Nothing you won't already have heard if you've read Halting State, but some interesting observations, anyway.

It's money where your mouth is time, children. Dreamwidth aside: if you don't like what LJ is doing, take your friends, and a copy of BuddyPress, buy yourselves some server space, install this, and fuck off away from LJ.

Lawrenece Lessig is required reading, and this one's free. Get to it.

Swine flu amino acids sequenced and turned into ambient music. It's not going to storm the pop charts any time soon, but it's not awful-sounding either.

I keep linking to on-line acquaintance Jamais Cascio's stuff because he's bloody good. I'm really quite sorry that I'm going to miss out on a chance for a pint with him next week because I'll be in Toronto when he's in London. This one is particularly worth reading if all you can see ahead of us is the global failure of the human species. It probably won't cheer you up terribly much, but well, he makes a particularly good point in a particularly good way.

A commercial scale ransomware/fundraising site that'll work for any creative endeavour. Now to think of something people will want to give me money for…

Hadn't seen this before, and I can see approaches in this that clearly got recycled into Promethea, and Tom Strong and the other ABC stuff, which makes it all rather more interesting than just a document about an old Supreme character.

God, I hate it when I discover that Margaret Thatcher said something I agree with.

Never mind "Graphic Design Student" – 7 ways to be a thinking human being. If you're not using a decent number of these services, well, OK, it hardly makes you a bad person, but still: most of these are basic tools for information management and digital note taking, and if you like to think of yourself as engaged with the world, and aren't using them, then you're probably doing something wrong. (Saying that: I keep trying to get some cognitive traction with tumblr, and have never really managed it. Might take another go soon. And it did take me rather longer than many of my friends to get twitter.)

An archive and commentary on some very very striking SF cover design. Well worth a look.

My goodness, do you think I might be very, very angry about this? Why yes, I am. Someone please find me someone to vote for at the next election who actually possesses a principle or two.

Some of these are very lovely.

This is brilliant, and I live near it, and that makes me happy. I shall have to go and find an excuse to purchase something from it.

Might look at hiring this place at some point – it's not ultra-pricey, and if the cost is split between a group, it could make for a fun day out.

Obviously, I will have to order some of these at the first available opportunity. And then people will be able to contact me. Contact me with meat! And lasers!

Font nerds ahoy – there are some total gems in here, and all are at least worth a look.

To be honest, I'm only surprised it's taken this long. Sure, they were very important in 1999/2000, and yes, it's a slice of internet history vanishing here, but I really don't recall the last time I looked at a geocities site, or met anyone who had one.

Sign up now for your chance stand around on a plinth in Trafalgar Square for an hour at some point over the summer. I have. Fingers crossed…

Well, *duh*.

Jason Kottke's round up of well, exactly what is says – media packing redone in various distinctive styles that are more usually associated with some other form of media. Some gems in here.

Proposal for an open, distributed set of protocols to run a (better) version of Twitter, and a compelling argument for why they should be adopted.

Some thoughts on the energy economics of postbiological humanity.

If you operate a website, even just a personal blog (and I know you all do – even if it's just a blogspot.com blog, or a livejournal, or a flickr account) I strongly suggest that you read this link, and email the suggested address. Phorm is a gross invasion of our privacy, but it won't work if thousands and thousands of sites opt out if it. So opt out. All of you.

I say again: shut up about your jetpack and read this.