The Blog




On the NSA's RFT for an internet-scale sarcasm detector
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/06/we-need-a-pony-and-the-moon-on.html

Did you hear the one about Epimenides' Cretan friend who said "So all Cretans are sarcastic?, Yeah right!".

When they've done the weaponised sarcasm detector, can we please have a weaponised irony detector as well. Seeing as how irony is nearly as hard to cure as Herpes or Malaria. Once you've caught it, it keeps coming back. Which makes you wonder, does Quinine cure Irony? Hmmm, maybe it does.

Please note that Google auto-added the hash tag "sarcasm" to this post.
 We need a pony. And the moon on a stick. By next Thursday. - Charlie's Diary »
Background: the US Secret Service has two main jobs (three, if you include persecuting Role Playing Game companies, but let's leave Steve Jackson out of this for the time being): combating currency counterfeiting, and protecting the President Of The United States, an office that for some reason ...

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So Farewell Then
Alexander Shulgin.
Fare the'e well.

We Have Known And Loved one or two of your children, but by no means all.
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A portrait of an artist at work: Punting down an industrial canal on a wooden bed with oil drums strapped to the bottom and handing out daffodils to random passers-by.

Glad to see the spirit of English Eccentricity is alive and well.

Not very political though, is it.

http://www.djbroadcast.net/features/featureitem_id=306/Gallery_Bill_Drummond_The_25_Paintings.html#
 Gallery: Bill Drummond 'The 25 Paintings' »
KLF legend Bill Drummond takes his artistic project, The 25 Paintings to the world through a new touring touring exhibition

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Sad that series 2 of Elementary has ended. But happy that series 3 has been green lit and is due in the autumn.
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Mary Meeker on the State of the Internet.
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

Much to comment on here!

Glad to see the X market is still projected to increase by Y% in Z years!

Note: Laptops are mobile devices but not counted in the comments about smartphones and laptops. And mobile page views is still under 25% of total page views. This may be a "post-PC world" but clearly PC is still very important and 75% of the total. My sense is that PC total is not declining but the growth in the total is from mobile. So mobile's rising share is growing the whole market.

Digital Universe growth 50% y/y. That's for end user generated content. I'd suggest that total data generation has passed 100% growth y/y. Exponential growth with a doubling period under a year (or two) is very hard to get your head round. TL;DR, there's no past (it's tiny proportion of now) and no future (now will be  a tiny proportion in only a year or two). Now is getting shorter and shorter.

We need a new name for a "data generating consumer"! What do you call an end user who generates more data than they consume? That's not the internet as glorified TV channel any more. And when did we stop lurking? Does that mean that it's not "90% lurk, 9% comment and 1% post" any more.

Tencent (and alibaba and ) is huge. it's just not that visible because there's no need for them to try and expand into the English speaking world.
 2014 Internet Trends — Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers »
Partnering with great entrepreneurs to build the next big thing.

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Here's a puzzle. How do (UK) camera vans work with motorcycles that have no front number plate? Somebody[1] might well be doing an alleged 40 towards them in the 30 limit or 85 in the 60 limit. But by the time the bike has passed them and they can get a readout of the speed superimposed on the picture of the rear number plate, the bike is doing 27 and 57 respectively. So there's no record of the speed that would stand up in court. Is that how it works? Or if you're seriously taking the piss do they have a signed judgement call that the bike in the two pictures is the same one? Or is it all fully automatic and the intention is not to catch anyone (except the very stupid) but to get the public to pay more attention and stop playing silly buggers?

So that's St Neots - Higham Ferrers, Mkt Harboro- Melton Mowbray and Melton Mowbray - Kegworth roads where not only have they got loads of signs that say "MOTORCYCLE DEATH ROUTE" and "BIKER ACCIDENT HERE" along with long stretches of 50mph limit, but also camera vans out on a Bank Holiday Sunday evening. This modern world, eh?

[1]Somebody else I was following. Not me. Obviously.
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Icon Books (2013), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 288 pages
[from: Librarything]

Hoxton Mini Press (2013), Hardcover, 96 pages
[from: Librarything]

Freedom Press (2014), Paperback, 48 pages
[from: Librarything]




Facebook Nearby Friends
I see Facebook is introducing some new location features that let you publish a rough location and to see rough locations for your friends, especially the ones within a small radius.
https://www.facebook.com/help/629537553762715/

And like Google Plus, it's iOS/iPhone and Android only. For some bizarre reason it's unavailable from laptops, Chromebooks, or other devices. There's no desktop browser or mobile browser interface. Why? I can understand a small company with limited resources only rolling out a new feature on certain platforms. But why do these big companies only do half the job?

Location does seem to be something that everyone assumes is only interesting from a smart phone. That just assumes:-
- Nobody travels with a laptop. And yet I still see people using laptops in cafes and out on the road
- Chromebooks aren't portable and used on the road. But they are.
- Nobody would ever want to get an overview on a real browser. But then why is the big browser version of Google Maps used so much.
- That people never want to add a location to a post when using the most convenient interface for long form posts; The Browser version.

I don't get it. Do the people making these decisions and setting the development plans never use a laptop?
 Nearby Friends | Facebook Help Centre | Facebook »
Turn on Nearby Friends to choose who sees when you're nearby or on the go. They will only see this information when they also share theirs with you. To see friends who are nearby on an iPhone or Android: Tap More; Tap Nearby Friends; Choose who to share your location with (ex: Friends, ...

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Apple's plan for Beats assuming the sale goes through. It's a 4 stage process.

1) Change the b to an a
2) Change the red to white
3) ???
4) Profit!

Now come on Apple, where's my 1TB iPod Classic by Beats by Dre ?
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So Mr Bond, 
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/04/the-prospects-of-the-space-and.html#comment-1953430

This one made my day.

My idea for an anti-bond story is along these lines: Bond discovers villain is setting up a tremendous under-ice colony in Antarctica. He's planning on global warming upending the world economy and ecology and the return of tropical conditions to the frozen continent. He's handpicked 50k bright, handsome youths to make the colony a success.

Bond is like "You're going to destroy the world to conquer it? You're mad!"

The villain is all like "What? No! I've sunk half my fortune into fighting global warming. But I don't think I'll make any headway against these jackass governments so Plan B is the Antactic colony. I'm not trying to destroy civilization, I'm just trying not to be crushed in the debris when it collapses. So, you look like a handsome gent of good stock. I think I could find a place for you here."

Bond considers. "How are you stocked for gin and olives?"
 The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism - Charlie's Diary »
The current buzz-topic of the month is Thomas Piketty's magisterial tome, Capital in the 21st Century—currently at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, #5 in the UK, and in the sights of every right wing pundit, goldbug, and economic quack globally. I have not read Piketty (yet) so I am ...

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DAW (2014), Edition: Reissue, Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
[from: Librarything]

Penguin Press HC, The (2014), Hardcover, 352 pages
[from: Librarything]

Orbit (2014), Hardcover
[from: Librarything]

Tor Books (2013), Kindle Edition, 32 pages
[from: Librarything]

Vertigo (2010), Edition: First Edition, Paperback, 128 pages
[from: Librarything]

When the seasons change in the northern hemisphere, animals that like colder conditions migrate north and upwards.  Think summer reindeer or the Swifts that are just about to move to the UK. So one personal response to climate change is to migrate to where conditions are better suited to the kind of life you'd like. So instead of retiring to Spain where it's nice and warm, you might decide to retire to Norway or western Eire where it's not unbearably hot and there's some rainfall.

Now given that borders generally (even in the EU) are closing. And you currently live in SE England, where would you move to in the next 20 years to survive the following 20 in reasonable comfort? 

BTW, this is one of the scariest essays I've read recently. You'll probably want to give it a miss.
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/
 Climate-change summary and update »
Updated frequently, and most recently 28 April 2014. ** Latest additions are flagged with two asterisks on each side. **. I'm often accused of cherry picking the information in this ever-growing essay. I plead guilty, and explain myself in this essay posted 30 January 2014.

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My old, much loved, much tweaked, improved and worked on Suzuki Burgman 400 has been stolen. Well, that sucks!

http://bikeweb.com/node/1426
http://bikeweb.com/image/tid/24

When it was stolen it had the Tucano Urbano lap cover fitted underneath the estate agent sign side panels.

That top box was 20 years old. The bike was 10 years old. It had a battery charger, soldering iron and kit, 10 year old bike boots, Frank Thomas jacket inner, wooly hat, cap, glove inners, assorted bungees, an old favourite pair of waterproof trouser outers, several bags of nuts and bolts and no doubt some other random stuff in it. The backrest came from a last millenium Helix. The Givi screen had been much modified. The more I think about it, the more emotional investment there was there. So there's a large slice of Buddhist detachment needed here.

How did that happen? Work on somebody else's bike all day. Right outside a ground floor flat in Tower Hamlets down near Mile End in dodgy East London. 6pm go and get pizzas from Tescos. Return to park on the pavement right outside the flat in the same place it's been parked all day. Cook and eat the pizzas. Look out the kitchen to see the bike has gone. WTF? The bike's worthless (in the sense of what you'd get as a stolen bike or as parts rather than what it would cost to replace) and a bitch to hot wire. There really is almost nothing on it that's worth anything. I guess it's just disappeared into the local estates and will end up in the canal. They literally just pushed it away. The Police[1] will do what they can but unless it gets dumped somewhere obvious, I don't expect to see it again. I kind of hope it doesn't come back because it's bound to be broken in all kinds of new and not so interesting ways.

So shall I buy another one? Think I'll have a drink while I ponder that.

[1]Incidentally, the Met have another scam going. If you agree, and they find it, they'll put it in the pound. You get to pay for their collection and then by the day till you collect it. The alternative is they just tell you where it is.

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