Phlegmatic

Was the Tulip Bubble actually a bubble?

In the UK, the stereotypical Subaru driver is probably an ageing boy-racer with an anorak and posters of Colin McRae on his bedroom wall. That doesn't seem to be quite the stereotype in the US...

Now that Jose Mourinho has a new job, he'll need a new house. And apparently he's tempted by this one a few miles west of Wrexham.

"Apple stole my music."

How a Torpedoed Kickstarter Campaign Unintentionally Revealed an Unlikely Unit of Cyber-Terrorists. (A long, but scary article.)

How to argue with Trump supporters.

Peter Jackson even does scale dioramas better.

"Dr. Who and the Lords of Time" must be the oddest DVD available to buy from Amazon.

Journalists are twice as likely to be left-wing as right-wing.

Facebook routinely suppressed right-wing news stories from the 'trending' feed.

I suspect that this girl is going to find life insurance quite expensive...

It was also Mark Knopfler's first film soundtrack and this is the most famous piece of music from it. Still played whenever Newcastle United players come out at the start of each match.

And in this particular performance, you get a special bonus British rock guitar god. In fact, as well as Mr Knopfler, you get the original British rock guitar god:

Never swallow a porcupine whole.

And the lesson to be learned here is this: make a self-deprecating joke to a conference that could be misinterpreted as politically incorrect if removed from the context in which it was made, then it _will_ be removed from its context, selectively quoted and used by a social media mob to hound you out of your job, no matter how great your previous accomplishments. Richard Dawkins is angry about this, and really so should we all be. This is typical of the condemnatory articles that didn't think to check facts.

Doctor Who Online does look to be defrauding advertisers. They’ve tried this with The Shop on the Borderlands (we sell Doctor Who RPGs), but I was too sceptical. Combine a proprietary analytics system that massively overstates traffic with quite persistent selling, and yes, I think Mr Sandifer is on to something.

Half of households receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. (And that’s before you include the cost of state education, state healthcare, public sector salaries etc…)

Free market lessons from Scandinavia.

The man who invented trainspotting (sort of) has died.

Well Google, this is awkward...

Sir Nicholas Winton, the "British Schindler", has died aged 106.

Did Joss Whedon base Firefly on Traveller? This is a good examination of the evidence.

Holograms that you can touch (sort of). Next step, Holodecks!

This year's ENnie Awards (the RPG and miniatures industry awards)  nominees

So let me get this straight - Scottish votes for Scottish laws is right and proper; Welsh votes for Welsh laws is right and proper; Northern Irish votes for Northern Irish laws is right and proper but English votes for English laws is "racist".

Nice collection of photos of the British Grand Prix over the years.

I'm amazed that the Forth Bridge isn't already a World Heritage Site.

This is who we got to present the winner's trophy at this year's You're Hired! final. Seems a good chap.

This time it really is the end of the line for  the Avro Vulcan.

A version of The Hobbit for those who complain that the film trilogy is too long.

Streaming Doctor Who on a 31 year old TRS-80. From floppy disks.

There are now about 100,000 bushmen on Earth. For most of humanity's existence as a species, most humans were bushmen.

Comets did not bring water to Earth.

"How I defeated the Tolkien Estate"

One in seven people arrested in Britain last year was a foreigner.

I love this black velvet Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Am I the only one who thinks that all eight of these "amazing workplaces guaranteed to give you office envy" look like awful environments to work in?

Why Brazil changed the names of two characters in Star Wars Episode II.

Clever comparison chart for anyone looking to buy a new smartphone.

Europeans drawn from three ancient tribes.

How an independent Scotland could have been the richest nation on Earth. (Note that's "could", not "would".)

"...there is someone out there who thinks Doctor Who is fundamentally a show about two teachers hanging out in a junk yard, and that it all fell apart when they introduced that time travel guff."

Jens Voigt breaks the hour record.

Grammar NAZIs, grammar libertarians and grammar rapists.

"That Sinatra, he's met me, you know."

Some common sense feminism on the 'Are video games sexist?' question.

Who's buried in this tomb?

£8 minimum wage - good idea? What do you think?

This clever analysis of why the New Zealand Labour Party isn't as successful as it should be applies equally well to the British Labour Party.

Scottish role-playing games (sort of...)

"Spittle in the face of representative democracy" (Good line.)

Desert Bus: The Very Worst Video Game Ever Created

In (partial) praise of Paul Krugman

So you have an illustrated copy of 'The Silmarillion' do you? Proud of it? This is better.

Answering an unanswered AKICOLJ of my own: your guide to mechanical keyboards. (I went for Cherry Blues on my new work PC.)

"Why I'm hiring graduates with thirds this year"

The Downfall of Detroit

"Check Your Privilege 'obviously a colossal pile of twat'" (Yes, yes it is.)

"Apprentices told to stop acting like twats"

Riding the New Silk Road (really nice piece of web design)

Former Sunday Times editor Andrew Nei (patiently) explains difficult concepts like "interview" and "journalism" to the Guardian.

The most popular daily newspapers for members of the "hard left" Unite union? 1. Daily Mail 2. The Sun

British DNA

Explaining our future king's names (by parrotknight)

First planet discovered orbiting brown dwarf

The lactose tolerance mutation and the "dairy diaspora"

Baking a cake that looks like Jupiter (on the inside as well as the outside)

"I wish the daleks or someone would exterminate him" - what Sarah Newman, secretary to Doctor Who producer Barry Letts wrote about the 14 year old Peter Capaldi.

The dogs playing D&D poster

The NFL probably wants a team in London.

1st edition AD&D combat can be straightforward, with this handy eight page flowchart!

Correlating Doctor Who preferences with voting intentions. I love living in a country where someone thinks this is worth doing.

Some unfortunate publishing layouts.

Forget the console launches at E3; the PC is the top gaming platform for the next couple of years.

World's oldest human dies.

Here's the new holder of the title.

Javapocalypse. "It's a virus!"

Domino-toppling, but with books.

Pet Shop Boys less racist than Stephen Hawking.

The Spirit Level is bollocks. (But you knew that already.)

Schools probably aren't the right institutions to be giving careers advice. (Mine certainly wasn't.)

Siberian bear-hunting armour from the 1800s.

Did you know that you can see the food hygiene ratings of all UK restaurants online?

Does anyone else think that the "Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame" possibly isn't up to much if they've only just got around to adding J.R.R. Tolkien (in the same class as David Bowie!)?

Richard 'I am Legend' Matheson has died.

Mick Aston has died, but not before slagging off Time Team's producers.

Four changes to English so subtle we hardly notice they're happening.

My old school has gone downhill. Mind you, it was 1,600 pupils in five years when I was there; merging it with another school surely wasn't clever.

David A. Trampier - the forgotten AD&D artist.

Brazilian amateur football match: Referee sends player off. Player refuses to go. Player and referee fight. Referee pulls a knife. Referee stabs player. To death. Player's friends and relatives rush onto pitch. Player's friends and relatives stone referee. To death. Player's friends and relatives decapitate referee's corpse.

Before and After Photoshop celebrity portraits

The world's cutest frog.

Ricky Gervais's 'Derek' was brilliant (I agree) - moving, superbly acted (especially Kerry Godliman), but many people will hate it just because they don't like Ricky Gervais or because it deals with taboo subjects.

"Scarfolk is a town in North West England that did not progress beyond 1979." Great nostalgia.

Academic research shows that Twitter reaction to events does not always reflect the views of the wider population. (Geez, I could have thold them that...)

Using Google Maps to plot where Stalin's Moscow victims lived.

Was Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner a paedophile? (His biographer argues no, but it's on something of a technicality...) The review is worth reading just for the Biddy Baxter incident. Not that you should giggle at this sort of thing.

"We must preserve the Earth's dwindling resources for my five children."

If we used the SNP's argument that oil fields nearer to an independent Scotland rather than the remaining UK would become Scottish, then Shetland should totally declare independence from Edinburgh.

OK History Channel, whose bright idea was it to cast a Barack Obama lookalike as the Devil in your dramatisation of 'The Bible'? (And come to think of it, what the hell (pun intended) is the History Channel doing dramatising ‘The Bible’?)

How well do you know your fiscal facts?

Dying Total War fan's likeness put into Rome: Total War II. (When I die, ask Sports Interactive to put my name into Football Manager…)

Six growth-stimulating macro-economic policies that are more sensible than fuelling another property bubble (George...)

These are the mods you need to make Skyrim even more gorgeous. (I've tried them, they really do.)

The Inspector Gadget theme at one eighth speed. Sounds almost classical.

"Deck the Halls with Macro Follies" - "The greatest collection of economic holiday hits ever assembled!"

Client feedback to marketing agencies as posters. (Much better than it sounds.)

Sir Patrick Moore had some financial difficulties in the last few years of his life. So Brian May bought his house for him. (Please, please, please BBC, don’t give The Sky at Night to that wanker from Manchester with the bad dress sense and the creepy lips. Give it to Chris Lintott and Brian May. Queen, not D*Ream.)

Famous movie scenes in Lego. (I think The Godfather is the best.)

ESPN presenter argues that Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III isn't "really" black because he has a white fiancee and he's a Republican. (For this, he has been suspended for 30 days by ESPN. This is the same punishment they gave to a basketball commentator (whose wife is Asian-American) who asked “Is there a chink in his armour?” about a Chinese basketball player. The former behaviour seems much worse to me.)

Gerard Depardieu moves to Belgium and farts in the general direction of President Hollande.

Bradley Wiggins is, without doubt, the coolest man on the planet right now. And a random security guard might be second.

Football management - what they apparently _do_ teach you at Harvard Business School.

The Doha climate change talks failed. That doesn't matter since they would have had a trivial effect anyway. What matters far more is the Doha trade talks.

I wonder at what point the Labour Party website will remove this page...

Famous British eugenicists. (Including Marie Stopes, who disinherited her son for marrying a short-sighted woman.)

Strong contender for worst album cover of all time. On the other hand, it does feature a cat.

Spot the hidden Dalek!

If video games were realistic.