Daily updates on the Internet and its social and public policy implications, useful websites, political/cultural musings and more from a UK-based academic (PhD researcher at Media@LSE), Internet consultant and journalist

Archive forAugust, 2001 | back to home

31 August, 2001

Feudal Lordship no joke A businessman who bought a lordship of the manor at auction in the UK (traditionally just a novelty purchase) now says it gives him hunting, shooting and other rights in the local area. He’s effectively blackmailing people into paying him not to exercise those rights.

28 August, 2001

Salon reviews Together” (Tillsammans) I have seen this and found it to be excellent. It managed to be one of the top ten films in London for several weeks largely by word of mouth. It’s a warm Swedish film about life in a commune in the ’70s. As Stephanie Zacharek says, “Moodysson’s touch as a filmmaker isn’t cloyingly sensitive; it has the roughness of a mother cat’s tongue, tender and assertive at the same time.”aac mp3 toto mp3 aacaac mp3 toplayers mp3 2gbonline 777 com casino gambling2gb players mp3of a ringtones listcredits 2008 energy Map

24 August, 2001

Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names Putrescine, Cadaverine, Moronic Acid, Curious Chloride, Titanic Chloride aka “tickle” and many many more. So funny it seems they couldn’t be real but they all appear to be impressively documented.

Thanks to NTK for the link

23 August, 2001

Annoying telemarketer tricks no. 3287 (paraphrased):
“I am calling from x market research about a survey on home improvements you helped us with”
“I don’t think I did help you with it… what is it this time?”
“Because of your participation you’ve won a holiday”
“!”
“Seven days accommodation and return flight… [list of European countries]… booking fee of 37… [hmmm] sponsored by Glaze UK…”
“They would like to come around and present the holiday to you and at the same time give you a free no obligation quote on double glazing. When would you be free?”
“Never mind.” *sigh…

Masters of Photography About 35 of the world’s best-known photographers are profiled here, with a selection of photographs from each as well as essays, book extracts and links.

22 August, 2001

Business 2.0 - Boo! And the 100 Other Dumbest Moments in e-Business History One from my archives. It’s from Business 2.0’s May issues (since when, of course, it has been merged with another struggling magazine).

My favourite dumb moments?

#12 “In October 1998, an e-commerce software vendor launches with the name Accompany, which, when said aloud, sounds exactly like “a company.” As in “Hi, I’m calling from Accompany.” “Which company?” “Accompany.” And so forth. It changes its name to MobShop in March 2000″

#54 “Joseph Preston, the CEO of Efox.net — a site that features nude women, a stock ticker, sports scores, and a news feed from wire services — explains the genius of his site as follows: “It’s Victoria’s Secret meets Playboy meets Car and Driver meets Sports Illustrated meets Fortune. We offer what I like to call the LASS factor: ladies, automobiles, sports, and stocks.” (the efox.net domain is now for sale).

21 August, 2001

Email and productivity software that “follows you around” A Houston company is providing local residents with free online software, Simdesk so they can work on documents and send and receive email from any PC including the 1000 public access machines in the Houston area. Of course 1000 open access computers for 3m people isn’t a lot, and I worry a bit that the software that they are giving away is not ‘industry standard’ so people won’t be learning job-relevant PC skills.series the behind movie the of making leftthe xxx moviethe movie transportertiava moviestight xxx ass moviesmovie cup tintitfuck moviesof 2004 movies toptwistys moviestheaters movie artist unitedaccreditation dvdsaccept account card credit merchant hawaiiapr cards credit 4.9human and course physiology accredited anatomyrequirements for accreditation facilities hospicetax adhd and credit disabilitydirect credit auto 411group credit griffin consulting 2007 Map

Ever wonder what happened to the Russian coup plotters of 1991? Turns out they aren’t in jail or in disgrace - they head parties, govern their home regions etc. Putin invited one of the coup plotters to his inauguration and said removing Lenin from his tomb would upset Russians by implying “they had worshiped false values.” (!)history a loan 7mortgage advice loanone loans americaloan 3 27personal loans 2000credit of line a loanauto loan 2007 rate40$ loanloans all personal aboutloan a officer

20 August, 2001

Could our parents be right - could it be that video games are bad for you?

Ed Deiner studied global happiness and finds that (adjusting for income) Asians tend to be more unhappy and Scandinavians seem to be the happiest (so why do they kill themselves so often?). Also, interestingly:

“We find that people become more satisfied with life when they have a baby, but then drop back to their previous levels after a year or two, and perhaps even go a bit lower than their previous baseline.”

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Media (Daily)
BBC News Online bookforum
(Weekly)
lifehacker - but I only look at their top these days. The Economist (I listen to the audio edition)
Arts & Letters Daily
The New Yorker & its cartoons

(Monthly or more infrequently)
Wired magazine
Prospect magazine (if you think The Economist is dumbed down)
Maisonneuve magazine
The Walrus
First Monday - an Internet-only peer reviewed journal of Internet studies
Gnovis - peer-reviewed journal of Communication, Culture and Technology
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
...and various other journals you can't access for free.

Virtual Communities I belong to
The Well
Brainstorms from Howard Rheingold
CIX the UK's "Well" for over 15 years
I'm also on Facebook

Comics
Doonesbury
Dilbert

Multimedia
US Public Radio
Day to Day NPR daily topical feature show inc. Slate content
BBC Radio 4 - archived for a week after broadcast
BBC Radio Drama original drama and serialised books
BBC7 radio dramas and comedy from BBC archives
The News Quiz

BBC World Service
Analysis
Assignment
Off the Shelf (serialised books)
Other non-podcast multimedia
The Daily Show biting American political satire.
Odd Todd periodically updated amusing Flash cartoons
Tales of Mere Existence excellent Quicktime animated short vignettes.
Guardian - monthly Cybercinema roundup
OneWord Radio audiobooks and author interviews

Podcasts

News/Current Affairs/Factual Thinking Allowed weekly interviews with academics
This American Life superb storytelling
LSE public lectures The University Channel guest lectures at major US universities
The Guardian's Podcasts
Slate's podcasts
From Our Own Correspondent

Fiction/drama
Escape Pod - SF short stories
Librivox - volunteer readers read classic fiction.
Craphound - Cory Doctorow reads his works
NPR book reviews

Digital Planet tech radio programme with emphasis on the developing world (now being podcast)
(also see the Go Digital special Digital Destinations) and Bill Thompson's thoughts about recent Digital Planets
IT Conversations: Blogging (broadcasts from conferences - other topics available)
NPR has a weekly tech roundup

Useful stuff
Various handy free/cheap Mac apps (updated regularly)
Online virus scanner
Free anti-virus software
Dave's Quick Search Toolbar Google taskbar on steroids
Workrave Free RSI prevention software
Powermarks Superb Windows bookmark manager ($25)
Netvouz This may be the most full-featured web bookmark manager around.
Endnote ($239 ) Great software for managing academic citations (or try one of these)
snipurl lets you share long urls easily
Mailwasher Lets you choose between several blacklists and other filtering tools to get rid of spam from multiple POP3 mailboxes - and it is free!
SpamMotel - Free disposable email addresses that let you see who is misusing the one you gave them
DigiGuide - a fast, powerful TV guide for your PC, covering the UK, US or Ireland
TotalRecorder - a powerful, inexpensive way to record streaming audio into MP3 files to take away.
QuestionPro survey software Lots of features and free for academic use.

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