The truth is our world is awash with badly designed, badly crafted things. Apple is one of the few havens in a sea of people and organisations that don't give a fuck about the details. Attention to detail is why I use Apple products:

In July 2002, Apple filed a patent for a “Breathing Status LED Indicator” …They described it as a “blinking effect of the sleep-mode indicator in accordance with the present invention mimics the rhythm of breathing which is psychologically appealing.”

The other day, I noticed that my friend’s Dell laptop had a similar feature but with a shorter fade-in-fade-out period. Its rate was around 40 blinks per second, or the average respiratory rate for adults during strenuous exercise—not very indicative of something in sleep-mode.

It’s interesting how a lot of companies try to copy Apple but never seem to get it right. This is yet another example of Apple’s obsessive attention to detail.

David A. Moss, an economic and policy historian at the Harvard Business School, has spent years studying income inequality. While he has long believed that the growing disparity between the rich and poor was harmful to the people on the bottom, he says he hadn’t seen the risks to the world of finance, where many of the richest earn their great fortunes. Now, as he studies the financial crisis of 2008, Mr. Moss says that even Wall Street may have something serious to fear from inequality — namely, another crisis.

Höffner contends … that the near absence of copyright law in eighteenth and nineteenth century Germany laid the groundwork for the "Gründerzeit"—the enormous wave of economic growth that Deutschland experienced in the middle and later nineteenth century.

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: "My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside."

I felt very alone in the army. I couldn't talk about the things I felt were misplaced … I didn't have strong views but I felt uncomfortable about the talk, about soldiers hitting Arabs and laughing. I thought everyone else was normal and I was the one who wasn't. I felt an outsider to the group experience.

British taxpayers are paying a secretive lobbying firm $10,000 (£6,354) a month to push American politicians to award contracts to British defence companies.

Something radically new is in the air: new ways of understanding physical systems, new ways of thinking about thinking that call into question many of our basic assumptions. A realistic biology of the mind, advances in evolutionary biology, physics, information technology, genetics, neurobiology, psychology, engineering, the chemistry of materials: all are questions of critical importance with respect to what it means to be human. For the first time, we have the tools and the will to undertake the scientific study of human nature.

The idea is that you shoot, edit and upload your photos entirely with the iPhone.

With this version they've introduced a weekly meal planner and the ability to easily share recipes (subscribe to my favourite recipes).

They say they have an iPad and iPhone version in the works too.

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind.

The flotilla was carrying humanitarian aid, medical supplies, and construction materials, intent on breaking the Gaza Strip blockade being perpetrated by the apartheid state of Israel against the people of Palestine.

In the middle of the night on 30 May, while in international waters, they were forcibly boarded by armed Israeli commandos. The passengers defended their ship against the invaders and nine of them were murdered, most shot at close range in the back of the head.

Ken helped overpower two commandos and managed to disarm one of his pistol and empty it's ammunition. The commandos eventually overpowered the flotilla, then promptly kidnapped everyone, towing the ships to a detention camp. After stealing everyone's possessions and generally treating them like dogs the kidnappers relented to international pressure, releasing and deporting most of those they had kidnapped. Ken wanted to appeal his deportation to Ireland and instead go to Gaza, but, having already been seriously beaten twice by Israeli soldiers while captive, his solicitor advised him that for his own safety he should leave Israel.

For his troubles Ken was laughably listed on the IDF's official propaganda weblog—IDF Spokesperson—as "known to be involved in terrorist activity," and continuing with:

Ken O’Keefe (Born 1969), an American and British citizen, is a radical anti-Israel activist and operative of the Hamas Terror organization. He attempted to enter the Gaza Strip in order to form and train a commando unit for the Palestinian terror organization.

To form and train a commando unit? I've had some heated arguments with Ken over the years but 'terrorist commando'? Someone in the IDF propaganda unit's been telling porkies. (Note to IDF: when you're falsely accusing someone of being a terrorist try not to get their nationality wrong. Kind of makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.)

So let's get this straight. They kidnap Ken (whose life story happens to be an open book). Then they deport him. And then they tell us he's a known terrorist? Wouldn't it perhaps be a little more prudent to hold onto a terrorist?

Someone in the IDF propaganda unit doesn't know how to tell porkies.

External links

• Ken's statement on the Israeli attack
• BBC HARDtalk interview with Ken, 28 June 2010

Time to look for a new web host in Iceland.

Apparently this isn't an indictment of the private sector but of the public sector. Go figure.

When I managed to get over the shock of that exchange, it struck me that the invocation of the Hitler era was actually a frighteningly apt and searing analogy, although not the one my friend intended. A million and a half civilians have been forced to live in an open-air prison in inhuman conditions for over three years now, but unlike the Hitler years, they are not Jews but Palestinians. Their jailers, incredibly, are survivors of the Holocaust, or their descendants. Of course, the inmates of Gaza are not destined for gas chambers, as the Jews were, but they have been reduced to a debased and hopeless existence. Fully 80% of Gaza’s population lives on the edge of malnutrition, depending on international charities for their daily nourishment. According to the UN and World Health authorities, Gaza’s children suffer from dramatically increased morbidity that will affect and shorten the lives of many of them. This obscenity is a consequence of a deliberate and carefully calculated Israeli policy aimed at de-developing Gaza by destroying not only its economy but its physical and social infrastructure while sealing it hermitically from the outside world. Particularly appalling is that this policy has been the source of amusement for some Israeli leaders, who according to Israeli press reports have jokingly described it as “putting Palestinians on a diet.” That, too, is reminiscent of the Hitler years, when Jewish suffering amused the Nazis.

Both the Conservatives and Labour have ensured the UK won't get a referendum on whether people want proportional representation or not. The Liberal Democrats didn't have the numbers. There will be a referendum on the Alternative Vote system but, while an improvement, it is not proportional representation.

Labour is now lying to their supporters that they didn't have the numbers for a coalition. In fact they did, the smaller parties were offering their support to an alliance. Labour supporters who are gutted that the Conservatives are now in power should realise that it is entirely Labour's fault that they are:

A [LibDem] spokesman said key members of the Labour team "gave every impression of wanting the process to fail" and the party had made "no attempt at all" to agree a common approach on issues like schools funding and tax reform.

"Certain key Labour cabinet ministers were determined to undermine any agreement by holding out on policy issues and suggesting that Labour would not deliver on proportional representation and might not marshal the votes to secure even the most modest form of electoral reform," he said.

This isn't a party interested in policy. They're interested in unbridled power. Instead of compromising a little on policy with the Liberal Democrats they'd rather compromise completely and have a Conservative government.

The biggest barrier to a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is the Conservatives' refusal to support a referendum on electoral reform, offering instead a toothless "all party committee of inquiry on political and electoral reform"; the Conservatives would rather retain an unfair voting system which disenfranchises not just a third of voters (about 10 million people) but also 16 million or so eligible voters who didn't vote, most of whom probably don't see the point in voting in a representative system that clearly isn't even representative.

Meanwhile Labour is dashing its own chances of forming a coalition, which, along with the Liberal Democrats, would require the support of other smaller parties too. Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party offered that support yesterday. Labour's apparent response? Unbelievably to refuse it:

BBC News:

Scotland's First Minister, SNP leader Alex Salmond, called on the Lib Dems to join a "progressive alliance" involving Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. However a Labour source dismissed that as "a desperate attempt by Alex Salmond to make himself look relevant after a terrible general election result".

Tax every single share of stock that is bought and sold 25 cents per transaction … If you are a true investor. Someone who wants to own a share of stock in a company you believe in, then its an amount that is not going to impact your investment decision making process … If you are a day trader, you are going to have to be right more often or actually hold on to stocks for a longer period of time. That’s ok. I know it will be rough on some of you that make a living this way. But in reality, you don’t add anything to the markets.

Update: The Guardian has a map with a breakdown of all the problems that occurred around the country on polling day.