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Apr 04 2006
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Man takes 40,000 ecstasy tablets – has all the Ministry of Sound Sessions from mid-nineties.

Posted by | science | No Comments

The Guardian reports on the case of a man who took 40,000 ecstasy tablets in 16 years, giving doctors a unique insight into the long term affects. Given that: 1. this man is still alive. 2. he was clearly an idiot to start with. 3. he’s a habitual user of several other narcotics. 4. taking that many aspirin would be very dangerous. Surprisingly, ecstasy would seem to be relatively safe. Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The strange case of the man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in nine years

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Apr 03 2006
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The Times is a Changin. Are page views dead?

Posted by | design | No Comments

Its fairly odd that a design tweak like the New York Times’ website overhaul should be news, particularly since CNN did pretty much the same thing with less fuss a couple of weeks ago. And it took the times nearly a year! Nerertheless, something interesting is at work – first, sites are now ignoring smaller screens for the first time in years – 1024 pixels wide is becoming the standard. More importantly, by ignoring the low end they can also ignore large screens in a way that 800 pixel wide designs didn’t really cut it. They are bypassing the ridiculous ‘holy grail’ three column CSS layout that geeks with no graphic design sense use in favor of fixed column, paper-like designs used by web designers. Lastly, with RSS and Ajax, the notion of a page impression is gone – and yet that, rather than just impressions is what is often…

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Mar 30 2006
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Architecture’s Scientific Revolution

Posted by | architecture | No Comments

When architects steal terms like Post Modernism or Deconstruction from the, shrouded in bullshit, fringes of philosophy called ‘literary criticism’ and the like, what they really mean is: ‘new buildings with decoration’ or ‘buildings that look like they are falling apart’, respectively. That does not mean that the buildings aren’t beautiful – just that the justification is pointless and the understanding of other people’s field’s limited. Because of the nature of the scale and function of architecture, architects can pretend to be scientists when they are poor craftsmen and artists when they are bad engineers. Seed magazine has a new piece on innovations in architecture – its true that composite materials, intelligent skins and energy efficiency concerns have created a scientific edge in some styles, but the combination of the fact that you can pretty much build anything these days with the counter swing against minimalism means that by and…

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Mar 28 2006
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Another Bourgeois French Revolution

Posted by | globalization | No Comments

The French have a tradition of Bourgeois revolutions and this is no different. Young, predominantly white students, who are by definition not part of France’s growing underclass, are protesting to keep protections that benefit themselves. Trade unions have followed suit, since striking has become a national sport in France – you can’t beat a good strike. What is being proposed is an employment contract that means people don’t get the same job protections for their first job. The empirical results of removing benefits at the bottom of the ladder is that employers can take risks, and in a culture with sectors of society with long term unemployment this creates more of a hiring meritocracy. That is not to say that all benefits should be removed. It would be naive to think that, in a globalized economy, the bottom of the ladder is being filled according to the law. If you…

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