Danny Yee >> Pathologically Polymathic (blog)

December 2009

<< November 2009 | January 2010 >>

Under the Volcano: The Story of Bali [my review]
the BBC's Project Canvas: standards for video-over-IP and settop boxes - Last100 [via @neerav]
a history of dirt - Economist
the demographics of crime in Oxford - BBC
is the Australian's economics as bad as its climate science? - Billy
(a comment on the Irish banking strike of 1970 is also interesting)
Tony Judt is quadriplegic from motor neuron disorder - NYROB [via Chapati]
photos from Iranian protests - Sacbee [via @TwistedSifter]
mortgage defaults in Australia - ABC
"between 2003-4 and 2007-8, average monthly mortgage payments grew from 30% to 38% of the median monthly household's income"
a massive US government effort to support house prices - CalculatedRisk
an overview of proposed Australian net censorship - Libertus
as usual, Irene's analysis is clear, comprehensive, and solidly researched
security forces fail to disperse protesters in Iranian cities - Informed
one UK economist is not so keen on carbon taxes, on equity grounds - Guardian [via @jdub]
this seems like a false dichotomy, though - surely the right approach is some level of carbon tax plus appropriate regulation
"anti-corporate" Avatar may make News Corp a billion dollars - SMH
new book on 1688 sounds excellent - National.AE [via Chapati]
how to nap - Boston
the Netherlands plans to tax cars by the kilometre - Time [via @neerav]
wouldn't increasing the tax on petrol be simpler? (or will people just drive to Belgium to buy it?)
photos of six beautiful Chinese glaciers - TravelChina [via @MargaretKinney]
the BBC's digital rights plans are incompatible with free software - Guardian
the best unsuccessful books of the decade - Guardian [via RW]
the Australian Goverment is making a list... - The Gift Of Censorship [via EFA]
An Environmental History of Growing Food in Australian Cities - Harvest of the Suburbs [my review]
the UK is going to abolish cheques by 2018 - Guardian
cheap DIY book scanners - Wired [via @neerav]
some "useful" foreign phrases - Omniglot [via @belledejour_uk]
Some of the best books I've read this year
Sadegh Hedayat - The Blind Owl
A Little Primer of Tu Fu
S. Yizhar - Khirbet Khizeh
A Natural History of Conifers
Mirror of the Indies: A History of Dutch Colonial Literature
Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences
The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History of the Arctic World
Aboriginal Art
an Antec mini-ITX case! - SPCR
the Bristol Uni trans-continental expedition 1960-1961 - Nonesuch
my step-father was one of the participants in this
an interview with Paul Samuelson - Atlantic [via CalculatedRisk]
will the US reach 150 bank failures this year? - CalculatedRISK
it's not possible for banks to "hoard reserves" - StubbornMule
in the hot seat over ALP Internet censorship policy - Kate Lundy
spammer statistics (based on a billion spam messages) - Honeypot [via /.]
post-Keynesian economists need to use better mathematics - DebtDeflation
why northern Europeans are depigmented - Knol [via @marklauer]
colorful jellyfish - ColourLovers [via RW]
Britain issues arrest warrant for Israeli foreign minister - Informed
an introduction to fuel cells as a source of baseload power - AAScience
Ian Plimer obfuscates and fabricates - Deltoid
someone known for opposing Creationism should be above using typical Creationist debating methods
Angkor: Cambodia's Wondrous Khmer Temples [my review]
the debate over DSM-V - NewSci [via @majikthise]
should "mild depression", "psychosis risk", hebephilia, bereavement, etc. be diagnosable disorders?
octopuses use coconut shells as protective shelters - BBC
the Lonely Tree of Tenere - DamnInteresting
there's a few bits of wilderness in the Scottish Highlands - Guardian [via @MargaretKinney]
good mapping involves abstraction, not detail overload - Economist
better links between India and Bangladesh would help millions - Economist
should phlogiston believers get a role in forming bushfire policy? - Crickey
Ken Henery on economic sustainability - AusTreasury
should governments play a stronger role in guiding nutrition? - Economist
the origins of cow veneration and vegetarianism in India - The Myth of the Holy Cow [my review]
Panasonic now has "copy protected" batteries - APCmag
cameras that shut down if anything other than an official Panasonic battery is inserted
the Australian government has engineered an improbable housing boom - BusinessSpectator
the "Arctic Dipole" drives a new atmospheric circulation pattern for the Northern Hemisphere - Wunder
Nick Minchin is a delusionist - SMH
"denier" seems entirely too weak
fantastic online bookshop: cheap + free international shipping! - Aphrohead
I'm not the only person who uses vertical tabs - Google
now if I could just get the Chrome beta for Linux to work at all...
one in four children in the US are using food stamps - Mish
US company sues UK blogger in Australian (NSW) court - ABC
Indian central government to split Andhra Pradesh in two - TimesIndia - IBNlive
Andhra Pradesh has 80 million people - so this is like dividing Germany in two!
Amazon UK's distribution centre - DailyMail [via @TwistedSifter]
and I thought I had a lot of book boxes in my study!
Croatia's Plitvice Lakes - TwistedSifter [via Janine]
boy-scout founder Baden-Powell was a war criminal? - BBC [via @majikthise]
an overview of Ireland's property boom and bust - Times
French ISP Free.fr has a different business model - ArsTechnica
one product, no marketing, community software development
Herta Mueller on the importance of handkerchiefs - Nobel Prize [via WWB]
Baluchistan's uneasy place in Pakistan - National.AE [via Chapati]
"The true crisis facing Pakistan is not the Taliban: it is the rupture between the federal state and its constituent parts"
the creepy things they do to baby photos - Mamamia
trying to plan Paris' growth - Economist
the effects of climate change in the Himalayas - Guardian
mobile phones are stealth ID cards - NewScientist
peer review Downfall parody - YouTube
Malcolm Turnbull sticks it to Tony Abbott - MT
analysing individual country commitments - Climate Action Tracker
notable Icelandic architecture in concrete - Works Along the Way [my review]
judging books by their covers - LocalCharacter
the search for Genghis Khan's grave - EurasiaNet [via Chapati]
looking through the "slush" - Stranger
background on Vietnam's block on Facebook - VietnamNet
"a number of social websites have been misused to convey information with contents that oppose the DSRV in contravention of Vietnamese law, threatening information security and causing a bad influence on Internet users"
the war over San Francisco's apartments - SanFranMag
a High Dynamic Range photography tutorial - StuckInCustoms
a brief history of Polish science fiction - WWB
Angkor: And the Khmer Civilization [my review]
looking back at Mary McCarthy's The Group - Guardian [via RW]
Dubai World - Las Vegas without gambling, drinking, or smoking - Times
"a foolish, ignorant and careless work of faux scholarship" on Afghanistan - Forbes [via Chapati]
a phone that's POSIX compliant and runs python - Maemo
one day I will get a mobile phone
350 years of science - Royal Society
how second mortgages on homes with <1% equity became AAA-rated - Fortune
investors can now fund Somalian piracy - Reuters [via /.]
Sadegh Hedayat's masterpiece - The Blind Owl [my review]
"There are sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker."
should regexps ever be used to process HTML? - CodingHorror [via Stross]
the ten best hiking spots in the US - HowStuffWorks [via @MargaretKinney]
I've walked into the Grand Canyon and around Yosemite, back in 1994
DNA reveals origins of shark fin soup - LiveSci [via @MargaretKinney]
now we need regular testing of restaurants and fines if they are found selling endandgered species
crumbling concrete attacks Cornwall houses - Guardian
some bash (shell) history tips - RWMJ [via NikL]
International Court of Justice to rule on legality of Kosovo's secession - BBC
Steve Keen's analysis of Australia's debt problem - DebtDeflation

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Pathologically Polymathic (blog) << Danny Yee