Making yesterday seem like tomorrow since 2001.

If you’re looking for the photos of the new baby, click this link (you will need a username and password – email me if you don’t know it).

I would very much like a job with this Latvian real estate company.

The BBC’s Paul Rubens takes a look at solid state memory in portable devices.

1 MP3 = 5MB

iPod = 5Gb (that’s about 5,000Mb or 1,200 songs or 100 albums).

New portable media devices = 40GB (or 50 movies compressed as DivX).

1 terabyte = roughly 1000GB (or 1,000 movies).

1 petabyte = roughly 1000 terabytes (or 1million movies).

How long before the exabyte, the zettabyte, the yottabyte or the brontobyte?

What’s a brontobyte?

A brontobyte is million million petabytes – enough space to store everything, ever set down in film, photograph, sound or paper – including all of human thought, probably.

Over at Boing Boing, Xeni has published her account of what it’s like to fly Zero G in a commercial flight.

It sounds absolutely incredible.

IGNORAD.

Back in 2002, Scott Shuger produced an article for Slate, criticising the military defence response mechanism on September 11, 2001.

It makes for harsh reading, but Shuger squarely points the finger of blame at the so-called ineptitude of the NORAD defence system, and the seemingly poor response times of the US Air Force in engaging the hijacked flights on 9/11.

Additionally, Shuger answers his critics, and can back up his sound reasoning with a five-year history in US Navy and service in the Intelligence Corps.

Also, if you’re interested in hearing some truly chilling audio, listen to Witness to Terror, the American Radioworks documentary into the 911 Commission report (found on AOV).

WikiQuote, a wiki devoted to quotations.

Homer Simpson’s quotes:

“I’m not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I’m going to Hell?“

Three years ago today, I was in London.

Recently, I was given a copy of David R. Griffin’s The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11.

Unlike most of the books which came before Griffin’s, this investigative report is not merely a bug-eyed paranoia-ridden collection of crazy conspiracy theories, nor does it attempt to provide definitive answers to the terrible tragedy of three years ago – it simply asks some pertinent questions, based solely on the available information.

For example:

- the jet airliners which crashed into the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday September 11, 2001 were fuelled by kerosine, a low-burn, high-smoke fuel incapable of burning at temperatures beyond 1200 degrees centigrade, so how did these kerosine fires (supplied with very little oxygen, and burning in an enclosed space) melt the concrete-enclosed steel structures of both buildings (which would require temperatures exceeding 2000 degrees centigrade) and cause them to collapse in barely 56 minutes?

- if the north tower of the WTC was struck at 08.46am and the south tower at 09.03am, why did the south tower collapse at 09.59am, but the north tower did not collapse until 10.28am, some 29 minutes later?

- why did the buildings collapse in freefall at an alarming rate, and not topple over?

- The Twin Towers of the WTC were designed to survive the impact of a Boeing 707, which, in weight, size and speed is similar to a Boeing 767, so why did both towers collapse?

- why did building Number 7 at World Trade Center NY, a 47-storey steel-structured building, collapse merely as the result of a fire?

- how could fire convert concrete into pulverised dust during the collapse of the WTC?

- why are the architectural plans of the World Trade Center not publicly available?

- why was a hijacked, domestic jet airliner allowed to smash unchallenged into The Pentagon – a building defended by multiple, automatic missile batteries – some 91 minutes after the north tower WTC attack?

- during the previous nine months, US Air force fighter jets were called out to some 70 suspected airline hijackings across the USA within five minutes of the alarm being raised, so why were no jets scrambled to engage any of the hijacked domestic flights on September 11 2001 until it was too late?

- Andrews Air Force Base, home to the 459th Aircraft Squadron, is 10 miles from Washington DC, just 13 miles from the Pentagon, so why were no fighter jets called out to defend Washington DC, whilst a hijacked jet was headed for the capital city of the USA?

- why did jet fighters of the 305th Air Wing, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey not intercept the hijacked plane which hit the south WTC tower, which would have been possible within seven minutes of the first crash?

- why did the Secret Service allow the President of the United States to continue with a public engagement at a school, in the full knowledge that two jet airliners were still unaccounted for over US airspace, making the President a potential target?

- why was the entire debris from American Airlines Flight 77 almost completely melted in the fire at the Pentagon, yet the bodies pulled from the wreckage were still identifiable?

- why was the official investigation into the events of September 11 2001 initially given a budget of just $3million dollars, yet the investigation into the Columbia Shuttle disaster was given $50million?

- on September 6th and 7th, 4744 put options (a ‘put’ is a speculation that a given stock will go down in value) were purchased on United Airlines, whilst only only 396 call options were purchased (a ‘call’ is a speculation that the stock will go up in value). Why was such a dramatic increase in the sales of put options on United Airlines never investigated post-September 11?

- why was the entire debris field of the World Trade Centre taken to an inspection site in New Jersey, then the steel melted down and immediately sold off as scrap to companies in China and India?

Most importantly:

- why is the U.S. mainstream media ignoring questions like these?

These questions, and more, can be found in Griffin’s book.

The Bourne Supremacy is a worthy sequel to 2002′s The Bourne Identity; stylish European locations, nippy action, imaginative plotting and a cracking car chase near the end.

However, based on the reviews of Robert Ludlum’s original novels, the final installment of the Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum, could prove to be the best of the trio.