Links of the year 2008 - Part 1
by Martin Belam, 31 December 2008
Over the course of this year I've been publishing on the blog the links I've bookmarked on Delicious. Here is a selection of the most interesting links from the first three months of 2008.
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"If the existence of terrorists, these few desperate extremists, makes it necessary for everybody in Britain to carry an ID card then it is a price too high. It is more than a price, it is a defeat". Excellent summary of the argument from Andrew O'Hagan
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"I'm fascinated by the thought of what technologies I will refuse to have anything to do with when I am old - in the way my gran was 'having no truck' with computers". I take heart from having had a great-uncle in his 70s still fascinated by any new tech.
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"The earthquake struck at 0514 GMT - 0714 local time - while many people were still asleep". Yes, I know, it woke me up.
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"Jeremy Clarkson has lost money after publishing his bank details in his newspaper column. He wanted to prove the furore over the loss of 25 million people's personal details on two computer discs was a fuss about nothing". Not funny enough.
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"We are a group of musicians who have downloaded newly leaked albums by popular artists, quickly recorded many subtle overdubs over the work, and then re-leaked it to the internet. We have done this for about three years now". Spoof-or-not, this is genius
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"This article contains possibly THE WORST advice for small business that I have ever read. Certainly the worst I've read this year. Here are 13 reasons why this article makes Gene Marks a dumbass". Kalena Jordan is rather more judgmental than I was.
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Great set of photos of old computer hardware on display at the Boston Science Museum
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Shrine to dead girls to be pulled down after backlash on newspaper website - Holdthefrontpage.co.uk - 2008-01-13"A shrine to 2 teens killed in a car crash is to be removed after offensive comments were posted on a newspaper's website. After reading negative comments, Jade's mother has decided to take down the flowers and cards from the scene of the tragedy".
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Madeleine: The 26-part TV series - Daily Express: "The World's Greatest Newspaper" [sic] - 2008-01-15"TV chiefs in Portugal are planning to make a 26-episode series about Madeleine McCann". The Express is right to be out-raged. I mean, trying to make money by exploiting this story over and over and over again is their exclusive domain, right?
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"When I was 10, we did a project about newspapers in class and I was so excited that I went home to make my own newspaper". Great scans from Jemima. Maybe my 1990s 'Gillian Anderson's Soccer X-Files' should eventually make it on to the web as well?
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Doctor Who 'Gridlock' episode nominated for religious award - Outpost Gallifrey: Doctor Who RSS News Feed - 2008-01-30"'Gridlock' has been nominated for an Epiphany Prize from Christian media organization Movieguide. The prizes 'seek to increase man's love and understanding of God'". They did notice the nun was a cat and that they were fighting giant mutated crabs?
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"Yes, her name was Daisy. Daddy, you have to go to Google…(thinks for a moment)… dot com and search for Daisy the Pig". Get 'em while they're young...
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"Book-lovers will be checking out a unique new venue on Saturday: St James Street Open-Air Library. No payment, no tickets – just bring as many books as you like, and swap them.". Volunteer community action after the council shut the local library
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Staff at Woolworths baffled by fuss over the little girl’s bed called Lolita - Times Online - 2008-02-02"This country is full of idiots. Being in that bed will not automatically make your daughter sexually precocious". Only sensible comment so far. I can't work out what's funniest - the original naming, the tabloid outrage or the ignorance of Woolworths [Added 29/12/2008 - But at least now we know how it all worked out for Woolworths]
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"The ownership of recorded music will be seen as a weird historical anomaly". Go tell that to my meticulously alphabetically filed CD box sets. That I never, ever play. Oh, hang on a minute...
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'Back in the days when 7" singles were the only means of getting new songs, the extra songs that artists included with the main track were called 'b-sides''. It breaks my old skool vinyl heart that this has to be explained...
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"Every 6 months I watch Horizon, the flagship science strand of the BBC. And then I like to shout into the the TV, 'JESUS F*$^ING CHRIST I REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS A QUALITY SHOW THAT ACTUALLY CATERED TO PEOPLE WITH AN INTEREST IN SCIENCE'". Awesome rant.
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"Totally with the guy on the short-skirt-and-boots ensemble. Shallow shallow me". Phew, my Buffy article mostly survives the expert eye of the crew at Whedonesque...
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Television is top pirate booty : March 2008 : Ian Douglas : Technology : Telegraph Blogs - 2008-03-07"An episode of Heroes was downloaded 2.5m times just through Mininova. A sensible industry, mindful of the mess the music business has tied itself up in, would look at its distribution options and try to work out what's driving people to crime."
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"Newspapers weren’t always so positive about the virtues of the telegraph. In the early days, the press saw it as an ominous development that might put them out of business". Plus ca change, etc etc
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In other news, if you do any survey that includes a significant number of 6 years olds, you'll get foggy results. I mean, seriously, do we *expect* six year olds to know the difference between Winston Churchill and Neil Armstrong?
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"In 1961 a cruise ship called the Queen Frederica set out from the US to visit Crete. On board were a large number of American Cretans coming to see their homeland. Luckily, one man had what we used to call a Super 8 movie camera".
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"The BBC Micro...inspired a generation of children to teach themselves computer programming and get really good at it, which has had huge knock-on effects for business and academia in the UK". It is the main reason you are reading this today.
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"The designer was new to the BBC and like many designers at that time, had come from a print background. Even if I hadn’t have known, little things would have given it away such as questions like 'Could you just reduce the font kerning a little'".
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"To retrieve the sounds scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California made very high-resolution digital scans of the paper and used a "virtual stylus" to read the scrawls".
Next...
Tomorrow I'll be publishing a round-up of my favourite Delicious bookmarks from April and May 2008.