Blog posts

Everything you’ve heard about New Zealand’s beauty is true. Driving between Auckland and Wellington over the past few days we’ve been constantly taken aback by the scenery and we’re told by reliable sources that the South Island (to which we’re headed on the ferry I’m now aboard) is even more dramatic. What they don’t have in such abundance is public wireless internet access. Most towns have a scattering of internet cafes or kiosks where you can use a public computer to get online, but scouting out a place to connect a laptop is considerably harder. Cafe Byzantium in Ponsonby had free wifi, our hosts in Cambridge had a network of their own, and we were able to pick up a for-fee network in from our hotel in Napier. But try as we might we could not find reasonably prices (less than NZ$10/hr) access in the capital city of Wellington. ...

Feature Presentation: Financial Page: The New Yorker Nice little piece from the New Yorker about how buyers want features but users want simplicity (tags: usability) www.myspace.com/stopmyspacing The best myspace page ever (and an amazing example of how well they can be customized) (tags: forblog myspace)

A Rat With a Whisk and a Dream - New York Times Very nice piece about the foodie details in Ratatouille. Makes me wish we’d been able to afford and get a reservation at French Laundry when in Yountville recently… (tags: food ratatouille) www.myspace.com/stopmyspacing The best myspace page ever (and an amazing example of how well they can be customized) (tags: fordevblog myspace) Exporting I.P.: Financial Page: The New Yorker Yet another article on how the US imposes different standards on developing countries than it experienced during a comparable stage of development, along with some good insights on the place of intellectual property in trade ...

Drupal 6 gets OpenID support! | drupal.org “OpenID 2.0 support is now in Drupal 6 core” – very good news (tags: drupal openid) Submit Multiple URLs to del.icio.us Bookmarks as a Batch at Digital Inspiration Technology Guide Probably going to be useful to me as I’m loading up dozens of tabs while travelling and then wanting to delicious quite a few of them. (tags: bookmark delicious)

Blogging while travelling isn’t proving nearly as frequent an event as I’d expected. Too much to see and do, and too few hotels/hostels with good internet access. For regular updates it’s probably better to keep an eye on my flickr stream than this blog, but I’ll try to keep this place up to date. We’re currently in New Zealand, staying with the wonderful Riddells in Cambridge, a couple of hours south of Auckland. I’ll write more on New Zealand when we’ve been here longer, but first step back to California with a couple of highlights. ...

Imagine if our leaders were chosen on World Bank lines | Guardian daily comment A good overview of the lunacy that is the governance of the World Bank (tags: corruption governance worldbank) BBC NEWS | Middle East | IAEA chief in Iran attack warning Statements like “the US favours a diplomatic track” seem sadly naive (tags: iaea iran usa)

Iran and the Taliban–Less Than Meets the Eye? A very sensible appraisal of the curious reports that Iran is supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan (tags: afghanistan harpers iran taliban) cityofsound: Postopolis!: Robert Neuwirth Yet another fascinating-sounding Postopolis talk. This one on slum cities and their potential. Useful comments from Dan Hill too. (tags: cities postopolis slums urbanity)

As of 1pm Eastern time yesterday, we’re homeless. Having agreed the sale of our house in March and completed the process three weeks ago, yesterday we packed up, cleaned up, and drove away in a bright yellow van (not the one pictured). This is of course a chosen homelessness, and we have plenty of places to stay and support structures to rest on. This weekend we’re in Chicago with Kari’s family. Tomorrow we fly to California, and from there to New Zealand, Australia, and on into Asia. ...

The movers are downstairs, gradually emptying our house, and we can finally begin to emerge from the task-oriented tunnel vision that has been a necessary part of the past fortnight. As more and more people asked me whether I was excited about the trip that will fill our next two months, I’ve generally had to answer that I was trying not to think about it other than logistically. There was too much to do to allow such distractions. ...

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | US rejects German G8 climate goal “A top US climate official said the G8 should not dictate members’ policies, but President Bush said he still had a “strong desire” for a post-Kyoto plan.” – the double-speak is remarkable. The G8 is not an entity that can dictate to (tags: climatechange g8summit globalwarming kyoto)