That time already? Better get these posted (and get more coffee):
Happy invoicing!
- Some of them can read - Sean Wilsey's review of Robert Sullivan's book Rats: A Year with New York’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants is itself full of interesting rat-related anecdotes: "Before this part of [Gansevoort Market] was abandoned, in 1942, the rats practically had charge of it. Some of them nested in the drawers of desks. When the drawers were pulled open, they leaped out, snarling."
- There are monsters that walk among us - by Detective Sergeant Darren Bruce: "A few years ago I was asked by an ex-boss to go and assist on a cold case enquiry for a couple of weeks as a stop-gap before taking up a new position on the Child Abuse Investigation Team. This short assignment would end up as six months of my life dedicated to a single pursuit to the detriment of my family. I would become so obsessed with this investigation that the end seemed to justify whatever it took from me."
- 60 Second Adventures in Thought - Great set of videos from the Open University. "Can a cat be both alive and dead? Can a computer think? How does a tortoise beat Achilles in a race? Voiced by comedian David Mitchell, these fast-paced animations explain six famous thought experiments, from the ancient Greeks to Albert Einstein, that have changed the way we see the world. Subjects as vast as time travel, infinity, quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence, are squeezed into 60-second clips that will tickle your funny bone and blow your mind."
- The Perils of Twitter - "I've often commented on what a wonderful thing Twitter is. I've also however highlighted two frauds on this blog and pointed out how they have abused the trust and friendships that are so easily formed on Twitter. Today I received two death threats for publicising a man who has been abusive to women."
- Search Algorithms with Google Director of Research Peter Norvig - "...this discussion focused on the use of artificial intelligence algorithms in search. Peter outlines for us the approach used by Google on a number of interesting search problems, and how they view search problems in general. This is fascinating reading for those of you who want to get a deeper understanding of how search is evolving and the technological approaches that are driving it." Excellent interview with the chap who used to be NASA's senior computer scientist, and is also creator of the world's longest palindromic sentence (well, of the program that created it)
- Before Netscape: the forgotten Web browsers of the early 1990s - A slice of history by Michael Lasar, from TBL's WorldWideWeb browser (which also let you edit pages) onwards: "...shortly after WorldWideWeb, CERN mathematics intern Nicola Pellow wrote a line mode browser that could function elsewhere, including on UNIX and MS-DOS networks. Thus 'anyone could access the web,' explains Internet historian Bill Stewart, 'at that point consisting primarily of the CERN phone book.'"
- Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction - "A Systematic Approach to Interactive Visualization" Bret Victor has created an excellent introduction to the technique of moving between levels of abstraction as part of the design process, illustrated with numerous interactive visualisations.
- Fletcher's angry list of startup rules - "Mark Fletcher posted a great list of startup rules a little while back. Mark was the creator of Bloglines and Onelist... Mark's advice is spot-on for a lot of the web 2.0 companies being launched now. I like Mark's list because it's a little edgier than a lot of the smile-faced spin you see on VC blogs." Useful tips for getting Plan B up and running.
- Where do you want to pirate today? - Classic article by Adam L. Penenberg about the warez scene of 1997: "He's no longer merely 'the tech guy,' the geeky middle manager with the encroaching weight problem, wife, mortgage, two kids and years of impending orthodontia. He is now, or, rather his 'nick' is, 'Mutant'... and he's a big-time software pirate."
- Women Looking Dissatisfied in Bed - Collection of the kind of stock photo frequently found in the Daily Mail illustrating non-stories that conflate pseudo-scientific verbiage with illogical conclusions about sexual dysfunction, or possibly the Internet. This kind of thing:
Happy invoicing!
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