I’d like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous (western) new year. See you in MMIX – the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln as well as the International Year of Astronomy, of Reconciliation and of Natural Fibres.
xD.

I’ve recently subscribed to a great sci-fi podcast – Escape Pod. There are lots of things I like about it – it’s released under a Creative Commons license, it still manages to pay its authors – but mostly the fiction is really good. The RSS feed is here and there’s an archive at escapearchive.org. Some [...]

My friend, Ewan Watt, has tagged me for ten predictions for 2009. Luke Akehurst, who Ewan also tagged, has some interesting predictions. Mine are:

There will be an attempt to ‘test’ Obama militarily within his first year of office
There will not be a General Election in the UK
There will not be a go-ahead for the third [...]

… to one and all. I hope you’re all thoroughly enjoying the festive season.
xD.

The Audit Commission has issued a report on how local authorities are dealing with the credit crunch. For the most part, it’s not too bad. From the press release:
By and large councils knew this downturn was coming and have planned for it. The pressures are real but councils are coping with them well
However, pressure is [...]

The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise – UK acadaemia’s equivalent of the World Cup rankings, except they only come out about twice a decade – has reported. The top ten, with last year’s position in brackets) are
1. Cambridge (1)
2. Oxford (3)
3. LSE (2)
4. IC (4)
5. UCL (8)
6. Manchester (15 as UMIST)
7. Warwick (5)
8. York (6)
9. Essex [...]

This story didn’t receive much coverage, unfortunately. The Oxford University U21 XV thought it’d be a good idea to attend a safari-themed party in blackface and to hold a ‘bring a fit Jew’ party where, the Guardian reports,
students are alleged to have been told to invite a pretty Jewish date and arrive dressed as Orthodox [...]

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has another big problem. There’s a zero-day flaw that, according to the Guardian, “could let hackers gain access to their computers and steal personal data”. This isn’t something that just exists as a proof-of-concept; it’s been used, mercifully so far only to steal game passwords. Trend Micro is advising people to change [...]

Well, it made me laugh.
xD.

Via Tiberius Gracchus, I read a despondent post from Ashok Karra; do read both the original and the reply.
Ashok’s lament is based on Mark Bauerlein’s book, The Dumbest Generation:
“that our unparalleled access to knowledge is coeval with a culture of decadence which allows the construction of entire worlds around our purely adolescent selves”
Our time is [...]