Month: August 2009

A bug-bear of mine is football stadia that are too big for football. I’m thinking of “olympic” size stadia used in far-east, European and other world-cup tournaments (or god forbid Ozzie rules games) that have running tracks and semi-circular ends and the like, just too much space between the crowd and the game. Those that do fill up can create some kind of atmosphere, but not one that has anything to do with the game. One of the reasons why Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and White-Hart Lane remain so good, despite their large seated capacities.

Now, terraces are a whole ‘nother story.

I have to say organizations participating in global conferences worked this out long ago. The best place to hold them is the place with cheap accomodation & catering, and plenty of travel connections – resort locations out of season typically. That said, the worst place on the planet has to be Las Vegas ?

Oddly, this one is very close to home too.

Noticed this somewhere earlier, but here from The Grauniad. (How many roads must a man walk down ? 42 surely.)

Fascinating 1881 map of Europe showing the distribution of Jews before pogroms and the Nazis. Wow.

The very interesting Ptak’s Science Books blog, via Ray Girvan at Segal Books.

Improbable Research – The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists.

Research that makes you LAUGH and then THINK

Hat tip to “Lingvisme“. Pinker and Chalmers in there.

Best (and worst) jokes from the Edinburgh fringe.

This Dilbert made me chuckle, earlier this week. Thanks to Dave Weinberger for reminding me of the taxonomic joke. Relevant to the day job – some classes / categories have more value than others. Miscellaneous / 99 / other categories and context specific groupings (classes of class) have value only in the context of their specific purpose.

This time to compete with their on-line library aspirations – The Open Book Alliance from Amazon, Microsoft, Yahhoo and The Internet Archive. Healthy stuff.