adactumblr

"If the end of privacy comes about, it’s because we misunderstand the current changes as the..."

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:15:28 +0100

“If the end of privacy comes about, it’s because we misunderstand the current changes as the end of privacy, and make the mistake of encoding this misunderstanding into technology. It’s not the end of privacy because of these new visibilities, but it may be the end of privacy because it looks like the end of privacy because of these new visibilities*. Uh, if you see what I mean.”

- this isnt a story i (30 June, 2007, Interconnected)

"Chomski, writing in the 70s, proposed that all languages have in common elements of their structure,..."

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:47:28 +0100

“Chomski, writing in the 70s, proposed that all languages have in common elements of their structure, like subjects, verbs and objects. Francis suggests this structure stems from the way our brain is hardwired to think about technology. Subject, verb, object comes from ‘hammer, hit, nail’.”

- technology is what makes us human

"My dependence on my phone reminds me of Samuel Beckett’s fictional creation, Molloy, who is so..."

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:26:16 +0100

“My dependence on my phone reminds me of Samuel Beckett’s fictional creation, Molloy, who is so dilapidated that he can’t move without the aid of a bicycle. Physical dilapidation the least of his problems. He can’t remember his name, if his mother is really his mother, or if his bicycle is really his bicycle. His dependence on technology to move around led the critic Hugh Kenner to describe Molloy as a Cartesian centaur: half man, half bicycle.”

- Design Idea » I lost my mobile phone.

"It now costs more to park a car at one airport than to rent one at the other end. To my twisted..."

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:59:07 +0100

“It now costs more to park a car at one airport than to rent one at the other end. To my twisted mind, this indicates that machines (taking the automobile as a benchmark) are now self-reproducing so fast we have reached a transition point where machines are cheaper than the empty space they fill.”

- Kevin Kelly — The Technium

"The “Web OS” meme is harmful because it’s about technology. But the Internet’s killer app is people,..."

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:55:05 +0100

“The “Web OS” meme is harmful because it’s about technology. But the Internet’s killer app is people, has always been, will always be. Every single step forward has involved finding new routes and patterns and tools for people to use interacting with other people. No exceptions.”

- ongoing · Not an OS

"Whenever this argument surfaces, there seems to be the assumption that loose syntax is easier for..."

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:09:24 +0100

“

Whenever this argument surfaces, there seems to be the assumption that loose syntax is easier for beginners. This baffles me. In my experience simple, strict rules are *much* easier to learn and code to than loose rules with multiple shortcuts.

I like XHTML because attributes must always be quoted. Tags must always be closed. These are simple rules that require no thought, and result in uniform, predictable markup.

As soon as something is optional (be that the need to quote an attribute or close a tag or whatever) the author has to learn a set of conditions and evaluate when a shortcut may or may not be used. Similarly, reading markup back becomes more difficult, as those conditions have to be taken into account again.

Strict syntax is simpler and easier.

”

- Elliotte Rusty Harold: Why XHTML

"I’m sure Yelp means well. They just want to help me find my friends, doggone it! But the very..."

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:58:27 +0100

“I’m sure Yelp means well. They just want to help me find my friends, doggone it! But the very nature of the request is incredibly offensive; they have effectively asked for the keys to my house in order to riffle through my address book.”

- Coding Horror: Please Give Us Your Email Password

"It’s ironic that CAPTCHA can be defeated by those who are sufficiently motivated, when..."

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:46:51 +0100

“It’s ironic that CAPTCHA can be defeated by those who are sufficiently motivated, when they’re the very same people the test is designed to protect against. Just like DRM, CAPTCHA systems ultimately fail to protect against the original threat, while simultaneously inconveniencing ordinary users.”

- Beyond CAPTCHA: No Bots Allowed! [Privacy and Trust]

"The act of one human being choosing to follow another is a big deal. As long as nefarious intent is..."

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:07:58 +0100

“The act of one human being choosing to follow another is a big deal. As long as nefarious intent is not in play, the connection creates what the social science nerds like to call an affinity map; by drawing a line between you and me, we can infer that we’re somehow connected. How are we connected? Who knows? Maybe you like nerd culture? How about gel pens? We’re not really going to know until we test that link by asking a question.”

- Rands In Repose: We Travel in Tribes

"Twitter’s value has nothing to do with the technology. Measuring uptime is an interesting nerd..."

Sat, 31 May 2008 07:15:26 +0100

“Twitter’s value has nothing to do with the technology. Measuring uptime is an interesting nerd exercise, but Twitter’s value lies in how it stays out of the way and allows people to easily connect so they can share their thoughts and, more importantly, explore their differences.”

- Rands In Repose: We Travel in Tribes

"If you see Twitter as a venue for public relations or marketing, or as an audience eager to hear..."

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:32:31 +0100

“If you see Twitter as a venue for public relations or marketing, or as an audience eager to hear news of a post on your ‘blog’, or a rich hot sticky vertical, or if you consider yourself a web strategist, or if you talk earnestly about social media, or if you can read Techcrunch or listen to the Gillmor gang with a straight face, it’s very unlikely the things you say on Twitter will show up here. If however you think of Twitter as a place to amuse, inspire and entertain, then good on you. Keep it up. We all thank you for it.”

- Favrd. Trickle-down egonomics for the twitter attention sp…

"If you care about the Big New Thing that’s going to change your life, wait till it comes and touches..."

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:49:18 +0100

“If you care about the Big New Thing that’s going to change your life, wait till it comes and touches your life. Then you’ll know what it’s really about, not what some overworked underslept Bay-Area meme-promoter thinks.”

- ongoing · Look Sideways

"You know when you visit another country and you see that it spends more money on flowers for its..."

Sat, 10 May 2008 13:25:59 +0100

“You know when you visit another country and you see that it spends more money on flowers for its roundabouts than we do, and you think … coo, why don’t we do that? How pretty. How pleasing. What a difference it makes. To spend money for the public good in a way that enriches, gives pleasure, improves the quality of life, that is something. That is a real achievement. It’s only flowers in a roundabout, but how wonderful. Well, we have the equivalent of flowers in the roundabout times a million: the BBC enriches the country in ways we will only discover when it has gone and it is too late to build it up again. We actually can afford the BBC, because we can’t afford not to.”

- BBC - The future role of public service broadcasting

"Bruce Schneier, a famous cryptologist — or at least as famous a cryptologist as cryptologists are..."

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:15:44 +0100

“Bruce Schneier, a famous cryptologist — or at least as famous a cryptologist as cryptologists are likely to get in this century — once described attempts to make digital bits uncopyable as “trying to make water not wet.””

- The day the music died [dive into mark]

"Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks..."

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:17:00 +0100

“Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks games are fun and cool, and you don’t. Those born in 1990 get the vote this year.
15 years from now, the prime minister of the day will have grown up playing computer games, just as 15 years ago we had the first prime minister to have grown up watching television, and 30 years ago to have grown up listening to the radio. Times change: accept it; embrace it. Don’t make yourself look even more 20th Century, even more public school, than you do already. You’ve lost! Understand? Your time has passed.”

- Richard Bartle: Gamers have won the battle against the censors | Technology | guardian.co.uk

"I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about..."

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:25:54 +0100

“I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she’s going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, “What you doing?” And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, “Looking for the mouse.””

- Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody

"What they are saying is that they use a crude averaging model, and penalize you if you don’t..."

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:00:03 +0100

“What they are saying is that they use a crude averaging model, and penalize you if you don’t fit, for example by using the connection capacity they promise more than 10% of the time. Now, this could be called Procrustean, but it reminds me of The Producers, where Bialystock and Bloom sold a hundred people 10% shares of the show, assuming it would fail.”

- Epeus’ epigone: Comcast’s Bialystock and Bloom Business Model?

"The inexpensive and readily available technologies allow for an ever greater number of potential..."

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:58:49 +0100

“The inexpensive and readily available technologies allow for an ever greater number of potential solutions to address societal challenges. If you think about it, how we mobilized prior to the web seems like the equivalent of walking in quicksand. In my mind this will grow exponentially, as we gain insight into how to use these new tools better.”

- ideasonideas - Eric Karjaluoto discusses design, brands and experience » Blog Archive » The web, community, privacy and optimism

"People started tweeting that they didn’t know where the torch was headed (as it had been driven off..."

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:08:02 +0100

“People started tweeting that they didn’t know where the torch was headed (as it had been driven off in a bus) however I was was watching the live feed so I knew where it was going - I quickly tweeted @SFtorch, let them know what I was seeing, they then relayed that to everyone following them and BOOM all of a sudden I providing information to the protesters on the ground - shit - this is the most awesome ARG (except that its real) ever.”

- San Fran torch relay is a social media extravaganza! « Grumblemouse Musings

"I don’t doubt that many viewers will simply not be up for the mental gymnastics it takes to..."

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:10:19 +0100

“I don’t doubt that many viewers will simply not be up for the mental gymnastics it takes to get through this movie. But for nerds of a certain kind—lovers of hard science fiction and puzzles, science geeks and brainiacs of the sort depicted in the film—Primer not only welcomes but requires multiple viewings, and Carruth has insisted that all the information that people need to work the story out is there.”

- The New Cult Canon: Primer | The A.V. Club