Archive for the ‘Science & technology’ Category
The race to the moon
January 3rd, 2008 by Roger Darlington
During this Christmas/New year break, I’m been reading a book on the space race which engulfed the United States and the then Soviet Union in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.You can read my review here. I was a young man at the time and found the whole enterprise incredibly exciting. It seemed as […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (2)
Dump the detox
December 31st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Two of my interests are regulation (I’m a member of the Ofcom Consumer Panel) and blogging (I run two blogs – this one and a professional blog). But regulators and blogs are two words that rarely go together, since regulators are so incredibly cautious about how they communicate with consumers. An exception is the Food […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Keeping in the picture
December 8th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
This week, our dear friends Hua and Zhihao bought us an exceptionally early and incredibly generous Christmas present in the form of a Hitachi 32″ LCD television and this weekend our IT guru Eric came over to fit it all up for us. The picture quality is excellent and it is a whole new viewing […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Have we proved the parallel universe theory?
December 1st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The idea that there might be parallel universes out there as an explanation of the peculiarities of quantum mechanics is topical as we await the opening in a few days of the first film in Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” inventive trilogy [my review of the books start here] which has the notion as central […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Is One Laptop per Child stalling?
November 27th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
A month or so ago, I blogged about the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project pioneered by Nicholas Negroponte. I pointed that, following support at a critical time from the then President of the Nigeria, Negroponte decided that the laptop would bear that country’s national colours of green and white. But that was then and […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
What I love about my iPhone
November 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
It’s a week now since I bought my new iPhone. I still have a lot to learn about it, but already it is a sheer joy to own for the following reasons: It is a wonderfully elegant design and very small and light considering what it does. It powers up much quicker than my previous […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (6)
“24” in 1994
November 14th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The ring tone on my mobile is the same as that used by the phones in CTU in the television series “24”. Of course, the series is noted for its use of advanced IT – but
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (1)
I couldn’t wait …
November 13th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
The iPhone was launched in Britain at 6.02pm on Friday. I’ve been saying to myself for months that I’d buy one as a Christmas present to myself. But I just couldn’t wait. I bought one this afternoon. Now I have to activate the thing and learn how to use it. I wish that I had […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (1)
The Joint Strike Fighter programme
November 4th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Recently I found myself at London’s Heathrow airport having a light lunch before boarding an aircraft for Inverness. In a busy cafe, I sat at a table where someone was already eating and got talking to him. Martin Parson turned out to be a freelance aeronautical engineer working in Preston on something called the Joint […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
One laptop per child
October 20th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
It’s not often in life that one meets someone who is truly charismatic and inspirational, but this week I was fortunate to hear Nicholas Negroponte speak at an event in Westminster entitled “Parliament & The Internet ” and he totally capivated his audience with his enthusiasm and sincerity. He flew over that morning from the […]
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (3)