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My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes. Ronald Regan’s infamous sound check, which resulted in part of the Soviet army being put on alert for 30 minutes after word of the statement reached the Soviet Union. qu . . . → Read More: “Efficient” British banking services I can’t see the point in some of the more modern internet trends – I tried FaceBook and gave up after a couple of weeks, and have never felt the slightest urge to share my life using Twitter. However I know quite a few people who do use Twitter. They may want to consider . . . → Read More: Careful what you tweet… What makes supermarket employees work harder? Why do rats drink more tonic water, when it becomes more expensive? (Rats hate tonic water, they don’t like the taste of the quinine in it), and why is your boss overpaid? It’s all down to the logic of economics, according to Tim Harford, or as he . . . → Read More: Economic logic The Daily Mail had several pictures of recent work by John Pugh today – they really are worth taking a look at. No pictures here, as I no longer publish pictures unless I’m absolutely sure that I’m not potentially infringing copyright. Follow this link to the Daily Mail, and if it gives you . . . → Read More: Trompes l’oeil by John Pugh When I was a student, many years ago, I discovered Piet Hein and his fascinating gruk (grook) poetry, which was originally written as a call to resistance during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. I loved not only the poetry, but also the whimsical illustrations of circular-headed little people which accompanied nearly every grook. I . . . → Read More: The versatile Piet Hein Sometimes I ask myself what the developers of the Apple Mac spelling checker are smoking… Fortunately, most people don’t accept that particular suggestion – not everyone was paying attention however… We were in Spain the last two weeks, and while we were there, we bought the Franklin TES-120 translator for spanish / english pictured above. It cost 39 Euro, and claims to translate 800 000 words (the screenshot shows part of its “boot” sequence, which repeats this claim every time you switch it . . . → Read More: Useless technology The answer is far too few. For a population of 60 million, it’s sad to see that only 602 people chose to study German at university in 2008 – down from 2288 ten years ago. It’s not only at the higher levels that an interest in foreign languages has declined in the . . . → Read More: How many chose German university courses in the UK in 2008? Short video illustrating some of Otlet’s ideas Paul Otlet (1868 – 1944) proposed many of the ideas which have been implemented in the world wide web – including the idea of a library of information much like Wikipedia – and actually implemented his ideas in the form of the Mundaneum, back in 1910. The . . . → Read More: The Mundaneum – the forgotten precursor to the internet |
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