- joshua's blog: on url shorteners
I've been saying that using URL shorteners is a bad idea for for a while, so I thought I'd link to Joshua Schachter's more cogent and better put together argument that details a more specific list of the reasons why.
Tag: internet
Bookmarks for March 27, 2009
- Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos
I've got a few different quotes I'd consider having put on me, and this place might provide inspiration for design/context for them.
- Daring Fireball: Obsession Times Voice
I don't have time to read this in full right now, so I'm bookmarking it so I remember to read it at some point over the weekend.
- Steve Lambert » SelfControl
Mac App to lock email/internet away for periods of time. Killer feature: once started, it cannot be undone, unlike most other, similar apps. Handy for those days when you really have to just dig in and get something done.
- glycon: Big Numbers #3
Alan Moore's Big Numbers #3, made available on-line with his blessing. To say this is a big unexpected would be understating things a bit, but well done that man.
Bookmarks for March 17, 2009
- How Not To Sort By Average Rating
Scary looking maths for doing user-ratings based ranking that doesn't fall into a couple of common traps.
- Chris Heathcote: anti-mega: friends with benefits
Insight into why password security may be a flawed model for websites.
- Growing Sentences with David Foster Wallace
How to take a simple sentence, and turn it into something that reads like David Foster Wallace.
Bookmarks for March 16, 2009
- Multicolr Search Lab – Idée Inc.
Very pretty means of searching Flickr.
- Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web | Video on TED.com
Sit down, shut up, and listen to the greatest living Englishman.
- Innovation Forum: Conferences Redux (The Sense Loft, 4th Floor, 68/70 Wardour Street, London W1F 0TB)
I think I may have to get along to this.
- Heroku
A little slice of the future that will be incomprehensible/irrelevant to most of you. It's an app hosting environment for RoR developers that pushes the apps out into a computing cloud rather than relying on single/multiple servers. If there was a PHP version, that was as easy to set up, I'd be signing up right now.
- Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky
Yes, it's true. Newspapers are fucked. Hardly radical thinking, but a very cogent summary of exactly why they're fucked, and what we might, maybe, get instead. But here's the key bit: "When someone demands to be told how we can replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution." You could replace "newspapers" with "the music business", "the TV industry" or even just plain old "copyright" and still be on the money.
Bookmarks for March 12, 2009
- It's not a crime to download, say musicians – News, Music – The Independent
Not driectly realted to this link, but I was chatting with a friend whose job places him firmly on the side of the PRS in the Youtube/PRS debate, and I find myself wondering: for how long will the notion of musicians getting paid for re-uses of their recordings last? I mean, the basis of my employment is that I continue to create new code and assign the copyright in a manner that allows others to use it. I am not paid based on the number of people that use my code, except in an indirect sense. But when the need for new code runs out, so does my job and the money. What's the argument for treating musicians as a special case?
- Video: Iain Sinclair – At large in a 'fictional' Hackney | Books | guardian.co.uk
Iain Sinclair talks with typical eloquence about living in Hackney over the last 40 years. It strikes me that I would be entirely happy if I were in a position to do this about Tooting.
- Kutiman, Big Media, and the Future of Creative Entrepreneurship | 43 Folders
"Unsolicited tip for media company c-levels: if your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we’d go about suing someone who did this with our IP?' instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,' it’s probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page."
Spot on. - THRU YOU | Kutiman mixes YouTube
Everyone's already blogged this pile of ace. I'm blogging it as context for another link. If you've been under a rock, and haven't seen it, this guy has created something truly astonishing by editing together loads of other people's youtube videos.
- The Guardian Open Platform | guardian.co.uk
Everyone and their dog is linking to this today. And do you know why? Because it's *fucking awesome*.
Bookmarks for February 26, 2009
- National Insurance Numbers (NINOs): Format and Security: What to do if you suspect or discover fraud
This is, I assume, information that might be useful to a number of people. God bless the British governement.
- John Hodgman on "meh" – Waxy.org
This is a perfect summary of that ghastly little word. Key phrase here "It's part of the toxic Internet art of constant callous one upsmanship."
Bookmarks for January 23, 2009
- heyblog: LazyWeb URL Print Spooler Automator workflow and app (via Matt Jones)
I shall pick this thing apart at some point over the weekend, see if there's anything I can splice into/shortcut as part of my own efforts.
- The Inauguration of President Barack Obama – The Big Picture – Boston.com
Yes, I know everyone and their badger has been linking to this. Tough. These are just superb. I think #44, the picture of all the cellphones and cameras is particular telling.
- Rules of Database App Aging – Push cx
This will be incomprehensible to non developers in the audience, but oh god, this is so painfully, painfully true.
- Pulse Laser: My printer, my social letterbox
This idea set off fireworks in my head, and I think I've got a spare-time tech project for the foreseeable (I got a proof of concept lashed together in about an hour, but it needs a *lot* more work before it's useable.) I love the idea of being able to get up in the morning and have the overnight reading ready for me to hop on the bus with. Hell, even if I don't ever make the mailbox public, all I have to do is lash it to some RSS-to-email functionality, and presto – a custom POD newspaper every morning.
Bookmarks for December 3, 2008
- Getting OpenID Into the Browser – O'Reilly Radar
Ding! I have an OpenID (in fact, I have several, thanks to having accounts at a number of different sites that provide it, and keep meaning to set my own up so I've got control of my own ID) but I never use it, because it's as much faff as creating a username and password. If there was simply a button on my browser that I could click to say "identify me to this website", I'd use it a lot more.
Bookmarks for December 2, 2008
- Does the broken windows theory hold online?
Jason Kottke wonder if poor site appearance and lack of care in administration and moderation is a factor in the behaviour of its users. I have no way ofr proving this, but it feels true. Anyone know if there have been any proper studies in this area?
Bookmarks for July 8, 2008
- Anarchogeek: The ascendancy of Hacker News & the gentrification of geek news communities
Good metaphor. I get my geek news through blogs instead of community-type sites for this sort of reason – the window where the site is gentrified enough that the a-geeks don’t annoy me but the masses and the attendant noise/churn haven’t arrived is small.