Jan 19 2007
0

Chinese campaigners get it wrong – there is a Starbucks in the Louvre

Posted by | globalization | No Comments

Whatever you think of Starbucks, Chinese TV anchorman Rui Chenggang gets things hilariously wrong when trying to stop them opening in the frobidden city. “Rui said the coffee shop should be as unwelcome in the Forbidden City as it would be at the Taj Mahal in India, the pyramids in Egypt or the Louvre Museum in Paris.” There is in fact now a Starbucks in the Louvre, as I found out to my amusement a couple of weeks ago. This makes it welcome in the Forbidden city by Rui’s criteria. Starbucks is on uncertain ground in Beijing

Read More
Jan 16 2007
0

Most Entertaining Alexa Numbers Ever

Posted by | technology | No Comments

Alexa currently shows a 90,000 % increase for Macrumorslive. Taking its rank from 1,264,571 to 3,023. That kind of fluctuation makes a halloween costume store look like a year round business. It also shows quite how big the cult of Jobs has become. Related Info for: macrumorslive.com/

Read More
Jan 14 2007
0

Why is Bush not going to Iraq?

Posted by | politics | No Comments

Leading Democrats have recently visited Iraq. Leading Republicans have recently visited Iraq. Leaders of America’s allies have recently visited Iraq. The son of Prince Charles is going to Iraq and most importantly, the sons and daughters of many ordinary people will be going. But the person who sent them, President Bush, is not going because ‘it is too dangerous’. White House: We will send more troops in Iraq – CNN.com

Read More
Jan 14 2007
0

Nice Shannon intro.

Posted by | science | No Comments

Nice simple explanation of Shannon Entropy. Information, Uncertainty and Shannon Entropy – The Math Introduction at Nonoscience The phrase ‘Information Entropy’ is one of the most confusing in science, since entropy is the lack of infomation. But the problem is not with the idea of equating information theory and entropy, just eth sloppy phrasing. Information Entropy means Entropy within the concept of information science (as opposed to thermodynamics, for example).

Read More
Jan 08 2007
0

Smashing Telly Launches

Posted by | diary | No Comments

I’m launching a new site called Smashing Telly. Over the last 6 months, I have rarely watched regular TV, but did not have the patience to download programs, having found a wealth of timeless classics such as Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation (sic) available instantly, as a streamed video of ‘good enough’ quality. Smashing Telly is a hand edited collection of the best free TV on the web. Not 30 second clips of a dog on a skateboard, or the millionth person to mime the Numa song, but full length programs. Over the next week I’ll be posting a bunch of new items.

Read More
Jan 08 2007
0

WordPress’ Sandbox theme overcomes CSS design problems

Posted by | software design | No Comments

Have been playing around with WordPress.com – very nice. For years now people have obsessed with separating style from content and have thought that ‘style’ is the same as ‘layout’. CSS has been used for layout, which it is a very bad language for (unlike many templating languages glancing at a CSS file does not tell you what a page design will look like which ruins the whole ‘view source’ model that made html so successful). XML is a much better language for layout, but we are stuck with CSS, and so will have to split CSS into separate layout and style documents. Andy Skelton & Scott Allan Wallick’s Sandbox theme is the first time I’ve seen something that moves towards separation of style from layout, not just style + layout from content. There is a lot that could be done with that – particularly if the semantic placeholders that…

Read More
Jan 08 2007
0

NewTeeVee

Posted by | blogging | No Comments

I like Om Malik and I like what he’s doing with GigaOm as a network. Somehow I think when Web2.0 advertising dries up, there will still be marketing dollars for Malik’s blogs which are both niche and important in the long term. His latest is NewTeeVee and is highly recommended.

Read More
Jan 08 2007
0

Zurich airport stobe art

Posted by | design | No Comments

Innevitably a visit to Europe always ends up in endless analysis of what better Europe vs the US. This time was partiularly strange, since much of Europe feels more futuristic that the US. My arrival at Zurich airport epitomized this, the airport having the same atmosphere as the film Gattaca. In the tunnels for the shuttle between terminals, pinpoint strobes light up 160 light box images of a post modern Heidi such that each frame syncs with the shuttle windows to produce an 8 second flipbook style movie. case study

Read More