This article is very pessimistic about the games, but lots of interesting data points. I had no idea so much military would be involved in protecting The Olympics.

During the Games an aircraft carrier will dock on the Thames. Surface-to-air missile systems will scan the skies. Unmanned drones, thankfully without lethal missiles, will loiter above the gleaming stadiums and opening and closing ceremonies. RAF Typhoon Eurofighters will fly from RAF Northolt. A thousand armed US diplomatic and FBI agents and 55 dog teams will patrol an Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, £80m, 5,000-volt electric fence.

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This article gives a pretty good run-down of where our wonkey calendar comes from. And also how leap-years resulted in the loss of 10 days, which I’ve separately heard caused ‘revolutions’ (or at least wide-spread grumbling) by the populace for their days stolen from them.

It’s bizarre to me that the whole world seems to use the gregorian calendar and 24-hour day, but we can’t agree on daylight savings time, or other measurement units.

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A more reasonable take on the issues outlined in the oatmeal comic, that recently caused a stir, than Andy Ihnatko’s response.

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Cute

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The government body issuing warnings for (accusations of) copyright infringements, for France’s three-strikes law, has been caught infringing copyright twice. If they get caught again, will they remove themselves from the Internet?

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Daft Punk. ‘Game Boy’ed

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This is an awesome idea for more direct democracy.

You can delegate your vote to someone who will represent you, but you can withdraw your vote from that person at any time without waiting for new elections.

I’ve often thought that technology will allow us all to vote on all issues (as we see fit), but this would be great – to freely nominate a representative, so you don’t then have to keep up with all the details of all important decisions. You can withdraw your vote from your representative at any time, and represent yourself, or choose another.

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