Stilgherrian » Daily Links

Links for 03 July 2008 through 04 July 2008

del.icio.us — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:07:38 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 03 July 2008 through 04 July 2008, gathered with joy and mutton:

Draft Report | Garnaut Cimate Chnage Review: The Draft Report describes the methodology for evaluating the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation; to the application of the science of climate change to Australia; to the international context, and to Australian mitigation policy.
Turing Test | xkcd: On the other hand, maybe the test is to make the examiner think that HE'S the computer!
Turing test | Wikipedia: "The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine's capability to demonstrate intelligence." What I love about the REAL Turing test is the subtlety of it… It's not faking a human, it's faking a human faking.
Manned Cloud by Jean-Marie Massaud | Dezeen: This just has to be the most beautiful design for an airship I've ever seen. Guys, build it soon!
The BBC and the future of broadcasting | Stephen Fry: Stephen Fry's speech on the future of public service broadcasting, and the BBC in particular.

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Links for 02 July 2008

del.icio.us — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:13:18 +0000

Stilgherrian’s web links I’ve found for 02 July 2008, created automatically from internets.

China As An Island | Strange Maps: China has land borders with 14 other countries. And yet you should not think of China as particularly well-integrated with its neighbours. In fact, as shown in this dramatic map, you should rather consider China to be an island.
NASA's Moon Truck Goes for a Test Drive | Telstar Logistics: A prototype of a NASA lunar rover undergoing testing at the Moses Lake Sand Dunes in eastern Washington state.
Hyperpolitics (American Style) | viddler.com: The video of Mark Pesce's presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum 2008.
Asthma Weed | Sydney Weeds Committees: This is the nasty weed which keeps emerging in our garden and resists all efforts at eradication. Chemical warfare appears to be the only resort.

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Links for 26 June 2008 through 29 June 2008

del.icio.us — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:26:36 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 26 June 2008 through 29 June 2008:

Creatives grow better in the South West | YouTube: A brilliant 4-minute video explaining how to nurture creativity.
Top 10 reasons to hate the iPhone 3G | APC: A suitably well-researched piece to help counter the Apple fanboy hype. A phone is a tool. Not all tools are for everyone.
LEO Deutsch-Englisches Wörterbuch: A very fine-looking English-German dictionary site.

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Links for 22 June 2008 through 24 June 2008

del.icio.us — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:42:00 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 22 June 2008 through 24 June 2008, gathered with care and compassion:

Social networking comes of age, sort of | MISaustralia.com: Renai LeMay's article for the "Australian Financial Review", based on material gathered at PubCamp.
IT List | Skippy's List: "42 Things That I Am No Longer Allowed To Do in IT", beginning with "1 Not allowed to randomly rickroll users upon login to the application". Somewhat amusing.
Seven dirty words | Wikipedia: The seven English words comedian George Carlin listed in his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", and a history of the furore this routine started.
7 things you can't say on the Internet | evolvingWe: Following comedian George Carlin's death, Josh Legard compiled this list. Read it, digest it, help prevent groupthink.
La Boheme - Restaurant Reviews | smh.com.au: I'm told we should go to this restaurant some time. Gottalove a review which starts, "Those of us who fancy a bit of porcine action…".
Direct Note Access :: celemony_: Peter Neub�cker's new Melodyne version 2 software can identify and edit individual notes within polyphonic audio material. This is extremely cool, and extremely important.
Top 500 supercomputers: Welcome to the petaflop generation | NetworkWorld.com Community: Welcome to the petaflop generation. The new most powerful supercomputer in the world is IBM's US$100 million Roadrunner system at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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Links for 20 June 2008 through 21 June 2008

del.icio.us — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:01:03 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 20 June 2008 through 21 June 2008, collected as automatically as the sunrise:

100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library | The Art of Manliness: In comparison with my recent post of 5 book for bloggers (as if they're a homogeneous bunch!), here's one group's suggestion for books "every man should read". Uhuh.
Dipping: Pool Crashing in the UK Becomes Latest Google Earth Prank |Gizmodo: The latest craze is "dipping," or gatecrashing someone else's swimming pool, selected using Google Earth.
ThinkGeek Bluetooth Retro Handset | ThinkGeek: I think I want one. And currently only US$29.99.
How to eat at a Sushi Bar | YouTube: A wonderful 8-minute film explaining the, erm, finer points of sushi etiquette. Muchly good. Thanks, Jeff!

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Links for 17 June 2008 through 19 June 2008

del.icio.us — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:59:26 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 17 June 2008 through 19 June 2008. gathered automatically:

Receiver rejects call to release home plan | smh.com.au: Bizarre copyright claim? Building firm Beechwood Homes goes broke, but 580 customer can't get their homes built by someone else because Beechwood's receiver claims copyright on the plans!
Revoke Copyright for Poorly Paid Authors? | Brendan Scott’s Weblog: Counter view: "If the practical effect of 200 years of copyright protection for my industry body was that its members were 'the most poorly paid in Australia' I wouldn?t be asking for the regime to be extended! I?d be calling for it to be abandoned."
The Future of Copyright | Cato Unbound: Fascinating essay.
5 Influential Books All Bloggers Should Know | ProBlogger: Yes, by reading the same five books as every other blogger on the planet, you will suddenly provide a unique view on the world. Sigh. Good books, presumably, but "the usual suspects". Be original.

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Links for 16 June 2008

del.icio.us — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:36:59 +0000

Here are the web links I’ve found for 16 June 2008, posted automatically.

OpenAustralia.org: Are your Representatives working for you in Australia's Parliament? A new and much easier way to see who's saying what in federal parliament.
The Possum Box: A new Australian political blog hosted by the mysteriously large-brained Possum Comitatus.
Why Me? | lonelysandwich: A delightful essay pondering Apple's new MobileMe branding. "Apple is removing the Mac from the Apple computer experience and laying the foundation for a browser-based OS, the thing that Google has been threatening all this time."

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Links for 04 June 2008 through 11 June 2008

del.icio.us — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:10:53 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 04 June 2008 through 11 June 2008, collected semi-automatically:

The Big Picture | Boston.com: "News stories in photographs", it says. Daily photo-essays of about 15 images, nice and big.
Earth's Seasons | US Naval Observatory: The times of the Summer and Winter Solstices, Aphelion and Perihelion for every year until 2020.
Stories We've Seen Too Often | Strange Horizons: A list of story plots and themes which this online publisher has seen far too often. Tr�s amusement.
The Sassy Uterus: Someone on Twitter said this was the best blog title he'd seen in ages. I visited and found myself reading post after witty post about… childbirth and raising a baby. Like I'd normally care!
Writing Style for Print vs Web | Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Linear vs. non-linear. Author-driven vs. reader-driven. Storytelling vs. ruthless pursuit of actionable content. Anecdotal examples vs. comprehensive data. Sentences vs. fragments.
Graffletopia: A massive collection of stencils (templates) for the OS X diagram/graphics tool OmniGraffle.
Waiting for the Rapture | IEEE Spectrum: The singularitarians believe that in the next several decades we?ll have computers into which you?ll be able to upload your consciousness: immortality.

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Links for 01 June 2008 through 02 June 2008

del.icio.us — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:56:30 +0000

My links for 01 June 2008 through 02 June 2008, gathered semi-automatically:

The Twitter backchannel | Memex 1.1: A explanation of why Eurovision is the perfect Twitter event. This bookmark is dedicated to Mark Pesce.
Virtually on parity | Steven Poole: Magnificent deconstruction of how Microsoft re-wrote an article about "misunderstood" features in Windows Vista.
Alternative boondoggles | Charlie’s Diary: If the $523B to $3T spent on the Iraq War was put to some useful purpose, what could it achieve? Interesting suggestions, and trolls in the comments are dealt with swiftly.

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Links for 26 May 2008 through 01 June 2008

del.icio.us — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:01:28 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 26 May 2008 through 01 June 2008, gathered semi-automatically and covering a disturbing range of topics:

NSLU2-Linux: Technical information for hacking the Linksys NSLU2 NAS device, along with the Synology DS101, the Iomega NAS100d, the D-Link DSMG600 and other ixp4xx-based devices with large attached storage.
Hacking WD MyBook World Ed: Western Digital's My Book World Edition network storage device is actually a little Linux RAID server. This Wiki has technical information on how to hack them.
Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like A Horse: Well, she does. And here's the website. Proof that people have too much time on their hands.
A twittering experiment | eicolab: An interesting use Twitter, with a comment added by yours truly.
Friends, Enemies and My Army | Viddler.com: Another recent presentation by Mark Pesce, this one at the 2008 Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, on 25 May 2008. A nice trip through the power of Twitter, the "nuclear option", and the surprising influence of Josh Marshall's army.
Phoenix Lander “Talks” to Twitterers | NYTimes.com: Includes an interview with the NASA employee who's been playing the part of the Mars Phoenix spacecraft on Twitter (@MarsPhoenix).
Australian Strategic Policy Institute: "One for the feed reader", I've been told. I haven't explored this site yet.
A discussion paper on the singular use of “they”: This link looks like it solves this question forever. If only people read it…
Twitter Co-Opted by Users as Better SMS, Social Media Platform | URBEINGRECORDED: Yet another superb essay on the impact of Twitter.
The Gruen Transfer | ABC TV: A new TV series looking at the art and science of persuasion as used by the advertising industry. Much good stuff here.
Ern Malley | Wikipedia: Not exactly a new story, but I was recently reminded of this wonderful literary hoax from the 1940s.
Scaling a Microblogging Service - Part I | Hueniverse: A comprehensive but fairly technical explanation of the problems Twitter faces.
The Digital Media Revolution | YouTube: Mark Pesce, Technology Futurist speaks about the Digital Media Revolution at the SAGEM conference, April 2008, in Adelaide. Will the government heed his advice? In 5 parts, this links to part 1.
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address | YouTube: An inspirational 15 mins about the importance of following your dream, even if the end result isn't clear. "You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking back."

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Links for 23 May 2008 through 24 May 2008

del.icio.us — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:03:06 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 23 May 2008 through 24 May 2008, collected almost-automatically…

Only Connect | the human network: The text of Mark's keynote at Microsoft's ReMIX 08.
Mark Pesce - Only Connect | Viddler.com: This 23-minute keynote presentation from Microsoft's ReMIX 08 is a wonderful distillation of Mark's thoughts over recent months. If you want to get your head around the future, watch this.
TimesMachine | New York Times: All issues of the New York Times from 18 September 1851 to 30 December 1922 available to browse as images and PDFs. Free to NYT delivery subscribers, but even the sample issues offered to everyone are a fascinating read.
We Travel in Tribes | Rands In Repose: Excellent explanation of the appeal of Twitter.
Royalty-free music | Aussie Bloggers: Links to some sources of royalty-free music, i.e. music for which you pay a one-off fee and can then continue to use in your production.
Twittiquette and Acceptable Online Social Network Behaviour | DEDLOG: Dedlam offers 5 excellent tips for being a "good participant" on Twitter and other social media.
All The Cool People Are Still Going… | hyperpeople: Adolf Hitler gets ready for the Burning Man party. Wrong. Funny.
PR and the Management of a Real Crisis | DEDLOG: Shanghai-based Dedlam's commentary on how China handled the media during this month's earthquake.
Power-Tweeting: 101 Everyday Uses for Twitter | Inside CRM: Examples of how the Twitter community uses this simple tool. When it works.

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Links for 15 May 2008 through 19 May 2008

del.icio.us — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:05:02 +0000

My links for 15 May 2008 through 19 May 2008, gathered semi-automatically:

The Mother of All Demos | Wikipedia: On 9 December 1968, Douglas Englebart demonstrated some breakthrough technologies: interactive text, video conferencing, teleconferencing, email and hypertext — and the very first computer mouse. This Wikipedia article has links to videos of the actual 1928 demo.
Shops track customers via mobile phone | Times Online: UK shopping centres are trialling the tracking of customers via their mobile phone emissions. Which stores do they visit? How long do they stay?
Drivers of Australian Inflation | A Stubborn Mule?s Perspective: What's causing the relatively high inflation in Australia? Here's an excellent visualisation with analysis.
The Prospect/FP Global public intellectuals poll: Over 20,000 people voted for their top names from the original longlist of 100. Links to analysis and biographies. Voters also nominated others who they thought should have been on the top list. Interesting view of what counts as "intellectual".
The Workplace: How to tell if you're a "workaholic" | International Herald Tribune: Workaholics don't get more done, necessarily, because they focus on inconsequential details.
Building a Popular Social Media Profile: Seven Essential Characteristics | Dosh Dosh: Some useful tips for establishing a global micro-brand.
Federal Budget 2007-08 analysis | ALIA: The Australian Library and Information Association's take on Australia's Federal Budget. Librarians get this information stuff!
Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web | ReadWriteWeb: Many of the themes have appeared elsewhere before, but still a good article.
Powerhouse Museum Collection's Photostream | flickr: 450-odd photographs from (mostly) the 1800s taken from original glass-plate negatives. Beautiful shots of Victorian Sydney, rural scenes etc.
The Art of the Business Card | Guy Kawasaki: Finally, a business card design where you can actually read the information! interesting discussion in the comments, too.

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Links for 15 May 2008

del.icio.us — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:26 +0000

Here are the web links I’ve found for 15 May 2008, posted automatically.

Zero Latency Studio Setup | Hugo Schotman: More information on the studio setup, this time to remove the annoying delay in headphone monitoring.
Advanced Podcast studio setup with Skype and Audio Hijack Pro | Hugo Schotman: Even though it dates from 2005, this article gave me the information I needed to sort out my broadcast setup.
Cory Doctorow: How to stop your inbox exploding | guardian.co.uk: Five simple but effective email management tips.
Why you should be using social tools in your organisation | acidlabs: Smart suggestions from Stephen Collins.
The new rules for buying a Mac | Macworld: Sensible article about choosing which Mac to buy.

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Links for 10 May 2008 through 12 May 2008

del.icio.us — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:43:02 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 10 May 2008 through 12 May 2008, generated almost-automatically:

How To Stream A Conference In 2 Minutes- Easy! | Ustream: Tutorial on how to live stream a conference. Focuses on conferences where there are already professional videographers providing a switched feed.
Streaming Video: Creating a Professional uStream Show | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing: More tutorial material on using Cam Twist and Ustream.
Chris Pirillo Live - 06/06/2007 04:44 | Ustream: Chris explains how he uses Cam Twist and other software to create the variations on his live video feed.
Using Skype With Audio Hijack Pro: It's actually a tutorial for Mac owners on how to get our Skype calls into your Ustream live programs using Audio Hijack Pro.
Unibrain Fire-i digital camera: Apple's old Firewire-based iSight cameras were so good that they don't hit the second-hand market often and when they do they're not cheap. Here's an alternative.
Platypus venom linked to pain relief | University of Sydney: New research released today in the scientific research journal Nature reveals links between platypus venom and its potential benefits for advancing pain relief and antibiotic medication.
How to Record a Podcast | MacDevCenter.com: This O'Reilly article by Glenn Fleishmann explains how to use Soundflower and Audio Hijack Pro to remove unwanted audio monitoring delays when recoding from Skype. Somewhere in here is the solution for my similar problem with Cam Twist / Ustream.

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Links for 07 May 2008

del.icio.us — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:50:51 +0000

Here are the web links I’ve found for 07 May 2008, posted automatically.

Is Your Consumer Using Social Media? | Advertising Age: Nine Profiles of Who Your Targets Are and Where They Might Be Online
Staralicious: The guy behind this Australian-run celebrity gossip site was interviewed by 2web Crew today. The podcast should be online soon
RedZee: A new search engine (still in Beta) with a very cute animation on the home page and an interesting visualisation technique inside. Will this slow things down and annoy regular users? Or does it actually provide something of value? No time to explore today
The Inquisitr: a new website about "Tech, Pop and Penguins", or something, from former TechCrunch writer and damn nice guy Duncan Riley. good luck, mate!
the global microbrand rant | gapingvoid: Hugh MacLeod's excellent overview of how you can leverage yourself into a global brand using The Power of he Internet.
How Little Do Users Read? | Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.