March 2009
65 posts
Protecting ≠ protectionism
This was about the sum total of the debate on this evening’s BBC Hard Talk.
“Hard times have also meant that consumers are passing up the nonessential items...”
– The vanishing shopping mall (via azspot and vruz)
“While sloppy writing does not invariably mean sloppy thinking, we’ve...”
– Coding Horror: The Ugly American Programmer
“If we had a rear view mirror, we would not make 2/3 of the investments we make.”
– Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures
Obama comes to London →
Two of the bits I found most interesting from this Beeb article:
“On the ground, the president rides around in The Beast, a brand new presidential limo finished earlier this year at a cost of $300,000 (£200,000).
It comes with a tear gas cannon, a night-vision camera and oxygen tanks. Its reinforced steel plating is said to be able to protect against bullets, chemical attack, and even a...
First Iceland's economy died, now it looks like...
Are there any other countries with an I*eland name?
Two’s enough for it to be classed as a movement; I read the NME.
Ten great blog posts independent musicians should... →
“I’m concerned that Pepsi decided to promote its new “eco-friendly” product by...”
– TechCrunch (oddly)
Animal Collective - "My Girls"
Is it much that I feel I need A solid soul and the blood I bleed With a little girl, and by my spouse I only want a proper house I don’t care for fancy things Or to take part in a precious race And children cry for the one who has A real big heart and a father’s grace I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status I just want four walls and adobe...
Quorn + turkey = Qurkey
Thought I coined this amazing term by accident in a conversation about vegetarian Christmas cuisine earlier, but Google says others have beaten me to it :-(
“A team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades...”
– A former Google employee on why he quit
Al Gore's got a new book coming out →
“Picking up where An Inconvenient Truth left off, Our Choice utilizes Mr. Gore’s forty years of experience as a student, policymaker, author, filmmaker, entrepreneur and activist to comprehensively describe the real solutions to global warming.”
Gutted. →
“A US man who thought he was dying and confessed to having killed a neighbour in 1977 has been charged with murder after making a recovery.”
What would you rather: die and get away with the murder, or live and do life in jail? Hmmm? A-level philosophy, me?
(NB. I do not condone murder.)
Sylvia Plath's son 'takes own life' →
How sad. I wonder if these things are nature or nurture? Probably both.
Plath is one of my favourite writers.
Google launches its own VC fund →
“The history of corporate venture funds is a grim one. Companies invest in startups for all sorts of ‘strategic’ reasons, not all of which end up making them any money. That is the problem with corporate VC funds: their main goal is not always to maximize returns. If a startup is truly strategic for Google, it should just acquire it outright. In effect, this has been its venture...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-22) →
The Bad Plus (14)
Dr. Dre (12)
Gablé (3)
Elephant Man (2)
Snoop Dogg (2)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Jonathan may well become a danger to himself and... →
“The tax avoidance was so big it became the engine of growth for the whole of the...”
– Barclays whistleblower
“It’s hard to believe at one point [Facebook] was limited to just college...”
– Facebook Lets You Open Your Profile to Everyone
Electronic business cards →
I’ve always thought this sort of technology is a solution in search of a problem. Sometimes information printed on dead trees is actually the best way.
UnHub is actually a really cool way of aggregating... →
Unlike FriendFeed, I can even see non-geeks using it…
“People seem to understand that things have fluctuating prices based on supply...”
– Mike Arrington, TechCrunch
The best bands of SXSW 2009 →
In honour of the end of SXSW interactive and the start of what we’re all really interested in - the festival’s music side - I’ve put together an Opentape (“open source Muxtape”) of the best bands playing in Austin this week.
“There is no reason an adult should have [Animal Crossing: City Folk].”
– Some guy from Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force says adults playing “Animal Crossing” and similar games are likely doing it for the wrong reasons.
Clearly, all adults who play video games are paedophiles.
Programming language naming factoid →
“Pearl is the birthstone for the month of June, while ruby is the birthstone for July, implying Ruby as the successor of Perl.”
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-15) →
Brian Eno (8)
The Cure (7)
Jacob Miller (1)
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1)
Kelly Clarkson (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Beware the Ides of March →
38,175 YouTube plays during a single quarter last... →
And Google are complaining at the amount they have to pay the PRS?
Great article focusing on the “most people with an opinion don’t actually know what they’re talking about” aspect of the debate.
http://bringdownIE6.com →
Really not a fan of Tumblr's auto-post-to-Twitter...
Cross-post selectively, folks.
BBC: 'Econocide' to surge as recession bites →
Sad story, but: economy + suicide = worst neologism you’re likely to hear in a while
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-3-8) →
Brian Eno (13)
The Libertines (5)
John Cage (3)
Reggie Stepper (3)
Wolfman (2)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Rare example of an old media brand that GETS IT. →
“The Guardian today launched Open Platform, a service that will allow partners to reuse guardian.co.uk content and data for free and weave it ‘into the fabric of the internet’.”
“Lacking a program manager, your garden-variety super-smart programmer is going...”
– Joel on Software
Jonathan repeats his Fleet Foxes assertion with... →
“Learning is bottom up and education is top down. We’ll have more learning...”
– Fred Wilson
“[This site] probably works in Opera because I haven’t yet heard from...”
– Marco.org
“I have waited half an hour for a receipt in communist Poland while watching two...”
– BBC article on the benefits (or otherwise) of tipping for service US-style.