Pirelli Relativity Challenge

Think you can explain relativity to a layman? Then take the Pirelli Relativity Challenge, and win 25,000 Euros!

Music today

Dear oh dear: an article on pop music today. Makes saddening reading.

Yet more bollocks form the govt. about ID cards

From The Register: The EU invention of a passport standard including facial and fingerprint biometrics complicates matters, as does pressure from some people in the US, e.g. outgoing Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, for fingerprints to be added to US passports. Ridge argues this has to be done in order to keep pace with Europe, while in Europe it has been argued that Europe needs to implement biometric passports in order to keep pace with the US. Which would be funny if it weren't so shameful - it's quite clear what they're all up to.

Run your PC from your Pocket PC

Ok, this guy is connecting to his Mac, but the idea should work with anything.....

Minty MP3

Build an MP3 player that fits inside any case you like. Cool, and fresh-tasting too..

Loon Lawsuits

Some loony lawsuits from the Michigan Law Abuse website.

The Early Days of a Better Nation

The Early Days of a Better Nation. A fascinating website. In particular:

'The CIA and its allies in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) poured vast sums of money into promoting Abstract Expressionist (AE) painting and painters as an antidote to art with a social content. In promoting AE, the CIA fought off the right-wing in Congress. What the CIA saw in AE was an "anti-Communist ideology, the ideology of freedom, of free enterprise. Non-figurative and politically silent it was the very antithesis of socialist realism" (254). They viewed AE as the true expression of the national will. To bypass right-wing criticism, the CIA turned to the private sector (namely MOMA and its co-founder, Nelson Rockefeller, who referred to AE as "free enterprise painting.") Many directors at MOMA had longstanding links to the CIA and were more than willing to lend a hand in promoting AE as a weapon in the cultural Cold War. Heavily funded exhibits of AE were organized all over Europe; art critics were mobilized, and art magazines churned out articles full of lavish praise. The combined economic resources of MOMA and the CIA-run Fairfield Foundation ensured the collaboration of Europe's most prestigious galleries which, in turn, were able to influence aesthetics across Europe.'

CherryOS

CherryOS a Mac running on a PC.

Googleable unsecured webcams

Googleable unsecured webcams

Tsunami damage

Satellite photos of several regions affected by the 26th Dec. tsunami, before and after. Powerful images.

Click and Build

Click and Build - an e-commerce service supplier.

How to turn a digital photo into a sketch using Photoshop

An interesting article on how to turn photos into sketches using Photoshop Elements.

Heathrow x-ray weapons scanner, just say no.

Heathrow x-ray weapons scanner, just say no. A trial is being carried out at Heathrow airport now.

'See through clothes' scanner gets outing at Heathrow

'See through clothes' scanner gets outing at Heathrow. Another article on these pesky scanners they want to put in everywhere....

Home Office stalls on weapons scanner health risks

Home Office stalls on weapons scanner health risks. Another perceptive article from the Register on how our Govt. cares SFA about whether scanning us all might be a teeny bit risky. I'm going to buy a film badge in case I'm being scanned....

Spy Blog: X-ray imaging "under the clothes" of children

Spy Blog: X-ray imaging "under the clothes" of children. An interesting article about the amusing quadruple moral dilemma of whether it's ok to X-ray scan children (to stop them from stabbing each other), but then have to face the lawsuits from parents about the cancer caused by the scanners, or by the nude pictures created by them. And of course, shouldn't the scanners be being used at airports and on the tubes really, where there might be 'real' criminals (i.e. terrorists). Hmmmm....

The Scientific Exploration Society

The Scientific Exploration Society - sounds like fun!