Some links
For those of you awaiting the publication of George Bush’s response to the Iranian letter, I can exclusively reveal that I’ll have it for you by the weekend. My sources in the Whitehouse and Reuters news agency failed to get hold of a copy, but my source in Ahmadinejad’s administration came up trumps. He’s forwarding it through secure channels even as I type.
In the meantime let me point you towards a couple of groovy thangs.
First up is Netvibes. This is an AJAX / Web 2.0 (think Gmail stylee interface) application. It’s essentially a feed aggregator, but it’s the first one I’ve encountered that does everything I want it to. It works inside the browser (important) and can integrate webmail and POP accounts (groovy). It has multiple tabs in the page to allow easy segregation by topic (blogs page, news page, tech page, etc.) and if you keep the page open on one tab of a tabbed browser (Firefox, say) then notification of a new item on any of the netvibes tabs gets flagged on the browser tab. If all that sounds a bit confused, don’t worry, it works very well indeed.
Staying with the tech-toy-theme, check out this entry over at The Sharpener from John Band all about the newfangled Google Trends. A potentially useful tool (Google Trends that is, not John) for those of us tracking public awareness. See this chart for peak oil as an example.
Speaking of google, I was pleased to note that I come top of the search results for ‘torture John Reid‘. Well, top result for google.com and google.ie, but The Independent beat me into second place on co.uk. Hell, if they want first crack at him, that’s fine. I’m a patient man.
While I’m here let me point you towards a couple of gems from the most recent issue of The Onion. You’ve got to love any story that begins with the line… “Pro-life advocates celebrated approval of the new anti-abortion drug UR-86 by the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday, calling it a “safe and effective method” for terminating pregnant women while leaving their unborn children unharmed.” [Read more]
And then check out Mr. Special Foreign Man Won’t Read Anything Not Written In His Own Language. Wonderful.
Nice to see the London Borough of Hackney are taking the issue of sustainability seriously (thanks to Jarndyce for pointing that page out – via the newfangled google chat system).
Oh and read David Byrne’s latest journal entry. There is Chemistry Between Them. Interesting stuff.
Now, I’m off to the secret location for the Bush letter “drop off”. If you don’t hear from me by the weekend you can assume the CIA have silenced me.
Clearly the good burghers of Canberra have been a little busier than my local council….
May 11th, 2006 | 5:39pm
by Jarndyce
Pocho on Further Left Forum has posted the Iranian letter – he does not give a source though, so it’s not varified.
May 11th, 2006 | 7:27pm
by Pisces Iscariot
So why is it that people in Norwich are more interested in Climate change than anywhere else in the UK?
http://www.google.com/trends?q=climate+change&ctab=1&date=all&geo=GB
May 11th, 2006 | 8:25pm
by PMM
And by some margin too, PMM. Interestingly enough, the Greens did very well in the recent local elections in Norwich. Could that have anything to do with it. Does the local university have a reputation for climatology? Is there an institute of climatology there?
I wonder. I wonder.
May 11th, 2006 | 8:31pm
by Jim
I’d have thought it obvious: Norfolk is one of the flatter bits of the country, so it’s much more in the firing line when it comes to GW-caused flooding (e.g. see here).
May 11th, 2006 | 11:03pm
by Simstim
Jeez, that map really puts The Netherlands into perspective. Cheers for that Simstim. That’s gone straight into the bookmarks.
May 11th, 2006 | 11:09pm
by Jim
Thanks, Jim., for wasting my whole afternoon with idle, though enjoyable, Google chat, then my whole evening playing with Netvibes… it really is damn good. One irritating thing: it appears if you have 2 gmail accounts (actually, I have 4), it will only scan one of them (whichever you’re “logged into” at that time). Is that right, d’you know?
May 12th, 2006 | 7:30am
by Jarndyce
To be honest, Jarndyce, I hadn’t noticed that. I’ve only got two gmail accounts and one of them is very low traffic. Having done a very basic test though, it seems that netvibes is indeed scanning both accounts.
BUT, I also have a gmail notifier plug-in for Firefox which (I believe) periodicaly logs into both accounts to check for mail. So it’s possible that’s what allows netvibes to see into both.
May 12th, 2006 | 12:47pm
by Jim
I can exclusively reveal that I’ll have it for you by the weekend
By the week-end, huh? That’s the last time I believe one of your exclusive revelations…
May 16th, 2006 | 12:49pm
by Larry Teabag
Google Trends also facilitated Harry Hutton’s half hour of fun, with great results.
May 16th, 2006 | 8:33pm
by Merrick