-
Slow down
·
Here‘s a sort-of advertisement from Jem Finer to give you the opportunity to support his Longplayer project (and possibly win a trip to Brisbane). Vote early and often! Update: I placed my bet on 3 hours, 7 minutes and 12 seconds… And here are some movies and photos from Jem of his Centre of the…
-
Down time
·
A quick warning that the server on which this blog lives will be down from Friday evening through Monday morning (UK time). Have a nice weekend!
-
Intellectual Property redux
·
In her comment on this post, Gia asks I’ve got a domain name all ready to go, but I’m not sure my server at the University of Manc is the right place to host it… What is the deal at Imperial regarding ‘personal’ things on their servers…? At what point could your blog become an…
-
Shindig!
Some notes from my dinner with the bloggers and assorted hangers-on last night, hosted by Robert Scoble (who may think I’ve been stalking him at these gatherings, having shown up at one in New York last month) and Hugh MacLeod: [Scoble, a cornfed American boy if ever there was one, notes tech differences between the…
-
Centre of the Universe
Went to see the opening of Jem Finer‘s The Centre of the Universe in Oxford last night. Jem is the artist in residence in Oxford’s Department of Astrophysics, and “The Centre of the Universe” is a homebrew radio telescope, built of telephone poles, scavenged wood and chicken-wire. Inspiration ranges from Babylonian ziggurats and Robert Smithson…
-
Deep Throat
·
I’m just the right age that Watergate was the formative political experience of my life: I don’t really remember anything before it (except for a few hazy memories) and everything since has been tainted by it. Watergate, along with the debacle end of the Vietnam war (which I also remember, albeit mostly because they pre-empted…
-
Crackpots
The Smithsonian is taking money from crackpot creationists (there is no other kind of creationist) to let them screen a movie propounding their crackpot (I am trying to make a point here) views. In their report on this, The New York Times manages the relatively nuanced “Although Charles Darwin’s theory is widely viewed as having…
-
Update: Academic Union – Israeli boycotts revoked
Update — AUT – Israeli boycotts revoked: AUT’s special council … voted to revoke all existing boycotts of Israeli institutions. AUT council has decided to base its policy on providing practical solidarity to Palestinian and Israeli trade unionists and academics, by agreeing a motion committing the union to having a full review of international policy,…
-
Feynman: the collapse of society and the rise of cosmology
·
The Guardian has run excerpts from a new collection of Richard Feynman’s writings, Don’t You Have Time to Think?. In this, written in 1961, he talks about the future of human society and what could happen to physics. First, he’s pessimistic: The future of physics depends on the circumstances of the rest of the world…
-
Travelling ten
·
I’ve been a bit quiet the past week, so here’s a very random top ten from my just-completed trip to North America (New Jersey/New York and Toronto). In no particular order, except for number one: My sister’s wedding — Congratulations and Mazel Tov to Allison and Chris! The skeleton of the new Daniel Libeskind extension…
Search
Recent Posts
Categories
- Academia (64)
- Art (57)
- Blog (1)
- Miscellanea (102)
- Music (71)
- Net (63)
- News (28)
- Politics (110)
- Science (333)
- Uncategorized (4)