The Fate of the Gray Wolf

photo credit: CCCPxokkeu
It is a shameful testament to the enormous political lobbying power of the American livestock industry that they have connived to get the gray wolf removed from the Endangered Species List.
What is not often understood is that the vast majority of the land - Wyoming, Idaho and Montana plus parts of Utah, [...]

Edible Printing Systems

Bugger the e-book - this is what you need.

Message To Google – Don’t Kill WikiPedia (And Ball – Eye – Keep On)

photo credit: dewet
Google has become an indifferent search engine, largely unimproved in its core functionality since its inception. Anyone used to “proper” database searching is frustrated by its shallow command set – nor do casual users have the benefit of true “natural language” searching. It’s also my own impression that an increasing number [...]

Eminem set to write autobiography

Sorry, but Em… who? A rapper writing his autobiography sounds, er. so… middle-aged. Does anyone still isten to Mr. Inem… and if so, will they buy a $20 book? One wonders.

Secrets of Xenu the PowerSeller

photo credit: Rob Sheridan
Further confirmation that some of the biggest websites on the net are largely dominated by a bunch of mindless bullies for who “customer service” is an alien concept comes in the form of that megalith, E-Bay.
An author of mine recently experimented with writing and producing his own e-book, and popped it [...]

Burgered

The Falafel Trail

photo credit: paulgalipeau
Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.
The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, [...]

Litopia After Dark podcast

photo credit: Bruce Moyle
We’ve just broadcast our eleventh LITOPIA AFTER DARK podcast and the weekly format has really come together (with much help from talented friends). I think we can officially say we’re out of beta now. The panellists are great, the live interaction via UStream as we record is hilarious, and [...]

No Evidence Airport Security Make Planes Safer

photo credit: Roebot
A team from the Harvard School of Public Health recently asked a very simple question. Does the barrage of abusive “security” procedures long-suffering passengers are subjected to make flying any safer?
In view of the billions of public money spent on no-bid contracts (no danger of corruption there, then) it seems a reasonable [...]

Obama A Target?

photo credit: Munoz Family
There’s a widespread difference in perception between those Americans I’ve spoken to and many Brits / Europeans about the likelihood of an assassination attempt on presidential candidate Barack Obama. Doris Lessing believes, in common with many others outside of the States, that the establishment would never permit a black man [...]

Dyson the Rotifer

I fondly imagined that this might be the only rotifer video on YouTube - not a bit of it, there seems to be a very enthusiastic bunch of video-microscopy freaks hanging out there who even use electron microscopes to pursue their passion.  However, this is my first rotifer video, so please excuse the rough edges.
Rotifers [...]

Anonymous Strikes Again

I had a feeling this was going to grow and grow… there’s something well worth studying in this C21st grassroots movement.  Who is Anonymous?  We all are.  As I said previously, the Scientologists ought to be very afraid.  Next event is March 15th.

The Friday Project – Part Two

photo credit: roujo
I’ve written about The Friday Project before, over a year ago, and promised a sequel. Well, here it is.
Today’s headline news in The Bookseller screams: “The Friday Project up for sale”. You might well ask why this constitutes headline news, but we’ll pass on that for the moment. It [...]

Dangerous Emotional Propaganda

The brave sailors aboard the Yushin Maru, who risk their lives sailing the seven seas in search of cheap dogmeat for Japanese consumers, today accused the Australian government of “dangerous emotional propaganda” for releasing pictures of a mother Minke whale and her baby calf being hauled aboard a whaling ship. They couldn’t tell whether [...]

Over-Obsessing The E-Book

Sara Lloyd of Macmillan digital asks in their shared  team blog “Are publishers over-obsessed with eBooks?”  It’s a subject we’ve frequently covered on the LITOPIA AFTER DARK podcast, and we’ll continue to do so until a definitive answer is reached.
The e-book has had more false starts than Linford Christie.  Right now, there is no significant [...]

Shock - Inhaling Pigs’ Brains Is Bad For You

Who’d have thunk it?

Grubby Virgin

OK, it’s name and shame time. I held back last time, but now I’m downright angry. The Virgin gym I’m temporarily going to is horribly grubby. I have ONCE seen the changing rooms being cleaned. NEVER seen the gym itself being cleaned. And it’s a busy place – lots of juicy standing orders flowing in [...]