• Why Norwegian is the easiest language for English speakers to learn – I would have loved to have learned more of the language when I was there. The natives fluency in English really didn’t help!
• Did we say you can read that? – “What the Police appear to be saying is that you can be given the all-clear as a bona fide researcher of terror material in the morning – then re-arrested the same evening for the same offence.” And not only that, but you need to prove your own innocence. This is wrong on so many levels.
• Eight ways the iMac changed computing – I never owned one of the original iMacs (indeed, before OS X I was never likely to buy a Mac) but this was the beginning of the new Apple, one that resulted in me buying three Macs and various other Apple products. My bank account would probably have been more healthy without it!

• Georgia, 1999 – When I went to Georgia in late 1999, we had to change the itinerary because the Russians had “accidentally” fired mortars somewhere near where we were supposed to be walking. Some things never change. It’s a shame because it’s a really beautiful country.
• Facebook Claims Right to Create Derivative Works from Members’ Photos – This is exactly why I don’t post my pictures on Flickr and am not a member of Facebook.
• Atheist Finds Nothing in His Toast – Grin.

I’ve not done much programming in the last few years. When I first started working my job was mainly to “cut code” but I’ve done less and less as time has gone by. I now tend to concentrate on high level modelling and writing small utility scripts. I have not been doing much at home either, just minor tweaks to pre-existing software to “scratch an itch” or programs to automate tedious tasks.

• ‘Fakeproof’ e-passport is cloned in minutes – “In the tests, a computer researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and implanted digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. The altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports.” I feel safer already.
• Science is like a good friend: sometimes it tells you things you don’t want to hear – Many people find bald, unvarnished truths so disturbing, they prefer to ram their heads in the sand and start dreaming at the first sign of scientific reality. The more contrary evidence mounts up, the harder they’ll ignore it.
• Over-driven: why our cars guzzle gas, what to do about it – Interesting article explaining why American cars use so much petrol (gas) and their plans to reach an average of 35mpg by 2030. In the UK average fuel consumption was 38mpg a couple of years ago…

• Polly Toynbee and David Walker: an extract from their new book on the widening gap between rich and poor | Money | The Guardian – “Most dismaying was their lack of empathy and their unwillingness to contemplate other, less luxurious lives. They could not see that the pleasure they derived from possessions, prospects and doing well by their children is universal and that others deserve a share of that, too.”
• Hands on: Delicious 2 cleans up social bookmarking – In case you were wondering why a lot of my old posts suddenly reappeared in the RSS feed… First impression: looks nice.
• Objectified: A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit – New film from the people that brought you the documentary “Helvetica.” Looks intriguing.

We climbed Mount Sinai at night, our torches illuminating just a few metres around us and the vastness of the surrounding landscape shrouded in darkness. Just after six in the morning the sun started to rise allowing us to see the Beauty of the area. “Beauty,” of course, is this weeks PhotoFriday theme.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Awful!” I’m entry number 91.

On our recent trip to Tuscany, B bought a cheap local bottle of wine not because of the wine itself — we’ve not dared taste it yet — but because the bottle was pretty. It’s been sat on the dining room table since then, gathering dust.

Last weekend I decided to take a few pictures of it. It’s not my normal kind of photography but the results were fairly respectable I think.

• NASA: 50 Years of Towering Achievement – The title pretty much says it all.
• The Process – What if a large corporation tried to design a simple Stop sign? (via kottke.org)
• July 24, 1911: Hiram Bingham ‘Discovers’ Machu Picchu – On my list of places to visit. I read that, despite the influx of tourists, that it’s still an amazing site.

• WordPress for iPhone – It turns out that my recent review of WordPress for iPhone was the four-hundredth post on ZX81.org.uk. Time for a small celebration!
• Font Conference – Typeface adventures…
• Simon Pegg’s Geek Roots Show in Spaced – I’m no longer a twenty-something, but I still love Spaced. Now available in the US.

When they first announced the App Store and the iPhone SDK I thought that a blogging tool might be something worth downloading. On the first day TypePad had their application but we had to wait until this week for the WordPress equivalent. On the plus side, WordPress for iPhone is both free and Open Source.

First impressions: it’s nice. Setting up a new blog is simple. Writing a new post is straightforward too, just press the “new” button, fill in the fields much as you would in the web interface and get typing. You can also add photos — either directly from the camera or from your photo library — but only to the end of your post.