Punk promoter Esther Wong dies at 88

Wong auditioned performers by listening to their tapes, often while driving in her car, until she said her habit of flinging bad music out the window nearly got her in trouble. "One day I almost hit the highway patrol car that was right next to me," she told the Times in 1980.

Some cheap-ish restaurants

I will try and test some of these.

Useful article on how to prepare for disasters

Links to essays in Best Software Writing I

For those who are too mean to buy the book.

Hybrids do not imply fuel efficiency

Everyone thinks hybrods are necessarily fuel efficient. But now car makers are using hybrid technology to make cars with better performance.

How to experiment on yourself

It began when Roberts was a graduate student. First he had the clever idea of turning his personal problems into research subjects. Then he decided that he would use his own body as a laboratory. Thus did Roberts embark on one of the longest bouts of scientific self-experimentation known to man - not only poking, prodding and measuring himself more than might be wise but also rigorously recording every data point along the way.

Cute ad for Harrods plays on the British urge to aologize

London Underground Ad for Harrods Truly British campaign Originally uploaded by Annie Mole.

The most sensible reaction to Katrina

We are getting very little benefit from all our security spending

Outsourcing tutoring

Outsourcing is only just beginning

Immigration in the UK

Wonderful set of maps and statistics at the BBC website

A Series About Wacky Terrorists

A TV show about a terrorist cell will probably never be made.

Ahmed, whose cover is a job as a bike messenger, falls in love with a neighborhood florist - who turns out to be Jewish - but can't get up the nerve to ask her out. "You're bright, you're funny, you're talented," Musab says, urging his comrade on. "Who made the best nail bomb in training camp? You did!"