- Sun Drums
I wish to acquire this for to listen to on the electrical ipod. I must remember to download it when I get home. For free and everything.
- PayPal Here
Paypal have launched a competitor to Square. Neither are available in the UK, so I don't care that much, but they're an indicator of the future, and it's good to see competition in this space. Although frankly, I think you'd have to be mad to try and run a serious business with Paypal, given their oft-demonstrated willingness to simply seize their users assets for spurious reasons like "we thought you were making too much money".
- Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod | Video on TED.com
It's not going to come as a galloping shock to anyone here to discover that the numbers quoted by the pro-copyright-enforcement lobby in terms of lost revenue and jobs are total crap, btu this TED talk makes it clear just how much total bullshit they are. And is funny. Go watch.
Tag: ted
Bookmarks for October 13, 2009
- Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off | Video on TED.com
Once every seven yeats, Sagmeister closes his studio completely for one year. Here, he gives a talk at TED on what he gets from that year, and it's a fascinating and compelling idea. I wonder if I could arrange to take a sabbatical somehow – I've been at this for ten years, and I know my general level of enthusiasm for hacking about with the next is not what it was…
- Charlie's Diary: Why I hate Star Trek
"I can just about forgive the tendency of these programs to hit the reset switch at the end of every episode, returning the universe to pristine un-played-with shape in time for the next dramatic interlude; even though it's the opposite of real SF (a disruptive literature that focusses intently on revolutionary change), I recognize the limits of the TV series as a medium."
Mr Stross hits the nail on the head of why I don't get on with televised SF – I'm less willing to forgive the reset switch for exactly that reason. - The ghost in the field – Blog – BERG
Ever wondered what your oystercard really looks like? The Ghost In The Field shows us the hidden signals underneath fabric of our cities – the invisible maps of data and super-frequency chattering that increasingly underpin our daily lives. What is your data ghost like?
- Derek Powazek – Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists
"Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again." This is not just a rule for getting web traffic, it is the single simplest rule for a happy life.
Bookmarks for September 9, 2009
- Matthieu Ricard on the habits of happiness | Video on TED.com
I have heard of this guy before, but this is a truly amazing talk.
- TEDTalks as of 09.02.09
A spreadsheet listing all the various TED talks to date, and providing a brief summary of each. Really nice way of finding talks by smart people that you may have missed.
Bookmarks for July 24, 2009
- San Diego, Why Don’t You Come To Your Senses?
Please, pass this link around. It's worth doing. Reblog, re-tweet, pass it on to your friends so they can do the same. If you are a geek or a nerd of any stripe, you should be aware that some small fraction of the money you spend on entertainment media is going to fuel homophobia (if you're giving money to companies that are then giving money to an operation that is fuelling homophobia, then yes, that *is* what is happening), and that this should be stopped. And unless they are publically shamed, then there is no reason for companies like Marvel to grow a spine. So you should circulate this link.
- Strange Fish Identification Site
It does exactly what it says on the tin. I have no use for this, but I love that it exists.
- Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good
Watching this, I had to keep reminding myself that he's a politician, and that his words are unlikely to be backed up by action, that he's not going to be called on the content of this speech, and that he has teams of people whose job it is to help him seem engaged, aware and generally serious about the world. Still: this is a good speech, talking sense, and it's quite nice to see him saying things I agree with 100%.
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 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.