November 2007 – Page 4

16 November 200725 January 2010

Colossus reborn! And the race is on…

Colossus, the world’s first programmable digital computer that Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park used to crack the German Enigma code in WWII, is being rebuilt.

And what’s even more cool, it’s going to be used in a race against a modern PC to crack codes!

Tony Sale and his team of British vintage computer enthusiasts have a job a head of them, as the original Colossus machines were destroyed at the end of WWII. However the surviving Colossus engineers have been found, and they’re on the case.

Hat tip to Boing Boing.

15 November 2007

Criminal profiling a load of old bunk?

Criminal profiling is easy, apparently. According to this fascinating article in New Yorker, it uses the same tricks as stage psychics and other cons. Hat-tip to denialism blog.

14 November 2007

Greens to support computer games industry

Today The Greens are launching a policy to support the computer games industry in Australia.

There was a story earlier this year that the gaming industry is now bigger than the film industry. That’s only true if you compare the whole gaming industry with just film box-office sales and ignore DVD sales and rentals, exports and other non-cinema income. Still, it does make a point: gaming is a lot bigger than most people realise.

The gaming industry wants the same tax breaks as the film industry. I figure that to be consistent, yes, either they both get these breaks or they both don’t.

14 November 200712 May 2012

Principles help win over panic

“Everything looks like a failure in the middle,” warns Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Any new enterprise encounters roadblocks. As the obstacles multiply, the situation looks hopeless. That’s precisely when you need to hold onto your principles, your long-term view, to help get you past that panic. Read more at Long Views.

13 November 200714 November 2007

The Narrowing, (not) by Dean Koontz

The Narrowing. The idea that during an election campaign voters return to the incumbent government. Supposedly the reality of an actual vote, as opposed to mere opinion polls, triggers voters’ fear of the unknown. As this graph shows, if there is a Narrowing, it’s bloody tiny this time around.

The Narrowing is nothing but mythology.

In the 2001 campaign, Kim Beazley started from behind and gained 5% before voting day — not enough to win, but enough to give him hope for next time. That’s a shift against the incumbent party, of course.

Of course that loose-mouthed thug Mark Latham went and screwed all that up. But this time we can see what the electorate really thinks of Howard now that they’ve got a credible alternative.

As the graph from Possums Pollytics shows, yes, you can sort of see a little sign of The Narrowing. But that gentle glidepath has to cross that line marked “50”.

Yes, the Coalition might be able to claw back enough support to win. As long as the election is on 28 July 2008.

I gather the election is sooner than that.