liam cassidy

White House Deputy CTO Compares Censorship In China To American ISPs

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:53:25 +0000

Let’s be perfectly clear about something; ISPs aren’t opposed to the principles of Net Neutrality on any kind of ethical, moral or political grounds, despite their well-calculated PR squawking.

Their opposition to Net Neutrality is motivated entirely by the fact that, today, the Internet is used by more people and in more bandwidth-hungry ways than their antiquated business models can hope to tolerate.

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Penny Arcade!

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:39:58 +0000

via penny-arcade.com

I hate holiday shopping.

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Teledildonics

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:38:06 +0000

via gizmodo.com

I shit you not.

You put your junk in here and it does stuff. Naughty stuff.

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Monster worm and sea star frenzy

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:30:48 +0000

via news.bbc.co.uk

I’m amazed at the technical wizardry of the BBC Natural History crews – they never fail to impress!

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UK plutonium Stockpile

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:26:12 +0000

It’s a total absurdity that we should have 100 tonnes of separated plutonium sitting up at Sellafield in tin cans… that is manifestly ludicrous.

via news.bbc.co.uk

We sorely need nuclear fusion.

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EU formally adopts file sharing rights

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:16:21 +0000

The measure will only allow EU member states to cut off access if it’s deemed “appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society.” Any decision will require an objective procedure that allows the accused to defend themselves as well as presumptions of innocence and a right to privacy.

via electronista.com

That bit at the end there, “presumptions of innocence”. That’s so important. I live in a country where an individual is innocent until proven guilty and Mandelson’s ridiculous new rules apparently forget that salient fact.

Remains to be seen whether the EU rule will be implemented and obeyed by our government. So long as our key leaders remain on the leashes of global media giants, it seems unlikely.

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Employee (mis)Management

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:10:23 +0000

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Carl Sagan Says…

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:10:31 +0000

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way’

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

via thestargarden.co.uk

I wish Carl was still with us.

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The 1970's called. They want their lingo back.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:43:24 +0000

Working on a project targeting the tween market, the client nixed all of our ideas (even though the focus group testing numbers were off the charts) and instead started throwing in their own ideas. The clients were all in their late 40’s and were pitching us concepts that were cringe-worthy. When the boss politely mentioned to the clients that creative teams fresh out of school probably have a better grasp on youth market trends and interests the client snapped back “I think I have grasp on what youngsters find groovy.”

via clientsfromhell.tumblr.com

I can’t stop laughing… !

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Dawkins Says...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:27:49 +0000

“…high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it – the intelligentsia – unless they’re prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly, American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.”

–– Richard Dawkins.

Truer words were never spoken.

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Microsoft: Just Like IBM

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:21:01 +0000

Many expect Microsoft to dry up and fall neatly into the IBM model, where it becomes a huge, successful and almost universally boring behemoth that services enterprises only. And you know, this may still happen. But give Microsoft some credit. It’s going kicking and screaming into this future and is trying to prove that it still has its old competitive mojo.

The problem for Microsoft, as I see it, is that no one is noticing.

via winsupersite.com

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know I’ve been saying this for a while.

By the way, if you are a regular reader – thank you, you are awesome :-)

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5 Star Wars Status Updates

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:12:29 +0000

via collegehumor.com

Awesome! Go check out the other four :-)

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Splitting Time from Space

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:58:04 +0000

The solution, Hořava says, is to snip threads that bind time to space at very high energies, such as those found in the early universe where quantum gravity rules. “I’m going back to Newton’s idea that time and space are not equivalent,” Hořava says. At low energies, general relativity emerges from this underlying framework, and the fabric of spacetime restitches, he explains.

via scientificamerican.com

Interesting idea. Looks like it’s getting some important support, too. Mind you, there’s that kicker from Gia Dvali, a quantum gravity researcher at CERN who said he tried a similar solution to try to explain dark energy. He had to drop it because “…it allowed information to be communicated faster than the speed of light.”

Hořava gravity also says that the quantum singularity of the big bang is best described as a big bounce, whereby the singularity was not infinitely dense.

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Lobster Taser

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:41:12 +0000

The lobster taser, which looks to me mostly like a lobster photocopier, is supposedly a more humane way of dispatching the delicious bottomfeeders than the normal “stab in the brain” or “boil alive” methods. Also, tasers.

via gizmodo.com

The official name – CrustaStun.

See what they did there? Comedy genius.

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The Definition of Evil

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:39:11 +0000

via gizmodo.com

I won’t rehash the story, I’ll just draw attention to this fantastic pic of Charles “Monty” Burns… aka Rupert Murdoch.

Sheer evil.

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The Founding Fathers Collaborate via Google Wave: Who knew?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:13:08 +0000

via techcrunch.com

Who knew John Hancock was a troll?

Check out the article for more – the Wave Team might be a tad on the nerd side of the fence (their ten hour “intro” to Google Wave was a nerdgasm from start to end) but damn can nerds be funny!

I have a google wave account, but I won’t be checking out this particular wave because I suspect Kincaid’s article pretty much summed up all the most worthwhile bits (like some trailers show the only worthwhile parts of a movie).

Oh yeah, that reminds me – I have a handful of Google Wave invites left for those who want them. Let me know in the comments if that’s you.

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Educate to Innovate: America Has a Science-Friendly President

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:18:01 +0000

What We Must Do

Through “Educate to Innovate” and other efforts, we must:

Increase STEM literacy so that all students can learn deeply and think critically in science, math, engineering, and technology.

Move American students from the middle of the pack to top in the next decade.

Expand STEM education and career opportunities for underrepresented groups, including women and girls.

via whitehouse.gov

Obama is making-good with his promise to put a supreme effort into the promotion and support of science, technology, engineering and math for Americans. About bloody time.

I’m so happy to read the announcement (link below the quote) but it saddens me that, while America is finally in the hands of an administration that wants to promote science, truth and critical thinking, we’re stuck with a government that has done quite the opposite in recent years.

Anyway, good for you, America. You deserve this. (And good grief… you need it!)

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LHC sees its first collisions! | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:10:48 +0000

Hey, is the Earth still here? Because the Large Hadron Collider saw its first proton collisions today!

OK, it wasn’t at full power, and this is just a preliminary test, but still: It works!

…the graphic above shows the particles detected in the ATLAS experiment, one of the two big detectors on the LHC. The paths of the particles are shown, and they all trace back to one spot (or close enough), indicating they all emerged from the same patch of space inside the collider, just as you’d expect if they were the products of a subatomic collision.

via blogs.discovermagazine.com

I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this. So, while the world gets its collective panties in a great big knot about 2012 catastrophe myths (which, incidentally, aren’t at all ancient and are the work of Hollywood) I’ll be enjoying something that’s really dramatic and awesome and worth my energy.

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Paul McCartney Doesn't Understand the Internet

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:23:16 +0000

What’s Paul McCartney’s doomsday scenario? Someone, somewhere, somehow manages to leak the Beatles’ music onto the internet, where it will be stolen by everyone, all the time. This must be prevented! Notice a problem there?

via gizmodo.com

The world is currently full of tired old media guys in possession or control of vast swathes of valuable rich content; literature, journalism, music, TV or film… it remains the responsibility of elderly executives to guard it and, in ways fast-becoming less relevant in today’s digital world, find ways to exploit that content for profits.

McCartney is just one of those old farts who doesn’t ‘get’ the Internet. Rupert Murdoch is another. I have met (and worked with) plenty of similar people in my time at the BBC.

But don’t worry. It’s only a matter of time. See, they’re growing older all the time, more out-of-touch with the modern digital realm with each passing day. What is it Leia tells Tarkin? “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems slip through your fingers…”

Actually not the best choice of quotes, but I like it. I haven’t mentioned Star Wars in a while, it was about due.

Anyway. Fear not. The old farts will be retired or dead soon enough, making way for those of us who do get the Internet. And then the world will be a perfect place. There will be no crime, no poverty. Global warming will be reversed. Unicorns will prance through the streets–

–good fucking god. I hate insomnia. I need to go sleep…

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There Is No Jump

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:08:22 +0000

Look at this. They insist on using the hackneyed old “after the jump” language in their articles but here’s the problem; there is no fucking jump.

“Check out the video after the jump.” What jump? The video is way up there at the top of the page, it’s the first element in the article body.

It appears before the instruction to check it out, for Pet’s sake.

I have written before about the banality (and penny-pinching tactics) of websites that insist on needlessly ‘paging’ articles (you know, “continue to page 2” bollocks).

But almost as annoying are the sites that insist on using this sort of trashy “after the jump” or “after the fold” language. (Engadget does the same tired old thing, but at least their website always had an actual “fold” – make no mistake, it’s just as insulting to the reader.)

The “break” or “fold” was relevant in the print world, about twenty years ago. It was relevant (briefly) in the late 90s when online content-publishers had to contend with the pokey low-res displays people were using at that time.

Today it’s entirely pointless. And, as we can see in this example, sometimes it’s also inexplicable.

Check out the example after the jump. (meh)

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