Gulfstream

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2070.html List of current international border disputes—given that just about every country has one or more, it’s a puzzle that anything gets done. 10:20

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050829ta_
talk_alford Spotting the fake: the (new) New Oxford American Dictionary contains a copycat-busting fake word starting with E. 23:06

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/22/customers_of_new_uk_
.html Curious: Cory Doctorow endorses ISP’s plan to monitor network traffic, report what songs are being traded (via audio-analysis software) back to record companies. 22:53

http://plex.us/archives/word.html “A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia.” 22:39

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus/media_players_blue/
shark_hi.html Octopus takes a shark! 20:51

http://www.slate.com/id/2124684/ Overheard in New York best of, more or less. 21:36

http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2005/08/one_
of_my_favor.html Good summary of a Scientific American piece on how small children think. 08:11

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/aug05/
0805ahac.html Profile of Hermann Chinery-Hesse, who runs a software business in Ghana. There’s an interesting section on “Africanized Code.”

Besides being compact, his programs also write frequently to disk, reducing the chances of losing data if power is lost, as it often is. Because Internet connectivity remains relatively expensive, his programs also work offline as much as possible. And to combat the rampant piracy, beta versions of software rarely leave Soft’s premises, finished products don’t have an autoinstall function (you need a Soft technician to launch them), and batches of bug fixes are often delivered individually to customers rather than generally released.

Why doesn’t Soft write everything in Linux, the open-source language available for little or no cost? It would seem a no-brainer for a software entrepreneur in a desperately poor region of the world. Not so, and the reasons show why Chinery-Hesse is no ordinary third-world software tycoon. Linux is simply impractical for his purposes. "It can’t be used for serious business," he says, because it would be too easy for employees of a business to learn to use—and abuse—the source code of essential programs.

"In Accra, an IT manager earns $100 a month," Chinery-Hesse explains. "He has access to all of a company’s data, including backups. With open-source, he can learn to generate bogus reports. He’ll delete charges and pay himself or others money." Besides, "if we went for open-source, we would be relegated to basically doing installation and training," he adds. "Do I want a country of software developers or a country of installers?"

19:19

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jinxremoving/287250.html A model complaint letter, I think. (On EasyJet.) 18:25

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4148164.stm Excellent! More progress on lab-grown meat. I don’t understand why (some) vegetarians are objecting though. Maybe if they’re also hard-core anti-abortionists, but this can’t be many—? 16:12

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:wikipedia.org "saul bass" Wow, Google really messes up this search—Saul Bass (in English) isn’t even on the first page. (Both Yahoo and MSN get it right.) 06:22

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4144782.stm The awesomeness of ‘super daters’: “He found that ‘super daters’, people who have many short relationships, have a good effect on others’ lives. This is because they break up weak couples, forcing their victims to find better relationships.” 05:21

http://www.rogersbasement.com/SWscrap30.htm Star Wars business cards. 22:03

http://www.nokia.com/ Wow, Nokia have gone for a splash page, with sound! How 90s! 07:19

http://www.slate.com/id/2124302/ “How vanilla became shorthand for bland.” I hate hate hate it when I get a milkshake with no flavour when I ask for a vanilla milkshake. (I also hate the fact that you can’t really buy a proper milkshake in the UK, but this is an outburst better suited to another time.) 06:12

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=msnmessenger MSN 5.0 (for Mac) looks rather nice. The features page says it can be used across different networks (!)—anyone got this to work/know what it’s about? Update: you need Live Communications Server, so basically corporates only. I didn’t realise Microsoft was officially supporting other IM networks. (Or that other networks would let them.) Curious. 09:06

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18030-1695558,
00.html Article on the rise (apparently) of supper clubs. “A good supper-club host will seat you between a person you want to work with and one you want to sleep with.” 08:55

http://www.livejournal.com/users/shmivejournal/104656.html “I judge this book by its cover, and my judgement is -- AWESOME.” 08:55

http://ad-rag.com/122234.php Count the film references in these Stella Artois ads! 08:54

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/4745247.stm Unusual off-field injuries to sportsmen. (David James put his back out reaching for the remote control of his TV.) 03:05