My previous posting, ‘Is global warming really caused by human activity‘ caused some debate, notably on the Scran Scribble discussion forum. The television documentary that prompted my posting has also generated a lot of discussion, and the blog of the science journalist Ben Goldacre (who writes for the Guardian) contains a good sampling of the… Read more »
Posts By: Eddie
Amsterdam
I’ve just returned from a 4-day trip to Amsterdam with my girlfriend Lesley. It was the first time I’ve been there, and it definitely lives up to its reputation as a purveyor of all sorts of temptation, but Lesley and I were really there for the beer and food. We ate falafel and flemish-style chips… Read more »
Is global warming really caused by human activity?
Last night there was a documentary on Channel 4 (one of the main broadcasters on UK television), that essentially asked the question above. It was shocking and startling. There seems to be a very good chance that the answer to the question is no. Many atmospheric, oceanographic and biological scientists were interviewed, and they were… Read more »
The curse of metadata
For the last seven years of my professional life, one issue has dominated above all others, and that is metadata. Metadata is a simple notion really, that of describing things in a summarised fashion so that they can discovered by searching catalogues and then used in a practical way. A library book index is an… Read more »
What ‘mashups’ are exactly, and why I hate the term ‘web 2.0?
Following on from my post ‘Why I love Google Maps‘, the data from the Google Maps service is also very commonly used to create ‘mashups‘. This is becoming a fashionable term for commentators to bandy about when talking about interesting new websites, in much the same way as the label ‘web 2.0′. Unlike ‘web 2.0… Read more »
Cheltenham moon
Last weekend I spent a couple of days in Cheltenham visiting an old school friend, John. I had a great tour of most of the pubs and clubs and can confirm that yes, the place is small and peaceful, and just a bit upmarket (maybe too much for an unsophisticate like me), whilst at the… Read more »
Making websites accessible is very inaccessible
One of the issues a software engineer who develops HTTP interfaces (i.e. websites) as part of their code has to consider is ‘accessibility’. This catch-all term covers many things but essentially means that a website must be implemented in such a way that no-one is excluded from using it. It’s often thought of as purely… Read more »
My schizoid workplace
In the organisation where I am employed there is a dual, almost schizophrenic, nature to the work that I (and the other software engineers in my team) do there. Our funding comes from several sources, but a large portion comes from academic research councils. The nature of this funding is that it involves short-term projects… Read more »
Why I love Google Maps
I spend a lot of my time working with and developing Geographic Information software, especially graphical mapping applications. Recently I have been working a lot with the mapping data and JavaScript API provided by the Google Maps service, and I am very impressed with it. It’s very simple to use, and makes adding mapping capabilities… Read more »
My macabre interest
I go walking a lot in various parts of Scotland, especially the more mountainous and hilly bits, and I have a secret about this that that I don’t tell many people; I’m fascinated by aircraft crash wreckage that you find surprisingly often in these sorts of places. I’ve written in detail about this here.
I am a software engineer / database administrator / web developer living in Edinburgh, Scotland. In my spare time I like to travel and take photographs (especially of mountains). See my main website here: Eddie's Photo Archive