January, 2009
30
Jan 09
disrobing, 140 characters at a time.
At some point the anonymity of the internet transformed into a social networking clearinghouse of daily minutiae and most of us willingly opted in, choosing the ease and comfort of virtual intimacy over a lonely existence of real world disconnectedness. And these communities blossomed, starting with close friends and family then expanding to include co-workers and long lost childhood chums, finally welcoming obscure acquaintances and total strangers with whom we’ve never had a face to face conversation. We decided that to know and be known was a good thing, but never really thought it through.
22
Jan 09
Obama to Bush: I Can Release Your Records. Don’t Like It? Sue.
MotherJones Blog: Obama to Bush: I Can Release Your Records. Don’t Like It? Sue.
“On his first day in office, President Obama put former president Bush on notice. His administration just released an executive order that will make it difficult for Bush to shield his White House records–and those of former Vice President Dick Cheney–from public scrutiny by invoking the doctrine of executive privilege. ”
19
Jan 09
Al-Qaeda, meet Plague
Al-Qaeda hit by Black Death fear as medieval plague kills 40 terrorists at training camp
Al Qaeda terrorists have been left fearing the Black Death plague after it wiped out at least 40 insurgents at an Algerian training camp, it was reported today.
The horror disease, which killed 25 million people in medieval Europe, is understood to have been found in a militant’s body dumped at a roadside.
Terror group AQLIM (al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb) was forced to turn its shelter in the Yakouren forests into mass graves and flee, it has been claimed.
(Via caro.)
6
Jan 09
words of wisdom
Mike Davidson – Thoughts on the ESPN.com Redesign
“First the standard caveat: designing a major media site is not as easy as it may appear. It is not like designing a blog and not like designing a standard %u201Cweb presence%u201D for a company. There are hundreds of internal stakeholders to answer to, millions of daily users to please, and a ton of legacy and third-party code that is often outside your control. Anyone who tries to knock down the virtues of a major media site redesign based on how far it falls short of perfection is making the wrong comparison. The most important benchmark to grade is simply the amount of improvement (or worsening) from the last iteration of the site. Secondarily, comparison against competitors is also very important.”
3
Jan 09
Psychologist finds Wikipedians grumpy and closed-minded – tech – 03 January 2009 – New Scientist
“Disagreeable and closed to new ideas – that’s the picture that emerges of contributors to community-curated encyclopaedia Wikipedia from a survey of their psychological attributes.”
