Links for Saturday July 28th 2012

  • BBC News – Arrests in Critical Mass bike ride near Olympic Park
    Last night, while it seems like my entire twitter feed was watching the Olympic opening ceremony, a group of cyclists were kettled and arrested. This is a group of cyclists who meet and perform this particular bike ride regularly, and with no problems. It is of course possible that some of them decided to so something stupid and/or illegal this time, but I can't imagine why they would, when they never have before, In other words: this looks an awful lot like the police deciding that an act that is usually legal and problem-free is suddenly illegal just because the Olympics is on, presumably because they believe they'll be able to get away with it because everyone is so dazzled by the opening ceremony. Please, spread this link around, because this would seem to be to high a price to pay for a bit of pageantry.

Links for Friday July 13th 2012

  • London 2012 Olympics fails at Internet | THE FREE SPEECH BLOG
    It turns out that a certain organisation of dogshit peddlers disguised as sporting event is trying to tell people under what circumstances they may links to said organisation's website. I would put a link to their site calling them a bunch of cunts, in direct violation of those policies, but it turns out I've already done that, years ago, when they first announced the logo, and before they had the ludicrous policy of attempting to tell people what they could do with their own, totally unaffiliated websites.

    God, I really do hate the Olympics. I sort of hope everyone who is in any way involved with it gets ebola and dies. Except Doug.

    Excuse me, I have to go take a few deep breaths now.

  • New Statesman – Lansley opens the door to full-scale NHS privatisation
    Oh look: the NHS is now over. And yet for some reason no-one is hounding Andrew Lansley through the streets with whips made from scorpions. Why are we not doing this? I mean, it can't be a crime, can it? To hound scumbags and monsters with whips made from scorpions?

Social Network MVP

So, as we all know, there’s no money in running a social networking site, unless you act like a dick about it.

And at the back of my brain, there’s a little itch, that says that there has to be money in it, provided you don’t treat it as way to get hugely wealthy. Provided your concept of what it means to run a social networking site is simple to make a living, without acting like a dick.

So: straightforward questions:

What features would a social networking site have to have, in order to entice people to make it their primary social network?

Status updates, photo uploads/galleries, and events/invitations are basically my list. Have I missed anything?

The follow up, then becomes: how do we make that self sustaining?

Obvious: ad-supported through google ads, with an option to pay a (sub-10 dollar, ideally sub-5 dollar) yearly fee to remove ads.

Idle thought: would “free, and ad free in year 1, then ad supported or low yearly fee” work?

Obviously, the actual MVP component of a social site is people. So what is it that would get enough people to be using it to turn it into a (stable) revenue generating proposition?

Links for Tuesday July 10th 2012

  • STORNÄS Buffet – antique stain, 163×90 cm – IKEA
    Yes, I really did just spend a portion of my lunchbreak browsing the ikea website for new furniture, and yes, I am bookmarking this one so I don't forget. What of it?
  • The sinking of the USS Indianapolis | MetaFilter
    This account of the various means of launching nuclear weapons that would result in death for the lunching crews is creepy enough, but the really chilling bit is here: "two Soviet nuclear torpedoes were loaded into their tubes to fire against American forces at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Had one of them been launched, it would have inevitably caused a nuclear war. According to one account (and we don't know if it's true), the decision to launch the nuclear torpedo on the submarine B-59 came down to a sort of vote between the three senior officers on board. All three had to agree to launch the torp. Two voted yes, one voted no." Like he says, it may well not be true. But it is absurd to me that we live in a world where there is even the chance that it is true.
  • Is R v John Terry value for money? « forthedefence
    This is a really good food-for-thought post. On the one hand: it is absolutely not acceptable that John Terry use racist language. On the other: because of his media stature, a trial that cannot possibly result in anything more than a fine – if I've understood the matter right, a fine of not more that £2,500 – that, for another defendant would be a half-a-day in court job, is going to be a five day multi-media three-ring circus, with police presence and the whole works. Is this really worth the cost to the taxpayer. (FWIW, I think it just about is, but I am forced to admit that there's a strong "don't bother" argument.)

Links for Monday July 2nd 2012

  • Parliamentary train – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    I'd never heard of these before today. Noted and filed, to be used later.
  • Unusual Words Rendered in Bold Graphics | Brain Pickings
    I have learned words, and seen pretty pictures.
  • PHP solves problems. Oh, and you can program with it too!
    I am a PHP coder. It is, in truth, the only programming language I'm any good at. Well, OK, maybe javascript, too. I got into it because I wanted to get things done, and PHP maybe it very, very easy for me to do that. I'm not the sort of person who learns new languages for fun, so PHP is where I've stayed. But the reason I've stayed is because I've never found anything I wanted to get done that I couldn't do in PHP. Which suggests to me that the hate it gets from "proper" programmers is basically, so much bullshit. So I liked this article.
  • "Obamacare" explained very well. via reddit.com
    Just in case anyone reading this is confused about what the healthcare reforms in the US mean. Basically, if you read this, and are still opposed to them, then I can only assume that you are someone who would like more people to die. In which case, perhaps you could help the rest of us out by setting an example.

Links for Saturday June 30th 2012

  • The Strongest Woman In America Lives In Poverty
    This is really saddening. While I don't this sporting prowess should automatically equally riches, the simply fact is that this is an inequality – other olympians can and do get plenty of sponsorship. Her achievement is no less remarkable, and yet it's pretty clear that the reason she doesn't get sponsorship is because her sport means she doesn't conform to a beauty standard. (Bet male weightlifters don't have the same problem.)

Links for Friday June 29th 2012