photo.jpg

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

photo.jpg

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

Ou est la gonfanon?

Ou est la gonfanon?
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

British Museum foyer

British Museum foyer
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

Simple Policies for a Better Britain: Pt 1

Organ Donation would be mandatory, with only medical reasons as a get out.

Blood donation would not be a donation. It would be a requirement. At least every 12 months, for everyone from 18-70. No ifs or buts. I really don't understand why more people don't give blood. It's amazing that it's even possible, and that it can be done so easily, and that it can make such a difference to someone life. Or lack thereof.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Marshmallow Icing

Wise words from 2006

"Fanny Mae, when I look at their risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry; their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely.""
The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

O2 shop at Euston station.

O2 shop at Euston station.
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

Things I don't understand (Part 1)

 

Why people spend more effort on things that achieve very little but give the impression of work, and less effort on things that could make a huge difference.

 

?The continued appeal of Dr Pepper.

 

Why?my iPod shuffle repeats some?songs frequently, even when on?"shuffle".

 

That nearly everone in business uses Excel, for everything.

 

The obsession in the food blogosphere (LOL!, I'm so 2.0!) with macaroons.

 

Why people can't prepare to things whilst they are queuing - it's not that hard to get your ticket out before the barrier, or to look at the map as you wait for the escalator.

 

Why people can't be more polite.

Oil prices a black swan?

So, at the moment I'm reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I read a very interesting profile/interview with him from the Times a few weeks ago, so when I spotted the book in Borders at the weekend, I'd thought I'd give it a stab. Especially after it got the humbs up from my Economics and Science sounding board, Dave (he does my reading so I don't have to.

 

The main point of the book (well, I think so, I haven't finished it yet), is about the unexpected and highly infulential event, the black swan, which are rare and unexpected because we assume, rather arrogantly, that we can learn everything we need from past events. This was, according to my old Ancient History teacher, the way the Romans worked, and where are they now? What have they ever done for us?

 

The main problem is one of induction, and I don't think that I'm giving too much away when I describe the example he gives early on in the book; that of a Turkey. It's fed for 1000 days, so naturally it assumes it will be fed on the 1001th day. But that day is just before Thanksgiving, and instead of a tasty meal of erm, things (what do Turkeys eat?), it gets killed, plucked, and put on the shelves at the supermarket. Now, to the Farmer, who expects this, this in not unusual. But to the turkey, it probably comes as a bit of a shock. So we can't trust previous data (or at least, we can't assume that it is good indicator of the future).

 

In the book, there is a graph of this, which is essentially a climbing line, that goes up as time progresses. A bit like the one below:

 



 

The big difference between the two graphs (apart from the subject matter) is that the one referring to the Turkey has a rather sudden drop off (coinciding with the poultry getting the chop).

 

What am I getting at? Well, I wonder if Oil might be a black swan, as it were. Or at least, oil prices might be. We're accustomed to them going up. And up, and up. They come down a little every now and then, and then they go up. What if they suddenly come down, massively? What if a hitherto unknown oil field, easily extractable, is discovered? Ok, so the oil companies probably have checked out most places to find oil. But what if something totally unexpected, totally unpredictable happens? Oooh, I don't know, what if, say, everyone's favourite closed-bordered, tyrannical, hostile and secretive North Korean nation, North Korea, suddenly announces that it has millions of barrels of oil that it has secretly stockpiled/collected/grown using biotech/otherunlikelyreason, and sells them on the open market for $5 or $10 a gallon, which would bring down the value of oil accross the world. Then what? What happens? Who wins?

 

I'm not really sure if there is a point to this post, apart from the fact that it could happen. And then who would benefit? Sure, we would pay, briefly, less for oil. We'd still use just as quick, if not quicker than before, so the environment will suffer. And we've invested a lot of money in finding things to do not involving oil, so that money, would, in some way, have been wasted. On the face of it, it seems great. But very few people would actually gain anything of any great value. Perhaps the best we could do is not lose so hard as everyone else.

 

Again, this doesn't really go anywhere. It's more a case that I happened to be reading this post on Marginal Revolution, and though, hmm, what if? And also, that I'm a bit bored in the office, and I felt I should waste my time on something businessy, rather than just reading Engadget all day like normal.

Best. Sign. Ever.

What is a Munchy Box?

23x.net :: Blog Archive :: What is a Munchy Box?

This is not going down well, given my strict no-fast-food-especially-not-chips diet that I'm on at the moment.

Damage tolerance

This is really cool. A plane that can adapt to damage to allow it to land. Here they remove over half the wing of the plane in mid-air, and the computer adjusts for the new configuration and allows steady flight and a smooth landing.


Damage tolerance

I've just realised we've spent the last thirty minutes washing,
dressing, choosing cufflinks, staying our collars, shaving,
moisturising, balming, spraying, combing and tieing ties. And now as I
walk into town, I'm whitening my teeth.

We're all straight, allegedly.

Pic related.

The ideal graph for the bop: Miles Walked

Miles Walked � GraphJam: Pop culture for people in cubicles. (AKA Song Chart Meme): "Miles Walked
243 votes

song chart memes"

Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat? | Technology | The Guardian

Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat? | Technology | The Guardian: "The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography."

(Via .)

This is very, very interesting.

What a crotch.

Sent from my iPhone

St Andrews Sunset.

St Andrews Sunset.
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

Daimler Dart. Fantastic

Daimler Dart. Fantastic
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

I've been terribly productive...

Zebra Keyboard!!

Dave's Dirty Laundry

Dave's Dirty Laundry
Originally uploaded by Fearghas MacGregor

Found on a bench. Quite apt.

mental_floss Blog � He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died

This is interesting, but pretty sad.

mental_floss Blog � He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died

Makes me feel I should be doing something more meaningful with my camera than just taking snaps of things (I have the same camera as him).

Graphic Designer Paula Scher

U2 in Graph form...

more song chart memes

Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes...

This is very interesting. I for one didn't catch there were quite so many typographical errors, but now I'm on the look out for them (even if I don't quite know the key combos for all the symbols...)

Grammar nazis are so last century. Welcome, friends, to the brave new world of the typography nazi.

[From Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes | Life, Tutorials | Receding Hairline]

Fraser Lewry's Animal Alphabet: P | Word of Mouth | Guardian Unlimited

I love Fraser Lewry. He writes for B3ta.com, posted one of my current most favourite songs, The Sun by Kim Jung Mi (listen here), and writes for the Observer. Currently he's eating his way through the alphabet.

"Someone ate all the pies? What a lucky fellow! I wonder what kind he had! Were they fruit pies or meat pies? Were they delicious? Are you sure there are none left?" Pies are ace.

[From Fraser Lewry's Animal Alphabet: P | Word of Mouth | Guardian Unlimited]

Awesome. Food blogs + slightly surreal humour + lefty liberal Guardian readers + epic win. This is all. After exams, I'm tempted to try some of these particualrly weird meats.

And he said he wasn't drinking...

The Iron Ladies

Edwyn Collins. What a guy.

A sad day for London.

Top Numberplate, what?

James Colquhoun Irvine. What a chap.

Twittertastic

Hmmm. Recently, I've become obsessed with Twitter. It's a simple concept, just a glorified facebook status almost. You just write what you're doing, in 140 characters or less.

That's it.

The beauty of it, is that it connects seamlessly with every platform and all your friends. Anyone who "follows" you get the messages pushed to their twitter page, and to any devices they've chosen. You can get them via im (and thus online using GTalk etc), as SMS to your phone, or access them all using software like twhirl. It's just about replaced texting for me, as I can send them to who I want, easily, for free, with links, pictures etc, and I know I can receive the messages wherever I am.

I love it.

I was reading this post on Scobleizer (famed for his use of twitter, getting a message every second). It's about Twitter's use with early-adopters compared to ordinary people. This blog post describes the author asking a group of about 30 people about Twitter and Facebook. Yep, everyone had heard of Facebook, no one had heard of twitter. But is that really that unsurprising? Just because 30 people at a wedding haven't heard of it doesn't mean that no ones heard of it.

Sure, Facebook is currently the greatest, biggest, thing on the internet, and will be until the next big thing comes along, but it wasn't always so. I remember back in the good old days when it was University only, or something, and we up in St Andrews were one of the first UK universities to get on it. I hadn't heard of it when I arrived here, and once someone persuaded me to get an account, well, no one I knew was on it. But eventually it opened up a bit, and more people joined, and then it snowballed, and now look at it.

With any luck, twitter will do the same, but without all the bloaty crap that blights Facebook now, with zombies this and pirates that, whilst also chucking people off who actually use it intensively. I still like Facebook, but I try and avoid all the random shit that people insist on installing there, while the things that I actually like using, like Feedheads, no one really uses. In fact, the people that use Feedheads that I know are also the people that use Twitter. Hmmm.

So perhaps the fact that not everyone has heard of twitter is good thing. I don't know. It currently works well for me, I can persuade some people to use it if I want, and I don't have to deal with everyone and their mother on it, which means I'm still, if only slightly, in control. Which is nice. Perhaps once everyone starts using, if they do, then the people who really use it (and I mean properly, I'm not counting myself in that, at least not yet) will move on to another, newer, greater service. And then people will complain about that service not being ready for the mainstream yet. These things aren't released ready populated. You need to use them if you want. If you don't, then don't, but don't complain about people not using them if you don't want to actually encourage more people to use them.

What a load of rubbish

It's probably a sign that something has gone seriously wrong in my life when it's 1.45 am and I'm writing a blog post about bins. But really, it is something that vexes me, and vexes me greatly.

Here in charming Fife we have some interesting waste collection policies. We have wheelie bins, and already we have to be careful to use them, and them only, and not to overfill them, lest we incur the wrath of the local council. We have one wheelie bin, as every house in Fife gets, regardless of the number of occupants. So our single neighbour gets one, and our house of four students also gets one, despite producing four times the waste. And of course we can't put out extra bags, so we have to take part in some exciting bin-stamping rituals, in which Steve (6' 7", 17st) has to climb up a stepladder and jump up and down on our bags to make enough room. But we managed, mostly, and all was well, we avoided annoying our neighbours, we avoided bad smells, and all was happiness and light.

Recently, our local council, in their infinite wisdom, decided to reduce us to fortnightly collections. We haven't been given bigger bins. We just have to fit two weeks worth of rubbish in one bin, that is also the same amount as one person uses in one week.

Now, there is a reason for this; it's not just a mindless scheme to annoy the students (who, as they're usually in full houses, no doubt produce the most waste) by our studentophobe counciller, Dorothea Morrison. They're trying to encourage us to recycle more, and produce less landfill waste, as the council gets charged for the was it sends to the landfill. But they haven't given us any more recycling opportunities. They've increased the collections, yes, but it's only of cardboard waste. Which isn't exaclty prevalent.

The council at home in sunny Hemel Hempstead collects newspaper, cardboard, paper, plastic, glass, and ca ns at the roadside. Every week. And the landfill waste alternates with garden waste. Now, fair enough, we don't need garden waste to be taken away. But given that the main hobby of students here seems to be drinking (at least in the this household), why can't they take glass away at the very least? And given the quality of what some of my flatmates cook, tin cans too. There is one main recycling point in town. Glass bottles, even empty, are heavy, especially in the quantities that we produce them. We don't live directly in the centre of town. We are also continually being encouraged not to drive cars in town, and most people live without access to one. So we currently have recycling mountain of bottles in the house at the mo, that will be taken to the bottle bank at somepoint when we have time to actually load up the car with them and drive somewhere.

Until then, the bottles pile up, the bins pile up in the garage, and we run around at 2am on alternate Mondays, jumping on rubbish and making sure our bin lids aren't sticking up.

If I paid council tax, I wouldn't be. If you get my drift.

Spotted this on Strobist flickr

Originally uploaded by Mr.Bones

Saw this on the Strobist's favourite photos, and liked it muchly.

Learn how to light at www.strobist.com

Bond Bug

Nu Rave. Awesome.

This is so Nu-Rave, yet actually pretty damn good.

Boris Johnson

Now I like Boris, in the same way that I like, well, something else mildly humourous from a distance, but then if you look closely at it, and actually think hmm, what if it actually had power and influence and wasn't a figure of fun, and then you realise that it's a bit of a twat. Yeah, that's how I like Boris.

Rice crispy cakes. Om nom nom.

iPhone Beer. Awesome

Steve having a small nap...