Short Sharp Science

The New Scientists has launched a couple of blogs. They look quite good - Short Sharp Science, and Technology Blog.

About Time

Excellent four-part documentary series started last night on BBC4, in which a world-renowned physicist examines the philosophy, history and science of time. Although it didn't mention Seamus's bete noir, the alarm clock, it did cover the tyranny of 'public time' - apparently Henry Ford and WWI are largely to blame.

It also filmed some fascinating experiments about biological body clocks and how we perceive things time differently (rats on cannabis and cocaine were quite amusing). For instance, a man was given a LCD which was flashing too fast to read the number being displayed. He was then dropped from a crane at a height of 12 storeys. As he fell (into a safety net), he stared at the LCD and could read the number. The idea that is in moments of intense panic/stimulation, our brains process information faster - hence the reported sensation of things appearing to slow down when people are involved in car accidents etc.

In a completely different vain....

Have a look at www.fluideffect.com. More to the point, go to their portfolio, click agree and then go to the before/after section. You'll find some pictures of celebs (don't worry; safe for work). Now you'll see a link to the left that says "click to see before". What this does is shows you what the picture looked like before they touched it up in photoshop (or whatever). Very interesting. Incredible shrinking women and everything! And now you realise that I did mean "vain"...

Hunger Site

www.thehungersite.com is an interesting idea. Click on the button and the sponsers give money to hunger charities. Simple.

Stop the war! oh

I meant to post this a couple of days ago, on the third anniversary. Fat lot of good it did.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Just finished the latest novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's ambitious, brilliant in parts but only partly successful. It is similar in style and structure to his other book "Everything is Illuminated", in that it is half based around an eccentric, very funny narrator and half around his forebear's various recollections and adventures through global traumas - specifically the bombing of Dresden and 9-11. Anyway, worth a read.

Climate Change Experiment

The BBC and the Met office are doing one of those things where they use the idle power of your computer to run climate models and simulations - BBC Climate Change Experiment.

Are there any IT issues we should know about with such things, John and Seamus?

On a related matter, I heard a thing on the radio the other day that I thought was clever. Environmentalists in the US have come up with the phrase 'What would Jesus drive?', therby getting the message through to vast swathes of the population who might not have given it much thought before. Let's face it, it wouldn't be a Hummer, would it?

Finally, saw an article about 'off-grid' living in a copy of The Times I found on the tube yesterday. It included reference to site called www.off-grid.net, and an off-grid holiday cottage you can rent in Argyll.

Dulux are getting in on this North London bohemian racket...

Cartoons

In case you're curious, these are the cartoons.

They're not very good, but not all that offensive either, from our perspective. Funny old business.

Second Chance Tuesday

They've resurrected First Tuesday - second chance tuesday. Do you think we can sue?

Cartoon Time

I think this bloke answers the question he raises: " 'They want to test our feelings,' protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra told the BBC.

'They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers,' he said."

The world's gone nuts.

Four killed in cartoon protests

Participant Productions

Oh well, Google might have fallen from grace slightly, but there's always e-bay founder Jeff Skoll's Participant Productions, dedicated to funding popular movies with a liberal message. (Independent Online Edition >Feature in Independent.)

The Global Id

Interesting piece about Google in London Review of Books.

Lewis!

Pretty well done I thought, a welcome return. Didn't really engage with the plot but summertime Oxford is extremely easy on the eye at the dog end of January...

The Lethal Standby Button

Sorry to do the first environmental post of the new year - freaking out about this was one of the Fitzroy themes of 2005, and I'm sure it will continue this year. Amongst all the news of shrinking ice-caps etc, this news item made me very depressed about our incapacity to do anything about the environment. If we are struggling to do something about the TV Standby button, what hope have we got?

What's the best day for setting your auction to finish on ebay?

Read this somewhere but have forgotten, does anybody know?

Also - *still* haven't been able to get on that surname distribution site. Tried last night but no dice.

Ohrwurm

I was just telling someone in the office about the German work 'ohrwurm', or earworm, used to describe one of those annoying tunes that gets stuck in your head all day against your wishes. I checked it out on Wikepedia (to find out what the German word was), and discovered Maim That Tune, a service that offers alternative tunes that, whilst annoying in themselves, will drive the original earworm from your head...

Song Search by Tapping

Read about Songtapper in Metro this morning. Apparently, if you tap out the rhythm of a tune on your spacebar it identifies the song. Although in common with all my posts these days, I can't seem to get into the actual application...

Freecycle revisited

Had another look at the local freecycle site. It works via yahoo groups (do they all do this?) which offer a "daily digest" email option so your mailbox doesn't get too bombarded. Quite interesting, though haven't been tempted by anything on offer yet and don't have anything I want to get rid of at the moment.

Surname Distribution Profiler

This project by UCL showing geographic distribution of UK surnames looks potentially interesting. Unfortunately, it was on BBC News so is now down due to heavy traffic.