CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-18 00:29:49 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Our raggedy old cat. She loves that ribbon. It has about 10 years of cat saliva on it. 

2013-06-17 23:27:57 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Thanks, +Adam Boenig !

2013-06-17 23:22:08 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I've finally given up hope that +Evernote will fix Skitch after buying it and breaking it a couple of years ago. I'm trying Clarify as an alternative. It looks good so far. 

2013-06-17 21:54:03 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Leviathans battle in the clouds!

My friend David Parish-Whittaker has a new novel out. It's called Leviathans in the Clouds, and it's a steampunk adventure in the Space: 1889 series. 

I bought a copy and I'm looking forward to reading it. 

Doesn't the cover look fantastic?

The publisher's description:

_It all seemed so straightforward at first...

Quantity surveying in the rain drenched swamps of Venus. How hard could it be? Endure a bit of rain, dig about where directed and Bob’s your uncle. To be sure, there were the local carnivorous lizards the size of houses, occasionally hostile natives and the local German colony, which had never proved particularly reasonable when it came to servants of the Crown digging about in what they clearly felt was their back garden. But by now, that sort of thing was barely moretro... more »

2013-06-17 19:59:24 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Digg's Google Reader replacement is coming. 

As I've been looking into Google Reader alternatives myself, I've been wondering if I need an RSS reader at all. I already get more articles and videos than I have time to read, through social media. 

What I really need is something that will monitor specific sites for specific activity -- for example, IO9's hilarious True Blood updates without the rest of IO9. And I may be able to train IFTTT for that. 

2013-06-17 19:53:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

It won't drive server vendors out of business, but it will force them to standardize. 

2013-06-17 19:51:23 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Canadian couple charged $5,000 after finding and legally reporting a 400-year-old skeleton in their backyard

Ken Campbell and Nicole Sauve were having a fence installed in the backyard of their Ontario home when they found the skeleton. They thought it was the bones of an animal, and called the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate. A forensic anthropologist confirmed the bones were of an aboriginal woman, who likely died at age 24 between the late 1500s and early 1600s. The site was originally part of the Ojibwa trade network. 

In spite of reporting their find and Spence’s evaluation, Suave and Campbell were told they were required to hire an archeologist to assess their property at their own expense under Ontario’s Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act. The act, which requires evaluation for all properties found to house human remains, has the Canadian couplestuc... more »

2013-06-17 18:53:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

As competition for top technical talent heats up, savvy hiring managers and CIOs are beefing up their internship programs to ensure they build strong relationships with the next generation of IT talent, says +Alison Diana on +Internet Evolution 

2013-06-17 16:27:45 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Amazon is vulnerable in hybrid clouds. 

2013-06-17 15:29:47 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Every punctuation mark and word that I write is there for a reason. I would not like to see even a single comma changed at random by a computer algorithm to detect piracy which isn't even a real threat for ebooks anyway. 

2013-06-17 15:04:09 (3 comments, 3 reshares, 13 +1s)

This needs to catch on.

2013-06-17 05:36:13 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-06-17 01:50:09 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Edward Snowden's betrayals

David Brooks:

For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things.

He betrayed honesty and integrity, the foundation of all cooperative activity. He made explicit and implicit oaths to respect the secrecy of the information with which he was entrusted. He betrayed his oaths.

He betrayed his friends. Anybody who worked with him will be suspect. Young people in positions like that will no longer be trusted with responsibility for fear that they will turn into another Snowden.

He betrayed his employers. Booz Allen and the C.I.A. took a high-school dropout and offered him positions with lavish salaries. He is violating the... more »

2013-06-17 01:05:54 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

This headline has everything.

2013-06-16 19:11:09 (1 comments, 9 reshares, 6 +1s)

"When we want science-fiction, we don’t want swooning dames, and that goes double."

Australian SFF writer Justine Larbalestier went digging through the letters columns of old science fiction and fantasy magazines. She finds letters about women in science fiction and fantasy from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Here's a corker from Naomi Slimmer, a nurse in Russell, Kansas, in 1939:

We read Science Fiction to help us picture what the world will be in years to come, or to get someone’s idea of life in a different world. We know what present-day life is like on this earth (it’s a mess! And Science Fiction is about the only way we can forget that fact for a few minutes). As to the plots of science stories; keep ‘em clean. If we wanted to read about “curving pearl-pink flesh, blushing dimpled cheeks and passionate pulsing buzzems” we could get a copy ofone of the ... more »

2013-06-16 17:16:53 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Happy Father's Day, Dads!

Via PostSecret: http://www.postsecret.com/2013/06/fathers-day-secrets.html

2013-06-16 16:48:27 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

During an exclusive interview on +This Week , Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio criticized President Obama for not intervening sooner in Syria’s civil war, saying the inaction has led to the “worst possible scenario” in the war-torn country.

2013-06-16 16:33:11 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Kanye West's narcissistic blather is even funnier when added to inspirational poster images.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/06/see-kanye-west-quotes-as-spiritual-posters.html

2013-06-16 01:45:17 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

I think of blocking Facebook games as a kind of meta-game.

2013-06-16 00:39:19 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

Cory Doctorow: Why you should care about Prism even if you think you have nothing to hide

For example, when a computer programmer named David Mery entered a tube station wearing a jacket in warm weather, an algorithm monitoring the CCTV brought him to the attention of a human operator as someone suspicious. When Mery let a train go by without boarding, the operator decided it was alarming behaviour. The police arrested him, searched him, asked him to explain every scrap of paper in his flat. A doodle consisting of random scribbles was characterised as a map of the tube station. Though he was never convicted of a crime, Mery is still on file as a potential terrorist eight years later, and can't get a visa to travel abroad. Once a computer ascribes suspiciousness to someone, everything else in that person's life becomes sinister and inexplicable.

Mery tells his story:... more »

2013-06-15 23:06:58 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

Paul krugman has sympathy for the Luddites.

Luddites had spent a lifetime developing skills, only to see a changing economy make those skills worthless. Sound familiar?

Kevin Drum says robots are taking our jobs. Pretty soon they'll take all the jobs. He has some ideas what to do about it.

https://medium.com/we-live-in-the-future/487a95a708dd

2013-06-15 22:30:24 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Damien Walter interviews Harlan Ellison

The Guardian:

When Damien Walter tweeted he'd 'literally kill' to interview the multiple award-winning author Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman replied 'What if the person you had to kill was … Harlan Ellison?' Here Ellison talks about running away from home, the rights and wrongs of paying to read books and how his job on this planet is annoying people.

Ellison:

I am a steadfastly 20th-century guy. I've always been pathologically au courant. Even today I can tell you the length of Justin Bieber's hair. But it has now reduced society to such a trivial, crippled form, that it is beyond my notice. I look at things like Twitter and Facebook, and "reality TV" – which is one of the great frauds of our time, an oxymoron like "giant shrimp" – and I look at it all, and I say,these... more »

2013-06-15 22:00:48 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Tiny delicious food is delicious.

http://geyserofawesome.com/post/53041887819/kawaii-its-high-time-we-shared-some-more-awesome

2013-06-15 21:55:31 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

The science fiction writer Charles Stross recently said that everyone was a little creepy in the 70s.

I give you Rod Stewart.

2013-06-15 21:49:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Pretty much the way I feel about his movies and TV shows. If Joss made it, I'll watch.

2013-06-15 18:34:41 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Today's UV rating is holy crap it's like the inside of a nuclear reactor out there.

2013-06-15 17:05:27 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

The network of high-flying Internet-delivering balloons comes from Google's high-risk research unit, Google X.

I'd love to see this come to the US cities and suburbs to disrupt the complacent telco and cable monopolies.

2013-06-15 16:52:38 (5 comments, 3 reshares, 14 +1s)

Researchers have discovered the secret to Roman concrete, vastly superior to anything developed since.

The Romans did two things well: They were great conquerors and great engineers. Their roads and aqueducts are still in use today. Roman concrete is much better than the standard that has been in use the past 200 years, called Portland concrete. Roman concrete structures are still in good shape after 2,000 years underwater, where modern concrete breaks down in 50.

"Over the past decade, researchers from Italy and the U.S. have analyzed 11 harbors in the Mediterranean basin where, in many cases, 2,000-year-old (and sometimes older) headwaters constructed out of Roman concrete stand perfectly intact despite constant pounding by the sea," writes BusinessWeek's Bernhard Warner.

"They extracted from the floor of Italy’s Pozzuoili Bay, in the northernt... more »

2013-06-15 00:11:20 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I have a Phubby. Want to see?

It's not a big one. But it's not a small one either. It's medium-sized. 

http://www.phubby.com/

2013-06-14 23:58:55 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Terrific profile of Peter Dinklage: On being Tyrion Lannister, staying loyal to friends, and turning down roles as leprechauns and elves.

2013-06-14 21:14:19 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

Chobani Yogurt, made by the Turkish immigrant son of a shepherd, is an American success story.

While big companies peddled sugar-added yogurt to appeal to what they thought were the requirements of the American palate, startup Chobani beat them with a no-sugar-added product. 

Founder Hamdi Ulukaya came to the US with $3,000 in his pocket, bought a yogurt factory abandoned by Kraft, and built his company to $1 billion in five years. Chobani Yogurt employs 3,000 people around the world, along with 60,000 cows, and has helped turn around the economically depressed region of upstate New York where it makes its headquarters. 

Ulukaya works in a spare office with some dairy-themed pictures, basic furniture that looks like it could have come from Ikea, and a white lab coat for when he goes to the the production labs. The trim, 41-year-old entrepreneur shows up for ani... more »

2013-06-14 17:52:32 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

A New Jersey law allows officers to thumb through a driver's cellphone history if there is "reasonable grounds" to believe the driver was talking or texting when an accident occurred. 

2013-06-14 17:35:59 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

I just shredded a document, which got me thinking that the Mayor on Buffy the Vampire Slayer was right: Shredding documents is very satisfying.

That got me thinking that the Mayor was the best villain on Buffy, maybe best ever on TV.

That got me thinking we should watch Season 3 of Buffy again, but maybe skip the first couple of episodes, which had Mr. Trick in them.

That got me thinking how much of a big nerd am I that I actually still know season numbers on Buffy after all these years.

That got me thinking I need to get back to work. 

2013-06-14 17:15:03 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Defibrillators, ventilators, and other devices pose security risks. 

2013-06-14 16:29:49 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

It's simple math: Consumers don't have enough time in the day to watch all the movies that Hollywood turns out, especially given all the other entertainment options available today. 

And a movie needs to make nearly a billion dollars to be profitable. 

2013-06-14 16:26:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The two companies are protected because of their foreign ownership.

But it results in a relatively small hole for the NSA -- most T-Mobile and Verizon traffic also flows through other networks. 

2013-06-14 15:22:38 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

+Internet Evolution 's Friday File: The Pillsbury Dough Boy (not shown here) beats LeBron

"We never thought we'd write about carrier pigeons. Or the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Or corned beef hash. But these are some of the many ingredients you'll find in this week's mashup of top technology -- yes, really -- stories from around the world. Grab a fork and dig in."

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=466&doc_id=264520

2013-06-13 23:41:01 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The basics of Big Data as applied to national security. 

2013-06-13 23:37:46 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

+Ron Miller gets the offer to buy +Google Glass  -- and hesitates. 

2013-06-13 23:07:49 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

Scuse me...Pardon me....just need to squeeze outta here

2013-06-13 23:44:35 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 10 +1s)

Trolling from the 18th Century!

2013-06-13 23:00:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Just banning employees from using consumer cloud services isn't enough. You need to provide them with alternatives. 

+Alison Diana on +Internet Evolution 

#cloud   #dropbox  

2013-06-13 22:17:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Businesses have secrets too, notes +Jason Mick on +Internet Evolution 

2013-06-13 22:08:30 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Amazon is trying to take away brick-and-mortar retailers' last remaining advantage: Immediacy. 

2013-06-13 21:06:17 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Wearable Tech: From Concept to Catwalk

Google and Apple don't have a lock on wearable technologies. Neither do the Pebble watch or Sony. Plenty of other developers -- from well-established corporations to startups -- want a foothold in a space expected to be worth $6 billion by 2016, according to IMS Research. (See: Mary Meeker: The Future Will Be Wearable.)

Here’s a look at some wearable devices under development and currently available. What might you or your employees wear to work -- or play -- one day soon?

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=466&doc_id=264240

2013-06-13 18:00:02 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Join +Internet Evolution Radio on Thursday for a conversation with Brent Brooks, VP Network Fitness, Precor

Join us Thursday -- that's tomorrow -- on IE Radio to find out more about the challenges of turning an maker of exercise equipment into a cloud software company. 

Precor is a leader in the field of exercise equipment, most famous for inventing and popularizing the elliptical machine. Starting in 2007, the company went in a new direction, networking its equipment together to offer customized training and entertainment programs. 

Now, an exerciser can leave their machine in a fitness center in New York, hop on a plane to Las Vegas, get on a machine at a fitness center there and find it has their customized training program and entertainment preferences ready for them. 

(Hopefully, the exerciser will have taken a shower during that time.)<... more »

2013-06-13 16:02:57 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Censorship isn't the solution to bad speech. The solution to bad speech is good speech. 

"Our goal is to put a stop to the sense of impunity that racist and anti-Semitic authors feel on the internet," [France's Union of Jewish Students president Jonathan] Hayoun said. "And Twitter must cooperate when this is the case."

2013-06-13 15:59:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The Lenovo Horizon converts from a 27-inch all-in-one PC to a flat tabletop tablet for the family. 

2013-06-13 14:58:15 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Join +Internet Evolution Radio on Thursday for a conversation with Brent Brooks, VP Network Fitness, Precor

Join us Thursday -- that's tomorrow -- on IE Radio to find out more about the challenges of turning an maker of exercise equipment into a cloud software company. 

Precor is a leader in the field of exercise equipment, most famous for inventing and popularizing the elliptical machine. Starting in 2007, the company went in a new direction, networking its equipment together to offer customized training and entertainment programs. 

Now, an exerciser can leave their machine in a fitness center in New York, hop on a plane to Las Vegas, get on a machine at a fitness center there and find it has their customized training program and entertainment preferences ready for them. 

(Hopefully, the exerciser will have taken a shower during that time.)<... more »

2013-06-12 23:22:38 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

Facebook is getting hashtags. Here's an interesting history of how they were invented on Twitter in 2007.

+Chris Messina proposed them, and gave the following justification: They're easy to use, lightweight, and don't require training. They don't require people to make much in the way of changes to what they were already doing on Twitter. You can find the # easily on a phone keyboard. And they weren't even all that new; people were using hashtags to designate chat channels for years.
 
"The history of any invention is complicated, as Messina's foundational post details, but this is one case in which some individual human being -- in the right place at the right time with the right contacts -- came up with something new and watched the whole (online) world adopt it. That's pretty amazing when you think about it."