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A China Moon
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2–3 minutes·
No comments on A China MoonSome people believe that China is really serious about human spaceflight. Really serious, as in, intends to establish a permanent human present on the Moon in the near future. At least one Japanese politician thinks it could happen within four years. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter exactly when it happens; if China decides…
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EasyMicroPayments
Here’s a question: how does EasyCinema handle micropayments? I had a brief look at their website and I can’t seen any minimum charge for booking online via credit or debit card. I suppose it could be hidden away at the checkout stage, but if it isn’t, then it’s impressive – and baffling – how they…
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The Dream
E-Ink announced their prototype electronic book display last week. Finally, the dream of a portable, long-lasting electronic book reader may finally be upon us. The contrast and resolution of the display (160dpi) look quite acceptable and I’m not really bothered about the fact that it has no colour; neither do any of my paperbacks. As…
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Tough love for PhDs
Tough Love for PhDs – Brad talks about the mismatch between tenure-track positions and PhDs granted as US universities (I don’t know what the situation is in the UK). Good job I have four years to figure out what I want to do.
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The steam-powered drum machine
The steam-powered drum machine – an astonishing extract from a journal written in 1894 about a steam-powered drum machine and a 19th century rave (yes, it’s a joke). Via the Culture List and spawned, in part, from the demented mind of Brendan Nelson.
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Biononsense
After reading this article about human genetic engineering, I have to comment on something that’s been bugging me for a while now. The article is inoffensive enough, but it uses the term ‘biogenetics’. I’m sorry, but there is no such field as biogenetics; it’s either genetics or nothing, and there’s no use in trying to…
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GamesFilter
A while ago I mentioned that I was thinking about setting up a collaborative weblog akin to MetaFilter, called (appropriately enough), GamesFilter. Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on it on and off during the periods in which my brain refuses to accept any more information about neuroscience. GamesFilter has been running for…
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Excessive Storage
In response to the new 30GB Apple iPod, Creative have just announced a 60GB mp3 player, the Nomad Zen. I feel that things have gotten a bit out of hand here. While more storage is always a good thing, I only have 54GB storage on my computer, and although I occasionally have to burn some…
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Making the extraordinary seem ordinary
A couple of days ago over dinner, I was having one of those typical university conversations about whether the Internet had really changed the world. As was pointed out, “We’re still not buying all of our groceries over the web.” I replied with something about delivery of large perishable goods and how in fact the…
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Never good enough
The big news today is that Apple has launched its new music service. $.99 for a single track and $10 for an album. However, the folks at MetaFilter are positivery derisory of the entire scheme, even though it has almost no DRM issues (burn to CD effectively as many times as you want). What do…
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