On the one hand: I'm sorry that the fundraising hasn't been as as successful as they hoped, because it is a good cause, on the other, surely a child of six might have thought that while people *like* having celebrity drivel as part of their Twitter/Farcebook experience, it's not something people would actively *miss* if it went away – whichever marketroid through the campaign up is clearly not very good at their job, especially as the campaign ensures it's own silence – they can't remind people that they're not there in order to drive donations without violating their pledge. (No, I'm not donating via said campaign. Show me a cause where I can get celebrities to stop Twittering/Facebooking for good by pledging, and I'll get the chequebook out.)

More grist to my mill in re: getting rid of books as physical objects: cheap POD books, which is where we're heading for book-as-physical-object (unless you want current bestsellers, which I almost never do) tend to be shoddier things. A good POD book is just as good as a regular book, but I've seen some very shoddy examples in the past, where I would definitely rather have had the ebook.

This is a really really good personal summary of an obsessive book collector's relationship with his new e-readers. If you're a bibliophile who is wondering if there's a place for e-readers in your life, I suggest you read this.

This is idiotic rubbish on the part of Lieberman, and worse, Amazon. It isn't at all clear that Wikileaks has done anything illegal, and presuming they have just because powerful people don't like it is exactly the wrong response, and sends all sorts of hideous messages about society.

And of course, as this makes clear, Lieberman and Amazon are very much missing the point. This is not a problem that can be fixed by attacking Wikileaks, or any similar service.

The stories of early space exploration from the original NASA transcripts. Now open to the public in a searchable, linkable format. Well, this will eat chunks of my time…

There's a short film competition happening here. Prize is a grand, and, well, it's a bit thin on the ground for entries. I'm just sayin' that if anyone fancied making a short film, they'd stand a decent chance of winning cash.

Web API for extracting clutter from web pages and just returning the content. Nice!

Americans! Have you ever wondered why everyone hates you? It's because you elect people like this, and then apparently give them a chance of being in hugely influential of policy areas where they can fuck up the planet for people who didn't get a say in electing them, on the basis of some bullshit religious beliefs, that, in a civilised country, would disqualify them as a candidate for dog catcher. Seriously, America, please get on with reforming your political system and society to get rid of people like this. By force, if necessary.

I have elderly family who have to wear bags exactly like this. The thought that anyone could consider it acceptable to humiliate someone in a manner like this makes me furious – I just keep imagining what it would feel like if it happened to my family. I reckon I would expect them to have legal recourse, and the assurance that someone had lost their job over this, because I don't care about security half so much as I care about basic human dignity and respect.

Stop what you are doing, and go and look at this link. I promise you: it will make your day 100% better. This is amazing and wonderful stuff.

I'm reminded of reading someone's new definition of cool "If I'm hanging out with you, I never see your mobile phone". I know I'm, ah, less than faultless with this, but then, I've never claimed to be coo (althought I've tried to do better since reading that particular article). Still, getting one of these might be a good start. Although, reflecting on it a bit, there's a fine line between signalling to someone that they're important to you, and acting like you want brownie points for simple politeness…

No idea what I'll use this stuff for, mind. But I bet I will at some point.

I imagine that I'll find a use for this information at some point.

Good, harsh, honest, smart. Worth reading.

The BBC are squaring up to fight ISPs who indulge in traffic shaping/two-tier internet type behaviour that affects them, by making it clear when ISPs do so, and refusing to pay for faster deliverry. Which is good news, I guess. Here's hoping other big internet firms do the same.

I'm getting kind of tired to linking to idiocy perpetrated by our governement. I can only assume that Ed Vaizey is either evil or a moron, because it is simple not reasonable that I should pay my ISP for a service, and them for them to tell me that I cannot have the level of service I want because *a third party* has not also paid them. *I* am paying for the fucking service. And while I appreciate that the counter argument is "well, then go elsewhere for your service", but what happens if there *is* no elsewhere to go, or when I'm locked in by a fixed term contract, the terms of which my ISP can vary, but I can't. Argle argle rant!

This is bound to be extremely useful.

The waggle-dance that bees use to communicate appears to be a function of 6 dimensional topography. Further, it may also imply that they can in some fashion sense quantum particles in a manner that violates some of the common held ideas about quantum physics. I for one welcome out new apian overlords.

Horrifyingly, I may have a use for this. I don't want to complete with the record, and I won't died of misery of if I fail to get the lot, but it, er, may come in handy as a chart of a way to get a job done a lot quicker than I might otherwise have thought.

Lots of things to think re: the future of literary publishing here.

Joel Johnson treats people who write the comments on gizmodo like they deserve to be treated.

Between this, and the whole "the universe is actually only two dimensional" thing from a few weeks back, I'm becoming concerned about the informational underpinnings of reality. Of course, it's statistically more likely that we're all participants in some vast simulated reality than it is that we're actually really here, so y'know, whatever. I'd just like it if we were in a high resolution universe without the memory leaks.

Amusing conceit, slightly flawed movie. Has anyone written the Facebook equivalent of an epistolary novel yet, I wonder?

The London bloggers directory updates. Nice! I've just been through most of the Tooting Broadway ones, though, and most of them are dead or no longer updated, and I can spot a couple of people in there who I know don't live in Tooting any more. It's just me left hanging around, making the place look untidy…