That Bloke In The Big Smoke

I've just upgraded to BT's Infinity high-speed Internet service. Download speeds have jumped from 7 Mbps to 37 Mbps while upload speeds have gone from 0.3 Mbps to 8 Mbps. There doesn't seem to be a noticeable difference in browsing speeds but needless to say, I'll be putting the download and upload speeds to the test later today. Yay, this is exciting! I love being at the forefront* of available technologies...

(* Though truth be told, I have already spent a year living with these speeds during my first year at uni eight years ago)

I can't believe I only discovered iPhone apps for this a few days ago. I've seen the future. It's augmented reality. You read it here first.

It's my fave non-video app and the one I waste most of my time on. It's really worth it. Thought I'd share some interesting articles:

The Library of Congress, the world's largest library based in Washington DC, has announced that it will store every single tweet posted on Twitter, going back to March 2006, for posterity. Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets a day, the total numbering in the billions!

Staying with America, it's come to light that George Washington, the country's first President, never returned two books he borrowed from the New York Society Library in 1789, resulting in a fine which in today's prices (when adjusted for inflation) would total $300,000. One was an essay on international affairs called Law of Nations and the other, the 12th volume of a 14-volume collection of debates from the English House of Commons. When the librarians checked their collections, they found only thirteen volumes out of the fourteen! Other prominent borrowers such as Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr didn't seem to have the same problem returning their books, but the current head librarian has kindly offered to waive the fine on Washington's descendants if at least the books are returned.

Meanwhile Down Under, Penguin Australia has ordered the destruction of 7,000 copies of The Pasta Bible held in its warehouses. A recipe for tagliatelle with sardines & prosciutto contains the misprinted suggestion that the dish required "salt and freshly ground black people"!

Closer to home, Geoffrey Alderman, professor of politics and contemporary history at Buckingham (Britain's only private university!), explains the Jewish vote really does count. Not in terms of the big picture, as British Jews only make up 0.5% of the population, but because they are heavily concentrated in London and Manchester. He says there are 7 seats with Jewish populations of at least 10% and all are held by Labour. But some of them are key marginal battlegrounds, for example Finchley & Golders Green, Hendon and Bury South.

Speaking of battles, IT geeks will be closely following the interesting tussle taking place between Apple and Adobe. Apple's iDevices are not Flash compatible (unless they are jailbroken). Flash, developed by Adobe, is the multimedia platform that has become the de facto industry standard to add animation and interactivity to web content. But Apple doesn't want to become dependent on a competitor's product, so they've made a key change to their 21,000-word 'agreement' that you have to sign if you want to develop applications for Apple's iDevices. Section 3.3.1 of the document contains a provision that prohibits the use of "an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool" to develop applications for iDevices. Why? Because four days earlier, Adobe launched the latest version of their Creative Suite software which tucked within it, is a new tool that converts Flash applications into something that'll run on the iPhone. Coincidence?

And finally a bit of sport. "Is the rise of the super-athlete ruining sport? From Usain Bolt to Rafa Nadal, top sports stars are fitter, faster and stronger than ever. But how long will it be before the pursuit of perfection takes all the drama out of sport?" Read David Runciman's rant.