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Monday Links from the Bench in ClientCo's Kitchen Vol. LXXXII

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    Monday Links from the Bench in ClientCo's Kitchen Vol. LXXXII

    So many freelancers in ClientCo today that I've been sent off to sit at the kitchen table with a WiFi connection

    Good job I already had this lot prepared, under the circumstances:
    • If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault - "We're twenty years in to this world wide web thing. Today, I myself celebrate twelve years of writing this blog. And yet those of us who love this medium, who've had our lives changed by the possibility of publishing our words to the world without having to ask permission, are constantly charged with defending this wonderful, expressive medium in a way that creators in every other discipline seldom find themselves obligated to do... Some of this is because the medium is new, of course. But in large part, it's because so many of the most visible, prominent, and popular places on the web are full of unkindness and hateful behavior." Anil Dash outlines what you need to do to keep an online community viable.

    • Cyanide, Uranium, and Ammonium Nitrate: When Kids Really Had Fun With Science - "Here we are, in 2011, a.k.a. 'The Future.' We’ve made leaps and bounds in science that we couldn’t even imagine 50 years ago. You’d think the science toys of our age would be mind-bending in their ability to awe and inspire young chemists and biologists. Instead, kids today are being protected within an inch of their lives, while adults apparently live in dread of unsupervised children running amuck with the powers of modern science at their tiny fingertips." A comparison of science toys old and new; I love the 1951 "Atomic Energy Lab" with real uranium

    • The Learjet repo man - "Business has never been better for the fearless pilot who takes back millionaires' expensive toys." It had never occurred to me that somebody might go out and repossess jumbo jets by actually flying them away. Hat tip to chef for this one

    • WTFnoway.com - A visualisation of United States debt - Graphical representations of how various levels of current US debt would look if stacked up in piles of $100 bills. "If you spent $1 million a day since Jesus was born, you would have not spent $1 trillion by now...but ~$700 billion- same amount the banks got during bailout."

    • Voicemail hacking and the 'phone hacking' scandal - how it worked, questions to be asked and improvements to be made - "The first thing to mention is that the phone hacking episode has nothing at all to do with actual 'phone' hacking. It is actually illicit voicemail access. Access can be gained by using some technical knowledge and or tools, but on the whole it is through system and process weaknesses." Good explanation of the various ways the "hacks" that led to the stories of the last few weeks were perpetrated, and what has been or is being done to prevent them.

    • A Geek's Journal - 1976 - "What if there had been blogs in 1976? I would most definitely have had one and this might well have been it. This blog is based on my actual journal kept in 1976." Booksteve is publishing his teenage diary day-by-day exactly thirty-five years on.

    • Top 40 best free legal movies you can download right now - "While you constantly hear about how downloading movies is illegal, there are numerous free legal movies you can download. Sure we aren’t talking about the latest summer blockbusters here, but there are some great films out there on the Internet that can be had for free... The Internet Archive works to bring together anything and everything that resides in the public domain, and that includes movies. We’ve gathered together 40 of the best ones that will keep you entertained for hours on end, all without costing you a dime outside of using some of your bandwidth. Enjoy!" There's some surprisingly good stuff on this list

    • Why files need to die - "Files are an outdated concept. As we go about our daily lives, we don't open up a file for each of our friends or create folders full of detailed records about our shopping trips. Create, watch, socialize, share, and plan — these are the new verbs of the Internet age — not open, save, close and trash." Alex Bower considers alternatives to the traditional file system approach to storing data.

    • In which we betray our gender - "The comic below is a compulsive response to a recent, entirely unremarkable little dust-up over on Twitter concerning the excruciatingly polite, brief comments of a certain cartoonist concerning the way dudes talk about women cartoonists — and the tulipstorm of whiny nonsensical defensive outrage that inevitably followed, just like any other time anyone on the internet has ever hinted at the possibility that perhaps, maybe, women could be treated a little more like, you know, humans." Great comic by Gabby Schulz which, inevitably, provoked yet another tulipstorm in the comments, to which there is a further riposte: Sexism 2: The Self-Referencing

    • HAHA - Business! - "This is an unmoderated, puerile and probably NSFW dump of all the pictures I found on the web. A lot of them I used in presentations which is why I put them up here. If you are easily offended, I propose you don't click around." My former colleague Christian Heilmann is renowned for the (usually strange) quality of the images used in his presentations, and here he shares his repository, loosely categorised; for example:



    Happy invoicing!

    #2
    Originally posted by NickFitz View Post
    So many freelancers in ClientCo today that I've been sent off to sit at the kitchen table with a WiFi connection

    Good job I already had this lot prepared, under the circumstances:
    • Top 40 best free legal movies you can download right now - "While you constantly hear about how downloading movies is illegal, there are numerous free legal movies you can download. Sure we aren’t talking about the latest summer blockbusters here, but there are some great films out there on the Internet that can be had for free... The Internet Archive works to bring together anything and everything that resides in the public domain, and that includes movies. We’ve gathered together 40 of the best ones that will keep you entertained for hours on end, all without costing you a dime outside of using some of your bandwidth. Enjoy!" There's some surprisingly good stuff on this list



    Happy invoicing!
    And some wonderfully bad stuff too. Thank you so much
    +50 Xeno Geek Points
    Come back Toolpusher, scotspine, Voodooflux. Pogle
    As for the rest of you - DILLIGAF

    Purveyor of fine quality smut since 2005

    CUK Olympic University Challenge Champions 2010/2012

    Comment


      #3
      A Geek's Journal - 1976 - "What if there had been blogs in 1976? I would most definitely have had one and this might well have been it. This blog is based on my actual journal kept in 1976." Booksteve is publishing his teenage diary day-by-day exactly thirty-five years on.
      How long before someone does the Hitler blog????

      Edit. Just done the google thing. Yep, already there...
      Speaking gibberish on internet talkboards since last Michaelmas. Plus here on Twitter

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by zeitghost
        Along the lines of "Got up, had breakfast, invaded Poland" sort of thing?
        "Eva wanted to play hide the bratwurst this morning, but I was still tired after the rally last night. Herr McRae was very good, but Herr Schumacher was better. Eva wants a weekend break in Warsaw next month but I have a bigger surprise for her."
        What happens in General, stays in General.
        You know what they say about assumptions!

        Comment


          #5
          "All the electrical went out on the plane and Nick was flying at night," he says. "He flew that plane back with zero electricity -- no lights, nothing. There aren't many guys that would be able to do that."
          Yup, not even Mr Sat Night Fever was happy with that situation.

          Thanks once again Nick F for the links - great read.
          If you think my attitude stinks, you should smell my fingers.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by hyperD View Post
            Yup, not even Mr Sat Night Fever was happy with that situation.

            Thanks once again Nick F for the links - great read.
            Cheers - and just to re-iterate, it was esteemed CUKer chef who sent me that particular link

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by NickFitz View Post
              Cheers - and just to re-iterate, it was esteemed CUKer chef who sent me that particular link
              Ahh Nick posts so many good links I thought I could help out for once, glad others enjoyed
              The proud owner of 125 Xeno Geek Points

              Comment

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