Well, very cool. Yahoo has an API that’s meant to let you do database-like read operations on anything web – you just pass your SELECT… statement and the URL and a few other arguments, and it chucks back a JSON document with your information. I haven’t managed to make it do anything interesting yet, but…
Read More a cloud of reinforced concreteShorter Tim, Energy Edition: Commodity prices always come down in the end; except when I really want the price of steel to stay at 2007 levels because it harms the economics of wind power. Further, supply of manufactured goods always responds to price signals except when I have a bizarre ideological opposition to some particular…
Read More Bonus Tim Worstall Stupidity WatchCameron today outlined his plans for economic responsibility to replace “irresponsible capitalism and irresponsible government” under Labour. He began his attack by accusing the prime minister of basing his financial decisions on “false assumptions” that he said had left the economy in ruins. Among them were the ideas that a successful economy could be built…
Read More Attack Of The CamorsetIs anyone else disturbed by the fact Ed Balls appears to have been replaced by Chris Dillow? Ed Balls, the schools secretary and only member of the Co-operative party in the cabinet, will today propose that 100 schools over the next two years become co-operative trust schools owned and controlled by the local community. He…
Read More tomorrow’s public inquiry todayI’m about to propose something to make Daniel Davies cry. Specifically, it’s a solution to a problem we currently deal with by a cash transfer through the tax and benefit system. But I think I’ve made a good case that trying to deal with high energy prices by paying the poor to burn more energy…
Read More The Harrowell Plan (Or, No Christmas Card from Dsquared)Jamie Zawinski links to a campaign to have a Californian sewage works renamed after George W. Bush. I disagree, strongly. Who on earth would associate something as civic, egalitarian, and useful as sewage treatment with the Commander Guy? Not just that, but it’s a publicly-owned sewage plant, part of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.…
Read More Civilisation is common defence and waste disposalOn Wednesday morning, I was nearly knocked down by an electric 7.5 tonne lorry on the Strand. On Thursday evening, I saw another one passing on a low loader near my home. There is a surprising British industry in here – both of these were Modec vehicles, but there is also Smith Electric Vehicles in…
Read More Electric TrucksVia Calculated Risk, galleries of repossessed houses in Los Angeles. This one can stand for a common theme. It’s hardly got any windows on the street side at all! Just two huge garage doors. Those doors are a common feature throughout the show – houses whose outward appearance is totally dominated by monster garages, like…
Read More The Opposite of ArchitectureBoingBoing apparently thinks this little line-shaft workshop is bizarre and incredible. Maybe. But I had one of these as a kid in the 1980s; it went with a Mamod steam engine, and had various tiny machine tools – a press, a pillar drill, a buffing wheel, and eventually we rigged a little dynamo to have…
Read More Doomed To TechnologyBlaney: Donal Blaney said… I do not bandy the term “nazi” or “racist” about in the same way the left do. 2:05 PM Blaney: This is how the Nazi traffic wardens of London behave when they see a nice car that they decide they want to tow. Blaney: First, a confession. I was appointed a…
Read More Donal Blaney: Hypocrite, Political Whore, and Torture Fan