You’re drunk.”

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Jan 24 2007
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Jesus Camp. Is this child abuse?

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I watched a very disturbing film last night. It was a film about child abuse, about the kind of child abuse that leaves mental scars that take far longer to heal than physical abuse. And this abuse is both legal and widely encouraged, because there are many good people taken in by it. We have a natural revulsion towards seeing children being forced to act like adults, in that most adult of traits, sexuality. At first I couldn’t understand what it was that bothered me most about the interviews with the children of fundamentalist evangelical Christians in the documentary, Jesus Camp then I realized. They did not sound like children at all, but were spouting off rehearsed indoctrination with adult vocabulary, opinions and mannerisms. Levi: At five I got saved… Becky Fischer: Yeah? Levi: …because I just wanted more of life. This is like a line from a world weary…

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