Monthly Archives: November 2006

Measured vs Spewed: The New Reviewers

(A podcast of this can be downloaded here.) The walls of elite reviewers come tumbling down, and it’s not pretty. But is it what we want? I belatedly stumbled upon this piece in The Observer by Rachel Cooke on a new spat between editors, reviewers and blogger reviewers, and not much of it is new.… Read More »

Loose Bits, Nov 28 2006

From my PR intray, some surprisingly interesting little odds and ends: LocalCooling is a 100% Free power management tool from Uniblue Labs that allows users to optimize their energy savings in minutes and as a result reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. The software “automatically optimizes your PC’s power consumption by using a more effective power save… Read More »

Phone as Beacon

The idea that your cellphone may become a beacon of your availability took one small step closer yesterday, although you’d be forgiven for not noticing amid all the post-turkey bloat. The theory is this. Cellphones have gotten smarter, but they still miss one vital ingredient that computer users have had for years: presence. Anyone using… Read More »

Loose Wire Bits, Nov 27 2006

Some bits and pieces: Mindmapping has long been dominated by MindManager, which is a great tool, but has its weaknesses (I find the latest version to be very slow, even on small maps.) A new alternative has emerged from the mindmapping king himself, Tony Buzan: iMindMap. Available only in Beta at the moment, it looks promising.… Read More »

How to Poison Someone on the Cheap

Intrigued and disturbed by reports that the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko may have been killed by radiation poisoning, I couldn’t help wondering how something like that was done? How easy would it be to get your hands on Polonium-210, the chemical element? Quite easy, it turns out. If you’re in the U.S., or have someone with… Read More »