Author Archives: Niall Murphy

xkcd

In case you hadn’t noticed, Google upgraded and minimalised its already minimal homepage this week. And that’s not all.

Google+ is the company’s most ambitious effort yet to keep Web users and advertising dollars from straying to social networking sites.

The Internet search giant, whose goal is to organize information, will try to organize people with a social networking service designed to rival the growing influence of Facebook Inc. The project, which Google has been quietly working on for months, has been championed by Google co-founder Larry Page, who, even before taking over as chief executive in April, made social networking a priority.

Google Making Another Attempt At Social Networking (LA Times)

Shakespeare and a supposed marijuana reference in Sonnet 76

Evidence discovered in pipes unearthed at the Bard’s garden in 2001 suggests that William Shakespeare may have used cannabis and cocaine. In a bid to prove it, Francis Thackeray, an anthropologist and director of the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has made a formal request to the Church of England to exhume the playwright (if that’s really him down there.)

“There were very low concentrations of cannabis, but the signature was there,” according to Inspector Tommy van der Merwe, who tested the pipes at South Africa’s Forensic Science Laboratory. The evidence of cocaine was also very strong.

“The pipes we tested still had dirt in them which preserved the residues inside the stem and bowl,” Van der Merwe said. “The readings we got were the same as if it had tested a modern-day crack pipe.”

Camphor, myristic acid, and quinoline were among other substances detected in the pipes. “Myristic acid, which is found in nutmeg, has hallucinogenic properties, and camphor, perhaps, was used to hide the smell of tobacco or other substances,” Thackeray noted in 2001.

Scientists Want To Dig Up Shakespeare To find Out If He Smoked Weed. (Raw Story)

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A coffee cup tribute to the three most important keys on a PC. All nested on a circuit board printed drip tray. You’ll need that tray. You’ll be drinking out of a square cup with shaking hands.

Available for about $12 from ThinkGeek.

Monty Python haven’t made a film together since The Meaning of Life in 1983. This should make up for that:

Their next film, A Liar’s Autobiography, is an animated 3D movie based on the memoir of the late Python member, Graham Chapman, who died in 1989 at the age of 48.

The film will use Chapman’s own voice – from a reading of his autobiography shortly before he died of cancer – and entertainment channel EPIX announced today that the film will be released in spring 2012 in both 2D and 3D formats.

John Cleese, who met Chapman at Cambridge University, has recorded new dialogue which will be matched with Chapman’s voice, captured long ago and Michael Palin will voice Chapman’s mother and father.

Terry Gilliam plays various roles. Among the original Python group, only Eric Idle has not become involved, though Timlett said the filmmakers are “working on” him.

Monty Python back for 3D animated film (Telegraph)

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