BP & Deepwater Horizon will have massive ramifications – industrial and global macro-economic. This is no local difficulty as Robert Peston explains.
One Subject, Multiple Forums ?
Currently topical in the day job beyond blogging, this discussion may prove interesting on whether splintering / undermining any unity is a real issue or just a little paranoia.
Some Hosting Issues
Comparing GoDaddy with others in the comment thread.
You Have To Admire
(Old news from 2007, but …) The ingenuity, and effort, for the cleric to come up with the breastfeeding suggestion, in the face of the inconvenient rules, even if the mind boggles at the rules in the first place. (Rules being for the guidance of wise men and the enslavement of fools, after all.) More promising that the minister of religious affairs …
called for future fatwas to be
“compatible with logic and human nature”.
No mention of the word of gods or prophets. Progress.
Uvær
Think I just experienced an original band, Norwegian too.
OK so the usual heavy grunge punk metal vocal delivery – indistinct monotonic screaming growl – I’ll never quite get.
But visually & stylistically different. Again all blues based rock is “derivative” and original is always relative, but not many give me that same sense that Devo did. Musically more than competent. Not too muddy for a catchy melody to escape, twin pedal drummer to double the pace when needed.
Oh, and yes, when they took off the cardboard box disguises, the square suits were indeed art school persona. I think I would have been disappointed if they weren’t. Ones to watch ?
Sent from my iPhone
Email Posting
Never switched this on before, but have more mobile mail / messaging options these days, so worth a try.
Brain Connections
Spooky experience today … I was immersed in my new UK rail (north-east), “free” wi-fi, new HP laptop, new iPhone, blogging, facebook, work-email, learning experience, from Darlington en-route to Kings Cross, Heathrow, Terminal 3, SAS to Stavanger business travel, when the seat beside me was occupied at York by someone reading Sacks “Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat“.
I had to say to her – you don’t often see people reading that, one of my favourite books. Anyway, she had almost finished it, and – blow me – two minutes later she starts reading Jill Bolte-Taylor’s “Stroke of Inspiration“.
Oh, by the way, did I mention ? I’m back to being UK-based, and …. self-employed.
[If you do nothing else, follow that link to Jill Bolte-Taylor’s TED presentation … literally inspiring.]
[PS – SAS from LHR Terminal 3 ? – Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently reference gets me every time. A meme of limited circulation]
Computer Theology ?
Sounds like my kinda guy. Bertrand du Castel was speaking at Semantic Days 2010 which I was unable to attend. Notice he was chair of POSC for a while too, missed that. Thanks to Leon for the Link.
The Buddha in the Machine
Noticed a few weeks ago that Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soul Craft” had been published in the UK under the title “The Case for Working with your Hands“.
Noticed yesterday he was on Andrew Marr’s “Start the Week” on BBC Radio 4 with Martin Rees … billed as the philosopher Matthew Crawford. The listen again link (31st May 2010) is live, and looks like it stays up for a while, even if there is no podcast archive. So much motorcycle maintenance without a single mention of Pirsig’s Zen and the Art … who is duly acknowledged in the book itself. (Wendell Berry is mentioned by Marr.)
Interestingly, The Buddha was the subject of the immediate following program “A History of the World“.
Damned If You Do
Interesting headline / byline on this story … the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster … the more information is made available the less people are happy with what they “know”. Less is more. It’s complicated and scary techno-environmental problem BP are dealing with and they need to be allowed, encouraged to focus on that, rather than a complex PR & education problem. There will be blood, already
Dreadful self-destructive meme to assume maximum openness is demanded whereas maximum trust is in fact needed. Add to the “too-much open communication is bad for us” stack.
[Post Note … interesting NYT piece on our faith in technology fixing problems of the day. Hat tip to Matt, in philosophical mood – again.]