A bit of Viktor Bout news. It looks like, according to AFP, that the Americans are planning to deploy B. Hussein Stalinhitler himself, when the President is in that part of the world next month. I can remember when “someone high up in the contracting world” actively wanted to encourage him, in support of a…
Read More a bit of BoutHere’s a case study in unpopular populism: ‘The ravers should have more respect for Mr Blobby. He was a hero to a lot of kids and the thought of them taking drugs and having all-night raves in his house is completely disrespectful.’. The photographs are truly eerie. Like this one: Of course, it was never…
Read More blobby blobby blobbyOK, back from eComm in Amsterdam; here’s something interesting. Besides all the stuff I was meant to be following for work, we had a presentation from a group of the sort of media-arts types who get a lot of coverage on Bruce Sterling’s blog; in fact the whole gig was faintly Beyond the Beyond-esque when…
Read More optimise your social isolation more efficientlyWithout comment: Mr Cameron has said he would relish the opportunity: “Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons are no substitute for a proper prime time studio debate…” David Cameron is surely the ultimate anti-blogging candidate; look at what he said. Discursive, textual culture has no value for him.
Read More a black square on a white backgroundSo where’s WhoseKidAreYou? “Well, I’m working on it” is the short answer. I have recently reorganised the code in the user script, and I’ve been fiddling with Sindice, a semantic/linked data search engine. I’m fairly certain, however, that the first version out will work like this. User script tries a range of XPath and DOM…
Read More wkay – updateSpeaking of new Soviet men, The GOP Speaks continues to be a fantastic resource on authoritarian thinking. Short version – chap writes to every county- and state-level Republican chairman in the US and asks them to fill in a questionnaire. Blogs the results as they come in. Here’s number 26. 1) So long as it’s…
Read More the GOP speaks, and so does the unconsciousWhile we’re kicking the remains of Superfreakonomics around the car park, here’s something else. Via Kevin Drum, it seems that John Meriwether, the chap whose hedge fund LTCM nearly killed the banking sector in 1998, has started another hedge fund, a few months after his come-back ended up being crushed under the financial panic of…
Read More the new Soviet manOne consequence of the whole Superfreakonomics fiasco, which has been thoroughly reported elsewhere in the blogosphere, is that I’ve changed my mind about geoengineering ideas. Up until now, I was of the opinion that the various proposals to check climate change by doing various things to the atmosphere or the oceans were no substitute for…
Read More scary monsters and super freaks keep me runningThe blog is going to call in Amsterdam this week. I’m going to be attending eComm, the less tiresome telecoms conference. Readers there are welcome to meet up; I’d also be interested in recommendations of anything, really, as I haven’t been there since 1996, and using the various hangouts referenced in Charlie Stross novels as…
Read More the problem with a submarine is that there’s nowhere to have a decent cocktail partyDaniel Davies speaks on Afghanistan, and comments ensue. Dan Hardie is mostly making sense; he argues that there are essentially three options – a strategy of trying to win the tribes, one of defending the cities and key locations and pouring in aid to the Afghans, or one of unilateral withdrawal. The first would be…
Read More arguing about Afghanistan