Just time to post these, then I've got to get back to chasing a pimp:
Happy invoicing!
- On The Creation of NeXT - "NeXT was formed by Steve Jobs after he was kicked out of Apple in 1985." Last week saw the twenty-fourth anniversary of the launch of the NeXTcube; this is part 1 of Stephen Hackett's series on the history of the company. Continue with Part 2: The Hardware, Part 3: The Software, Part 4: The Apple Purchase, and Part 5: Why Did NeXT Fail? (Or Did It?) Last year I scanned Byte magazine's review of the NeXTcube; Jason Scott of textfiles.org fame grabbed a copy of the scans from me, and placed them in the Internet Archive for your reading pleasure. Also, linked to from Part 2 above, don't miss Simson L. Garfinkel's story of setting fire to a NeXTcube's magnesium alloy case.
- What Your Dog Is Thinking - "Dogs can count, use touchscreen computers and understand hundreds of words. Soon we might find out what they really think of us." Annie Murphy Paul on recent research into the cognitive faculties of man's so-called best friend, including MRI scans which show, perhaps not too surprisingly, that they like the idea of food.
- Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web - I believe MSM have been picking up on this story, but here's the original exposé of a notorious troll from last week: "Last Wednesday afternoon I called Michael Brutsch. He was at the office of the Texas financial services company where he works as a programmer and he was having a bad day. I had just told him, on Gchat, that I had uncovered his identity as the notorious internet troll Violentacrez (pronounced Violent-Acres). "It's amazing how much you can sweat in a 60 degree office," he said with a nervous laugh."
- Tube Map Platonic Solids - "This week, after re-reading chapter two of Alex's Adventures in Numberland (where Alex learns to fold business cards into tetrahedrons, cubes and octahedrons) on the tube, I folded two tube maps into a tetrahedron..." Matt Scroggs didn't stop there, and demonstrates how to make more Platonic solids from Tube maps
- A Proposal For a System to Replace Ordinary Record Merchandising - "Ordinary phonograph record merchandising as it exists today is a stupid process which concerns itself essentially with pieces of plastic, wrapped in pieces of cardboard... We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer..." Frank Zappa in 1983, describing pretty much the music distribution systems we have now.
- If You're Too Busy to Meditate, Read This - "Meditation brings many benefits: It refreshes us, helps us settle into what's happening now, makes us wiser and gentler, helps us cope in a world that overloads us with information and communication, and more. But if you're still looking for a business case to justify spending time meditating, try this one: Meditation makes you more productive." Peter Bregman on the potential business benefits of meditation.
- My Question Time experience - "Last night I was in the audience for BBC Question Time. I follow it every week on TV and join in the argument on Twitter. I thought it would be interesting for people to know how it actually works so here is my experience."
- No Filter: Inside Hipstamatic’s Lost Year Searching For The Next Killer Social App - "From rooftop bashes and acquisition talks to staff clashes and layoffs, Hipstamatic’s founders and ex-employees describe the startup’s losing struggle to keep pace with Instagram, Facebook, and others in the white-hot photo-sharing space. In the first of three installments, Twitter comes calling, but Hipstamatic decides to go social on its own." Continue with Part 2 and Part 3 to get some idea of what it's like when your mega-successful startup rapidly goes from being the next big thing to an also-ran.
- The Mad Baron of Mongolia: The True Story of a Psychopath - "The bonfires were lit shortly after nightfall on 31 January, 1921. To the Chinese garrison in Urga, the capital of Mongolia, it was the first sign that something was seriously wrong. For days, they had been expecting an attack from a small band of mercenaries. Now, seeing the ring of fires around Urga, they realised that a huge army was camped outside the city walls. The leader of this army was one of the most monstrous commanders of the twentieth century - a sadistic psychopath with an alarmingly megalomaniac streak. His name was Baron Roman Nikolaus Fyodorovich von Ungern-Sternberg and he saw himself as the reincarnation of Genghis Khan." Giles Milton tells the story of this quite successful (for a while) megalomaniac and his mercenary horde.
- He Texted - Bizarre site on which young ladies post text message conversations they've had with their beaus which have left them uncertain as to his true feelings towards them, in the hope of receiving advice: e.g.
She: 'Love you'
He: 'Aweee'
She: 'To the moon and back and around the Milky Way'
He: ':)) Please bring an iPhone car charger.'
Happy invoicing!
Comment