How to imagine the future

At a work meeting today we had an exciting chance to see the emerging ideas for our University’s new library extension. These were presented by the architects who did a great presentation – very refined and to the point, and without too much “architectese”. They then turned the tables and set a workshop session for…

e-Textbooks

A quick note on e-textbooks following up on a tweet this morning. Site: http://www.kno.com/homeOnly available to students with a .edu account at the moment (I think that was how Facebook got started). A simple sell: lighter, cheaper, and even easier. Cheesy videos on their homepage… More about them on this AllThingsD article: Kno Taking Electronic…

What happens when Google starts offering degree courses?

Google are getting into selling music: BBC News – Google unveils Android-based online music store, which will presumably, over time, start to threaten the dominance of Apple and iTunes. It will be interesting to watch how this market develops… Arguably Apple’s renaissance owes much to the iPod, iTunes, and the associated stash of credit card details that Apple…

Always wear clean underwear in public…

From our fridge. (no idea how it got there…. Mrs. W?) Always wear clean underwear in public, especially when working under your vehicle. From the Daily News comes this story of a Stockton-on-Tees couple who drove their car to ASDA, only to have their car break down in the car park. The man told his…

New host

I *think* I’ve just finished transferring this blog from my own hosted version to the WordPress.com one. The aim being to not have to update the code anymore – it was boring and I’m a bit lazy! The main difference is the template, since WordPress.com didn’t have the one I was using. I suppose I…

We're making some important changes to your account

From Capital One: Dear Mr Wilcox In recent months, there has been a steady worsening of the economic environment making it necessary for us to review our customer’s accounts. As part of this review we’ve taken the difficult decision to increase some of our rates. Is it just me or is that a bit of…

BBC Today: Professor Hans Rosling

Beautiful statistics on the Today programme… Professor Hans Rosling has been credited by Microsoft’s Bill Gates as one of his inspirations to give so much to charity – the reason? Beautiful graphs. Mr Rosling makes animated graphs, like the above graph comparing the UK and China over the last 200 years, for his non-profit organisation…

Global warming causes 300,000 deaths a year

Guardian article with a striking statistic… of the 12 countries considered least at risk, including Britain, all but one are industrially developed. Together they have made nearly $72bn available to adapt themselves to climate change but have pledged only $400m to help poor countries. “This is less than one state in Germany is spending on…