I really must close some browser tabs…

I have two web browsers open (don’t ask…), about fifteen windows, and maybe a hundred tabs. This is ridiculous.

• More on the lonelygirl15 thing. Nothing really new, but an interesting summary. Virginia Heffernan at the New York Times seems to be posting about nothing else at the moment.
• That marble-rolling Japanese children’s TV show turns out to be called Pitagora Suiichi (Pythagoras Switch). there’s stuff on YouTube too.
• Rubbish photo of my chum James breaking the world record for the number of people standing inside a soap bubble, at the British Association meeting in Norwich last week – pending review by the Guinness people, of course.
• If, like me, you basically missed the news this week only to tune in to see a decidedly shaken-looking Blair confirm that yes, as we all knew all along, he’s going in the next year – the Guardian has a handy timeline of events. One thing bugs me: why are they ‘Brownites’ and not ‘Brownians’? We don’t talk about ‘Brownite Motion,’ so… anyway. Ahem.
• Vinay’s hexayurt project has been mentioned in the New York Times, and some of his stuff is up on YouTube. As he says: he briefed the Joint Chiefs the other week… and they’re still trying to deport him. Crazy but true.
• Interesting report via Foe Romeo on what people use different communication channels for.
• Unsleepable is the sort of reason I sort-of wish I was using WordPress for The Daily Grind. Hmm.
• I did get Vista pre-RC1 running, more-or-less, on the MacBook, but it doesn’t seem to believe that Intel’s video drivers actually work. So it won’t offer me Glass, and doesn’t seem to be doing any sensible video handling at all. Ugh. I’ve given up. These notes are useful, though.
• The Sopranos trailer on C4 just now played out with Tommy Guerrero as the backing track. I am so ahead of the curve when it comes to music. No, really.
• 1966 And All That. Genius. I’m snagging the audio as I type, thanks to Listen Again, Audio Hijack Pro, and… probably gaffer tape. Or something. “The BBC was discovered by John Yogie Bear and his assistant Booboo.”
• Stuff about Technorati that I should read, but will likely never get around to: 1, 2, 3.
• TechShop. Given that I lack a garage – or even a passable workbench – this is exactly the sort of thing I’d like. Unfortunately, it’s not in Glasgow. Drat.
• There’s a minor kerfuffle going on because the OU have just been granted £220,000 for ISOTOPE, which is (a.) a strained metaphorical project title acronym, or (b.) a new science communication initiative that, at first glance, overlaps rather with several existing initiatives (delete as applicable). It’s quite likely that they’re not doing anything that overlaps too much with, say, BIG, or PSCI-COM. Probably.
• Those crazy Russians have been watching too much anime again.
• Richard’s The Black Knight’s blog has a fetching new header graphic. Ah, the things one misses when using an RSS aggregator.
• I pretty much agree with this assessment of why YouTube is so popular, and the opportunity that presents broadcasters, only with one caveat: I think Flash video is really sucky and a quality stop-gap that’s ‘good enough’ only in the short/medium-term. But I can’t see a way out of the current mess unless Adobe and Apple ink a deal to incorporate QuickTime within Flash. Uh… wait a second. Did I just write what I think I wrote?
• Aaron Swartz contests Jimbo Wales’ claim that the bulk of Wikipedia is written by a relatively small number of contributors. Interesting, particularly in the light of new tools like MediaWiki fork Dekiwiki, with which I mean to play over the next few weeks.
• Fan homage to Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time? No kidding. Rock on.
• A list of “TV shows only available on the web.” Amazing that this sort of thing is even possible – it’s like 1994 all over again – but then, YouTube only really kicked off bigtime a year ago, I guess.