I have to say it. Frankly. I am disappointed in you, my readers. I deliberately do not clutter up this website with Internet advertising and other distracting marketing gimmicks. I wish to offer you a calm and agreeable intellectual experience. Nonetheless, in return I hope that you take seriously my […]
Read this superb interview at Edge with W. Daniel Hillis about radical new ideas for looking at what cancer does: Instead of saying, ‘I have cance’", we should say, "I am cancering.’ The truth of the matter is we’re probably cancering all the time, and our body is checking it […]
Remember the EU’s financial crisis which threatened to bring down the Eurozone a few months ago? No. Anyway, according to Baseline Scenario it is still waiting to pounce, this time on Ireland which is often held up as the right way to deal with Eurozone member states’ debt problems: The […]
Off go sundry Crawfs to Poland for a few days, myself mainly working. Not much posted here this month. Am I running out of steam for this blogging business? Or is it just grey, muggy, flat August malaise time? Sigh. Quickies to keep you amused for a few days while […]
Years ago when I was at Harvard University on a sabbatical midcareer break, I experimented for the first time with voice recognition software. In those days, the technology had already advanced pretty well. That is to make the system work, you had to load the program on to your PC, then read […]
The FCO has a new Permanent Under Secretary (ie top HQ civil servant cheese), namely Simon Fraser. The Guardian of course gets it wrong: Although the highly regarded Fraser has worked in the Foreign Office before, it is unusual for the permanent secretary to be recruited from outside the ranks […]
Fascinating interview with Clay Shirky at the Guardian website, where all sorts of issues dealing with the impact of the Internet (especially on old-style media outlets such as newspapers and TV) are covered elegantly. Examples: When we talk about newspapers, we talk about them being critical for informing the public; […]
How does the Obama administration’s response to the BP oil-leak crisis look as seen from the viewpoint of someone who has walked on the moon – and so understands the limits of technology? Not too good: The response after an oxygen tank explosion in the Apollo 13 spacecraft on its […]
Another superb piece by Adam Thierer at Technology Liberation Front, this time looking at a new book which is making a big impact: The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr: The general Carr argument is that the immediacy of unlimited communication actually changes the way we think, to the extent of affecting […]
The Guardian tells us about a serious police raid in California: California police have taken six computers and other items from the house of Jason Chen, the editor of the gadget blog Gizmodo who appeared on a video on the site showing off a lost Apple iPhone prototype which, it […]
