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• Commented on Blank slate: politics and context in the 21st century
  Thirding (Fourthing?) the David Graeber. Fantastic stuff: especially the bits where he lays into neo-classical economists which I'm all in favour of. He's very good on the tight relationship between debt, cash money and access to power: I'd have liked...
• Commented on Because I have too much spare time for reading ...
  Chucking a few hats into the ring: No love for "Vellum" by Hal Duncan? Unlike Anathem, I actually enjoyed reading that although "Ink" didn't work as well for me. I'm afraid I bounced off Anathem rather hard, despite having slogged...
• Commented on Because I have too much spare time for reading ...
  My partner immediately says "I'm dubious about the word 'important' in this context: how can we tell until sufficient time has passed for society to work that out?" Also, I note in passing that Charlie hasn't restricted the scope of...
• Commented on What am I missing?
  It seems that trojans on customer PCs are the predominant way that banking accounts are compromised these days. Running a transparent proxy for a bank server still requires that your end-user fail to notice that the connection is not actually...
• Commented on Back again
  Yup, Octavia Diesel estates appear to be essentially unkillable. Ours is 10 years old & shows no sign of stopping. The only downside I can think of is that the road noise at motorway speeds isn't up to (say) Lexus...
• Commented on Back again
  Video & mp3 of Charlie's USENIX keynote are here....
• Commented on Traveling to Japan
  The book by Alex Kerr on "Lost Japan" is indeed fascinating. Be warned that the text absolutely drips with unexamined privilege; at certain points I was tempted to throw it against the nearest wall as some kind of pointless protest....
• Commented on Utopia
  Isn't the problem with larger groups ultimately down to the fact that intra-group communication doesn't scale? For a group to remain cohesive & resistant to "default" (in the game theoretic sense) they need to all roughly agree on what they're...
• Commented on Books I will not write #6: Halting State Variations
  I once discovered one of those tongue eating parasites in the mouth of a red snapper I was preparing for dinner. Lets just say I had a somewhat...atavistic reaction to it. After I'd peeled myself off the ceiling (note to...