Interesting Links for 08-10-2013
Oct. 8th, 2013 05:00 pm- Daily Kos: A political crisis
After all, if you can't win, it's your responsibility to make sure the others lose. Right? Right??
- It’s enough to make you cancel your reservation | bl0gdramedy
“I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
- 25 True Facts About Scottish Independence
'All our dreams will come true. Yes, all of them. Including the slightly unsavory one involving Kylie Minogue, a talking parrot called Steve and two pounds of warm lard.'
- Facebook Requires Social Fixer Browser Extension To Remove Key Features
Facebook, making its site more annoying to use. Why am I not surprised?
- iOS 7 Does NOT Make Your iPhone Waterproof
Nor will it walk your dog for you.
- Scott Lynch's Blog - Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain - February 29, 2012 00:24
Muppets be badass.
Interesting Links for 19-08-2013
Aug. 19th, 2013 05:00 pm- Doctor Who Phrases from your waiter; how to get more tips (and sometimes confuse)
- Ubuntu sets crowdfund pledge record for Edge smartphone
Dear BBC; try and get someone who understands crowdfunding to write about it? 'Canonical would have to return all the money if it does not reach the target.' — no it wouldn't, as it doesn't *get* the cash unless it reaches the goal.
- Mexico politician: Gays shouldn’t marry ‘as they don’t face each other during sex’ | Gay Star News
Interesting Links for 31-05-2013
May. 31st, 2013 05:00 pm- “Why do women try to get ahead by pulling men down?” — LadyBits on Medium — Medium
A rather good metaphorical escalator
- Peter Mandelson joins board of Russian firm 'with organised crime links' | Business | The Guardian
- BBC News - Incapacity benefit test claims 'conflated figures' - watchdog
'Suggestions that 878,300 benefit claimants dropped their claims rather than take a medical test have been challenged by the statistics watchdog.'
- BBC News - Scottish independence: Dissecting legal advice on student fees post-yes
- Nick Clegg: we will strike a balance on 'snoopers charter' after Woolwich attack - Telegraph
'work is already under way within the civil service to resurrect some of the proposals without the need for legislation, meaning the Liberal Democrats would not be able to vote it down in parliament.'
- Motorola's tattoos could replace passwords for phones- Telegraph
- BBC News - Tory MP Patrick Mercer resigns
'has resigned the Tory whip to "save my party embarrassment" over a BBC Panorama programme alleging he had broken lobbying rules.'
- 33 Teachers Who Got The Last Laugh
I may have to use the Helen Waite one at some point myself.
- How attractive is Britain to ‘benefit tourists?
Interesting Links for 09-04-2013
Apr. 9th, 2013 05:00 pm- Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette
'When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms.'
- Wearable Video Cameras, for Police Officers - NYTimes.com
- Alt Text: Magical Fruit Trees and the Sale of Digital Music — A Parable | Underwire | Wired.com
How much money does the anti-piracy efforts of the music industry make for *musicians* as opposed to the businessmen, lawyers, etc?
- Shodan: The scariest search engine on the Internet
"When people don't see stuff on Google, they think no one can find it. That's not true."
- Budge: Facing up to Facebook scams
'A Facebook page is created, with an appeal for readers to like, comment or share …the people who started it, having quickly acquired tens of thousands of followers, sell the page. Now an advertiser has all those names and Facebook addresses'
- The 17-Year-Old Yahoo Paid $30 Million Did Not Build His Startup's App (Or Invent Its Technology) - Business Insider
- Google accused of anti-competitive Android rules - Telegraph
Interesting Links for 24-03-2013
Mar. 24th, 2013 04:00 pm- BBC News - America's forgotten black cowboys
- LibreOffice for Android “frustratingly close” to release | Ars Technica
Which is frustrating for me too, as I'd like to use it. Ah well, there appear to be a few other options.
- Leopards are the new urban foxes in India - Telegraph
Nexus 4/Android — first impressions
Mar. 8th, 2013 02:48 amSo, two days using my new nexus 4. How am I finding it? To utterly pare it down, the answer is that I'm finding the use of the phone, the OS and suchlike, much smoother, faster to do the things I want to do, but I'm missing the quality apps of the iPhone.
The Good: I've actually adjusted to android far faster than I was expecting; I assumed there'd be more of an adjustment period, and whilst the gesture typing looked cool, I expected a while during which I found it hard to use, due to finding it annoying when I tried it a few times in phone shops.
I'm currently typing this on my phone and doing so quickly and easily — much quicker and less effort than the iPhone keyboard despite me having three and a half years experience of that. I'm certainly occasionally mistyping, sometimes not spotting mistakes until several words later (like the fact I've just noticed I had 'topping' not 'typing' as the third word in this paragraph). It's not perfect; the cursor placing is less good (though I think I've just discovered the not immediately intuitive secret to that, grabbing the blue cursor insert itself for fine placing), it requires a bit more thought for longer and complicated words add you need to have more of an idea where you're going right from the start of the word and it took me three tries to get the word 'perfect' correct just now, but overall, it's much better.
Beyond that, the OS just plain *does* more. The back and app switching buttons, the two finger gestures, widgets, lots of things. One of the issues with Apple is that they're so worried about overwhelming their less technical users that they don't make enough use of what technology can do — for ages I found it annoying that a phone with good multitouch capabilities did fuck all with them except zoom and some specific accessibility options for usage with visual impairments. The Nexus feels like it's doing a lot more with what is got than the iPhone did.
The Bad: Firstly, the office assists to lack a basic preloaded notes/text app. What the fuck is with that? Due to internet issues and wanting to have somewhere to save this when in done, I'm currently writing this in Dropbox's text editor app (as I was having internet issues, and Google drive won't let me make a new file when not connected). I know Google is done of the cloud but that seems a very conspicuous lack.
Just generally, there seems to be more choice in terms of simple apps, but when you're after more complicated ones bringing things together and doing so in a professional fashion, Apple seems to do better. Currently I'm most missing my 'actually watch the dice clatter around the screen' diceroller app, and my carefully chosen suite of seven or so London transport apps.
So, yeah. I'm glad I've switched, and am hoping I can get the apps to do what I want over the next few days and weeks.
Speaking of which, I'd appreciate any suggestions people can offer on the following:
— A simple notepad app that syncs to Dropbox, but can save it's notes offline for when I don't have access to the internet.
— A decent diceroller app that has dice bouncing around in it, not just 'press a button, a numerical result appears on table'
—A good PDF reader for when I start reading gaming rulebooks on here.
— Good London transport apps. I've currently got busmapper and National Rail, which are good at their respective transport types, but I want something that brings all the options together. so far I've tried London Transport Pro, and I'm not fond of it.
— Any other 'this is really handy!'suggestions people have.
The Good: I've actually adjusted to android far faster than I was expecting; I assumed there'd be more of an adjustment period, and whilst the gesture typing looked cool, I expected a while during which I found it hard to use, due to finding it annoying when I tried it a few times in phone shops.
I'm currently typing this on my phone and doing so quickly and easily — much quicker and less effort than the iPhone keyboard despite me having three and a half years experience of that. I'm certainly occasionally mistyping, sometimes not spotting mistakes until several words later (like the fact I've just noticed I had 'topping' not 'typing' as the third word in this paragraph). It's not perfect; the cursor placing is less good (though I think I've just discovered the not immediately intuitive secret to that, grabbing the blue cursor insert itself for fine placing), it requires a bit more thought for longer and complicated words add you need to have more of an idea where you're going right from the start of the word and it took me three tries to get the word 'perfect' correct just now, but overall, it's much better.
Beyond that, the OS just plain *does* more. The back and app switching buttons, the two finger gestures, widgets, lots of things. One of the issues with Apple is that they're so worried about overwhelming their less technical users that they don't make enough use of what technology can do — for ages I found it annoying that a phone with good multitouch capabilities did fuck all with them except zoom and some specific accessibility options for usage with visual impairments. The Nexus feels like it's doing a lot more with what is got than the iPhone did.
The Bad: Firstly, the office assists to lack a basic preloaded notes/text app. What the fuck is with that? Due to internet issues and wanting to have somewhere to save this when in done, I'm currently writing this in Dropbox's text editor app (as I was having internet issues, and Google drive won't let me make a new file when not connected). I know Google is done of the cloud but that seems a very conspicuous lack.
Just generally, there seems to be more choice in terms of simple apps, but when you're after more complicated ones bringing things together and doing so in a professional fashion, Apple seems to do better. Currently I'm most missing my 'actually watch the dice clatter around the screen' diceroller app, and my carefully chosen suite of seven or so London transport apps.
So, yeah. I'm glad I've switched, and am hoping I can get the apps to do what I want over the next few days and weeks.
Speaking of which, I'd appreciate any suggestions people can offer on the following:
— A simple notepad app that syncs to Dropbox, but can save it's notes offline for when I don't have access to the internet.
— A decent diceroller app that has dice bouncing around in it, not just 'press a button, a numerical result appears on table'
—A good PDF reader for when I start reading gaming rulebooks on here.
— Good London transport apps. I've currently got busmapper and National Rail, which are good at their respective transport types, but I want something that brings all the options together. so far I've tried London Transport Pro, and I'm not fond of it.
— Any other 'this is really handy!'suggestions people have.