UK footballer David Beckham had his wife Victoria’s name tattooed on his arm in Hindi. Just unfortunate is was misspelt as Vihctoria. To make matters worse, his agents insisted that “there is a difference between Hindi and Hindu”. Indeed. One’s a language, the other’s a religion.
Popularity: 7% [?]
British insurers will now be allowed to gather genetic information on their clients, testing for genetic diseases. Perhaps I’m being totally daft here, but what’s the use of insurance if I know for a fact that I won’t get what I’m being insured against? And if the only insurable people are the ones who least need insurance, won’t the whole insurance industry collapse? Is the theory of actuarial calculations not based on uncertainty and risk? Or should I just shut up and get on the train to making lots of money?
Popularity: 8% [?]
An excellent article on Radio Free Europe on the Dutch approach to drug legislation. Free the weed, man.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Russian hackers, called “khackeri”. Will Moscow become the new Tokyo?
Popularity: 8% [?]
How the Sunday Times cracked the Enigma code. Cloak and dagger in true English style.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Interesting Slashdotty discussion on a new approach to copyright issues. And the debate continues forever.
Popularity: 6% [?]
A minor natural (or unnatural) problem takes down 60% of Australia’s bandwidth. So how fragile is this thing we built? Are we staking too much on a house of cards? Or is it time to stop bickering about animation and standards and start developing a more robust infrastructure?
Popularity: 7% [?]
Carnivore might be more vicious than the FBI are claiming. And sooner or later, it’s going to take a bite out of your rump, US citizen or not.
Popularity: 6% [?]
The Fifth Annual Obfuscated Perl Contest winners have been announced. Discussions and sour grapes on /. – as always.
Popularity: 6% [?]
The new (proposed) top-level domains seem to be missing one – .stupid. How on earth will adding new TLDs ease the crowding in .com? Oh, sure, Microsoft will concede that they already have .com, so why would they want microsoft.biz or microsoft.info? Of course they will.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Sheik Mohammed Rashid Bin Al, crown prince of Dubai, is building a safe Internet haven in the middle of the desert, a sort of Las Vegas of bits. The only question is, how safe would safe be if Muslim law should ever be introduced? No more dotcom millionaires sipping overpriced whiskey, no more Porky Pig cartoon porn.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Modern technology is making sense of Archimedes’s writings more than two millennia after he penned them.
Popularity: 7% [?]
At a nuclear weapons lab, a team of elite hackers matches wits with undefeated autonomous defenders. From Scientific American.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Ataxia is a comprehensive research report that examines the many facets of the unconventional terrorism issue in the United States.
Popularity: 7% [?]
