- Let Pandas Die out, Says Naturalist – ABC News
I have been saying this for years. They're bad tempered (even by the standards of bears), given any sort of choice, they will choose eat food that is nassively bad for them, and they don't like shagging. And while I know I fit two of those three criteria myself, the difference between me and them is that I'm not draining the resources of charities that could be better used for other, more useful species.
- russell davies: ruricomp
Some musing on the fate of those who may not get caught up in the u(r)bicomp culture shift of the coming decades.
- LRB · Roy Mayall: Diary
Fucked off by postal strikes? (I know I am – my twice-weekly delivery from Graze hasn't had any delicious fresh fruit in for weeks, and often turns up on completely the wrong day of late.) Go and read this, and learn a bit about what's actually going on with your post. Maybe you'll have a bit more sympathy for the poor bastards who have to deliver it. I know I do.
- Red Dust – a gallery on Flickr
Jesus cocking christ. A) I am glad I do not live anywhere near Sydney right now. B) These are some fucking stunning photos – it's like looking at life in some future martian city.
Tag: business
Bookmarks for September 21, 2009
- The 50 best foods in the world and where to eat them | Life and style | The Observer
Well, I've had one of them, and yes, it really is *that* good. So I probably ought to get on with a few of the others.
- The next generation bends over
This phenomenon can be observed in so many walks of life, and is most commonly known as "selling out", but I do find this specific case particularly interesting, largely for the reasons Jason lays out here.
Bookmarks for August 27, 2009
- Five Geek Social Fallacies
Let us play a fun game, in the name of encouraging clear thinking, and making us all better and more functional human beings. The above website is a list of five basic errors of thinking that geeks often make in regard of social situations. So: go, read, then cam back and tell me: which of these do *you* suffer from, and what can you do about it? I for example, suffer from a bit of #2, which tends to manifest itself as a bloody minded tendency to be a bit "this is who I am, and if you don't like me then kindly fuck off". And what I do about it is to periodically remind myself that I am not actually perfect, whatever I might think, and that it is possible to like flawed people.
- The secret names of London
Or something like that, anyway. I've probably linked this before, but I don't care, it's worth linking again, if only for the Lovecraftian horror of "Aleph and Tentacles".
- Why corporate IT should unchain our office computers.
I know I get more done if I am permitted to multi-task. Not all those tasks are work, but I do a lot of my best thinking as a background process. Plus it should be screamingly obvious that happier, more relaxed and most o fall better informed people are just plain more useful in a wider variety of contexts.
Bookmarks for August 13, 2009
- YouTube – The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D
This is where you live. Go and look.
- The Trouble with the Segway
Interesting piece on the design of objects, and the effect it can have on perceptions of their use.
- New consumers and new business opportunities
My brain is a bit fried right now, and even though I'm mainlining coffee, I'm not in a state to really retain serious information. So I'm marking this as one to come back to, as it looks interesting.
- Local newspapers in peril: The town without news | The Economist
I cut my teeth building systems for a local newspaper company – one, in fact, that I had delivered as a teenager, for pocket money. It's very easy to dismiss local papers as lacking in real news content, and full instead of trivial local rubbish, but the reality is that they provide local-community level news that really is important to the daily lives of many people. There is a very real need to find alternative infrastructure to distribute this information, ideally in a non-digital form.
- Introduction To LED Lighting | DIYPhotography.net
I think I could have fun with some of this shit. Need to go LED shopping soon.
Bookmarks for July 30, 2009
- Bishopsgate – FICTIONAL LONDON: Gothic London: City of the Deranged and Disorderly Dead
A talk in December. Anyone interested? Speak up sharpish, because every time I see one of these things, it sells out before I get round to buying tickets, and that's not happening this fucking time, so if you want me to grab you a ticket, speak up bloody quickly.
- Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule
Superb encapsulation of the impact of meetings on two differently scheduled kinds of staff. Should be required reading for all managers, as it will help them understand why the makers they need to meet with are often resistant to the idea of another meeting.
Bookmarks for July 15, 2009
- Essay: Dumb-dumb bullets – July 2009 – Armed Forces Journal – Military Strategy, Global Defense Strategy
Whenever anyone asks me why I hate meetings and powerpoint, I am just going to point them at this. If the purpose of a presentation in a meeting is to get decisions made, then the decisions made as a result are likely to be flawed. The information should be circulated in a sensible manner pre-meeting.
- Words For Print Vs Words For Web | > jim rossignol
Yes. Clever stuff. Worth the read. Ties up with some back-of-the-mind thoughts I'm having at the moment.
- Meeting Ticker
This should be up on the a screen in every meeting room, ever.
- tedr*tumblr: Right on Trent
Trent Reznor nails the future of not just the music business, but more or less any creative economy. Barring, of course, the disruptive new technology that will be invented next month that will render his notions moot. But y'know, it's a good summary of what everyone should have been doing for the last few years.
Bookmarks for June 23, 2009
- » Saga of the Swamp Thing #20
Steve Bissette offers a behind the scenes look at the creation of the first issue of Alan Moore's industry-changing run on Swamp Thing, only recently reprinted for the first time.
- The V: A summary
I am very very occasionally asked why I'm not on The V (an old internet hangout) these days. I can't imagine my presence is terribly missed, but Dave has thrown up a summary of the board that he found somewhere (either on the board itself, or on some kind of nerd forum review site, I guess) that has rather set me to thinking about on-line communities, why I basically don't participate in them any more despite having spent a significant chunk of my 20s in one forum or another, and what I think they lack, and it's a topic I wouldn't mind writing something longer about in the near future, so I'm just bookmarking the summary as a useful starting point.
- Angels in the Abattoir
Thea Gilmore's new idea for a music business model. I'll be interested to see if it takes off. And if I have the spare cash, I might well sign up.
Bookmarks for April 29, 2009
- Kickstarter » Projects
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…
- Daily Scans – Alan Moore's Glory proposal
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.
- Noisy Decent Graphics: "Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end."
God, I hate it when I discover that Margaret Thatcher said something I agree with.
- Noisy Decent Graphics: 7 ways to be a Graphic Design student online
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.)
Bookmarks for April 24, 2009
- MEAT CARDS: Business Cards Made From MEAT AND LASERS
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!
- Our Favorite Typefaces of 2008 | Typeface Reviews | Typographica
Font nerds ahoy – there are some total gems in here, and all are at least worth a look.
- Geocities to close
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.
Bookmarks for April 9, 2009
- David MacKay: Sustainable Energy – without the hot air: Download
I want to sit down and read this properly when I get time – an actual accessible book on the maths of energy consumption vs. possible energy production, as opposed the usual waffle.
- Coilhouse » Blog Archive » Latex/Guns/Gnosis: The Matrix Turns 10
A short retrospective of the first Matrix film, as it turns 10. a) it is horrifying to me that that movie is ten, because it means I am very old, and b) I particularly love the title of this article. It occurs to me that I have never satisfyingly run a game with all three of those elements, and I really must get around to having a go at that.
- Cory Doctorow: Getting tough on copyright enforcers | Culture | guardian.co.uk
I think this is a fair trade. I will accept a three strikes copyright warning system only if all copyright enforcers are held to the same standard: three wrong accusations, and they're out, too. Want to bet me that they'd all be gone before the rest of us would?
- Focal point (game theory) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Must remember this on in future – the basis by which two parties that are unable to communicate will still be able to select the same focal point in a game/challenge.
- re: diverselessness (tecznotes)
A companion to the other piece on monoculturalism, this dealing with internet communities and the origins of elites, and the social effects of these technologies, and some opinions on where these phenomena are likely to lead to.
- Whimsley: Online Monoculture and the End of the Niche
Why recommendation engines are creating even more of a mononculture than we had beore, even though everyone feels like they're finding more niche stuff.
- BLDGBLOG: Postopolis!
I have significantly less than fuck all architectural training, but it hasn't escaped my notice over the last few years that many of the most interesting creative types I know do have some history with the discipline, and I've increasingly found my own interests tending that way – not literally in the designing buildings sense, but in the sense of being aware of people's relationship with the space around them, and how to optimise that space to get the best out of life.
Postopolis therefore sounds like it would have been a fascinating event to be at, even if 90% would have gone sailing over my head. Any chance of holding the next one in London? It's at least as interesting as LA… - cityofsound: Postopolis LA
Dan Hill was at Postopolis and has written an excellent series of posts on it, and on LA in general. Thoroughly recommended reading.