sbirchall

14 ms·

31.
by sbirchall 13y ago
Common Sense[1] might disagree with you on that one. If we are talking about truly "disseminating information" I think we need to consider any form of broadcast or public proclamation and so as we approach the 50th anniversary of
32.
by sbirchall 13y ago
A worthwhile read on the British history of this subject is "Power without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain" My biggest take from this is that your notion that "freedom of anyone to use technolo
33.
by sbirchall 13y ago
Now THAT is cognitive dissonance. Bravo, sir (although I'm pretty sure you did that by accident).
34.
by sbirchall 13y ago
Haven't read this yet - it's a bit of a long one. But I just thought I'd leave a comment for anyone wondering if this is worth reading. I can categorically say YES, yes, a thousand times yes. Adam Curtis is a master artist of
35.
by sbirchall 13y ago
From various discussions I've had with physicists on the matter I found the answer is yes. My thoughts were summed up by having a device here on earth that is entangled with a device just above the surface of the sun. Now imagine the s
36.
by sbirchall 13y ago
I'd throw in a LOT of anecdata for this one. For agitating full blown psychosis, few things are better than the array of legal highs. Where MJ (alone) has negatively effected the people I've known, it's always been down to so
37.
by sbirchall 13y ago
I hope you know of the esteemed fellow, Alan Moore? I think his ideas touch on your understanding of the "perfect description as the thing" [1] and the linked interview is well worth reading. I'm also curious if this strays i
38.
Throwable Panoramic Camera(core77.com)
2 points by sbirchall 13y ago|0 comments
39.
by sbirchall 13y ago
Or at the very least: McPanda Burgers. Yum!
40.
by sbirchall 13y ago
Because others are replying with their futurist fantasies, here is mine: [taken with a large pinch of salt...] Humans are not trying to save the Giant Panda. They are using the fluffy harmless critter as a convenient smokescreen for the dev
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by sbirchall 13y ago
As a complete aside about addresses and because falsehood number one needs some clarification: even when you are living on a houseboat you are required to have a mooring license unless you want to be classed as a "constant cruiser" (moving
42.
by sbirchall 13y ago
In my research during a (somewhat fruitless) comment transaction here on HN about pirates (actual salt sea-dog type pirates) I came across the following story which I think some of the people commenting here might find interesting... I'm in
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by sbirchall 13y ago
I'll give this one a look, thank you.
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by sbirchall 13y ago
Sorry, to clarify I want a solution so that we do not have to bake our own - Sencha abstracts it all away and handles everything the same across all devices (so I'm led to believe by the dev that chose and implemented it - I have very littl
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by sbirchall 13y ago
OT: Currently we are only utilising Sencha because of it's handling for native touch events on iPad/iPhone. You wouldn't happen to have come across this hurdled and cleared it in your journey, would you? That is a refactor I genuinely relis
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by sbirchall 13y ago
I (quite deliberately) didn't say methane. And this isn't wikipedia, take it or leave it. Or, you know, contribute to the discussion. EDIT: sorry, didn't mean to be cranky, just sick of "citation" comments on HN. If I remember correctly it
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by sbirchall 13y ago
I cannot recommend Hannu Rajaniemi enough. Mind. Blowing. This goes for the whole HN crowd: read his books.
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by sbirchall 13y ago
There is a funny story about when Carl Sagan brought James Lovelock into the NASA exobiology think tank set up to design experiments that could determine if there was life on Mars. Lovelock, being your archetypal scientific maverick got to
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by sbirchall 13y ago
Again no, you are reducing things to an absurd degree. Organised crime is very complex. Mugging is simple. Theft is not [necessarily] simple. The latter subsumes the former precisely because of it's complexity. You may be talking about some
50.
by sbirchall 13y ago
"Simple criminals" is a bit of a shoot-from-the-hip oversimplification, I'd say. I wouldn't romanticize "pirates" but I do think there is a lot more to them from a social/anthropological standing than you are letting on. A simple google sea
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by sbirchall 14y ago
I've got to mention the FF add-on "InfoRSS" which I haven't used in a while, but I just exported my feeds to it rather painlessly and it offers some nice features if you're willing to put a bit of time into customizing what you want from it
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by sbirchall 14y ago
Exactly why industrial scale monoculture is the single greatest threat to humanity. We rely almost entirely on a few dozen animals, vegetable plants, grasses and a handful of other organisms that have all have their comfort zones artificial
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by sbirchall 14y ago
One interesting book I picked up a few years ago and dip in and out of from time to time seems of relevance here: Everything you know IS Wrong[1]... a somewhat hyperbolic title and read at the best of times, but it's always got me thinking
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by sbirchall 14y ago
Ah, time for one of my favourite ever articles: QUANTUM BEES! http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263
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by sbirchall 14y ago
yeah I can dig that, there's a hell of a lead-in for any nano-tech. I guess this trick is different because it's a process or function - similar in vein to those used in the nano-tech drug delivery systems. Which, if you think about it, are
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by sbirchall 14y ago
I think one of the most important disruptive technologies I've noticed over the years is the production of electrostatically controlled nano-valves. This (in my limited opinion) is on par with the "trick" life got involved with many billion
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by sbirchall 14y ago
“Trust no one! The minute God crapped out the third caveman, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them! ” ― Col. Hunter Gathers, OSI (venture brothers) But to be honest I imagine that the vast majority of so-called conspiracy is just lik
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by sbirchall 14y ago
> although i'm not sure why you refer to them as 'poor-mans copyright' just a misunderstanding, I was searching my brain for the phrases you mention and out popped 'poor mans copyright'[1]. You are indeed correct this is a totally diffe
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by sbirchall 14y ago
Yeah, that's the ticket... guess I wasn't thinking about the requirements for using said charts for effective navigation. I was just wondering if this would precipitate infringement claims once the point of origin is identified. As in it's
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by sbirchall 14y ago
Isn't this a standard method for a 'poor-mans copywrite' in cartography?

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