November 2009
1 post
October 2009
3 posts
September 2009
1 post
August 2009
2 posts
June 2009
1 post
April 2009
2 posts
A quick look into the crowdsourcing potential of... →
New WarioWare game coming out - where the minigames are made by the users and shared. Cool.
March 2009
5 posts
“Missing dollar signs The dollar symbol is missing next to the proces [sic] for a...”
– Reality Check, Please! | ThatsSoYummy.com
(Interesting article on psychological tricks used on menus to get you to spend more.)
Time Slider on Etherpad →
Kinda cool: Etherpad lets you “play” the evolution of a document and see what edits were made. Neato.
February 2009
19 posts
WatchSiftables are a new human-computer interface that allow for more natural interactions between humans and computer using little building blocks that have a monitor and computer built in. The work’s being done at the MIT Media Lab and the applications are immense. Check it out.
Presentation Zen: Siftables: digital information on our terms
January 2009
5 posts
WatchPrezi, a new non-linear presentation tool from a Budapest start-up. Looks interesting. Via Core77.
The genius of Google's 20% time →
Paul Buchheit’s inspiring post on letting your code do the talking points out:
The real value of “20%” is not the time, but rather the “license” it gives to work on things that “aren’t important”.
Damn straight. I’ve had the experience of a side project turning out into something very promising - and the side project was something I had to...
Computational journalism →
How data mining may save democracy and journalism. Very interesting look at where journalism may go next, with a new breed of journalists who can do more with computers than just type stories.
December 2008
3 posts
November 2008
4 posts
Ingenious - and insidious - plant strategies
Again from Max Plotkin’s Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice:
“The brown-and-white-mottled Amazonian Gongora orchid produces an intoxicating substance that attracts and befuddles the bee that visits the flower. The orchid is shaped so that the inebriated bee that falls onto a part of the fower, where it both deposits the pollen it carried from another Gongora and picks up new...
“Isaac Asimov had writer’s block once. It was the worst ten minutes of his...”
– Harlan Ellison, fellow science fiction writer
Amazon Indian agricultural wisdom
From Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice, by Mark Plotkin:
As we looked out at the naked expanse, Kamainja snickered. “Pananakiri poy-deh-ken!” he said slowly. “White man dumb!”
Shafee poked him in the ribs to shush him, but giggled as he did so.
“What’s so funny?” I asked quietly.
“Look at that garden,” Kamainja whispered. ...
October 2008
8 posts
How a laundromat stopped IRA bombs
From the Washington Post, via Schneier on Security:
“The plan was simple: Build a laundry and staff it with locals and a few of their own. The laundry would then send out “color coded” special discount tickets, to the effect of “get two loads for the price of one,” etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry,...
