software – Page 2 – Stilgherrian

18 November 200918 November 2009

Links for 08 November 2009 through 18 November 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 08 November 2009 through 18 November 2009:

See what happens when you don’t curate your links for ten days, during which time there’s a conference which generates a bazillion things to link to? Sigh.

This is such a huge batch of links that I’ll start them over the fold. They’re not all about Media140 Sydney, trust me.

Continue reading “Links for 08 November 2009 through 18 November 2009”

01 November 2009

Links for 22 October 2009 through 27 October 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 22 October 2009 through 27 October 2009, published after far too long a break. I really, really do need to work out a better way of doing this…

Nature Child | San Juan Islander: “According to family studies professor, Sandra Hofferth of the University of Maryland, there was a 50% decline between 1997 to 2003 in the proportion of children 9 to 12 who spent time in outdoor activities (hiking, walking, fishing, beach play and gardening).”
FreeRangeKids: “At Free Range, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail.”
How far did you roam as a child? | Watershed: Educator John Larkin continues the thoughts about wrapping our kids in cotton wool.
How children lost the right to roam in four generations | Mail Online: In 1919, an 8yo was allowed to walk six miles to go fishing. Today, an 8yo isn’t allowed past the end of the street without parental escort. This article from 2007 triggered many thoughts, and I’ve glad I found it again.
Forget the young pretenders, Humans 1.0 can lead the way | The Observer: John Naughton riffs off the idea that teenagers don’t know everything and some parts of cyberspace (ugh!) are teenager-free. Although the article then says that “only” 11% of Twitter’s users are under 17 years old. And what proportion of the literate population is under 17yo? 11%? More? Less?
Podcasting Equipment Guide (2009) | Hivelogic: A nice guide to the tools needed to podcast on a budget. Yes, there’s a reason I’m looking at this. Stay tuned, as they say.
Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network | Parliament of Australia: Full transcripts of the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network public hearings, which I’m tagging for my own reference later.
What Information is “Personally Identifiable”? | Electronic Frontier Foundation: Gender, ZIP code and birth date are enough to uniquely identify about 87% of the US population. This has massive implications for publishing data sets, and for privacy policies that claim not to collect “personally identifiable” information.
Nine News twittered by seagull | TV Tonight: It’s nothing to do with Twitter, but there is a seagull. A very big seagull.
Apology for singing shop worker | BBC News: Shop assistant Sandra Burt, 56, from Clackmannanshire, was threatened with a fine for singing without a license by the Performing Right Society. However they’ve now apologised and sent flowers.
Online Ads Not Working for You? Blame the Creative | Advertising Age: A study by Dynamic Logic says that obsession about optimisation and placement is less important.
We can’t turn back the tide of internet piracy, says TV boss | Herald Scotland: “Internet piracy is merely demand where appropriate supply does not exist,” says the commissioning editor for education at the UK’s Channel 4.
Court tweets sustained but paper still lurks | ZDNet Australia: Liam Tung, who tweeted from the AFACT v iiNet trial in the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney, reflects on the gaps in courtroom IT.
Beats and Tweets: Journalistic Guidelines for the Facebook Era | NPR: Yet another exploration of ethics an journalism. One point in here I really do not like, though: “You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org.” Sorry? Work for NPR and you lose your right to participate in democracy?
Poles, Politeness and Politics in the age of Twitter | The New Adventures of Stephen Fry: Another fine if perhaps rambling essay from Mr Fry about the meaning of “influence” and accidentally gaining same. Worth a leisurely read.
Why journalism's all a-Twitter | The Walkley Foundation: The editorial chief of Sydney’s forthcoming Media140 conference goes beyond the obvious “Is Twitter journalism?” and mechanical how-to issues and explores the ethical issues of journalists using Twitter.
Twitter in the court: Federal judge gets it | CNET News: Another article about using Twitter in courtrooms, from the US an from March 2009.
Call For Opinions | Blackbeard Blog: Tom Ewing’s collection of opinions on market research and social media, “quite unsupported by anything other than grumpiness and prejudice”. The first is that “insights” aren’t Zen koans. “If you can express something that briefly, it’s probably banal.”
The internet doesn’t exist | Business Spectator: Ah, Alan Kohler! I do so love your commentaries! Here’s more of his sensible thoughts on the matter of paying for “content” on the Internet.
How Safe is the HPV vaccine? | Information Is Beautiful: A brilliantly simple infographic showing the incredibly low risk of associated with the Human Papillomavirus compared with various everyday activities.
Ultimate Goat Fansite: Do I need to explain? I thought not.

26 September 200926 September 2009

Links for 22 September 2009 through 26 September 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 22 September 2009 through 26 September 2009, gathered intermittently and posted with a lack of attention to detail:

How Twitter works in theory | Epeus’ epigone: There is much in this commentary of Twitter which I support, particularly the concepts of flow and the overlapping social networks. Read and learn.
Industry cooperation looming on filtering? | CommsDay: There have been rumours, from reliable sources, that Senator Conroy is hoping Australia’s Internet industry will come up with its own answer to censorship.
Dear Associated Press: Come On, Attribution is Not That Hard | Whatever: John Scalzi is annoyed that AP cited him as “another user” on Twitter, when his name is just a click away. This fits with something I hinted at in Crikey this week. More about that another time.
How journalists and media brands can get the maximum benefit from Twitter | Write, edit, blog: A nice collection of thoughts about… well, what the title says.
Public Radio Exchange: “An online marketplace for distribution, review, and licensing of public radio programming.” Free registration means you can listen to this stuff yourself. Hours and hours of it.
Programmatic specificity: what is Rudd talking about? | En Passant: An earlier essay, from July, with another take on Ruddspeak.
Rudd's robust language is not the problem | Woolly Days: A nice analysis of why Prime Minister Kevin Rudd using the f-word really of little consequence, whereas bureaucratic evasiveness like “detailed programmatic specificity” is.
Caring for Your Introvert | The Atlantic (March 2003): An oldie but a goodie. Kind of. If you’re an introvert, it might be worth showing this to those extroverts who are pissing you off.
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google: All of the photos from LIFE magazine from 1936 to 1972 are on Google Images. This isn’t new — the archive was created in 2008 — but I was reminded of it this week.
WP Greet Box WordPress Plugin | OMNINOGGIN: A different message is displayed to blog visitors, depending on how they found you. Do I have a use for this, or it it just another annoyance to maintain?
Is the Internet melting our brains? | Salon Books: Despite the provocative headline, this interview with linguist Dennis Baron from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a sensible debunking of the fears.
The Interregnum Revisited | Jon Taplin’ Blog: This essay deserves slow and careful reading. It links the themes of the cyclic nature of right-wing fear-mongering and paranoia with longer-term US political history — with some disturbing conclusions.
Can Sheepdogs Round Up Magpies? | BitingTheDust: A great story from Robbo, currently in the Gibson Desert. And a great photo.
MacSpeech Dictate 1.5: I’d been meaning to find decent dictation software for OS X, and John Birmingham mentioned this one. Must check it out.
Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 | WebSiteOptimization.com: Web pages now average more than 300KB and 50 objects per page. I know my own attitude has been that everyone now has broadband. But what about mobile devices and the Third World?

13 August 2009

Links for 11 August 2009 through 14 August 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 11 August 2009 through 14 August 2009, gathered with care and lightly dusted with sugar:

Formal Methods in Modern Critical-Software Development | The Abnormal Distribution: I needed an explanation of Formal Methods in programming, and this one ain’t bad.
Telstra admits to exchange access deception | iTnews.com.au: It turns out that, yes, Telstra did tell other ISPs there was no room in their exchanges for their broadband equipment, when there was.
Narrate Your Work | Scripting News: Dave Winer nails it. “Twitter is at least a dress rehearsal for the news system of the future.” His catchphrase “Narrate Your Work” resonates with me: that’s precisely how I use Twitter, and it’s a sensible work practice for any distributed team.
Are you still marketing like its 1999? | Media Hunter: Online is now your customer’s “number one media priority”, because they spend more time online than with newspapers or TV or radio. Is it yours?
On Language – How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection | NYTimes.com: An excellent summary of the history of FAIL.

08 June 200927 August 2009

Links for 29 May 2009 through 08 June 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 29 May 2009 through 08 June 2009. Yes, another delayed posting which will give you plenty of Queen’s Birthday holiday reading.

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live | TIME: Yes, TIME magazine’s cover story is about Twitter. It starts extremely badly: that clichÃ©d, lazy trope about people tweeting what they had for breakfast. Despite that inexcusable slackness, it’s a useful addition to the cornucopia of Twitter-based articles.
10 Things I would do differently | Still A Newspaperman: Written with the benefit of hindsight, a former newspaper journalist considers how he’d have handled running a metropolitan newspaper. He’s spot on in many ways.
Can the EU play Battleships? | Global Dashboard: Is it time for Europe, as a united entity, to develop a naval strategy? The article’s illustration is also a remarkable example of period gender stereotyping.
How IT Can Save Africa | SAP Network Blogs: While clunkily-written, this piece outlines why getting decent IT to Africa isn’t a “waste”, but in fact a core element of getting rid of poverty.
How Twitter’s Staff Uses Twitter (And Why It Could Cause Problems) | ReadWriteWeb: It turns out that the staff of Twitter don’t use it like “power users” like me use it. Could this affect the tool’s development?
The oldest sculpture ever discovered is a 36,000 year old woman with really big breasts. Is anyone surprised? | 3quarksdaily: Dubbed the “Venus of Hohle Fels”, this 6cm tall sculpture us about 36,000 years old. And it has large breasts.
Live Streaming Video From Livestream.com: The live video streaming service Mogulus has re-branded as Livestream. That should Hoover them into some generic wordspace, yeah. (Google it!)
Spootnik: A tool to automatically synchronise information between 37signals’ Basecamp (which use extensively) and OmniFocus (which intend to use).
Tom’splanner: Another software as a service start-up, this time about “creating and sharing project schedules”. Their website’s menu bar is the clichÃ©d list of Home, tour, product Info, Pricing and — of course! — “Buzz”, so it must be good. Sigh.
How Journalists Are Using Twitter in Australia | PBS: Julie Posetti’s rather reasonable article which responds to “the views of resistors and detractors” who argue that “Twitter isn’t journalism”. “Sound familiar to veterans of the great blogging vs journalism debate?” she asks. “Of course Twitter isn’t journalism, it’s a platform like radio or TV but with unfettered interactivity. However, the act of tweeting can be as journalistic as the act of headline writing. Similarly, the platform can be used for real-time reporting by professional journalists in a manner as kosher as a broadcast news live report.”
Light Rail to Summer Hill | Metro Transport: The other Monday, yet another proposal for a new transport line in Sydney went to NSW state cabinet. This one involves extending the existing light rail line by 3.7km from Lilyfield to Summer Hill by converting the Rozelle freight line. It also has the advantage of running through the state seat of Balmain, where sitting Labour member Verity Firth runs the risk of losing to The Greens in the 2011 election.

11 March 2009

Links for 08 March 2009 trough 10 March 2009

Here are the web links I’ve found for 08 March 2009 through 10 March 2009, posted with a thin layer of grease for protection against corrosion.

Who is Fake Stephen Conroy? Full list of Suspects. | Amnesia Blog: Speculation about who Fake Stephen Conroy really is. Are they getting warm?
How the US forgot how to make Trident missiles | The Sunday Herald: Plans to refurbish Trident nuclear weapons had to be put on hold because US scientists forgot how to manufacture a component of the warhead. Complex manufacturing process do need to be maintained.
Historically Bad Ideas in Software | Bex Huff: A great conversation-starter. Just because something sounds good in theory, in isolation, doesn’t mean it’ll be good value in the long run.
Privacy in the Age of Persistence | Schneier on Security: “Data is the pollution of the information age. It’s a natural byproduct of every computer-mediated interaction. It stays around forever, unless it’s disposed of. It is valuable when reused, but it must be done carefully. Otherwise, its after effects are toxic. And just as 100 years ago people ignored pollution in our rush to build the Industrial Age, today we’re ignoring data in our rush to build the Information Age.” Bruce Schneier has written about this before, but this is one of the tightest explanations I’ve seen.
How to Twitter | WSJ.com: One journalist’s first cut at explaining Twitter to a non-Twitter audience. I’m amused by the observation that you’ll get more followers if you actually say something. Well, yes.
Okay, this is going to hurt… | Winnipeg Free Press: One journalist’s take on the “controversy” following political blogger Policy Frog’s decision to do commentary in the “mainstream media”.
The Evolution of Life in 60 Seconds | YouTube: Exactly what it says. Personally, I’d have presented it with images rather than words. Maybe that’s a project for me for another time.