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We recently spent a couple of nights in Dublin without hearing the beat of a single Bodhrán or even a hint of live music coming from any bar. So last Friday night we were spoiled, with no fewer than two concurrent Bodhráns (and a guest washboard player), mandolin, guitar, accordion and bass thrown into the bargain, and we only had to walk for ten minutes to hear it. More…

This is a true story. Two staff in a small convenience store are chatting as the queue I’m in slowly moves forward towards their dual tills:
Shopkeeper 1: These plastic bags get thinner and thinner!
Shopkeeper 2: Yeah. More…

Since we’ve owned our own home we’ve tried to always use environmentally friendly products for all cleaning and laundry tasks. This has been surprisingly difficult because the big four supermarkets in the UK have had a pretty poor record of having more than one “eco” product in any section at any time. More…

According to the various fragments of promotional material I’ve seen the Kich’n'Komposter is a cross between a separating centrifuge and a waste disposal unit. It grinds up food waste, then separates it from the water so it can be composted. This may not seem particularly fantastic to some, but we try and compost everything, so as summertime swings by once more, the downside of regular kitchen wastage once again takes to the wing: Flies. More…

A long time ago in a hamlet far far away, I shared a house, worked and drank an occasional beer with somebody who was slightly taller, but lamentably (for him) far less handsome than myself. His name was Andy and he was a rather impetuous boy: a life ruled by impulse and extremes, as evidenced by the “flamingo” photographs. More…

When making a pot of tea, I tend to add teabags and sugar at the same time; once the tea has brewed, I give it a stir, remove the teabags, add milk, and then with the aid of a knitted tea-cosy I get several hot mugs of tea in succession and can keep working without the need to return to the kitchen.

However, when I do return to the kitchen a recurring question bounces around my head: how much sugar is absorbed by the teabag before it is removed from the pot? i.e. exactly how much is the taste affected and how much energy is lost? More…

Meet Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer (Kareem on Wikipedia).

Kareem used the web to write about his opinions on secularism and his concerns about what he perceived as religious extremism, political repression and discrimination against women by his law school.

For this “crime” Kareem has been jailed for four years.

More…

Back in the last century after Netscape merged with AOL, a 3-year deal was struck between AOL and Sun Microsystems such that the Professional Services groups from Sun and Netscape would work together on projects that benefited both companies. The Netscape server software became (to all intents and purposes) jointly owned and developed, and Sun paid AOL a large retainer for each year of the deal regardless of how much software it actually sold. Our small and specialised consultancy group got a lot bigger overnight. The joint venture was initially called “The Sun|Netscape Alliance”, though after a couple of tongue-twisting months a less orally demanding brand name of iPlanet was announced. More…

The experimental petition system that Downing Street is running has generated it’s first 1,000,000 signature petition: it asks the PM to “scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy” and it’s a great example of how public opinion is not necessarily good for the public. More…

If you’re going to do something where you have just one shot, then you have to get it right first time, there can be no deviation. This is a very different requirement to just getting it right every time after a short teething period . Space exploration is full of one-shot right first time problems. For special problems you need special people. More…