Don’t newspapers fact-check any more? In the Sydney Morning Herald, Jason Koutsoukis reckons most broadband users currently receive only 256 kilobits per second. And yet, as Richard Chirgwin points out, last year’s ABS figures were that 22% of subscribers had up to 256kbps and 45% had more than 256kbps. “Since when is around 1/3 of the broadband population equal to ‘most’ users?”
“Threads”: a film about nuclear war
A strange treat last night: I stumbled across a complete upload of the very fine 1984 docudrama Threads, which depicts the aftermath of a nuclear strike on Sheffield (and elsewhere). I’d seen it before, but it was still as powerful. Today, using The Power of Wikipedia, I discover that the scenario was based on the UK government exercise Square Leg, and that the Protect and Survive informational films it features are quite real.
Weekend reading revisited
Some things I found on the weekend which you might like. The UNIX-HATERS Handbook, which reminded me that for all the religious hype over Unix/Linux it really is just a kludge. (Hat-tip of the geekiest kind to Alastair Rankine.) A NY Times article How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children? Answer: not particularly. A fine Wired story about Titan Salvage, the smart, brave and somewhat scary guys who salvage ships. And Possums Pollytics’ wonderful response to an attack by The Australian‘s Dennis Shanahan.
Enmore Autumn
I haven’t posted a photograph in a while, so here’s an image of Enmore Road from about an hour ago — uploaded while I sip an absinthe cocktail at The Sly Fox Hotel.
Saturday Reading, 1 March 2008
Summer’s over, so time to burrow indoors and catch up on reading, yeah? Here’s a few things to kick off your weekend.
- Learning to Lie, a fascinating article covering not only how lying is a sign of an intelligent child, but how we learn that no-one likes a tattle-tale and teen rebellion. Hat-tip to Bruce Schneier.
- A selection of 27 images from Life‘s coffee-table book 100 Photographs that Changed the World.
- 6 Influential Datasets That Changed the Way We Think. Hat-tip to O’Reilly Radar.
- Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, an amazing series of photographic images by Chris Jordan which illustrate the excesses of human consumption.
Silly Internet filtering
Boing Boing has started collecting stupid decisions by Internet filters. Example: a school blocking all forums and social networking sites. Talk about overkill!