Danny Yee >> Pathologically Polymathic (blog)

August 2008

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Gustav pounds western Cuba - ChinaDaily - Wunder
"Gustav is likely to be one of the five most damaging hurricanes in Cuban history. Fortunately, Cuba has a top-notch hurricane civil defense operation, and I'm confident they have gotten all of the population at risk out of harm's way."
In Search of Kazakhstan [review]
Dubravka Ugresic on Radovan Karadzic - SignSight [via CR]
"I am not a monster, I am a writer!"
understanding coal is critical to understanding renewable energy - YouTube
carbon sequestration projects are pretty much all vapourware
the world's first ever email spam was in 1978 - Templetons
geting digital media to last 25 years is a real problem - Slashdot
Mohamed Choukri's novel - For Bread Alone [review]
a striking account of an underclass childhood and youth in Morocco
people are way too worried about terrorism - SMH
and the cost of most anti-terrorism measures vastly exceeds the benefits
Billmon is back!! - Kos
the US health insurance system is totally broken - Toledo [via Kos]
no pull back on Israeli settlements in the West Bank - National
the Taliban maintain law and order right up to the outskirts of Kabul - Guardian
my prediction: NATO and the US are going to end up leaving with a whimper
there's a dark chocolate boom in Australia - SMH
France is reviving old railway lines - Guardian
hands-free phones are not safe while driving - Salon
Colorado's experience with renewable power - WP [via Crikey]
A Secure Base + The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds [review]
collected essays and talks by John Bowlby
a nice introduction to using git for version control - Stanford
mould is destroying old audio and video tapes - GlobeMail
George Bush denies John McCain was tortured in Vietnam - Sullivan [via Kos]
a fight over Franz Kafka's papers - IHT
and a debate about how Jewish he was
there are ghostsigners as well as ghostwriters - Guardian
as predicted, Georgia's military infrastructure has been destroyed - Guardian
"The American 'train and equip' mission for the Georgian military is six years old. It has been destroyed in as many days."
Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction [review]
Bjørn Lomborg's willful idiocy - ThingsBreak [via Deltoid]
elderly women in posh suburb fed 000s of rats - LAweekly [via Barista]
anti-virus software on voting machines?! - xkcd
women's gymnastics is child abuse - NYT [via Kos]
and one hell of a lot worse than being photographed naked for Art Monthly
GDP is not a good measure of national wealth - Harpers
a $1 house in Detroit takes 19 days to sell - DetroitNews
a 15 minute lecture on Alfred Russel Wallace - ABC [audio + transcript]
an introduction to the BTC oil pipeline - Times
Bush administration plans to cripple Endangered Species Act - CSM
government agencies would no longer need to seek scientific advice on projects
a novel of faith in 19th century New Mexico - Death Comes for the Archbishop [review]
an illustrated explanation of the Kaminsky DNS exploit - UnixWiz [via LWN]
includes a good general introduction to DNS
an insider on how financial risk management failed - Economist
John McCain is a warmonger - YouTube [via Kos]
(this video uses a figure for Iraqi civilian casualties that's an order of magnitude too low)
US-style lending arrives in Turkey - IHT
Russia moves on Gori - trying to destroy the Georgian army? - IHT - PacificFreePress
the Svalbard surface temperature record - Wiki
pharmaceutical companies demand to be allowed to secretly bribe doctors - Boston [via ProRev]
"Masschussetts legislation would require them to report any payment or gift of more than $50 made to a healthcare professional"
ACM SIGOPS Review issue on Linux kernel - ACM [via /.]
1500 protesters faced nearly 1500 police at Kingsnorth power station - Guardian
it seems the Georgian gamble has failed - FOE
"the Russian military is sometimes disorganized and incompetent, but you can't consistently count on it"
E.M. Forster as middlebrow critic - NYROB
Georgia and Russia are (unofficially) at war - AP
Georgia has launched "a major military offensive to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia"
computer Go system beats 8-dan pro - usgo [via /.]
but it had a nine-stone handicap (and used 800 processors, 15 Teraflops)
London's Oyster travel card has been cracked - Schneier - Guardian
"it's kindergarten cryptography. Anyone with any security experience would be embarrassed to put his name to the design"
CNN poll: 43% think the US should appropriate Iraq's oil - Money
and a further 33% think the US should steal some of it
an insight into domestic Iranian politics - ICGA
the Majles confirms three of Ahmadinejad's ministerial appointments
on female prostitutes in science fiction - AaruTuesday [via Stross]
"If (# of Female Prostitutes) > (# of All Other Women), then [WTF?]"
Olympus/Panasonic announce a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera mount - DPR
the EVIL camera has finally arrived!
author sells shares in book to public - Telegraph [via CR]
"investors can pay $2,000 in return for a 10 per cent share of the royalties of Tao Lin's as-yet-unfinished second novel"
Israeli politics following Olmert's resignation - PeaceProspects
America doesn't want to know anything about Iraq war films - Barista - Guardian
the Mahabharata could be turned into a never-ending soap opera - Jabber
software bloat: Adobe Reader will get you addicted to coffee - MicroPledge [via JWalk]
360 year chart of inflation-adjusted house prices in Amsterdam - NRC
Solzhenitsyn has died - SMH
I've only read August 1914, but there's a copy of The First Circle in my "to read" pile
a gloomy perspective on Australian housing - Bloomberg
"Prices in the property market will fall 30% by 2010... Australia is headed for a once-in-100-year real-estate slump"
debating book imports in Australia again - Australian [via CR]
Cheney wanted to Tonkin Gulf the Straits of Hormuz - ThinkProgress
a tale of two Marys: how the NRA infiltrated the gun control movement - MotherJones
the flaws of the Australian network censorship trial - ThinkOfTheChildren

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Pathologically Polymathic (blog) << Danny Yee