Fiction

Incompatible

An archaeologist makes a discovery which may hold the secret to the first non-human civilisation ever discovered. Can she excavate its secrets in time? Read Incompatible on Scribd.

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Fiction

The Message

A sergeant of Her Majesty’s Metropolitan Police investigates a unique case. Who – or what – killed Professor Burke’s assistant, Wells, in such a manner as to etch a look of horror into the dead man’s face? Read The Message on Scribd.

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Fiction

Citizen Representative

Paul is a loyal servant of the state, and of his fellow citizens. But when his government job suddenly entails greater responsibilities, can he summon the courage to carry out his orders? Or will he land in even greater hot water? Read Citizen Representative on Scribd.

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the Web

Google Play: Yet Another Ecosystem

So, Google introduce Play. I first came across this when the Android Store updated itself out of existence, to be replaced with the nonsensically-titled ‘Play’, which wanted me to agree to it, and its Terms of Use. Eventually it turned out that this was Google’s own version of the full iTunes experience: books, movies and […]

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the Web

Widening your influences

One thing the Internet is great for is helping you find stuff that you’ll like. You can get recommendations from the likes of Amazon based on what else you’ve bought, and there are countless tools out there for curating your own little drip-feed of information from the Web. Unfortunately, this reduces the likelihood of you […]

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the Web

How to Judge the Price of an eBook

The Problem Digital works, completely divorced from a physical medium and transferable between devices, now lack one of the key ways we’ve given value to these cultural products in the past: their physical size. Another problem: in a hypothetical future where all music and books are available solely as digital downloads (and I hope that […]

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Linux/FOSS

How Linux will benefit from the death of the PC

The death of the desktop PC, and soon the laptop, has been widely reported in the media recently. Tablets, phones and a myriad of other embedded devices will make the power of fixed computers unnecessary for all except the video editors and 3D renderers amongst us. Alongside this, the phrase ‘Year of Linux on the […]

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Science

If WE’RE weird, how do we judge truth?

The most recent edition of Fortean Times (FT279) and an article on the Neuroanthropology Blog highlight a review from a mid 2010 issue of Brain and Behavioural Sciences. The review suggests that many psychological studies done over the past century are severely flawed, in that the test subjects were almost all Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich […]

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