Quite often, the answer to that exasperated “why don’t they just … ?” is green, and it folds.
- Coding - the new Latin
In the UK there’s a drive for better computer science education. I’m not sure we’ll see something similar in Austria any time soon… - ‘Most Beautiful Woman’ By Day, Inventor By Night
A new book on actress Hedy Lamarr focuses on her inventions, not on her beauty. - What I Miss About Counter-Strike
This tribute to weirdness is also a good read for non-gamers, as it’s essentially about achieving mastery in something. - Psst, kid… Wanna learn how to hack?
Good article on the Raspberry Pi, a small and cheap ARM-based system I’m really looking forward to. - New India, old Europe
An Al Jazeera piece on India-EU relations. - Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
A detailed analysis of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, including lots of interesting sources. - Humanizing Bioinformatics
The problems mentioned in this article don’t only affect bioinformatics, we generally have so much data that good ways of visualizing and exploring become ever more important. - Swiss Govt: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal
No matter how you feel about the topic at hand, it’s refreshing to see a government come to its own conclusions instead of just jumping on the lobbyist bandwagon. - If Everyone Else is Such an Idiot, How Come You’re Not Rich?
I admit to sometimes being guilty of this too. Just because people reach different conclusions than you, doesn’t mean they are necessarily stupid. They just may have different — and often more — information than you. - In Athens
While the situation in Greek may look bleak, the attitudes of the citizens portrayed in this article makes me hopeful.
There was a lot of talk about ‘convergence’ in the run-up to Greece joining the euro, as if swapping a weak currency for a strong one would magically turn a corrupt, nepotistic economy of olive groves and tourist beaches into a transparent, meritocratic Bavaria-on-the-Aegean.