Science discussion I am impressed by this site- a discussion of kebab vans explaining the Yule-Simpson effect- suddenly I have clarity and the desire for a kebab. The YS-effect (or Simpson’s paradox) is one of those counter-intuitive statistical phenomena that make you realise that you’re thinking the wrong way about things. Anyway – Nerd Alert [...]

So wordpress installs everywhere have been under pretty heavy attack, and the attack seems to be evolving – they’re reading the same pages we are to remove the hacked code. I found a good way to check if you’re hacked is to install noscript (http://noscript.net/) firefox extension. Then navigate to your “Users” page in wp-admin [...]

The BBC has finally made a version of their iPlayer that works on the mac… it works well and puts the Mac licence-fee payers on the same level as Windows users. The release is a bit haphazard- i found it almost impossible to find out where to download the program from and you need the [...]

Remote control systems that can distinguish stray light sources Further support for the contention that Apple is building a Wii-like controller is found in the USPTO patent applications. Apple has applied for a patent for a refinement of a Wii-like controller which uses a number of means to stop interference with the system by reflection, [...]

An interesting patent application from Apple is for a method of informing a user that their phone/device may lose signal before it happens (i.e. if you’re driving along a road it will say “you will lose signal in 15 seconds, allowing youthe driver to pull off the road so you can finish your conversation or [...]