I’ll tell you what depresses me about blogging (and the internet) these days. It’s the group of people who call themselves social media consultants. They present themselves as technical mavens, able to make a product famous and popular on the internet. They brand themselves nicely, pass around their cutting edge business cards, and say that [...]
Category Archive for 'internet'
The vendor client relationship
Posted in internet on Jun 5th, 2009
Oh, this is far too real. Hilarious, though!
So, tell me about Twitter
Posted in internet on May 25th, 2009
Do you use Twitter? Do you like it? Is it worth your time? And — if you’re interesting and you feel like sharing — who are you on Twitter?
I’ve always avoided Twitter, because I could never see the point of it. But then I found a temporary use for the thing, you see, and now [...]
Recaptcha helps to decipher old texts
Posted in books & lit, internet, technology on Mar 2nd, 2009
Captchas are those words or non-words you see in squiggly letters when you try to comment on some websites. You’re commanded to type the letters you see into a little box to prove that you’re a human, not some automated spam machine. From the Walrus Magazine we have this article on the new and improved [...]
From the National Post: Where you’ve been on Net not private, judge rules.
An Ontario Superior Court ruling could allow police to routinely use Internet protocol addresses to find out the names of people online, without any need for a search warrant.
Justice Lynne Leitch found that there is "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in subscriber information [...]
Ancient Rome lives again on Google Earth
Posted in history & archaeology, internet on Nov 14th, 2008
From Times Online: Ancient Rome lives again on Google Earth.
The glory that was Rome is to rise again. Visitors will once more be able to visit the Colosseum and the Forum of Rome as they were in 320 AD, this time on a computer screen in 3D.
The realisation of the ancient city in Google Earth [...]
A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence
Posted in internet on Nov 13th, 2008
From the New York Times: A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence.
It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.
Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog [...]
From the Globe and Mail: A copyright call to arms.
In the era of peer-to-peer file sharing, on-demand television and easy copying of video games and movies, Canadians often take for granted the availability and ease of using digital media. It’s hard not to: the sheer amount of digital content available online is astonishing. For many, [...]
The story behind some weird lawn signs
Posted in internet on Nov 6th, 2008
Here’s a fascinating bit of research. From The Metric System: "Single?" Lawn Signs Conquer the American Landscape.
Over the past two years, I have developed a growing fascination with lawn signs. Not the ones advertising politicians or plumbers, but the ones advertising websites. Dating websites.
These signs are so prevalent in my area that I [...]
Port of ’second Carthage’ found
Posted in history & archaeology, internet on Sep 29th, 2008
From Ansa: Port of ’second Carthage’ found.
Archaeologists in Sardinia said Thursday they have found the port of the Phoenician city of Tharros, held by some to be the ancient people’s most important colony in the Mediterranean after Carthage.
Researchers from the University of Cagliari and Sassari found the submerged port in the Mistras Lagoon, several kilometres [...]
I packed up my laptop and headed off to the summer cottage for a spell, planning to sign up for the new high-speed wireless internet access that’s being advertised in the area. I figured it would solve all my internet access problems in one fell swoop. Once settled at the cottage I phoned the company, [...]
What’s a gravatar? The Gravatar website explains:
A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites.
If you want a gravatar, you sign up at Gravatar.com. Then you select the image you wish to [...]
Hey, Canadians! This needs your attention. From Copyright for Canadians:
Forward-thinking reform to copyright is possible: laws that recognise the growth and importance of the Internet, open source software, and new business models for creators. Canada could take the initiative, and lead the world.
Instead, new legislation proposed by this government will be a complete sell-out to [...]
Grandfather builds web browser for autistic boy
Posted in internet on Jun 3rd, 2008
From boston.com: Grandfather builds web browser for autistic boy.
John LeSieur is in the software business, so he took particular interest when computers seemed mostly useless to his 6-year-old grandson, Zackary. The boy has autism, and the whirlwind of options presented by PCs so confounded him that he threw the mouse in frustration.
LeSieur tried to find [...]
Web-based personal organizers
Posted in computer stuff, internet on Jun 1st, 2008
I used to use a Palm Pilot to organize my life, and that worked perfectly for years. But the new Palm Pilots aren’t for me, so that’s out. Now I’m looking for a replacement system.
There are a number of interesting web-based personal organizers, and I’m thinking of trying one of those. I like David Allen’s [...]
On Mirabilis visitors and their web browsers
Posted in internet on May 26th, 2008
I don’t look at my web stats very often. Or perhaps it’s better to say I go through phases: forgetting to look at stats for many months at a time, then checking every few days or so, then back to months of ignoring it all. It is interesting to see what the stats software tells [...]
Spam’s 30th birthday
Posted in internet on May 3rd, 2008
Wow. I remember when Canter and Siegel spammed Usenet back in 1994, but I had no idea that spam is 30 years old.
Meanwhile, the Mirabilis.ca spam filter says it’s caught 42,364 pieces of comment spam for me. (That’s since January, 2007.) Mind-boggling.
Look who’s been editing Wikipedia!
Posted in internet on Aug 21st, 2007
From the International Herald Tribune: Corporate editing of Wikipedia revealed.
Last year, someone edited the Wikipedia entry for the Sea World theme parks to change all mentions of "orcas" to "killer whales," insisting that this was a more accurate name for the species.
There was another, unexplained edit: A paragraph about criticism of Sea World’s "lack of [...]