Bookmarks for the 30th of May, 2014

  • The Internet With A Human Face - Beyond Tellerrand 2014 Conference Talk

    “Marc,” I told him, “my talk is perfect for closing the conference! The first half is this incredibly dark rant about how the Internet is alienating and inhuman, how it’s turning us all into lonely monsters.”

    A belter of a talk from Maciej “Pinboard” Cegłowski.

  • Star Trek: The Last Sci-Fi Hopeful About the Future

    The future was better when Star Trek: The Next Generation was making it. The show went off the air twenty years ago this week and has definitely dated, as science fiction shows always do… what dates the show most is its optimism: It was the last pop-culture show that believed, beyond any doubt, that human beings were good and that, liberated by infinite technological progress, we would encounter an infinitely wonderful universe.

  • fa-pied-piper: Font Awesome Icons

    Font Awesome just added a Pied Piper icon.

  • The Fourth Internet

    Useful places to find information, that aren’t some strange Pavlovian manipulation of the human desire to click or identify, just aren’t good business these days.

  • TrueCrypt

    WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues

    This is all very strange. Either there’s a long-standing flaw in TrueCrypt, or this is some sort of warrant canary, or… I dunno.

  • “I was a Mac user when Apple was doomed.”

    I wish I was enough of a dickhead to actually wear this t-shirt.

  • django

    The docs and some tests contain references to a master/slave db configuration. While this terminology has been used for a long time, those terms may carry racially charged meanings to users.

    Django now uses primary and replica in place of master and slave.

  • Ergo

    Ergo is a general, open access philosophy journal accepting submissions on all philosophical topics and from all philosophical traditions.

  • Github Search “wq:”

    The perils of vi!

  • Egg Freckles

    The HIG has been dead for a long time now. I miss the days when all Mac OS applications looked and acted the same.

    Hear, hear.

  • Oratorical Insults

    During one of his many famous speeches in the House Sheridan became aware of one M.P. who insisted on muttering his agreement whenever Sheridan paused. After a while this interruption became so distracting that he departed from his text to silence the fool.

    ‘Where, oh where, shall we find a more foolish knave or a more knavish fool than this?’ he asked the packed house.

    ‘Hear, hear!’ said the lone voice for the last time.

  • At

    Craig Hockenberry on the ‘@’ symbol.

  • Skype to Launch Star Trek-Style, Real-Time Language Translator

    Microsoft just demoed an awesome new feature for Skype that will actually let you speak to people in other languages—in real-time—by doing all the translating dirty work for you.

    I love Star Trek and everything, but this is the Babel fish with a less disturbing user interface (and fewer theological implications).

  • The brave new world of DIY faecal transplant

    You would have to be desperate to take a sample of your husband’s excrement, liquidise it in a kitchen blender and then insert it into your body with an off-the-shelf enema kit. This article contains images and descriptions which some might find shocking.

    I’m not sure those sentences are in the correct order, BBC sub.

  • Racism on the rise in Britain

    The proportion of Britons who admit to being racially prejudiced has risen since the start of the millennium, raising concerns that growing hostility to immigrants and widespread Islamophobia are setting community relations back 20 years.

    I’m not a scientist, but it looks like we could completely eradicate racism in the UK by erecting giant statues of Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill in town centres across the land.

  • Tranmere Rovers: Rob Edwards appointed as new manager

    Current mood: tentatively optimistic.

  • Rob Edwards: New Tranmere boss a fan of Liverpool & Everton style

    New Tranmere boss Rob Edwards hopes to introduce an open style of football, similar to that employed by Merseyside neighbours Everton and Liverpool.

    That approach worked well for John Barnes. LOL.