Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: August 2007

Microsoft attempts to buy Swedish recognition of OOXML - Cworld [via /.]

a New Orleans doctor describes working during the flood - MSNBC [via Majik]

and getting arrested for her efforts

RFC 2822 and Australian telecommunications interception law - LawFont [via EFA]

Geoffrey Robertson on why Australia needs a Bill of Rights - SMH

a different approach to Afghanistan's narcotics problem - IGCA [via Informed]

the story of a one-word poem - PoetryFoundation [via RW]

the stupid "Australian values" citizenship test - Barista

"Not only would most Federal politicians fail it without study, they would also find that study onerous. By my reckoning, at least ten percent of adult native English speakers would not be able to read the draft document, let alone answer it."

US district court rules Artistic License is a contract - LawLifeSilicon [via OSWALD]

potentially major implications for free software licenses

a history of Islam in Korea - AsiaQ [via Far]

visualising development statistics: a video - TED [via Far]

China's pollution nightmare - IHT

China's greenhouse emissions are much more of a threat to the world than the PLA

Italians still remember Sacco and Vanzetti - IHT

Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif back in Pakistan?! - ICGA

locking up asylum seekers: $500,000 per person - SMH - Oxfam

Australia spent over $1 billion processing just 1700 refugees

there's a .cat domain?! - www.cat [via CT]

a three-letter TLD for Catalan sites

is depression a medical condition? - 3q

Bush is more like Chamberlain than Churchill - CIF

unrest in Myanmar - Economist

"the generals may have made the fuel-price rises provocatively steep to set off unrest that would 'justify' preventing, once again, any serious political change"

more adventures in water privatisation: Dar es Salaam - Guardian [via Accra]

the price of maize in Ghana: ICT in the developing world - Accra

Anti-Defamation League finally accepts Armenian genocide - Boston

now the Australian government wants to stop consumer boycotts - SMH

first, the bank forecloses on your house... - LeterFromHere [via SideS]

... then you have to pay tax on the debt cancellation!

more on ad banner blindness - Useit

and unethical ways of getting around it

fibre via the sewer becomes a reality - ITnews [via Link]

I dunno if I'd want the job of terminating the fibres, though...

commonly typoed Australian tourist destinations - SMH

Australia tries to ban praise of terrorism - Age [via EFA]

essays on the 18th+19th century social history of Cornwall - Cornish Cases [review]

can the British do better than the Russians in Afghanistan? - Guardian

Beijing trials tough restrictions on private cars - SMH

"cars whose licence plates ended in even numbers were barred from driving yesterday"

a quiz about Indian independence - Economist

I scored 9/12

TV censorship in Venezuela? - Znet [via ProRev]

Sydney man charged over movie bootlegging - DefendingScoundrels

apparently possession of a mobile phone with intent to use it to infringe copyright is a criminal offence punishable by 5 years imprisonment

the government must not be allowed to provide health care to children - Krugman [via Cosma]

... because it might do a good job of it

India can continue making generic drugs - IHT [via OSWALD]

Daniel Dennett on computer chess - TechRev [via /.]

adventures in US health care - SameFacts [via Cosma]

the downfall of Haile Selassie - The Emperor [review]

Afghanistan: half-full or half-empty? - ICGA [via Informed]

debt market problems - Economist - FN

butlers afloat: the super-rich go to sea - Guardian [via CT]

"rising demand for skilled crew to work on billionaires' luxury vessels"

a response to my review of Always Coming Home - Una

I think I stand by what I wrote in the review. But I've started a thread in the comments on Una's blog.

500 brick kiln slaves freed in China - ChinaDaily

China is becoming a high-tech police state - com [via EFA]

under siege in Basra - Times [via AntiWar]

wearing out the US army - Guardian

the US is locking up more people for longer - Boston [via CT]

"mass incarceration has now become a principal vehicle for the reproduction of racial hierarchy"

SCO goes down - Groklaw

"the court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights"

they may finally have found HMAS Sydney - SMH

Indonesia is burning textbooks about the 1965 coup - SMH [via CR]

on this subject, I recommend Robert Cribb's The Indonesian Killings

Juan Goytisolo's novel of youth between Franco and exile - Marks of Identity [review]

Howard's latest Internet censorship vote-catcher - Australian [via EFA]

Angus and Robertson tries to stiff small publishers - SMH

I'd boycott A&R, but I never buy books from them anyway

P, NP, and quantum computing - Aaronson

now Baghdad's water supply is failing... - Seattle [via ProRev]

it's hitting 120F/49C and there's no power to run air-conditioning

China's military might is limited - Economist

Baby Einstein videos delay infant development - Time

"with every hour per day spent watching baby videos, infants learned six to eight fewer words"

Hamas has brought the rule of law back to Gaza - Time

the British are leaving Basra in a mess - MSNBC

giving up fish - Economist

testing fuel cells for ships - PCworld [via Kaarne]

universities don't seem to contribute much to Linux these days - LWN

more commercialisation? more narrowly-focused students?

it's the US who is arming Iraqi insurgents - WP

200,000 smallarms went missing in 2004 and 2005

the Oyu Tolgoi mine budget is twice Mongolia's government budget - SMH

and with money to be had, corruption runs rampant

the British Council pulls out of Europe - Guardian

and will deploy its libraries to the Muslim world instead

1400 dead, 20 million displaced in Bay of Bengal monsoon flooding - Tele - Guardian

Erdös on Graphs [review]

there are still 25,000 Jews in Iran - ICH [via Loewen]

pulling up surplus French vineyards - IHT

"annual consumption of wine in France fell 11% from 2001 to 2005"

Bergman and Antonioni - Barista

Australian High Court allows government exceptional "defence powers" - Aus [via EFA]

dissenting Justice Kirby is not happy

fancy a job as an abstinence trainer? - Nation [via RW]

adventures in leader election: the Doge of Venice - HP

my honours thesis was on distributed leader election