“Groovy Motherfucker”

‘“Basically, this is a brief soundbite,” the scientist will say, from a department and university that I will give brief credit to. “The existing science is a bit dodgy, whereas my conclusion seems bang on” she or he will continue.’

Sad. I have a lot of love for Dopplr, and still use it, but its growth never got past the digerati.

The longest match in Wimbledon history, liveblogged. Gets good starting around 4.05pm

“6pm: The score stands at 34-34. In order to stay upright and keep their strength, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut have now started eating members of the audience. They trudge back to the baseline, gnawing on thigh-bones and sucking intestines. They have decided that they will stay on Court 18 until every spectator is eaten. Only then, they say, will they consider ending their contest.”

Phil explains some of the design decisions behind his reader webapp.

Excellent remashing of the Grauniad’s online articles into something that feels like an edition of the newspaper. Particularly lovely: vim navigations keys to page through and between the articles.

Snippet from Richard Herring’s new book.

“My first theory of relativity states that time moves more slowly when you spend it with your relatives. No one can argue with that. But, more pertinently, my second theory of relativity states that time with your family and time in the real world move at different speeds. You could leave your family for decades, but when you finally come home again you find that even though you have aged, at home only a few seconds have elapsed. Nothing changes, the roles, the relationships. It’s not just me still seeing my parents as 40-year-olds; they still treat me as if I was 10.”

Jesse Armstrong is writing weekly election missives for The Guardian, “from” Malcolm Tucker.

“Dollop in your hot mushroom mixture and tuck your second steak over the top. At this stage I usually smear hot horseradish on the top steak and Dijon mustard on the inside of the lid before fitting it back on to the loaf.”

WANT!

A bunch of snippets of The Guardian’s fabulous TV reviewer, as she celebrates 40 years at the paper. Her description of the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest made me do two genuine LOLs.

Neals Yard, purveyors of finest homeopathic placebos and quackery, offer to take questions from the Grauniad blog readers. The Bad Science crowd descends, and 24 hours later, no answers are forthcoming.

“I’ve been soaking a £20 note in a bathfull of water for the last few days, is it ok to pay for an order using my new homeopathic money? I now seem to have rather a lot of it.”

Good riddance to President Gore! “Of course, the biggest disappointment was Gore’s failure to handle Hurricane Katrina properly. Not only did the massive evacuation of New Orleans prove a costly and time-consuming overreaction, since the levees - fortified in 2003 - held up fine.”

Some fascinating details on Rupert Murdoch swinging towards supporting Barack Obama. Murdoch has long been my favourite evil media tycoon — I may hate his right-wing propoganda arms, but I admire the smarts with which he’s conducted his businesses.

“The way things are going, I half-expect to hear a quiet electric “peep” noise each time I flush the toilet; another bowel movement logged by Bumland Security.”

Travelogue round Route 128, inspired by Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner”

A Modest Proposal supporting the music industry’s calls for ISPs to block filesharing.

Stephen Fry writes about the HTML5 ogg video debacle — he’s even more geeky that I’d previously imagined. What a hero!

Excellent article on homeopathy by Ben Goldacre — not too ranty in an “all homeopathy is evil” way, rather a “homeopathy should be part of a discussion, if only for the benefits on the placebo effect, but we can’t get the homeopaths to talk”. Hopefully a rational-enough read to convince “believers”.

Stephen Fry reviews the iPhone for The Grauniad. “In the end the iPhone is like some glorious early-60s sports car. Not as practical, reliable, economical, sensible or roomy as a family saloon but oh, the joy. The jouissance as Roland Barthes liked to say.”