alastair

“Open Up – This is the Police”

Mostly my stays in hotels are OK. I occasionally have to go back down to the lobby when my keycard doesn’t work, or (like this week in Munich) I get less sleep than I’d like because thousands of Oktoberfesters sing in the street until the early hours. Like I said – not a big problem. Sometimes though shit happens that not only ruins the trip, but also makes you wonder if we aren’t living in a simulation… A couple of weeks ago I visited Chicago – a splendid city that…read more

Targeted Ads

Posted by alastair in Nugget from the Internet

We all know that our online activities are used to send us tailored or targeted advertising – right? In a recent episode of Benjamin Walker’s Theory of Everything, I learned that those ads work not because they trigger a latent desire or confirm an internal image we have of ourselves, but rather because they represent an external perspective wthat e find flattering. We’re more likely to buy the product because we respond positively to the fact that we are considered sporty enough for Google’s algorithm to offer us those skis,…read more

To San Jose…

This is more of a boast than a beef. I may have set my new record for ridiculous business travel. OK check this out : Monday Genova -> Rome -> Detroit -> Phoenix Tuesday -> Salt Lake City -> San Jose Wednesday -> Cupertino -> Santa Cruz -> Los Angeles Thursday -> Paris -> Genova

Wood Wide Web

This is another great one from www.radiolab.org… Everyone knows how trees grow – right? Sunlight + CO2 + Photosynthesis = Carbon (in the form of sugars) + O2 We’ll it turns out that this is only half the story. A tree made only of carbon wouldn’t grow more than a foot high before flopping over like a dying tulip. The structural elements that build trunk and limbs come in as nutrients through a tree’s root system – just like we eat vitamins and minerals to build healthy teeth and…read more

…to Chicago

Voltaire wrote in his poem “La Bégueule” that “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien”. Sometimes perfection is the enemy of the good; and in my attempt to arrive in Chicago at a perfect 1pm (waking at 4.30 and connecting through 3 cities), I ended up in Frankfurt, delayed for 6 hours. It’s a common story, but frustrating nonetheless. A relatively tight connection, a slightly delayed flight, and UTTER INCOMPETENCE from ground crew, and my productive day turns into a waiting game. In this case I was first off the plane,…read more

…to Baltimore

OK, so this one was my fault. A miscalculation. I live about half an hour from my local airport, and typically wake up about 90 minutes before the 6am flight leaves. Except this morning the alarm rang 30 minutes before departure and I set a new record : bed to gate in 20 minutes, boarding pass in hand. I’d called ahead and the amazing front-office personnel at the airport fast-tracked me through security, only to see the gate shut in my face. If you live in a country for any…read more

…to Orlando

I live in a great Italian town with one giant flaw : it’s a shitty place to fly out of, with direct connections limited to a handful of cities a few times a week. To get to Orlando, I therefore had to drive to Milan, and fly through Frankfurt – something like a 17 hour trip door-to-door. Our commentary starts at hour 4, sitting on the plane in Milan : “Goodmorning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. We are delighted to welcome you on board. We…read more

Who is that Man in the Mirror?

When Alice asked her cat if the milk in the looking glass tastes the same as the milk in her dish, author and mathematician Lewis Carol was using a surprisingly accurate analogy. At a molecular level, the vast majority of substances exhibit little symmetry. Instead atoms are combined in structures that curl either one way or another. Look through a microscope at a non-organic substance like a lump of granite and you’ll see a mixture of left or right spirals, but examine any living thing and they all curl left….read more

Pig Metamorphosis

Give your pet dog it’s freedom and it’ll just sit on your doorstep looking miserable. Release it into the wild and it will become a pretty effective predator, but it will take generations for it to physically adapt to it’s new environment. The Dingo was introduced to Australia about 3500 years ago. It’s about as wild as a dog gets, but it doesn’t look all that different to my brother’s dog Sam… …and that’s pretty common for most animals. In their wild (or rather, feral) state, they’re just a thinner,…read more

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