mssv

  • Bits and Pieces: The Future

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    3–5 minutes

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    1 comment on Bits and Pieces: The Future

    This is almost exactly a year late, but Vernor Vinge, one of my favourite SF authors and perhaps the most insightful prognosticator I know of, gave the keynote lecture at the Austin Games Conference in 2006. He covers so much ground in the lecture that I suspect he lost a few people not familiar with…

  • The BBC Civil War

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    3–4 minutes

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    5 comments on The BBC Civil War

    It’s a shame to see what’s happening at the BBC now. With the TV license fee not increasing anywhere near as much as the BBC had hoped, something’s got to give, and people are all trying to point the finger at anyone but themselves. Jon Humphrys from the Radio 4 Today Programme suggested killing off…

  • 8 Days Later

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    1–2 minutes

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    5 comments on 8 Days Later

    Did you know that the UK’s statutory holiday entitlement is increasing to 24 days on 1st October, and then 28 days a year after that? Because I sure as hell didn’t. For the majority of people in the UK, that’s an extra eight days holiday every year. Another eight 3-day weekends, or almost two whole…

  • Food Miles

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    4–5 minutes

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    7 comments on Food Miles

    Sometimes, when I come across a particularly interesting article, I try to find the research paper that it’s based on. I don’t always read the entire paper (in fact, I normally skip over huge chunks) but it’s always instructive to see the results and analysis as the original author wrote them; it’s not rare for…

  • Religion in His Dark Materials

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    3–5 minutes

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    7 comments on Religion in His Dark Materials

    Philip Pullman, along with a couple of other people from New Line, gave an interesting talk at the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday about the process of adaption The Golden Compass for the cinema. There was a bit of a thrill of seeing some effects shots for the first time, although it turned out to be…

  • Cars off the road

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    2–3 minutes

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    1 comment on Cars off the road

    M&S unveils carbon-neutral target (BBC News): M&S said the carbon savings it aimed to achieve under its plan would be like taking 100,000 cars off the road each year. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of environmental plans being measured in the number of cars taken off the road. I did a search on Google…

  • Their Say

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    1–2 minutes

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    1 comment on Their Say

    I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned how much I hate the Have Your Say section on BBC News Online (surely a forum the BBC must be ashamed of) – if I haven’t, then I’ll have to do a post about it some time. Anyway, it occasionally throws up some real gems: Q: Should we build…

  • Post Office

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    2–3 minutes

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    3 comments on Post Office

    Try as some might to avoid the rest of humanity, there are two places where you’re obliged to spend time with them – post offices, and planes. Nice segue into a weblog post about both, eh? (well, the one about planes might have to come a bit later) I had to pick up a special…

  • Who supports longer copyright?

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    2–3 minutes

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    No comments on Who supports longer copyright?

    Various news outlets today have been claiming that the Public ‘support longer copyright’. I quote from the BBC article: 62% of people polled by YouGov for the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) think UK artists should be protected for 95 years, as they are in the US. I found this very surprising – I can hardly…

  • The Case for Contamination

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    1–2 minutes

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    1 comment on The Case for Contamination

    The Case for Contamination – from the New York Times magazine. A well-written and engaging essay on why cosmopolitanism is good, and trying to protect cultural practices is bad (I simplify).