alfa.org.uk

Brilliant photo snapped at What The Hack. I’m off to Canada in a few weeks – I will have to go through this charade as usual.

The latest Paul Graham article talks about blogs, and explains why newspapers should be worried.

Those in the print media who dismiss the writing online because of its low average quality are missing an important point: no one reads the average blog. In the old world of channels, it meant something to talk about average quality, because that’s what you were getting whether you liked it or not. But now you can read any writer you want. So the average quality of writing online isn’t what the print media are competing against. They’re competing against the best writing online. And, like Microsoft, they’re losing.

Then there is Maciej Ceglowski’s brilliant article about NASA’s manned space programme, which is so good that it provides the perfect evidence Graham is correct.

To the uneducated mind, it would seem we could accomplish our current manned space flight objectives more easily by not launching any astronauts into space at all – leaving the Shuttle and ISS on the ground would result in massive savings without the slightest impact on basic science, while also increasing mission safety by many orders of magnitude.

Keep me on hold (playing Spandau Ballet at me) for ten minutes, then transfer me to the automated system!

P.S. Yes I am alive, life has been busy.