The story of Sir Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry is being turned into a one-off BBC comedy-drama. To British nerds of a certain age, this is the most exciting news ever.
Stonking article by David Mitchell on the strangeness of people being offended by profanity. “It’s daft to say a particular sound, regardless of context, must never be uttered, and ironically only guarantees it will be, by giving it rebellious cachet.”
I normally can’t be arsed with Steve Yegge, but this one is good — describing the very real disconnect between “I have an idea!” and “How will that idea work in practice?” (Read at least up to where he goes off on Marijuana legalization — it becomes repetitive at that point)
Useful survey of the quality of 3G cell networks in the US. Now you know that when AT&T’s ads say “America’s fastest 3G network”, you can respond under your breath “Yeah, but you only have a 68% chance of connecting”.
This makes me tremendously happy — The Economist is now available as a Kindle subscription. Interestingly, it’s priced almost identically to the dead tree subscription, which is causing a rare amount of bitching in the Amazon reviews from those who don’t understand the, erm, economics of magazine production. (Clue: Adding dead-tree subscribers increases the rate you can charge advertisers. Adding advertising-free Kindle subscribers doesn’t.)
I definitely agree. Rare is the conversation in which you can’t use the phrase “Cats and dogs, living together”.
Me: “Apparently, in the first draft of Back to the Future, the time machine was a fridge, but they changed that because they were worried about kids climbing into fridges and getting trapped.”
Joy: “How did they get the fridge up to 88 miles per hour?”
Great report from a group of Boston-area smartfolks led by Tim Hwang, on what’s been going on on Twitter over the last few weeks.
The single-serving-site loveliness of Instant Crickets, Bom Bom Bom Bom Wooo, Instant Rimshot and Sad Trombone, clipped to my OS X dashboard for those times they're urgently needed.
Steven “Swells” Wells, one of the finest, funniest and rantiest writers during the period I read the NME, passed away this week. This is his final column.
I bloody love movie trailers. Like pop videos, it’s easy to miss the artistry involved in making a good one.
New art was hung yesterday in the lobby at 301 Brannan. Bonus: You'll have something to read while waiting for the elevator (it incorporates a page from "A Projection of Species Extinction")
Using last.fm data to work out how “passionate” fans of bands are. A sloppy metric, but interesting nonetheless.
(This is taken at the same time as my previous shot, just with the iPhone 3GS's press-to-focus set to the TV, so the lighting balance got changed. Nice!)
The bassets are less likely to be having interesting conversations that I get drawn into, dragging me away from whatever I'm working on.
Lovely site and associated iPhone app from Dunkin Donuts: Social software to organize your coffee run.
Current status: Craving a “large regular” and a bacon & egg bagel sandwich.
Now EVERY day can be Taco Truck Tuesday!
“A love of baseball plus a love of infographics equals Flip Flop Fly Ball.” Lots of great stuff, the comparison of ballpark ticket prices being my favourite.
I'm Rod Begbie -- A 32-year-old Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.
Fire Eagle thinks I'm currently in San Francisco, CA, and have been for around 2 months, 2 weeks.
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