- A List Apart: Articles: A Simpler Page
Discussion of laying out text for ipads (or similar) on the web, and a library to to the rendering. Particularly like the three modes – bed, knee and breakfast pretty neatly describe all the ways I use my device. - Come out of your comfort zone, disability living allowance cuts are relevant to all | Society | guardian.co.uk
An excellent article on the cuts to DLA. Cannot quite believe that even this government of utter shits would essentially say "one in five people who have previously been assessed as needing help now won't get it". And yet they are. There's no suggestion that the previous tests were flawed. There's no (credible) suggestion that fully one in five of disabled people are OK, really, and just scrounging. They're hiding behind "we can't afford it". Which makes my blood boil. Surely, even in a time of national austerity, the one thing we should bend over backwards to afford, the one thing we should scrap all manner of other things to pay for, is caring for the most vulnerable members of our society.
Author: Alasdair
Links for Monday January 10th 2011
- The Best Cover Songs of 2010: #50-41 » Cover Me
I've been meaning to get round to checking these out, but I don't suspect I'll get there any time soon, so I'm just noting this so I can come back to it later.
Links for Friday January 7th 2011
- IndieGames.com – The Weblog – The Best Of 2010: Top 10 Indie Games
A ten second play of their game of the year has me wanting to go back for more. One to check out when I'm not at work. - russell davies: Ted Hughes on thinking
Ted Hughes was a man who knew about thinking. And dead pigs. Well worth a listen. Russell's observation re: YouTube is also trenchant and a pleasing thing to think about. - How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed — Deer 342 — bmj.com
This needs to do the rounds in a very big way. You know all those vaccine scares that are picked up by the easily swayed, and used as an excuse to endanger the rest of us through lack of vaccination? Well, it's not just the case that (single) study they're based on is a bit fringe – it's an outright, deliberate falsehood perpetrated by a man with malicious intent and a profit motive. If you know *anyone* who has a small child and is contemplating not vaccinating it, you need to make sure they see this. - 2010 Year Lists – Fimoculous.com
Haven't had time to go through this yet, but want to get around to it. - Michael Caine’s impersonation of Michael Caine
Absolutely superb.
Links for Wednesday January 5th 2011 through Thursday January 6th 2011
- The Tearoom of Despair: Last night The Invisibles saved my life (24-month countdown remix)
If you have not read the Invisibles then you should have. If you have read the Invisibles then you may enjoy this reminiscence of the experience of reading it for the first time. - Ninth Art: for the discerning reader
Minor pleasure of the day: getting 9A back on one of it's original two domains. If the person who jumped on ninthart.com the instant that ISP incompetence cause it to lapse is reading this: please can we have it back? There's still hundreds of links pointing to your site that are dead. I will buy you the domain of your choice in exchange? - Android Isn’t About Building a Mobile Platform | TightWind
Solid analysis of Google's behaviour and strategy in respect of Android and the bigger picture. It's why I tend to call bullshit on their mantra a bit re: their evilness, because I would prefer to be the customer, not the product sold. I will admit that for a company set on selling me as a product, they provide a much better service than most in exchange, but even that's not all good, as it means they tend to blow away paid-for competition that does stuff (or might do stuff) better than they do.
Links for Wednesday January 5th 2011
- What the Goldman Sachs Facebook investment really means
Yes. This. I do not believe that "ad supported" will keep Facebook running forever, or even much past the end of this year. The user engagement metrics just don't support it. They need some actual revenue streams, and that's where the wheels are going to come off their wagon, I suspect.
Links for Tuesday January 4th 2011
- Kieron Gillen’s Workblog » Tracks of The Year 2010
Mr Gillen's tracks of the year are always worth a listen. Well, some of them are, but you have to listen to them all to find out which. But more importantly, the list is a fun read.
Onwards!
I feel bad saying this, because I know a lot of my friends have had a bad year, and can’t wait for 2010 to be over, but in all honesty, I’ve had a great year. Absolutely superb.
So, rather than look back and look smug, I shall do what I prefer to do at this time of year, and look forward (and smug).
So, coming up in 2011:
Creative projects a-go-go. Really want to get back on the writing horse this year. Have plan. Plan will go off the rails within a week, but the plan includes this eventuality. Also need to bring 365Bullets to a (semi-)successful conclusion, and probably invent a new photo project.
Health and fitness extravaganza. Back to gym, specific plan in hand. Yes, yes, we all make the resolution. I kinda need to keep it this year. I did very badly at it in 2010, and if I don’t pull my finger out, I’ll never be ready in time for the Olympics.
What?
Social-Life-a-palooza. Erm. I am aware that I have seen much less of a number of very dear friends in 2010 than I did in previous years. I wish to do something about this. Exactly what, I am unsure, especially given that the top two items there are going to eat spare time at a rate, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.
So, thank you and farewell to 2010, and here’s hoping we all have an awesome 2011.
Links for Wednesday December 29th 2010
- The Blast Shack
Catching up on some of links I turned up over the break. This one pre-dates it by a few days, but I only had the time to read it once work stopped, so here it is – Bruce Sterling on Assange and wikileaks. Absolutely required reading on the subject. - Hacker Culture: A Response to Bruce Sterling on WikiLeaks | Atlantic Mobile
And here's the best of the responses I've seen to Sterling. Contains talk of the forthcoming OpenLeaks projects, which I strongly encourage you to learn more about, as I think it points to where the movement toward a more transparent society might usefully go (there are links withing this article, if you are interested). - Facebook vs Twitter: By The Numbers [Infographic]
Interesting breakdown of some numbers around the two. Facebook is more popular, and more frequebtky used, but Twitter's users are more engaged with the entities they follow. Which is about where my intuition was, but it's nice to see numbers. - Royal Pingdom » The most reliable (and unreliable) blogging services on the Web
Another one with no big surprises, but nice to see numbers. Tumblr's very clearly in the midst of it's difficult second album, but I still reckon it's currently the best blogging service on the market, and once the growing pains are over, I look forward to seeing where it goes. - The Perfect Vodka Martini
I'm not sure the gents at Dukes (my favourite place for Martinis) would agree with everything here, but this is a man who’s clearly put time and effort into producing his version of perfection, and I can respect that. Will have to give his recipe a try myself.
Links for Thursday December 23rd 2010
- When’s the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?
Some useful numbers on blog posting for optimum circulation. Short version: publish in the morning to get the regular readership, and tweet notifications in the late afternoon for maximum activity boost/retweet value. Publish a minimum of one post per day, ideally more, in order to build an audience. - Comic Sans Criminal – There’s help available for people like you!
I am going to send this to anyone I catch using Comic Sans inappropriately. Anyone continuing to misuse that sodding font after reading this is actively evil, and should probably be removed from the human race for the good of all.
Links for Monday December 20th 2010
- A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist – Speakeasy – WSJ
Yes, it's a rehash of the same old pro-atheism arguments we've all heard time and time again. But it's eloquent, witty, and surprisingly warm and kind, and I liked it. - notes on "how to clone delicious in 48 hours"
This made me laugh with recognition. After all, delicious doesn't go anything complex, does it? It's got all of three different blobs of data – users, who have links, which have tags. (And some optional text, but that's trivial). How had can that be to throw together? And one one level, that's true. I could roll my own personal delicious in a weekend. But I couldn't make it available to anyone else without months of work.