Any once again, I mutter "I'll get round to it one of these days" to myself… (In case you're wondering, I've been largely away from the t'internet for a week, being either parked in front of the Xbox or out doing museums and galleries, and I'm catching up on what I've missed.)

I find the sort of future he's describing here quite pleasing, as he's essentially saying that the one aspect of modern life that cannot be reduced away is the idea of a social hub. The practical reality of the matter is that someone with an internet connect does not need to go to the shops, the office, or really anywhere, except places where they can be among other humans.

Here's a nice, easy to understand, and very readable bit of writing about CERN, what they do there, and why it's important.

Been vaguely wondering about getting one of these. On the strength of this, it looks like the iPro is the one to get.

The US government have just demonstrated that they will sieze the internet based assets of foreign entities, even though no transaction related to those assets took place on US soil, and the crimes it thinks the company may have committed are not illegal in the places they may have committed them. This is (very) roughly like the US government marching into someone's home in London, and taking away their TV (that was purchased in London), on the grounds that it can be used to watch programs made in the US, because the owner, while living in London, drank alcohol at the age of 19. (I pick a trivial offence only because it's the first thing I can think of as an easy and everyday difference between US law and the law elsewhere.)

To quote the article: "This is no longer a doom-and-gloom theory by some guy in a tin foil hat. It just happened."

Every time I need to set up a new install of Chrome, I have to hunt this page out. I'm bookmarking it so as to save myself a little time next time. Some of you may find a lot of it useful, too.