April 2008
33 posts
Perceptions: interventions →
The morning after the first patch job, I discovered a pile of red threads lying on the ground below the web. At first I assumed the wind had blown them out; on closer inspection it became clear that the spider had repaired the web to perfect condition using its own methods, throwing the threads out in the process. My repairs were always rejected by the spider and discarded, usually during the...
Thomas Dolby remixes Radiohead →
The truth is, bad things don’t affect us as... →
On Canada's place in the broadband world
Bill St. Arnaud on CBC Radio’s Spark: We were number two in broadband rankings around the world about 10 years ago. But that gave us a false sense of security. Then we didn’t continue to invest in that infrastructure and upgrading it, and now we’ve fallen down. We’re now eighth or tenth ranking in the world, and dropping fast.
'Hard Times' by Matt Mason & Nicholas Felton →
via BoingBoing
Open-source economics: Yochai Benkler on TED.com →
Law professor Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization.
Bedtime Stories by Thom Yorke →
Once there was a little bunny who had a little furry tail and a little shiny nose. But the electrodeath cloud of commerce strangled it and its foxhole was converted to a parking lot, a parking lot, a parking lot. Ample parking asphalted over bunny bones. Everyone everyone everyone get in. If you’re not a Radiohead fan, this will puzzle you — at best. Hat tip to Matt.
Johnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii... →
Johnny Lee demos his amazing Wii Remote hacks, which transform the $40 game piece into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. A multi-ovation demo from TED2008.
roBlocks: Simple Blocks To Make Robots →
18 minutes with an agile mind: Clifford Stoll on... →
Clifford Stoll could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he’s not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll’s to give a talk on any one topic.
Thomas M. Kostigen @ DISCOVER.com: In what he calls the “soccer mom syndrome” [E.O.] Wilson said the worst thing a parent can do for a child is to take him or her to a botanical garden where all the trees are marked and labeled. Instead, “Go to the seashore and give them a pale pail and bucket. Let them experience nature…and then come back and ask questions…