Bookmarks for February 18, 2010
- Integrating translation into Google Goggles – Google Translate Blog
Trying to think if there's anything I can say other than "wow". Give it a handful of years, and this will be available in real time, too.
Tag: technology
Bookmarks for January 29, 2010
- Adria: elBulli Restaurant to Close for Two Years – TIME
Bugger. Eating at ElBulli was pretty much the top spot on the "things to do before I die" list, and yeah, he's going to re-open, but it's still an experience I'm unlikely to ever get to have, in it's current form. I shall revise it to "Eat Ferran Adria's food", but it's still saddening.
- stevenf.com – I need to talk to you about computers.
Excellent article on the place for an iPad in the history of computing, and the generation shift that is occurring. For myself, I am having to keep reminding myself that I don't need one as a priority, that version 2.0 will be much better, and so on and so forth. I really do want a decent ebook/magazine reader…
- xkcd: Spirit
I found today's XKCD near-heartbreaking on a number of levels. Why aren't we trying to get it home, for fuck's sake? I know it's not alive, but it's out there, and we're not even trying to go after it…
Bookmarks for June 11, 2009
- The New Negroponte Switch « Magical Nihilism
I had the same text as part of my course back in 1995 (I think everyone did), and am quite taken with some Matt's ideas here, in particular, the term "Thingfrastructure".
- Welcome to Poken
I'm not sold on the cutsey look, or the metaphors they've chosen, but still: this is the future of business cards right here. I look forward to being able to get a grown-up variant on this.
- Infovore » Dangerous Mistakes In The Company Of Friends
This is the best insight into the nature of gaming I have seen in ages. Whether you're a PC gamer, tabletop gamer or LARPer, I cannot recommend reading this highly enough. If you run RPGs, and are not devoting a significant chunk of your time to ensuring that a variation on this is the experience your players get, then you are doing it wrong.
Bookmarks for June 1, 2009
- Barbican – Helvetica + Objectified (12A*)
June 28th, Double feature of Helvetica and Objectified at the Barbican. I've seen Helvetica, and could happily watch it again, but not Objectified. Anyone fancy a double bill of design documentaries?
- Online Backup, Data Backup & Remote Backup Solutions from Mozy.com – Welcome
Has anyone used this operation? Or anything similar? While I've got time machine, I have no offsite backups, which bugs me slightly. Particularly curious about the system performance impact of their background process, and also what kind of bandwidth useage spikes I could expect to see.
- Rossignol » Thrilling Wonder Stories
A summary of the conference I spent a chunk of Friday watching over the web. Sounds like the presentation they killed the video on was completely fascinating. I'm still processing of of the ideas I came away with, and doing my best to make sure they don't leak into anything else.
- Sleevelessness: Video Mixing With Microsoft Surface
This is some seriously impressive shit.
- Siggis ZX81 web server main page
Someone has managed to get a ZX-81 on the internet as a webserver. Awesome.
Bookmarks for May 15, 2009
- Charlie's Diary: LOGIN 2009 keynote: gaming in the world of 2030
Nothing you won't already have heard if you've read Halting State, but some interesting observations, anyway.
Bookmarks for April 28, 2009
- The Art of Penguin Science Fiction
An archive and commentary on some very very striking SF cover design. Well worth a look.
- BBC NEWS | Technology | Home Office 'colluded with Phorm'
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.
- Font Squirrel | Handpicked free fonts for graphic designers with commercial-use licenses.
Some of these are very lovely.
- Revolutionary Espresso Book Machine launches in London | Books | guardian.co.uk
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.
Bookmarks for April 10, 2009
- 3-D Printing Hits Rock-bottom Prices With Homemade Ceramics Mix
I have no personal use at the moment for a 3d printer, but I'm sure the day will come when I will, and I'd really rather not have to pay through the nose for raw materials.
- Cover versions – a set on Flickr
Someone has taken classic record covers, and re-imagined them as Pelican book covers. This is absolutely beautiful stuff.
- Daring Fireball: How to Block the DiggBar
Jon Gruber has implemented an anti-DiggBar tool for his pages. I will probably do the same for mine. Read about why and how he's done it, because while this may sound a bit like a crank thing to do, rejecting potential traffic from a popular source like Digg, the important principle here is that what Digg is doing is subverting on of the basic premises of how the web works, and it should be discouraged.
- Behold the GIGAFLAKE!
Truly, the confectionery of gods and titans.
Bookmarks for April 1, 2009
- The Problem With Music
Steve Albini's breakdown of exactly how much a band can expect now to earn in a normal record industry contact. Figures would need to be adjusted for inflation, but I bet they're still proportionally the same. I've seen this a few times over the years, I just wanted to log it in case I need to refer to it again.
- Micro scope – The Engineer
Some notes about the practicalities of nanomachinery in the body – both the propulsion/navigation, and the means by which they might operate on us.
- Blood powered fuel cells.
Good to know that my future cybernetic implants aren't likely to need batteries.
- Jacek Utko asks, Can design save the newspaper? | Video on TED.com
After the links the other week, here's a talk about how they newspapers might yet be kept alive: by making them beautiful objects.
- Ramachandran on synesthesia, creativity and metaphor
A fascinating talk on the some of the possible neuroscientific explanations for some of the more remarkable and ill-understood operations of the brain.
- wrongcards
I shall be sending these in future. Well, maybe not, but there are a few things in here that made me laugh.)
- Anki – friendly, intelligent flashcards
This could be a really useful little learning tool.
Bookmarks for March 18, 2009
- Kingsnorth report reveals shocking police campaign of intimidation against protesters – Britcit
This one's worth circulating far and wide – police using the various powers they've been given over the last while to suppress a peaceful protest.
- 20 Great PHP Libraries You Need to Know | KomunitasWeb
There's plenty of non-geek stuff in today's pile of links. Just skip past this one.
- Undesigning the Emergency @Etech Benjamin H. Bratton
Highlight " Because as software becomes a medium through which the city is accessed and made social, the paired need for both open software and hardware is clear. The design of the open public space is dependent on the design of the open software which is, increasingly, dependent on the design of open cities."
- Søren Vind >> pc_user
Might be handy in future projects – one of the first things I almost invariable do it set up a user class to handle logins and similar rubbish, and it'd be nice to have a handy boxed-up model to do all that with.
- iPhone 3.0: everyware-ready? « Magical Nihilism
Matt Jones identifies the really interesting thing about yesterday's Iphone 3.0 announcement, and it's not copy-and-paste.
- Espionage – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This looks like a fairly decent starting point, anyway. Of course, that's probably just what the government wants me to think.
- Intelligence cycle management – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Today is "everything you didn't need to know about intelligence, and weren't afraid to ask" day.
- Category:Secret broadcasting – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fascinating espionage-related stuff I had never heard of before now.
- Computer programmer from Finland has lost finger replaced with USB drive – Telegraph
I probably don't need the little finger on my left hand, you know…
Bookmarks for March 10, 2009
- Manifesto of Open Disruption and Participation by Eric Paulos
"We have failed in our duty to open up alternate forums for technology to express itself and touch our lives beyond productivity and efficiency. Blinded by our quest for 'smart technologies' we have forgotten to contemplate the design of technologies to inspire us to be smarter, more curious, and more inquisitive."