Blog
ebook data?
Ebooks are doing rather well, with Amazon announcing them outselling their print counterparts in bestsellers lists. I've enjoyed using the Kindle app for various reasons including: Instant purchase/download (even Amazon Prime can take too long!) One device, not many...
Nodalities and Facebook’s David Recordon
This is a podcast I recorded for Talis' Nodalities series of talks. Because Facebook has recently made announcements about moving in a Semantic Web direction, I spoke with their Senior Open Programs Manager, David Recordon, about Facebook's perspectives on many of the...
A Few Desert Images
Here are a few shots taken from around the place I grew up in Colorado. It's been a long time since I lived here, but I have never forgotten just how arid and stark it can be. There is a beauty here, but it's a harsh, unrelenting beauty. The plants are tortured and...
FryPaper: an interview with the man behind Stephen Fry’s iPad app
Following my post about using the iPad recently, I’ve spent some time using more content-focused apps. As I mentioned before, the iPad has turned out to be a great device for consuming, reading, and just experiencing media. This has obvious benefits for video, and...
iPad-so far
Two weeks ago, I counted myself one among the hoards of silly sods who queued early in the morning for the chance to see, touch and indeed buy the much-hyped iPad. My justification for this lameness is that the next day, I was scheduled to fly out for a week-long...
Extending the Semantic Web (from Crete, with love)
Originally appeared on Nodalities Blog: http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities This is my first year attending the ESWC (formerly "European Semantic Web Conference" now the "Extended Semantic Web Conference," cleverly, the acronym still works) near Heraklion on Crete. It's...
Shropshire Photos
For the past few months, I've been a member of the Shropshire Community flickr group, where a bunch of friendly photo-folk share pics and tips via the excellent networking features on flickr. Saturday, I was privileged to join them for the first time in person as...
What is your view on psychics who claim to be able to relay messages from dead relatives?
I don’t believe in it. I don’t know what I think about the afterlife entirely—it’s not something I feel I can know; but everything I have experienced, read and encountered leads me to believe that it’s the end of (at least) communication.
I don’t believe mediums can communicate with the dead, nor that they can receive information from those who have died. I tend to think of them as either showpeople or charlatans, and feel something beyond skepticism. I think it can be dangerous to make such claims, because it plays on the vulnerable and particularly on vulnerable topics. The loss of someone we know is one of our life-story’s saddest parts, and grief often overwhelms judgement: leaving us open to suggestion and trickery.
I think the claim is either nonsensical or despicable, and the people who make it are either vulnerable themselves or preying upon the credulous for control or money.
what is the point of decaff?
Clearly, the point, is for people who are negatively affected by caffeine to be able to enjoy the taste of coffee or tea.
Decaffeination leaches much of the flavour from tea or coffee, though, leaving it tasting washed out and watery. Decaff tea, to me, tastes papery and flat. Decaff coffee loses many of the higher and lower notes to the flavour, and ends up tasting somewhat bandwidth-limited. (That is, acids and sugars which, to me, taste high and low are reduced, leaving some general “coffee” flavours, but without much in the way of nuance.)
The temptation, with decaff coffee, is to brew it longer or with more grounds. This might help with the feeling of weakness or watery characteristics, but it also gives it an overextracted flavour, leaving it bitter and harsh.
To me, there is not much point. I don’t want to drink overextracted, watery coffee or papery tea, so if I don’t want caffeine, I tend not to drink either.