The George Lite Zone

I fondly remember reading such Clarke classics as “A Fall of Moondust“, “Rendezvous With Rama” and “Childhoods End“, in the 70’s so it was with great sadness that I learned of his death from Heart failure aged 90.

Author of over 100 books, Clarke was a visionary, in the 40’s he predicted the communications satellite and mobile phone. In 1965 he wrote 2001 a Space Odyssey, based on his short story “The Sentinel” and was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of the film in 1968 with Stanley Kubrick with whom he co-wrote the screenplay.

On his 90th birthday Arthur listed three wishes for the world: -

• To embrace cleaner energy resources
• For a lasting peace in his homeland of Sri Lanka
• For evidence of extraterrestrial beings.

Rest in peace Arthur, child of the stars.

When I was over in Hyderabad last year. I was disappointed with the quality of the much touted Biryanis, which, being a specialty of the region I had high expectations for. My faith in the humble Biryani was restored last night however by a carryout from the newly opened Kushi’s in Dunfermline, which was superb. The last time I had a Biryani this good was in the UK’s former number 1 Indian restaurant Quilon in London, where the cost was considerably more.

In fact everything about Kushi’s is superb from the food, the decor, the service to the rather cool name. I’d eaten in Kushi’s over the bridge in Edinburgh so was anticipating great things from their new sibling. Butter Chicken, Lamb Karahi, Chicken Tkka Masala and Chicken Jalfrezi are all cooked with style and aplomb and the deserts, including a most excellent Kulfi Faluda, all make a satisfying end to a great meal.

Bravo Kushi’s, Dunfermline’s new king of curries. Long live the king.

In Brussels, the Durum kebab sits atop the pantheon of the gods of fast food. A veritable leviathon of luscious lettuce, damned fine donner meat and chilli sauce, it certainly fills the gap.

Throw in some fresh chillis, Belgian fries and pili-pili chilli dip and it’s the food of the gods.

The public alpha version of Wikipedia’s search engine Wikia Search became available today. Following the same philosophy as wikipedia, this search engine is community-driven and open-source.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has stated that Wikia search will attempt to transform internet search bringing transparency and openness to search results. Currently internet search is dominated by a few large companies operating under a cloak of secrecy with virtually no accountability for how results are served up or pages are ranked.

Note that at the moment Wikia Search didn’t manage to find any references to any of my blogs (The George Lite Zone, Greasy Truckers Party Food, Coded Languages or Stroll On) when searched for. Obviously they must be veiled by the cloak of secrecy. Still, it is only the alpha version of the engine, so I’ll give it a chance for now.

To use this search engine the URL is http://alpha.search.wikia.com/. The main page for Wikia Search is http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia.

Tip: If you’re a Firefox user you can add Wikia Search to your list of search engines by going to the wikia main page then clicking on the dropdown list of search engines. You should then have an option to add wikia search to your list.