Author: billthomuk

Here’s what I’ve tagged on del.icio.us on June 24th:

• Slashdot | Stanford Gets First Sun Blackbox – I remember meeting John Gage of Sun in Madrid back in 2005 and he talked then about the idea of putting a data centre into a shipping container… now it’s happening 🙂
• blog.pmarca.com: Analyzing the Facebook Platform, three weeks in – Marc Andreesen – who some may remember from his time at Netscape or from the earlier days at NCSA where he coded Mosaic with Eric Bina – considers the real impact of the Facebook API.

Here’s what I tagged on del.icio.us between June 18th and June 20th:

• ‘Mr Nice Guy’ on no-fly list – Looks like it won’t be worth trying to get to the States again. Ah well…
• Technology Review: Mapping the Internet – Fascinating and innovative approach to mapping the network
• Anecdote: Why people don’t use collaboration tools – I’m trying again to learn to love Basecamp. But failing.

Excellent, if disturbing, view of China and the lack of any real possibility of democratic reform by Rick Perlstein in The Nation, focusing particularly on the reality of US foreign policy and its inability to confront the reality of Chinese ambition:

..their strange rationales followed a logic that helps explain our determinately myopic China watchers today. The explanation is, fundamentally, materialist. Its raw materials are the secret words sent by diplomatic cable and NSC strategic assessments. As George Kennan wrote in 1948: “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population…. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern for relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming…. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction.”

Found via Arts & Letters Daily 

I’m just back from Venice, where we’ve been reporting on the interplay between technology and art at the Biennale, the contemporary art festival that colonises the city every two years. There’s a lot to be said, and the programme (available on iTunes – search for Digital Planet – or  look on the BBC site) tries to convey something of the sense of this massive collection of installations, pavilions and events to anyone with an interest in technology.

Here’s what I tagged on del.icio.us between June 5th and June 17th:

• im right your wrong: TECHNO DISCO VIDEO – How the network unleashes creativity in the young. Or something like that 🙂
• Photosynth Technology Preview – Astonishing way of navigating photosets – it makes me think of Gibsonian cyberspace more than anything else I’ve seen
• CellCarriers fear mobile VoIP planet – Om Malik reports that T-Mobile are blocking a low-cost VOIP alternative. Telcos always acted like this in the past, why should big mobile operators be different? Depressing, but incumbents tend to fight dirty.
• apophenia: let the stalking begin – More from danah: “Surveillance destroys parent-child relationships – technology does not solve relationship issues. And yet, we keep building technology. Why? Fear sells. These people will inevitably make money off of parent’s fears. Le sigh.”
• Blair backs new online journalism regulator | Uk News | News | Telegraph – I’m a feral beast. Are you? Whoever said journalism had to be nice?
• Blogger removed from NCAA baseball game for blogging | Tech news blog – CNET News.com – New forms of reporting create tensions when old-style forms have been insitutionalised, as we see here with the problem of liveblogging sporting events.
• TED | Talks | Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Photosynth demo (video) – This video is deeply impressive, giving us a glimpse of how we will navigate the network tomorrow
• Boing Boing: Skytyping – Dot matrix letters in the sky…
• British Council – Tracey Emin, Venice 2007 – I’ve just come from the British Pavilion at Venice, where Tracey Emin’s work is being shown. It’s wonderful, and she continues to astonish.
• Lawrence Lessig: Disclosure – Lessig puts his position clearly. Not succinct, but clear, and a set of principles very close to those I try to live by as a freelance journalist.
• Book publisher steals Google laptops | The Register – A silly prank, but it made me smile