You are not, in fact, a robot

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Jonathan Kahn of seminal web design advice column AListApart points out that, for all that managers may wish otherwise, You Are Not A Robot. The importance in reference to the web design profession is, according to Kahn, that “machines can’t generalize”. For all that bosses or clients may often wish designers would never use judgment at all and execute orders in a precise and mechanical fashion, it’s precisely the impossibility of this dream and unbearability of this sorrow that will keep this job in human hands for the foreseeable future (and then make this article seem as quaint as the idea that there’s only a market for 5 computers worldwide). [GT]

Jonathan Kahn: You Are Not A Robot

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Electrosensitivity to electromagnetic radiation?

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The Guardian’s ‘Bad Science’ column looking sceptically at electrosensitivity has pulled an unusually high and polarized amount of comment: those who say electrosensitivity consistently manifests in the afflicted in a form like “mild radiation poisoning” related to immersion in Wi-Fi networks, mobile phone broadcast areas, unshielded microwaves, and other broadcast fields; and those who say that while electrosensitivity symptoms may or may not exist (Goldacre says they definitely do), the cause has not been appropriately/scientifically tied to high tech devices or fields. Whatever the origin of the symptoms turns out to be, Goldacre does expose some bad gadgets designed to exploit the ill. His medical opinion: don’t buy crap. [GT]

Watch out for that blob of radiation!

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Allergy free Ford Mondeo

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Certified by the German TÜV Rhineland group, the “allergy-free” Ford Mondeo uses no chrome or nickel, is constructed with zero VOC adhesives and textiles that don’t harbour allergens, and has a high-tech air filter to ensure dust and pollen never get a foothold inside. The Focus, Ka, S-MAX and Galaxy are the only TÜV certified “allergy-free” vehicles on Earth (outside of Area 51). [GT]

Ford Mondeo (via Newlaunches)

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Watchgate: what happened to President Bush's watch?

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The White House says President Bush simply dropped his watch during a scrum of adoration from wildly affectionate Albanians. “The president put it in his pocket and it returned safely home,” said spokesman Tony Snow. An Albanian bodyguard alleges someone picked it up and returned it, but in the video after the jump, it sure looks like you can see somebody lifting it. Tech continues to fluster the spin doctors, ho ho ho. [GT]

Where’s the president’s watch?

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Aoyama wool suit is as comfortable as a t-shirt

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Japanese clothier Aoyama, the Japan Wool Textile Co., and two other companies have created a high-tech weave for a new kind of wool suit that breathes like a t-shirt. How did they manage that? The new process involves enlarging the spaces between the weave which allows six times as much air to pass through, as if through a conventional dress shirt. This should make the suit warm and cool at the same time. Advertisement, which involves flying jackets and a woman toting a thermometer, after the jump. [GT]

Aoyama breathable suit (Source in Japanese: Nikkei)

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Swedes invent "talking paper"

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Using pressure-sensitive ink and printed speakers, new “talking paper” is essentially an interactive billboard. “When you approach the billboard and put your hand on a postcard that shows a picture of a beach, you can hear a very brief description of that beach,” suggests project lead Mikael Gulliksson. The electronics are sandwiched between a heavy-duty cardboard backing and the decorative front layer, so it’s not precisely the flimsy thin stuff we think of as paper, but we could soon see pop star posters which whisper sweet nothings to us in our sleep. [GT]

Talking paper made by scientists (via Engadget)

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