- “Transformers” Hostess Cupcakes And Sno Balls Roll Out – OK, I have to admit that "Chocwave" cupcakes are inspired.
- Emergency Preparedness: Cell & Home Phone Guidelines. In particular: wireless home phones require power. Keep one landline phone with a cord on hand. And for non-emergency communications (“I’m OK, hope everyone else is”), stick to texting, email, or social networks so that emergency workers and people in immediate danger (“Help, I’m trapped under a fallen wall”) can use the voice channels.
- Whenever I hear someone complain about “hipsters,” I always think of this comic.
Tag: linkblogging
Recent Tech Links
Some interesting technology articles I’ve found over the last few weeks.
- Cornell lab prints food (LA Times) – One step closer to the day we can order pizza online…and download it!
- Ping isn’t always the best way to test network connectivity (or even speed) – ISC Diary
- XKCD and the paradox of password strength. ISC responds: it’s not that simple.
- Consolidation in the Telecommunications Industry since 1984 (the government-imposed breakup of AT&T into the seven “Baby Bells”) – WSJ
- ISC asks: Should We Still Test Patches?
- Introducing CloudFlare’s Automatic IPv6 Gateway – Very cool use of an existing proxy to make any website reachable by IPv6 with no changes to the server.
- Extrasolar planets seen by Hubble in 1998 revealed by new image processing techniques.
Recent Links: Social Networking
Some interesting links I’ve seen over the last few weeks.
- Twitter Click Research: What types of tweets get the most clicks? (via @danilolee)
- The half-life of a shared link is 3 hours on Twitter, Facebook, email or instant messaging…but twice that on Youtube.(via Mashable)
- YouTube Founders Aim to Revamp Delicious (NY Times) – I’ve used Delicious for years mainly as a cross-platform bookmarking service, not so much as a social link sharing service, but these days I mainly use XMarks. (via Techcitement)
- OAuth Needs Partial Authorization – as Alex King points out , many sites that let you log in using your Twitter, Facebook, or other accounts ask for too much access to your account. If I’m not going to use the service to post status updates, it shouldn’t require permission to post updates in my name.
On a related note, I’ve set up on Klout and PeerIndex, mainly out of curiosity. Their topic analysis needs a bit of work, though. Klout was convinced that my Speed Force accounts were influential about Washington, DC (rather than DC Comics) and, inexplicably, ducks. PeerIndex seems to think I post a lot about breakfast cereal.
Recent Links: Netflix/Qwikster Edition
By now, you’ve heard that Netflix is splitting their business in two: one for streaming movies over the internet, which will keep the name, and one for renting DVDs by mail, which will be called Qwikster. Here are links to several funny (and a couple of serious) takes on the situation.
- Quickster? That sounds oddly familiar…
- Webcomic The Oatmeal explains it in terms of the food service industry.
- Woot’s CEO parodies the “apology” letter by announcing Crapster.
- Interesting theory at ZDNet: Splitting off the DVD business sets up Netflix to be bought by Amazon without subjecting Amazon to sales tax requirements in all the new states where they (used to) have shipping centers.
- Netflix and studios compared to grocery stores and dairy farms (Me at Google+)
- I was tempted to leave this funny Netflix comment up, but it was also spam. Good thing I’ve got @lol_spam for that: Netflix Drunk-Dialing
Recent Links: USB Sticks, Spam, Google+, etc.
Some sites I’ve linked to on Twitter, Facebook & Google+ over the past few weeks.
- Band recreates Prisoner opening shot for shot
- “The problem isn’t that people are idiots…The problem is that the OS trusts random USB sticks.” Schneier on Security: Yet Another “People Plug in Strange USB Sticks” Story (via slashdot)
- The Robustness Principle Reconsidered I remember a lot of discussions on this during my spamfighting days.
- Is blogging dead? “Those links that appear on Twitter or Facebook rather than on linkblogs — to what are they linking?“
- xkcd explains Google+
- Things to consider before a redesign: Istanbul (Not Constantinople) Will Confuse Your Users
- WordPress’ perspective on software usability: The Software is Wrong, Not the People
Lord of the Rings as an “Event” Comic Book
Today, I watched Green Lantern at the same theater where we’ve been watching a series of special screenings of the extended-edition Lord of the Rings movies. Afterward, thinking about the two ring-focused stories and the in-progress event comic book Flashpoint, I found myself imagining: What would The Lord of the Rings have been like as a modern “event” comic book like Final Crisis or Blackest Night?
No doubt it would have tie-ins, side stories, spinoffs, and a bunch of extra tie-ins added to plug the inevitable gaps in the schedule. Check out my full list at Speed Force!
Recent Tech Links: Unmaintainable Code, XKCD on The Cloud and More
- How To Write Unmaintainable Code – what not to do when programming.
- Computer de-evolution: Features that lost the evolutionary war –
ITworldComputerWorld (via Slashdot) - Two XKCD comics: First, “The Cloud” explained. Second, anyone who has used command-line utilities on Linux will appreciate Manual Override.
- International Usability – Big Stuff the Same, Details Differ (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
- Who really owns your photos in social media? (PBS/MediaShift, via This Is True)
- Smartphone marketshare: Android keeps growing, iOS passes Blackberry, and WP7′s on life support.