It struck me, as I lay on a chaise longue at the Conrad Bali trying to filter out the drone of the jetskis, that hotels are selling a complicated product. My wife, for example, loves the clean, crisp white sheets and thick feather pillows of a king-size bed. Others go for the food, some for … Read more
Here’s a very cool way to mix technology and environmental stuff, via the Google Earth Blog. (Interest declared: It’s part of the NEWtrees project, the brainchild of my publisher and friend Mark Hanusz): The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) offers you the opportunity to buy a tree which will be planted in a rainforest in Sebangau … Read more
Two pieces in the NYT/IHT that weren’t about technology, but kind of are, illustrate how technology can shrink distance but also grow it. First off a piece by Geoff D. Porter, an analyst in the Middle East and Africa division of the Eurasia Group, explores how African would-be immigrants to Europe are now making their … Read more
Caption competition: “Is this a dagger I see before me?” “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio” Now you see it, now you don’t Photo from BusinessWire It has the grim predictability of a company that doesn’t seem sure of what it’s doing, and what people want. Ever since Ed Colligan unveiled the Foleo — … Read more
A Jakarta pickpocket tries to steal a woman’s hair to make keyrings: Hair today, gone tomorrow for victim of mane mugger The hazards of riding the city’s public buses are many — pickpockets, gropers, drivers who stop in the middle of the road, wandering musicians plunking away on ukuleles in the hopes of annoying a … Read more