Month: November 2007

  • An Asian Space Race?

    [South Korea plans to orbit the moon by 2020](http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/21/2096656.htm). Slowly but surely we’re turning our eyes back to space. I still hope to be able to go into space myself one day.

  • Best Printer Ever

    [The HP TJ8300](http://www.kottke.org/07/11/surreal-printer). It’s over 13 feet wide, but still looks like every other HP desktop.

  • Grade inflation?

    [Tokyo has more Michelin stars than Paris](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/11/in-case-you-had.html). This isn’t very surprising for two reasons. First, Tokyo’s much bigger than Paris (35 million versus 9 million). And secondly, Tokyo has a much bigger financial sector giving a much larger population of people willing to spend too much money on Michelin starred restaurants.

  • Another seven

    [Seven Wonders of the Totalitarian World](http://www.esquire.com/the-side/opinion/7totalitarianwonders). Take *that*, Mount Rushmore.

  • Election07: Trilogy edition

    *Announcements*: The Coalition has a [Hoons policy](http://liberal.org.au/about/documents/Hoonspolicy.pdf). And the ALP has a [trade policy](http://alp.org.au/media/1107/mstra210.php) and an [aged care workforce policy](http://alp.org.au/media/1107/msage210.php). *Polls*: No new polls, [but a couple of new markets to bet on the TPP and seats result](http://andrewleigh.com/?p=1710). Just three more days to go!

  • Follow up to the word of the year

    [Eating local is bad for the environment](http://www.reason.com/blog/show/123584.html). This isn’t very surprising. Economies of scale are very, very powerful. Plus the word ‘locavore’ makes me want to hurt things.

  • Just two full days of caretaker left

    [So you’ll have to work quickly to get a good high score on this game of throwing paper into a trashbin](http://www.jupitercolour.co.uk/dvdf/throwpaper.swf). Poor public servants, soon they’ll all have to work again…

  • Celebrity Apprentice

    [The cast for Celebrity Apprentice has been announced](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_en_tv/tv_celebrity_apprentice_2;_ylt=AsBUhPjnDhlJRT0fF3FM0ToE1vAI). Including Gene Simmons of Kiss, Nadia Comaneci, boxing champ Lennox Lewis and a playboy playmate. The show itself will be dreadful, but the personality conflicts should be hilarious.

  • Cost of Copyright Law

    [A US Professor estimates that he could have $4.5 billion in copyright liability in a single year](http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071119-overly-broad-copyright-law-has-made-us-a-nation-of-infringers.html). And that’s without trying very hard. He’s probably overstating his case a little (it’s not *that* typical a day he uses for his calculations). But the basic point is clear – copyright law is insane and massively out…

  • Clever thinking

    If you ask for an insurance quote from [AAMI](http://www.aami.com.au), they offer to email you another quote for the same details in 12 months time. Clever, shows that they’ve been thinking about the use case.