Bookmarks for April 2, 2012

Links for Sunday March 18th 2012 through Monday March 19th 2012

Bookmarks for February 6, 2012

  • The ‘Eggs In One Basket’ Index – SplatF
    Dan Frommer take a look at major tech firms, and what percentage of their revenue is generated from for their largest revenue source. I was saying the other day that I would be happy to pay google a lot for their services, in exchange for an advertising-and-tracking free experience. I look at this chart, and I realise that it might even make (some) sense for Google to offer that option, just from a diversification-of-revenue point of view. I don't expect they will, and I'm sure there are big hurdles in their way that would stop it, but still, there's an awful lot of eggs in the advertising basket, there.
  • Britons give more to donkey sanctuary than abuse charities | Money | The Guardian
    This statistic is four years old, but I bet it's still true. People always look at me funny when I occasionally express my serious disgust with people who given to animal charities. I'm familiar with the walk-and-chew-gum theory, and indeed, use it myself when arguing for things like funding for the space programme, but that's an apples-and-oranges comparison – tech progress vs. abuse – while this is directly a "which abuse is worse" like-for-like comparison, at least to me. And many people appear to prefer to spend the money that they have available to spend on animals, instead of people. Because it really matter when someone shoves a cat in a bin, but much less when someone shoves their fist in someone else's face.
  • Who the hell do Camden Council think they are?
    Unfuckingreal. Local council decide that what residents really want, when hanging out in communal gardens of their flats, is a) to be on camera, and b) to have that camera tell them in the disembodied voice of authority to move on, or their photos will be "sent for processing". This photo of them, in their own garden.

Bookmarks for December 10, 2010

Bookmarks for March 24, 2009

Bookmarks for August 15, 2008

  • Ill and in Pain, Detainee Dies in U.S. Hands
    Look, I know that from time to time, I post these stories, and it could just be viewed as US-bashing. And I'm also aware that on a civil liberties front, the UK is actually rather behind the US in many ways. But this one is really something special, and should spread far and wide. I don't even have the energy to be angry about it, because I'm busy being stunned and horrifed that this can happen.
    This an account of how a the US system accidentally tortured an innocent man to death through bureaucracy, jobsworth-ism and plain lack of decent human feeling. There is no "security" that can possibly be worth this price.