Oct 01 2006
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Woodward buries Bush

Posted by | politics | No Comments

After luring in the Bush Administration with two tame prequels, the world’s most famous journalist delivers a devastating blow. The Age summarizes the Woodward stance. Imagine for one second, while reading it, that there is no God, or that, less contraversially, there is no God that matches the sect within a sect within a sect that is Mr. Bush’s god. With that single supposition, you leave the United States as the worlds most powerful vessel, rudderless, drifting aimlessly, its captain asleep at the wheel. A giant aircraft-carrier Mary Celeste bristling with nuclear materiel. Woodward’s conclusion is a serious as it gets – the United States is leaderless. “Mr Bush emerges as a man who not only lacks intellectual curiosity but is untroubled by self-doubt, a man who constantly tells his aides that as commander-in-chief his job is to exude confidence in his decisions. He is, according to Woodward, a man…

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Sep 30 2006
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Self updating software

Posted by | technology | No Comments

I’m currently looking at a project based on self replicating content. Closest thing out there is Jeremy Rushton’s awesome TiddlyWiki, however it seems that PHP can self-write with no problems. [PHP] Self-overwriting Scripts – GameDev.Net Discussion Forums

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Sep 29 2006
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Linking to specific points in a web page.

Posted by | technology | No Comments

This thing written by Brian Donovan a couple of years ago, is very interesting. Its basically like tinyurl, except that the links are to any point in a web page, regardless of whether there are any (named anchor) links created by the author. I remember talking about this with Evan a while back. Brian Donovan’s Ahoy

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Sep 09 2006
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Is the iPod era over?

Posted by | design | No Comments

Is the iPod past it? Apple’s iPod was a form factor success – learning from the mistakes of the disastrous Newton they went for the cigarette packet standard rather than try and invent something new. Lately, however, I’ve noticed that the Sidekick/PS2/Blackberry are onto something with a genuinely new form factor that will possibly blow away Apple if they stick to the iPod format. The problem is that Apple can’t stick to its own format anyway – the thumbwheel doesn’t leave enough room for a large enough video screen – and if it gets replaced by on screen navigation with the device being landscape rather than portrait, it begs the question as to whether that is the same design at all. In fact any viable full screen video iPod would be half way towards the two-thumb typing Sidekick style format that is now ubiquitous on Japanese and European phones which…

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Sep 08 2006
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Geodesic dome

Posted by | diary | No Comments

Friends, Alex, Helen, James and Nancy built a geodesic dome for burning man. By built, I mean completely from scratch i.e. they fabricated the tube connectors. Now admittedly James is a NASA engineer, but if this had been me the dome would still consist of a bunch of steel rods and a few empty wine bottles. Flickr: Photos from alexnigg

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Sep 06 2006
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My most traumatic day

Posted by | diary | No Comments

Google news archive has just launched. I searched for the most life changing experience I ever had. It was there, and emotional to read. In February 1983, a group of us fell 800 ft while climbing in Wales. RIP David Solomons and Richard Palmer. I won’t forget you. – Google News Archive Search

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Sep 05 2006
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SETI and global warming

Posted by | half baked ideas | No Comments

Would climate change be a good measure for SETI searches for intelligent life. It seems that long after the pyramids of Giza have crumbled and the last remnants of our civilizations are swallowed up by the galcial movements of plate tectonics, our single legacy will be our affect on the climate. If another intelligent species evolves over time – then traces of this would be the most obvious clue that they had intelligent ancestors. The time difference between us and animals that we evolved from which had similar intelligence to many long extinct species is 2 million years. This is out of a time period of higher life forms several hundred times longer. We can see our impact on the climate on a scale of about a million years. Can we measure the climate on a scale of hundreds of millions of years? If so, would a sudden spike be…

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Sep 05 2006
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Not so little town of Bethlehem

Posted by | architecture | No Comments

When my favorite architecture critic, Ian Nairn, drove around America in the 50s, his favorite towns were in Pennsylvania, particularly Pittsburgh, whose post-industrial transformation he would have been proud of. On our Labor Day excursion to Philadelphia, we explored some towns on the way – particularly Bethlehem, the Moravian town with the legendary steelworks. Bethlehem, has what suburban America, for the most part, does not – a sense of place. It is a town, once rich, once poor, which is a perfect model for viable, sustainable towns of the future. The most stunning thing about Bethlehem is the rusted steel cathedral of the disused blast furnaces that dominate the skyline. Given that Bethlehem, is famous for its Christmas lights, it is surprising that the blast furnaces do not form part of the decoration. When I worked for set designers Fisher Park, there was a project in the office, to illuminate…

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