Preparing for the day when humanity finally blacks the sky out Matrix-fashion, bacteria which can survive entirely without the sun have been found in a South African gold mine.
(The article says this is the first life form to have been discovered which can survive entirely without photosynthesis, but is that correct? Aren’t there crazy deep-sea [...]
A timely lesson for all would-be Internet scammers: when trying to con people into handing over their account details online, don’t be tricked into handing over your own details instead.
This post is specifically for my Mum.
So, you think you’re good at Scrabble, huh? Just because you’ve beaten me and, well, every other member of our family in every game you’ve ever played? Hah! Not good enough!: the board below contains the end of a tournament match during which 3 different world records were set.
Highest [...]
I was back in London this weekend, mainly to deal with handing in my keys to the old flat, getting my deposit back and things like that. My landlord, Nicholas, was off travelling in Brazil, so I was due to meet his wife, Elma, at the flat to sort everything out.
Thanks to the standard Southwest [...]
Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds
I’m never really sure what I’m going to get with an Alastair Reynolds story. He wrote the fantastic Revelation Space space opera series, and interspersed it with the ho-hum Chasm City and Century Rain. He also published a volume collecting the dull-as-ditchwater Turquoise Days alongside one of my favourite short stories [...]
Now, look here. I know I’ve posted things in the past that I’ve claimed to have loved, to have been entranced by or to have been the pinnacle of human achievement. However, this obituary (stay with me!) of Lt Col John Pine-Coffin is my favourite thing that I’ve ever posted on this site.
I’ve no idea [...]
More book reviews, ignored until I realised that the pile was getting worryingly huge again. More to follow!
The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
For some reason I managed to miss this during my utopia/distopia reading binge as I started University, and it’s often cited as one of the great utopian novels, despite never actually seeming [...]
There’s something in the water (or Tequila, or Mescal) in Albuquerque.
Take 300 microwave ovens, rip out the magnetrons, then synchronise the outputs and you (theoretically) have yourself a Giant Death Ray(tm).
U.S. Patent application found here. Just in case you fancy building one yourself.
Still stuck with a boring black/grey laptop sleeve? Give airport baggage handlers something to chuckle about:
Looking for the perfect hardware for your illicit offshore computing facility? Sun’s ‘Project Blackbox‘ is a complete datacentre built into a standard shipping container, all set for those panicked midnight relocations.
I hereby nominate ‘Teen in flying bra crash is charged with littering’ as the most intriguing headline of the year so far.
One of the contestants on Mastermind tonight was a female grad student whose chosen subject was ‘The Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft‘.
I think I’m in love…
Your AJAXy Rails app is ruining the planet.
(Let us hear nothing of how carbon-efficient it is to run a meaningless vanity-website like this one. *Ahem*)
This Is London - 16/10/2006:
A Fourteen-year-old girl from north-west London stands accused of conspiracy to supply a machine gun capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is one of four suspects from the area who appeared at High Barnet magistrates’ court charged with gun-related crimes.
She was charged [...]
The vagaries of wireless networks have been studied, coerced and finally beaten with a lead pipe, and now all of our Internet tubes are fully functional again.
Hooray for connectivity! I was starting to get twitchy, there…