Matthew Henry John Bartlett

Eye of the Fish reports on the Housing Policy Forum
The demise of newspapers and democracy [via /.]
AK47 infomercial [yt vid, via Rob]
Fat and politics
NRT on the kingmaker debate

Recent interview with Mike Davis of Planet of Slums fame
A really good speech from Barack Obama [yt vid]

My picks from Webstock [MP3s]: Sam Morgan interview, Simon Willison on OpenID, Chris DiBona’s history of open source, Kathy Sienna on reverse engineering passion

Sci-fi and politics
Russell Brown’s take on the China/Tibet business

“The Land Ethic”, by Aldo Leopold (1949)
An abortion debate
Good questions from the Greens about the NZ–China PTA
and a speech from Keith Locke in Parliament on the same topic [vid]

RIP Arthur C Clarke

Translation of the title page of The Starry Messenger that appears in Edward Tufte’s (best) book (of all time), Envisioning Information:

Unfolding great and surpassingly wondrous sights, and offering everyone, but especially philosophers and astronomers, the phenomena observed by Galileo Galilei, a Gentleman of Florence, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Padua, with the aid of a telescope, lately invented by him, on the surface of the moon, an innumerable number of fixed stars, the Milky Way, and Nebulous Stars, and above all in four planets swiftly revolving around the planet Jupiter and at different distances and periods, and known to no one before this day, the author recently discovered them and decided to call them The Medicean Stars. Venice. Published by Thomas Baglionus. 1610. With permission and approval of superiors.

NRT says MAF censored the state of the environment report
short summary of George Monbiot’s talk at the Embassy Theatre yesterday

NRT on fertiliser vs. cars in New Zealand
Dutch road toll is half ours

I recommend Sigur Rós’ movie Heima.

Who needs a movie? [via KEB]

home-made island [via Webstruxure]
President Bush says yes to torture
environmentalism upgraded
teh cute cat theory of digital activism

My old flatmate Bryan is playing at Bar Bodega this coming Saturday with his band Nullity, supporting Chris Matthews of Headless Chickens fame.

Letter from Sweden

3d modelling in Excel [geekery]
Vatican to house Galileo statue
Hauerwas lecture about America, on Italian TV
Marshall McLuhan vs. Norman Mailer, 1968

The Netflix recommendations contest and the psychologist
Viridian design principles

Biofuel from plantation trees

Russell Norman checks out polluted streams on Wairarapa farms [vid]