May 2010
54 posts
“I draw the line at the use of the politician’s favourite euphemism,...”
– Dear Economist:
Are shoes an inelastic fashion accessory?
“Even though everybody’s walking around with their chins glued to their chests,...”
– Joel Spolsky, writing shortly after the Dot Com crash
“So if you read to be intellectually productive, rather than just to fill your...”
– Overcoming Bias
Wikipedia: eating your own dog food →
The sort of debates we have in our office - I said this phrase originated at Microsoft, a colleague insisted it was popularised by Guy Kawasaki at Apple.
I still don’t know which is right.
“Frankly, I’ve got more chance of being flattened by a falling grand piano...”
– A security expert in reference to a “boffin who claims he’s the first man ever to have a computer virus [in his body]“ (actually in an RFID chip implanted underneath his skin).
“Antidepressants are the modern snake oil. One day we’ll all wake up and realize...”
– Jay Parkinson
“I can either be a guy who writes novels, or I can be a guy who answers email....”
– Merlin Mann paraphrasing Neal Stephenson.
“Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.”
– Charles Bukowski (via seaninsound)
Bad taste both in the sense of offending the moral majority (South Park, horror films) and in terms of buying clothes from Matalan or food from Iceland.
1 tag
Sometimes I think everything I post on Tumblr...
Or “I disagree but LOLz”.
“If you have to dream up monetization strategies, you’re doing it wrong....”
– Unicornfree
I disagree with this in relation to media businesses, but well put.
Wikipedia: list of literary genres →
In the midst of a serious wikibinge.
BBC 'sorry' for radio presenter's Queen death joke →
Didn’t this exact thing happen in an episode of I’m Alan Partridge when Partridge played a Smiths track?
“People can no longer remember passwords good enough to reliably defend against...”
– Schneier on Security
Counterintuitive, but makes sense. I’m probably more at risk of online crime from l33t hackers than from the sort of people who would have easy access to such scraps of paper in my wallet.
1 tag
“Aliquando et insanire jucundum est.”
– A Latin proverb meaning “it is fun to do something foolish every now and then”. I agree.
“It is a mark of not being important to have to check e-mails and mobiles...”
– Comment on “what is the etiquette of mobile phones in meetings?”
“U.S. troops in Afghanistan could soon be awarded a medal for not doing...”
– Hold fire, earn a medal - Navy Times (via mikehudack)
“Facebook board member and investor Jim Breyer had his Facebook profile hacked...”
– EMBARRASSING: Facebook Board Member’s Profile Hacked (via mikehudack)
See also the “Corey Doctorow gets phished” story I posted recently.
“The fundamental cause of the financial crisis has been people and institutions...”
– Marginal Revolution: Simple thoughts on Europe
Just added a Facebook "like" button to my Tumblr... →
I’m playing around with some stuff for work in order to figure out how best to continue building our Facebook functionality.
As much as I want to loathe Facebook’s attempts to take over the web, the “like” button is the easiest social widget “share this” thingy I’ve ever implemented, given the complexity behind it and its (potential) power.
...
“A ballooning in both venture capital funding and university courses on...”
– Financial Times (via hey, it’s noah)
Tell your GP a secret - and 900 council staff may... →
(via iamdanw)
And yet the other day I had to explain to my GP’s receptionist how she really didn’t need to get the doctor’s permission to give me a printout of some recent test results…it’s MY DATA, why can’t I see it?!
People are seriously missing the point if being able to get their activity out of Facebook (or keep it hidden there) is their main data...
“Phishing isn’t (just) about finding a person who is technically naive. It’s...”
– Cory Doctorow
People worth following: Jhnbrssndn →
squashed:
Since I’m feeling like part of the warm and fuzzy Tumblr community, I have a few suggestions on who you should follow.
Jhn is a Professor of Public Communication. Or something. The point is, he’s way further left than I am and occasionally and eloquently shames me for my timid moderation. I’m not actually sure how he’d self-identify politically, but he’s written persuasively (though I...
“My [Tumblr] dashboard increasingly feels like LiveJournal with an Associate’s...”
– Merlin Mann
This may be unpopular, but I kinda like that Tumblr is often “pseudo-intellectualism and fun”. I get enough ernest (but also interesting) “what does it all mean” blogging from Dave Winer and Umair Haque.
And the answer these days on the web is increasingly: if...
“Credit card-holders who purchased carbon-monoxide detectors, premium birdseed,...”
– How Visa Predicts Divorce
“If the U.S. economy were a company, the VC industry would be the R&D...”
– Chris Dixon
1 tag
Can anyone recommend an interesting blog about...
I stopped studying maths at 16. That’s definitely not something I regret - I think I’ve become a far more intellectually curious and well-rounded individual as a result of spending the rest of my schooling on philosophy, languages and business/economics/marketing stuff. (Just ‘cos that’s what worked for me…)
But now I quite fancy learning more about a subject...
“I am very thankful for the ‘80s bands that used the b-side to release their...”
– The Pleasures of Electricity
“While the rise of Whole Foods and the organic movement is inspiring many...”
– 5 Hidden Eating Disorders
(via rickwebb)