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I love gram flour. It's awesome, you can do so many things with it and it's gluten free¹. OK, mostly what I do with it is make a batter an deep fry stuff, but that's just nice.

I've messed around making bhajis, pakoras and, well, stuff. Tonight, I went for chunks of halloumi cheese and some quorn cocktail sausages I'd forgotten to use when we had guests Sunday.

An ounce of flour, enough water mixed in gradually to make it a cream consistency, poured over the chunks of stuff then deep fried at 180°C until it's golden brown.

Because I can handle low amounts of undeveloped² gluten I've replaced wraps with my old approach to sandwich making, so while that cools a bit (the 180°C bit is your hint it's hot) I put some rocket (USians: arugula) and spinach (everyone: the stuff popeye got from cans, some dressing (Tesco cheap salad cream) then put the battered stuff in and wrap it up.

Lovely. And, vaguely, healthy, if you ignore the transfats from the super hot sunflower oil.

1) ground up dried chickpeas, also known as chickpea or besan flour
2) you know breads and pizza dough needs kneading? Yeah, that's to develop the gluten, if it's had that done I can't eat it

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/460120.html

by AnActionfigure, on Flickr

via: jimhines | Cool Stuff Friday and The old man of the forest | The Brothers Brick | LEGO Blog

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/460020.html

I still love Rocky Horror, despite the age now showing, especially with the gender politics stuff (it was radical and progressive at the time).

Going through my archives^[1] I found the video I posted 5 years ago has succumbed to bitrot and a takedown notice, so I had a quick look and found two alternative versions:

"Rocky Horror Picture Show Science Fiction Double Feature Edit Tribute" (Watch on YouTube)

That one's just a different fan edit of clips from all the films referenced, I think it's fairly well done but for some of the clips I prefer this one:

"Alternative Science Fiction/Double Feature" (Watch on YouTube)

Which claims to be close to what O'Brian wanted for the film before test screenings and similar.

Neither has the jarring NuWho Cybermen in that, I suspect, caused the takedown of the original, and I really love the timings of the film title sequences with the lyrics for the first. Anyone got a favourite?

1) For the London Calling 2014 Worldcon promo vid as it's far far better than the Dublin 2019 vid.

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/459633.html

7 film and TV series set in the exciting world of municipal government::

Gritty political thriller about a corruption scandal in which car companies buy up Los Angeles' streetcar network, purely so they can rip it up, thus forcing the public to buy more cars. Also features a cartoon rabbit.

By that strange bloke

jonnelledge.

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/459506.html

I like working on open source projects—just updated the gameplay description for humanity in Free Orion:

Description:
Humans are bipedal, clannish and omniverous, with incredible endurance capabilities. Humans evolved tool use in order to better hunt their pray, and would pursue much larger animals for days if necessary in order to bring it down and then eat it. Modern humans still have a strong fight or flight response but any threat an individual cannot handle will be met by a larger group working together to defeat it with overwhelming force. Humans have been known to eat items they know to be indigestible, simply to prove they can do it, and use toxic substances as seasoning to flavour their food.

Society:
Modern humans have formed geographic nation states with a strong basis in historic tribes. These states compete with each other, sometimes to the extent of going to war, while still cooperating on other issues. Differences over religion, resource use and even the correct way to cook a particular meal are still used to justify aggressive acts, and these wars act as spurs for further technological progress.

I took inspiration from two Tumblr posts which diverged from the same source in that annoying "how are you meant to follow all this" manner that Tumblr tends to encourage. I rather like that (the description was "Mostly Harmless", this is a bit more accurate).

We're working on the final coding for the next stable release (0.4.5) at the moment, test builds for Win and Mac are normally released weekly here and, well, a bughunt is ongoing.

It's a 4X space exploration and conquest strategy game, taking inspiration from old classics like Masters Of Orion but definitely not trying to ape them, although it's nowhere near finished, it's definitely very playable, if you like strategy games generally it's rather fun, more details on the FreeOrionWiki, but that's always out of date (every time I update a bit we do more work).

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/459034.html

My own recipe, adapted from multiple sources with some, *ahem* suggestions from friends. Multiple flavourings are possible.

You will need:

10-12 small glass ramekins (you can buy these in department stores, I use the ones that come with Gu Puds, we've got about 30)

For the base:

1 200g(ish) box fine milled oatcakes (I use Nairns which is 218g, I don't personally need to worry about buying the guaranteed gluten free ones which are more expensive, these are made in a factory that also makes gluten products)
125g unsalted butter
some sugar: I recommend a couple teaspoons of molasses sugar with the lumps broken up as best as possible and a couple teaspoons caster sugar.

For the topping:

one 250g tub ricotta cheese
100g white chocolate (I've tried other chocolates, it tends to not work, plus

miss_s_b can eat white chocolate without risk of dying, which is good). I recommend Sainsbury Belgian Cooking Chocolate for cost/benefit quality wise

Flavourings:

Either 2 limes, zest and juice, with 2-4 teaspoons of ground ginger for taste (I think 4 is too much, others disagree)
or one large orange, zest and juice, 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1-2 teaspoons nutmeg
You could almost certainly try other fruit+spice combos, this is what I've done, successfully, so far.

Method:

First, make the base: crush the biscuits as much as possible, you want breadcrumb style crumbs. Melt the butter in the microwave, careful not to overheat it. Mix the butter and the sugars thoroughly through the crushed biscuits, you should end up with a very loose, crumbly dough. NB: You can use 200g of any biscuits for this, including standard sweet digestives, but if you use sweet biscuits omit the extra sugar.

Share the mix out amongst the ramekins and press it into the bases, you'll likely get just over 1cm depth per tub, don't worry about exactness here. Put them in the fridge to cool.

Whisk the ricotta in a glass bowl. Using a different glass bowl, break the chocolate up and carefully melt in the microwave, if you're not used to doing this, full power for 30 seconds, bring out stir thoroughly, repeat until it's all just melted, be careful not to over melt as the chocolate can crystallise or otherwise stop being nice.

Whisk the melted chocolate into the ricotta. Then whisk in the flavourings. Share the topping mix about the ramekins, you'll find the lime is a fairly tough mix, you might want to add some more lime juice to soften it further, the orange will likely be a fairly loose mix depending on size and juiciness of orange. Try to press the mix down and spread it out.

Put back into fridge to chill for a minimum of 2 hours (the topping really does need to set). Serve and enjoy.

I am grateful to

hollymath and

A_C_McGregor for their assistance putting the ingredients together yesterday and their, um, help in choosing the spice quantities—I suspect both would've happily put even more ginger in, but I think 4 teaspoons is too much.

Doomtown Reloaded is launched at Gencon this coming weekend, with a worldwide release date set for September 8th.

Writing the official pre-launch FAQ for a card game from scratch is even less fun than I thought it was going to be. Doing it just from PDFs of the cards and rulebook? Yeah…

My brain hurts. Still, one of the AEG forum mods made this rather nifty set of Doomtown Avatars including ones scaled for DW/LJ size, so you get Deputy Wendy Cheng pointing a rifle at you for now.

There's even a chance I might consider changing my default icon, if I'm to be the Sheriff of this game then I might as well be the Sheriff, at least on occasions.

Reading around various news sites, and the pre Con buzz for several of them is that D&D5th; and Doomtown are the games people are anticipating at Gencon. Given some of the other games launching, that's impressive. It also means a whole lot of geeky gamers asking me pesky questions for quite some time. Which, on the one hand, is good, a succesfull (re)launch means the game has legs. On the other hand…

Oh, I setup

doomtown, but haven't a clue what to do with it yet.

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/458884.html

Just had a second slice, it hadn't quite finished setting before I turned in last night so a very late pudding. Based, loosely, on two recipe's in Mary Berry's Baking Bible but with a few variants of my own.

Ingredients:

The base:
Half a packet of Tesco Value Ginger Nuts (150g)
2 ounces butter (I used Tesco own brand salted, that's about 1/5th a pack).
1 ounce brown sugar (any will do, recipe calls for demerara, I used light brown baking sugar).

The Topping:
4/5ths a pack of Tesco Full Fat soft cheese (about 175g)
150 ml double cream (I used some cheap stuff)
1 tin condensed milk (again, one of the cheap brands is fine)
Zest and juice of 4 limes

And yes, I know I mixed imperial and metric in the ingredients list, it's fine.

You also need a 23cm cake tin or flan tin, I used a Sainsbury Cook's Collection springform thing I got in a sale awhileback, the Cook's Collection stuff is REALLY good but pricey, they put it on sale fairly regularly, buy what you can afford when they do, seriously. From experience, line the base of the tin with a bit of overlap, I didn't do this hence you're not getting a picture.

Crush the biscuits in a bag using a rolling pin or similar—an empty cereal bag is perfect for this, cheap thin plastic bags not so much, but I managed to avoid spilling too much…

Melt the butter over a low heat in a medium pan, once all melted remove from heat, mix in the sugar and the biscuit crumbs—note, don't do this in a milk pan, it's not big enough and you'll spill stuff (note the trend here). Once mixed in you'll have a nearly solid mix, push that into the base of the tin and put it in the fridge.

Next up, put the cheese, cream and condensed milk into your mixing bowl with the lime zest (but not the juice, yet). I heartily recommend an electric whick or mixer for the next bit, I bought a cheap one from Wilko last year and it's So Much Easier. Whisk all this together and keep whisking for a bit. Slowly start adding in the juice in small amounts, keep whisking. It'll start to thicken, for me it started to really thicken after the juice started being added so be careful from now on,

miss_s_b tells me the acid in the juice reacts with the cream to thicken. Keep going, slowly adding the juice, until the mixture is very thick.

Now, pour, prod and spoon the cream mixture into the tin on top of the biscuit base. Try to get as much in as possible and resist the temptation to taste too much (I almost managed this bit). Put in the fridge to set, it'll take at least 3 hours in the fridge, probably more, overnight is best. Don't be tempted to take it out before set, it'll make a mess.

You can, if you want, put some whipped cream on top, top with strawberrys, etc, but I didn't bother, it didn't need it. Total cost about £4 depending on ingredient quality, plus £30ish of equipment, you could do it with a hand whisk but, um, you'll need strong whisking muscles.

Enjoy.

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/458189.html

Made these to follow on from Jennie cooking a sausage casserole (separate Quorn for me) based on a Grauniad recipe from yesterday, as the oven was on I made pudding. They're very nice, and very sour, citrussy cakes. And I really do mean sour.

Theoretically, I bake these so we've something nice to finish and some left for the next day. 12 of them, 4 of us, 3 each, they're all gone almost immediately, every time...

3 oz Butter/baking fat/margerine (softened if necessary)
3 oz Caster Sugar
1 large egg
3 oz Self Raising Flour
1 oz dry Semolina (or ground almonds or rice flour, I'm allergic to almonds so I substitute)
Juice of 2 limes (or just pour in what looks like enough from a bottle of lime juice)

Plus, for the topping

Zest of one lime, pared using a zester
Juice of 2 limes (or see above)
2 oz sugar (any, I used granulated)

Right, simple method. Preheat oven to 180^oC, 12 cake cases in a tray ready for you.

Cream the fat and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy, slowly beat in the egg in smallish amounts (if you've never done this before say in comments and I'll do more detail). Add the flour and semolina (sifted if necessary to get lumps out), folding in, then fold in the lime juice. Divide into the cases and put in oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

In the meantime, make the topping, put your zest into a pan, add the juice and the sugar, mix it then put on the hob on a low heat, slowly bring it to the boil, stirring regularly. When it's boiling, lower the heat to minimum to simmer it until it turns into a nice sticky syrup, normally takes about 5 minutes. NB I did this bit while eating the main course, stirring regularly is not the same as stirring constantly.

Ideally, the syrup'll be ready just before the cakes are-they need to be a golden brown colour. Get them out of the oven, immediately prick the tops with a skewer or just a fork, then spoon some of the syrup (including zesty bits) over each cake, try to make sure most of it soaks into the cake not flowing over the side. It is a sugar syrup just off the heat, it will be HOT, bear that in mind.

When you've got all the syrup spread around the cakes, put them onto a wire rack and allow to cool until, ideally, actually room temperature, but normally they don't last long enough in our house. The syrup itself is very nice in small quantities on its own, but very sour. Which we like.

Right, job done. You can use the exact same recipt for oranges (one orange instead of two limes) or lemons (1 and a half lemons), and theoretically more sugar in the syrup'll reduce the sourness, but I wouldn't want to. You could also add a bit of ground ginger to the cake mix (for lime) or ground cinnamon if you're doing the orange variant.

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/457954.html

I've had maybe 10 hours proper sleep in the last week. As a result, my Doctor has prescribed me some sleeping pills, Promethazine Hydrochloride.

I collected them from the chemists on the way home from work and have just opened the packaging. Instructions are:

Take ONE at night
WARNING. THIS MEDICINE MAY MAKE YOU FEEL SLEEPY...

Really? Pills I'm supposed to take at night to make me go to sleep may make me feel sleepy and I need to be warned?

Thanks, wouldn't have figured out that sleeping pills might make me sleepy...

(Ok, the rest of it is the standard don't drive or do silly things after taking it, but, really, they actually need to warn people this?)

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/457667.html

Jennie links today to an article on the OpenDemocracy website about the BBC coverage of NHS reforms. I'm afraid I didn't finish reading it. I generally have a little rule, if I'm reading something that claims to be factual and come across something that's egregiously annd blatantly false, I find it hard to take anything else it says seriously, if it gets something wrong that I know to be wrong, how many other things wrong are there that I don't know about?

If the article is headlined two years of censorship and distortion , then I expect it itself to not distort facts. That's fair, right? So, here's the the first substantive point the article makes:

1) Legitimacy – the bill no one voted for

In the run up to the 2010 general election, David Cameron frequently pledged that under a Conservative government there would be “no more top-down re-organisations” of the NHS.

Note, no citation there; he only actually said that once that I'm aware of, in a speech (a long time before the election as well). But how many times have you heard politicians and activists and campaigners opposed to NHS reform parrot that line out?

It's a lie. It's not true. Anyone saying it is either willfully distorting the facts or hasn't bothered to check them.

Y'see, Page 45 through 47 of the Tory 2010 manifesto^pdf includes such things as

We have a reform plan to make the changes the NH S needs. We will decentralise power, so that patients have a real choice.
...
We need to allow patients to choose the best care available, giving healthcare providers the incentives they need to drive up quality.
So we will give every patient the power to
choose any healthcare provider that meets NH S
standards, within NH S prices. This includes
independent, voluntary and community sector
providers.
...
We will strengthen the power of GPs as
patients’ expert guides through the health
system by:
• giving them the power to hold patients’
budgets and commission care on their behalf;
• linking their pay to the quality of their
results; and,
• putting them in charge of commissioning
local health services.

Centrepeice of the manifesto. Couldn't be clearer. That article starts with a lie, and then builds on it, therefore I gave up.

Saying "I disagree wtih this" is fine, in 2010 I was out there campaigning heavily against them, but saying "no one voted for it" is a blatant lie. 44% of voters in my constituency voted for a candidate backing these reforms. 39% did nationally.

The Big Lie is beginning to spring to mind about this one.

Wouldn't it be nice if the opponents of measures would actually argue their case? Y'see, I don't know what to think about the Govts NHS reforms, but when those opposed spend more time lying about them, distorting facts, scaring people, and similar than they do actually addressing the substantive issues, it doesn't make me think they've actually got valid arguments. If they did, why lie all the time?

How about you?

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/457219.html

Well, actually, thirty years and two days ago, the first commercial CD was released^via.

Which got me thinking. I bought my first CD player, and my first 2 CDs, on holiday in France (I'd been saving up for ages to buy one but the holiday cottage Dad'd rented was so horribly remote we were dying of boredom in the evenings). They were:
The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Art of Noise The Best of The Art of Noise

I was approximately 16, so this was roughly 1990. I've still got both.

What was the first CD you bought, if any, why, and how old were you?

(yes, the title is inspired by the opening song on the first CD, for those that would otherwise insist on asking the obvious)

(And yes, it's been over a year since I last posted, no particular reason, but, y'know, this seemed like a good idea for a post so I'm posting it)

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/457035.html

Clegg's speech at conference includes the line

A new economy that works for families. Where men and women can choose how to balance work and home. That’s why Liberal Democrats are bringing in shared parental leave and more flexible working.

This is a very cheering thing to see. I knew it was likely on the cards and was being worked on, but actually having it confirmed in the Deputy Prime Minister's conference speech is a very cool thing.

Because, basically, it's my idea and policy. It wasn't just me, but when I first took Jennie to conference she stewarded a consultancy session and suggested it to the policy working group that included people who're now ministers. At her next conference when she was a fully accredited voting rep, it was in the policy paper that working group created out of the consultations. Jennie swears it wasn't just her talking about it, but I wasn't there & I know she did propose it.

But we'd been talking about it at home in advance as it was something I felt would be very helpful, not just for our family arrangements but also to help solve ongoing disparities. Scarily? I first started thinking about it after Tim Worstall convinced me maternity leave was a big contributor to the gender pay gap issue, both directly and through covert discrimination. So, there we go. A flagship policy that grew out of a conversation I had online with a former UKIP press officer and candidate...

Mood ecstatic
Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/456483.html

Collected links from around the web

The Grand Moff's inspiration? - I did post some links to a Dr Who blog that might interest

I called what the title meant ages back (and if anyone can tell me where I did it as it wasn't a post I can find I'd be very grateful), but the Wikihistory story is just brilliant *anyway*, so you should read it.

(tags: Doctor+Who steven-moffatt)

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/456267.html

Collected links from around the web

Want a friend/relative to fix your PC? Read this first. Really really read this. Kismet on timing

I was going to link to this when I next did a linkdump anyway, but today the timing's awesome.

(tags: funny humour computers family)

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/456178.html

Absolutely Fabulous tickets. I post this not because I'm interested in attending (although you may be). I post this because of the bits I've put in bold.

Absolutely Fabulous
BBC One | 9, 16, 23 September

The cast reunite for three 20th anniversary specials.

Due to the popularity of this show we are operating a random draw for tickets.

You can apply for tickets at any time until Thursday 1 September at 4pm.

You can apply for a maximum of two tickets and one recording per household.

Good luck with your application.

All information is correct at time of publication.

Absolutely Fabulous is 20 years old.

I am coming to terms with the idea that in two weeks time I will become 37. I am coming to terms with there being junior Govt ministers younger than me. I am coming to terms with being served by people who weren't born when I was their age.

But Absolutely Fabulous is twenty years old? Seriously?

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/455714.html

How cool is this? Letters of Note:

Back in 1936, renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi was in Mexico working on a 72-ft-long public mural when he hit a snag: for some reason, he couldn't precisely recall the famous formula, E=mc². Rather than risk a mistake, he decided to seek advice and wired his good friend, Buckminster Fuller — a famed architect and great admirer of Einstein — for clarification.

I find telegrams almost impossible to read (ALL CAPS SHOUTING IS HARD OK), so while there's a picture of the telegram and a transcription, I thought I'd try some CSS to get rid of the caps without needing to retype the whole thing:

EINSTEINS FORMULA DETERMINATION INDIVIDUAL SPECIFICS RELATIVITY READS QUOTE ENERGY EQUALS MASS TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT SQUARED UNQUOTE

SPEED OF LIGHT IDENTICAL SPEED ALL RADIATION COSMIC GAMMA X ULTRA VIOLET INFRA RED RAYS ETCETERA ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY SIX THOUSAND MILES PER SECOND WHICH SQUARED IS TOP OR PERFECT SPEED GIVING SCIENCE A FINITE VALUE FOR BASIC FACTOR IN MOTION UNIVERSE STOP

SPEED OF RADIANT ENERGY BEING DIRECTIONAL OUTWARD ALL DIRECTIONS EXPANDING WAVE SURFACE DIAMETRIC POLAR SPEED AWAY FROM SELF IS TWICE SPEED IN ONE DIRECTION AND SPEED OF VOLUME INCREASE IS SQUARE OF SPEED IN ONE DIRECTION APPROXIMATELY THIRTY FIVE BILLION VOLUMETRIC MILES PER SECOND STOP

FORMULA IS WRITTEN QUOTE LETTER E FOLLOWED BY EQUATION MARK FOLLOWED BY LETTER M FOLLOWED BY LETTER C FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY ELEVATED SMALL FIGURE TWO SYMBOL OF SQUARING UNQUOTE

ONLY VARIABLE IN FORMULA IS SPECIFIC MASS SPEED IS A UNIT OF RATE WHICH IS AN INTEGRATED RATIO OF BOTH TIME AND SPACE AND NO GREATER RATE OF SPEED THAN THAT PROVIDED BY ITS CAUSE WHICH IS PURE ENERGY LATENT OR RADIANT IS ATTAINABLE STOP

THE FORMULA THEREFORE PROVIDES A UNIT AND A RATE OF PERFECTION TO WHICH THE RELATIVE IMPERFECTION OF INEFFICIENCY OF ENERGY RELEASE IN RADIANT OR CONFINED DIRECTION OF ALL TEMPORAL SPACE PHENOMENA MAY BE COMPARED BY ACTUAL CALCULATION STOP

SIGNIFICANCE STOP

SPECIFIC QUALITY OF ANIMATES IS CONTROL WILLFUL OR OTHERWISE OF RATE AND DIRECTION ENERGY RELEASE AND APPLICATION NOT ONLY OF SELF MECHANISM BUT OF FROM SELF MACHINE DIVIDED MECHANISMS AND RELATIVITY OF ALL ANIMATES AND INANIMATES IS POTENTIAL OF ESTABLISHMENT THROUGH EINSTEIN FORMULA

BUCKY

That's Richard Buckminster-Fuller explaining Einstein in a few sentences. I now need to go close about 50 billion wikipedia pages on various related subjects including Fullerenes, carbon-nanotubes and space elevators. But I felt the need to share

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/455637.html

Collected links from around the web

China plans massive international high speed rail network, could go from Singapore to London

How cool would this be? That China also expects international travel to be more and more common is indicative of movement in certain other areas as well. Would be great if it can happen, suspect logistics are going to be a headache though.

(tags: transport china railways)
Apple's Profit Share Among Top Mobile Phone Vendors Rises to 66% - iPhone clearly overpriced?

Look at that change in fortunes-Nokia once taking a massive slice of smartphone sales profits, now making a loss on them and Apple clearly way out ahead.

(tags: apple mobile-phones)
Spatial Economics: why central London is short of retail space - I love learning this stuff

I love this sort of thing, using the opening of a new fashion store to understand more about the dynamics of an environment.

(tags: economics london shopping)
30% of passengers take longer routes as London's Tube map misrepresents distances between stations

Follow up from the link the other day about the redesigned map, one of the reasons why changing might be a good idea.

(tags: london maps london-underground tube-map)
Andi Osho's dating experiment continues | she's still single. This is wrong.

Still no luck in Edinburgh for Andi. She needs to tour the country and come to West Yorks.

(tags: Andi-Osho comedy relationships)
Android sales through roof, RIM & Nokia holding steady(!), iOS OK, WinPhone7 plummets

Actual sales figures as well as market share. Nokia's Symbian, despite the announcement that it's being canned, still outselling iPhone's and only a small drop in total sales. Android through roof, Windows plummetting, Blackberry up in sales, down in %age, to be expected. Hell, Samsung's new Bada outselling MS. App devs and companies advertising apps need to look at actual figures before going large on advertining their iPhone apps. Silly hype believing marketers.

(tags: mobile+phones android nokia)
Google, Motorola, and a Patent War - Patents, create a tax on innovation. it’s a tax that Google has just paid heavily.

More analysis of the Motorola purchase, even if it's defensive purchasing, it still stinks that so many stupid software patents exist for competing ideas, utterly ridiculous setup that discredits the whole IP system.

(tags: google patents motorola mobile+phones)
Yowsers, Adenauer proposed swapping West Berlin for parts of GDR

To stop the wall, Adenauer proposed a teritory swap. I think that goes nearer the top of my list of counterfactuals that're worth thinking about.

(tags: Germany Berlin history)
Gorgeous planet art | Bad Astronomy on Duhrer's work, with some explanations

Phil Plait goes into more detail on Fuhrer's images, worth a read

(tags: astronomy planets solar-system)
David Fuhrer's planets-gorgeous 3d rendering on the solar system, full size better

Some absolutely stunning renderings of the planets, including some in scale to each other. Dodgy JS gallery makes seeing them in full size harder though, if you right click and 'view image' you should get the actual full size stuff, really worth it

(tags: planets astronomy art solar-system)
Google says "Hello Moto" in blatent patent trolling aquisition

Ye gods, the patent wars continue.

(tags: android google motorola mobile+phones)

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/455304.html

Collected links from around the web

David Starkey is wrong, plain and simple – @Miss_Snuffy's demolishes those defending Starkey's racism

I've rewatched Starkey's train wreck of a Newsnight performance twice now, and I've read both Toby Young and Jerry Hayes defending what they thinks he meant to say. I suspect, actually, that they're right about what he was trying to say. But he used such racist language in such a dismissive and stupid way that he was, quite simply, wrong. Here's hoping he'll stop getting invited on shows like Question Time to rudely talk over every other panellist and refuse to let anyone else get a word in edgeways. If I never see him on TV again I'll be happy. Man's an arse.

(tags: David-Starkey Katherine-Birbalsingh education racism london riots)
Rethinking the Tube map - I quite like the new alternative design, makes location easier to picture

I like the existing map, but it can't half be confusing at times. Stations that're around the corner from each other look like they're miles apart, lines that go straight up actually curve around half of London, etc. And the Overground and other new additions look stupid on it. Why not start from scratch, apply the same basic principles, and see what comes out?

(tags: london london-underground maps design)
Post-Conflict Potter - Foreign Policy journal covers conflict resolution and rebuilding. In the Potterverse

"the defeat of Voldemort by Harry Potter may have been the easy part. Indeed, one might even say it was child's play. The hard work of postwar stabilization still lies ahead. " Not sure I agree with all of their proposed ideas, but I'm ten years out of date in the literature, perhaps readers with more hands on experience in the area might contribute an opinion?

(tags: analysis harry-potter politics foreign-policy)
Apple blocks Samsung tablet from EU markets | WTF? "the order was issued without any hearing"

The interminable patent disputes with the higher end tech markets are really getting to me now, the whole area of law seems in major need of reform, two major trading partners are also suing each other for ripping each other off, etc etc. But to block sales of a product line without hearing or notification? Something wrong with that.

(tags: patents Apple Samsung)
Speculation doesn't increased commodity prices-it stabilises them

If there's a sudden shortage in a commodity because, say, the wheatfields in Russia go up in smoke, then prices rise, partially due to speculators investing. But that rise in prices encourages more production of the commodity, seeing prices start to fall again and stopping massive peaks and troughs in prices. After a lot of reading around this, I've come to the conclusion that the futures market is actually a Good Thing within the current trade framework. This surprised me, but the evidence is clear

(tags: economics speculation)
Sarcastic Responses To Well-Meaning Signs | a couple are a bit off, but...

A couple are, well, offensive, but most are well done and funny

(tags: humour)
The 5 Biggest Disasters in the History of Marketing Ideas - they can't count, it's 6 disasters

Number one is two separate case studies, both ridiculously dull. Nice to see Britain punching above its weight in the stupid department again.

(tags: marketing advertising sales-gimmicks stupidity)

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/455139.html

This pretty much sums up the reactions of large swathes of talking head commentators over the last week:

When I look back to what I've read about previous riots in London over the centuries, when I look at corruption scandals or financial collapses, it really does put into perspective how lucky we are and have been.

I mean, seriously, riots across all of London, ~~no one~~ very few killed^[1] and the London murder rate actually goes down?. Total deaths nationally five, including three men run down by a car.

The bankers are finally brought down, not by deliberate deceit, not by active fraud or theft, but by incompetence and optimism.

Parliament is brought into disrepute in a corruption scandal. What over? A few grand on a duck house, a few grand over claimed on a mortgage, etc. Compare that to many other countries today? Compare that to corruption scandals in the past in the UK?

Moral decay? We've never had it so good.

Scary, isn't it?

ETA: Apparently there's been a death in Ealing that I had overlooked, the post is amended to reflect that.

Crossposts: http://matgb.livejournal.com/454822.html

matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (Default)

British Liberal, house husband, school play leader and stepdad. Campaigner, atheistic feminist, amateur baker. Male.

Known to post items of interest on occasions. More likely to link to interesting stuff. Sometimes talks about stuff he's done. Occasionally posts recipes for good food. Planning to get married, at some point. Enjoying life in Yorkshire.

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Snack of the day: battered halloumi and quorn in a wrap +4 comments
OOOK!
Science Fiction Double Feature redux +2 comments
Corruption scandals make good telly (and film) +1 comment
Humans: Relentless, tribal pursuit predators +3 comments
Chilled citrus cheesecakes, individual serving & gluten free +1 comment
In Weird West America, Deputy shoots you
Lime and Ginger cheesecake
Baked: Shredded Lime Cupcakes +1 comment
A medical statement of the obvious +11 comments
NHS Reform, the bill "no one voted for"? No, not really. +15 comments
It was thirty years ago today... +25 comments
Clegg commits shared parental leave as Govt policy-Yay! +11 comments
Interesting Links for 29-8-2011 +1 comment
Interesting Links for 27-8-2011
Absolutely Fabulous anniversary specials +3 comments
Bucky does Einstein - E=MC2 explained in a telegram +2 comments
Interesting Links for 16-8-2011 +1 comment
Interesting Links for 15-8-2011 +5 comments
State of decay? +8 comments

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