Links for Monday October 27th 2014

  • The Open-Office Trap – The New Yorker
    I absolutely loathe open plan offices. I have never been more productive than in the brief, halcyon period early my career where I had my own office. Or, I guess, when I work from home. Both of these things enable me to manage the terms on which I engage with colleague's requests for help. (Which isn't to suggest I don't wish to enage, merely that I want to do it in a planned and productive manner, not to be forced into it by someone saying my name…)
  • TOMW8S – ‘Donkey Kong Variations’ | Buddy Peace
    8-bit remix of Tom Waits classic Mule Variations. Really interesting to hear Waits stuff done like this.

Links for Wednesday October 15th 2014

  • Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project | Reuters
    I… don't know what to make of this. If it's true, this is *huge* news. Just enormous, on a sort of I-can't-quite-believe-this scale. But this isn't "mad scientist with basement lab makes mad claims" like we've seen with fusion before, this is a major military industrial player that is apparently seeking partners to actually *build* the thing! I really hope this is true. Wow.

Links for Monday September 29th 2014

  • Yahoo Directory to close down
    I am internet-old enough to remember when the Yahoo directory was the best way to find websites on the internet. A hand-categorised-by-actual-humans list of the most useful websites on many topics was superior (for a while, anyway) to what was produced by the early-stage search engines. I used it pretty much daily. A significant chunk of my first ever internet job was devoted to making sure that our client's sites actually got listed in the Yahoo directory. I am, therefore, wiping away a little nostalgic tear.

Links for Friday September 26th 2014

  • ntlk’s blog: Why can’t you track periods in Apple’s Health app?
    As this article makes clear: there probably isn't a good reason why not, and there are loads of reasons why it would be useful. I would home this is an oversight that will be rapidly corrected.
  • 15 Lessons from 15 Years of Blogging – Anil Dash
    I sort of wish I had kept up the habit of writing "proper" posts on this site, or any other. I'm not even honestly sure that I can point to when I stopped. Honestly, I'm not sure I ever really started – I've never had a topic to explore, never tried to set my blog up as about anything – it's just, y'know, an agglomeration of stuff. Which explains why it has a double digit audience on a good day. But then, it's really not for the audience, so that's fine – it's an aide memoire for me. Anyway – some solid advice here.

Links for Wednesday September 24th 2014