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Monthly Archives: October 2006

Google and the secret state

Given Google’s strategic location, handling by far the majority of the internet searches, and those searches themselves being effectively the ‘interface’ by which most people retrieve information from the internet, it should come as no surprise that spooks are interested in having some kind of relationship with google. I don’t see why this would come [...]

Parliament

It seems to me that this legal judgement, to the effect that it is for Parliament and not for the Courts to regulate the behaviour of MPs is entirely right. And if MPs do not do that, it is for the electorate to replace them.

Text and gender

This tool aims to predict the gender of the writer of a passage of text. The paper on which that tool is based is also on the internet. Interestingly, the prediction is based on things such as pronouns (women use more, it seems) and preferences for particular grammatical constructs (men prefer to say ‘garden of [...]

Being ill in foreign parts

The Telegraph blog has a piece comparing British and NYC medical practitioners.

Say something serious

No smiling please, we’re hunting terrorists with computer software that is almost, but not quite, entirely incapable of the task. As a result, we reserve the right to make your lives more awkward. We now return you to your regular programming.

Send in the clones

How many Americans share your name?

VoIP

The place that I’m working uses VoIP telephones. What that means is that the call is routed, at least here in the office, over the internal computer network, not over a dedicated set of telephone cabling. If the computer network fails, so do the telephones. There are some fringe benefits: the system is much easier [...]

Spare a thought

Spare a thought for the people who made your computer, who may have given part of their lives to give you computing power. Are you making good use of it?

Beware the Internet

Official: The internet is a ‘dangerous’ tool of ‘radicalisation’.

Regulating the ‘net

An EU Directive may ban myspace. Their problem, of course, is their attempt to define ‘television’ in a way that will cover video on the internet, but only some of it. An attempt in futility, surely. Not that that has stopped the TVLA in the UK attempting to fine people using the BBC Website.