Ironic that with the Great British Beer Festival on this week the news that Cains Beer Company PLC – in administration. Looks like they had bad luck with the smoking ban, plus ran up a large tab with HMRC.

Apple chaos theory by ZDNet's Dennis Howlett -- I got a fairly lukewarm response to my excitement over Oracle putting applications on the iPhone. That should be no surprise to readers of Fortune which also poured cold water on the idea that iPhone’s are going to be the next big thing in corporate gadgets: Companies in highly visual industries like insurance and media might [...]

 Not to mention (thanks @guykawasaki) Watching Apple ad: What exactly is 3G? "The Internet Twice as Fast" How about 1/2 the battery life and dropped calls?

How Do You Use Twitter? from biz stone on Vimeo.

The Fundamental Law of Administrative Workings (F.L.A.W.): Things are what they are reported to be. The real world is what it is reported to be. (That is, the system takes as given that things are as reported, regardless of the true state of affairs.)..   more »

Which one do you like best? The new cuil search engine, or this yuil (yahoo-based cuil look alike?)

This from Techcrunch:

"YAY! The long awaited, much promised, never delivered Delicious 2.0 will launch in the next few minutes, just like they promised again last week.

"The new Delicious is just like the old Delicious, except for the way it looks. They’re also promising that it will be “faster, easier to learn,” and “hopefully more desirable.”

Must say that it looks miles better to me, especially like the tags layout, helps me look professional with limited time. Nice. Good job.

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2008

After years of proposing, theorizing and deducing that there is water on Mars -- at least in the form of ice -- NASA scientists said yesterday they have finally confirmed it, after the Phoenix lander detected traces of water vapor wafting off a scoop of Martian dirt, researchers said yesterday.

"It's something we've been waiting quite a while for," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, describing how an tiny "oven" on the lander heated the dirt until ice mixed with it evaporated. "We've now finally touched it and tasted it."

See they've been searching for water for a while now, starting with the Moon.

PS: It's a solar eclipse today 1 August, which thanks to NASA you could watch online from the UK. But if you missed it here's my animoto version.

"BigWhiteWall is just three months old and was started as a new kind of advice and support network for the web. Monitored by trained advisors who look after users 24/7, offering help but also encouraging healthy expression and discussion with other users.

"It is funded, so far, by selling a house and taking a mortgage on a marriage", say the founders, who run it with a staff of just 3.5. Last week a new section launched in partnership with MTV, offering advice to young people."

Congratulations to BigWhiteWall founder Jenny Hyatt and chief executive Charlotte Vere.  Next step '.gov.uk' for a partnership project, especially with the old Wired for Health websites series for young people no longer maintained?

 

 

Nice Kaka twitter:

grapefrugten: had a strange dream. I met Kaká, and obv. started crying. Then I woke up, and the first thing I saw was my wife. Better than nothing I guess.

Plus: nice report (pdf) from Demos btw on the Brazilian knowledge economy. A few trivial items which it inspired in my thoughts include the impression it made on the few grads by % who go into the private sector; that I'd liked to have known more on the medical sector, including med tourism; and the idea of a diaspora org for Brazilian professionals seemed like a great opportunity for a niche social networking site, with funding from br.gov?

And finally..a piece on Brazil in the Guardian from my ex-boss at Red Pepper mag Hilary Wainwright following Lula's election victory in 2006. You could say it was her interest in Brazil that originally sparked my own.

In his well-received talk at this year's Personal Democracy Forum (organized by Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry), "digital ethnologist" Mark Pesce makes the point that "we have a drive to connect and socialize: this drive has now been accelerated and amplified as comprehensively as the steam engine amplified human strength two hundred and fifty years ago. Just as the steam engine initiated the transformation of the natural landscape into man-made artifice, the 'hyperconnectivity' engendered by these new toys is transforming the human landscape of social relations.This time around, fifty thousand years of cultural development will collapse into about twenty..   more »